Ian Alan Paul

Subjectivity, Subjugation, Spectacle Fascist subjectivity is defined by its acceptance of domination as a fact of life, as a reality which must be endured.

Def.! Wrote about that briefly here: thefrozenseainside.com/subjectivity...

Yeah, same ambiguity :-/. In French you get "puissance" and "pouvoir" which neatly separates the two.

It is in this sense that cultivating our 'power to' arises as resistance to fascism, that developing our shared courage, autonomy, and creativity is a direct challenge to any 'power over' which would aim to restrain or extinguish them.

Fascism is the form 'power over' takes when society is ever further drawn towards to pure domination, even when domination is at the expense of the exploitation or the reshaping of life generally. Fascism is 'power over' expressed in its purely destructive and negative form.

It is in this second case that domination takes its most naked form, arising as forms of violence that are intended not to reshape/steer/exploit life's power but to terrorize and police life in the most brutal form possible, and thus to make life essentially less powerful.

While in many contexts 'power over' is exerted upon life in order to give shape to its 'power to,' for example by compelling life to express its potential in the form of 'labor' in the context of the economy, at other times 'power over' is intended to dampen power as such.

But in what sense are these two terms distinct? 'Power to' involves our power to creatively give shape to our lives and act in the world, while 'power over' is an application of this power onto other lives which constrains their capacities, arising as a 'power over others' power.'