Plasticity adapts while flexibility submits, so the two are not interchangeable

Evidence

Plasticity, in effect, is not flexibility. Let us not forget that plasticity is a mechanism for adapting, while flexibility is a mechanism for submitting. Adapting is not submitting, and, in this sense, plasticity ought not to serve as an alibi for submitting to the new world order being dreamed up by capitalism. ”Not to replicate the caricature of the world: this is what we should do with our brain” (p. 78). To be conscious of the plasticity of one’s brain is to give oneself the means to say no. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 23

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: The core distinction the reader wants: plasticity gives/receives/explodes form (adapting), flexibility is docility rebranded — submission dressed as adaptability.
• DEEPTHINKING: This is the paradigm statement that accountability language smuggles flexibility in as plasticity. The ‘say no’ conclusion is the emancipatory payoff of the whole distinction.

Related

• Plasticity is adaptive while flexibility is submission, not resourcefulness (similarity 0.93)
• Plasticity means formative change through rupture, not smooth continuous adaptation (similarity 0.86)
• Plasticity also means the ability to change one’s own determination (similarity 0.85)
• Flexibility is an unrooted notion while plasticity is a historically grounded concept (similarity 0.84)
• Brain plasticity includes a refusal to submit to any model or form. (similarity 0.84)
• Plasticity is not the same as polymorphous flexibility (similarity 0.84)
• Flexibility is plasticity stripped of its power to give and erase form (similarity 0.83)
• Plasticity is understood as a verbal and conceptual schema (similarity 0.83)
• Plasticity is the exact antonym of rigidity, not its complement (similarity 0.83)
• Plasticity spans a spectrum from fixed form to total malleability (similarity 0.83)
• Plasticity spans from rigid determination of form to total freedom from form (similarity 0.83)
• Forming the self must be reimagined through plasticity, not flexibility or rigidity. (similarity 0.83)
• Plasticity, unlike neoliberal flexibility, retains memory of prior forms (similarity 0.82)
• Plasticity in mechanics means irreversible deformation, the opposite of elasticity (similarity 0.82)
• Plasticity spans both taking on form and annihilating it (similarity 0.82)