Power produces only signs of resemblance and is obsessed with its own death

Evidence

Power itself has for a long time produced nothing but the signs of its resemblance. And at the same time, another figure of power comes into play: that of a collective demand for signs of power - a holy union that is reconstructed around its disappearance. The whole world adheres to it more or less in terror of the collapse of the political. And in the end the game of power becomes nothing but the critical obsession with power - obsession with its death, obsession with its survival, which increases as it disappears. When it has totally disappeared, we will logically be under the total hallucination of power - a haunting memory that is already in evidence everywhere, expressing at once the compulsion to get rid of it (no one wants it anymore, everyone unloads it on everyone else) and the panicked nostalgia over its loss. The melancholy of societies without power: this has already stirred up fascism, that overdose of a strong referential in a society that cannot terminate its mourning. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 86

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the classical notion that power obeys the reality principle; connects to Jameson where postmodern culture reflects the logic of late capitalism, though Baudrillard here detaches power from any economic base. — connects to: Power’s gravest risk is becoming visibly unable to realize its own possibilities — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 755; Empty, unenforced threats inflate power and devalue its motivational tools — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 763; Paternal power operates only through death and mortification. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 529
• DEEPTHINKING: The ‘melancholy of societies without power’ and the idea that total disappearance yields total hallucination — a genuinely paradigm-shifting inversion of how we think about political authority.

Broader Connections

• Power’s gravest risk is becoming visibly unable to realize its own possibilities #expands (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 755
• Empty, unenforced threats inflate power and devalue its motivational tools #expands (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 763