Romanticizing resistance collapses meaningful distinctions between its forms

Evidence

In some of my earlier work, as in that of others, there is perhaps a tendency to romanticize resista to read all forms of resistance as signs ofineff veness of systems of power and of the resilience and creativity of the human spirit in its refusal to be dominated. … By reading resistance in this way, we collapse distinctions between forms of resistance and foreclose certain questions about the workings of power. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 76

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that championing resistance actually blinds analysis to how power works inverts the usual critical reflex.
• XREF: connects to: Left romanticism about glorious failure blocks institutional learning; Joy Division and the Fall represent opposite ends of Romantic modernism — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1108