Multiplying Confluences
Reworking material from the second of my Four Essays on Reparations, “Leaky Designs & Superfluities”, this week’s dispatch asks readers to think about powers and counterpowers in terms of flows, filters, channels, and durations.
It is my hope that, as the project develops, readers of my Four Essays will come to recognize the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project as an outgrowth of the Four Essays and, vice versa, followers of the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project will recognize the roots of this project in the Four Essays.
One.
Power formations are assemblages of filters and channels through which matters flow. Power formations first filter out differing elements from the flows that pass through them and then they channel these differing elements apart from one another for a greater or lesser duration of time.
Ruling powers employ ritualized spectacles to filter out differing varieties of elements and channel the differing varieties apart from one another: for instance, a racist ruling power will filter and channel white peoples apart from black peoples.
Disciplinary powers deploy routine examinations to filter and channel the stereotypical specimens of a given variety apart from the atypical specimens of the same. A racist disciplinary power will filter and channel stereotypical black people apart from atypical black people.
Normalizing powers deploy biased surveys to filter and channel specimens that fit a normal distribution apart from specimens that are outliers. A racist normalizing power will filter and channel blacks that fit a normal distribution apart from those that are outliers.
Optimizing powers deploy variable controls filter and channel specimens subjected to interventions apart from those that are control subjects. A racist optimizing power will filter and channel blacks subjected to interventions apart from those serving as control subjects.
Two.
Power formations generate determinate elements from what is otherwise indeterminate stuff: the determinate elements that are filtered and channeled from a given flow by a power formation do not exist as determinate elements until after a given flow has been filtered and channeled by a power formation.
For instance, neither blacks nor whites are determined as such prior to the formation of racist ruling powers. Racially determined individuals only ever come into being after racist ruling powers filter and channel what are otherwise racially indeterminate flows.
The existence of individuals of determinate races, whites and blacks, is an effect of racist ruling powers.
Racist disciplinary powers are responsible for the existence of stereotypical blacks and atypical blacks
Racist normalizing powers are responsible for the existence of the normal distribution of blacks and black outliers.
Racist optimizing powers are responsible for the existence of blacks who have been proven to “benefit” from an intervention and blacks who have been proven to suffer from a lack of intervention.
Three.
Stable power formations (or, alternatively, “pipelines”) are power formations that stratify their subjects.
Stratification occurs when the duration of a determinate element's separation from other elements is extended beyond a critical point so as to degrade the determinate element’s fluent connection to the indeterminate stuff from which it was parted.
Let us return again to the example of racist powers.
A racist ruling power is stabilized when differing races, e.g., whites and blacks, are channeled apart from one another for an increasingly extended duration so that it becomes increasingly burdensome and unappealing for either one to commune fluently with the other.
A racist disciplinary power is stabilized when the stereotypical and atypical members of a race, e.g., stereotypical and atypical blacks, are channeled apart from one another for an increasingly extended duration so that it becomes increasingly burdensome and unappealing for either one to commune fluently with the other.
A racist normalizing power is stabilized when members that fit the normal distribution for their race and members that are outliers are channeled apart from one another for an increasingly extended duration so that it becomes increasingly burdensome and unappealing for either one to commune fluently with the other.
A racist optimizing power is stabilized when members of a given race that are proven to “benefit” from an intervention and members proven to suffer from a lack of intervention are channeled apart from one another for an increasingly extended duration so that it becomes increasingly burdensome and unappealing for either one to commune fluently with the other.
Note that I have used the term “commune” above in order to indicate that a stable power formation will not only inhibit fluent communication amongst differing elements but, more profoundly, it will also inhibit differing elements from fluently working with one another in accord with the communistic principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”.
Four.
Rather than working to prevent the formation of powers, counterpowers (or, alternatively, “leaky designs”) work to prevent the stabilization of power formations. Which is to say, in other words, that counterpowers destabilize power formations and, in so doing, they destratify the subjects of powers.
Counterpowers make it increasingly easy and appealing for differing elements to confluently commune with one another. The more confluences that are enabled by counterpowers, the less determinate confluent elements become: which is not to say that confluent elements come to differ less from one another but, rather, is to say that confluent elements come to defer more to one another in spite of differing.
Another way of putting all of this would be to say that counterpowers multiply confluences by deconstructing power formations, making their filters less exclusive and their channels less extensive.
Five.
The makings of worlds are coterminous with the makings of powers and counterpowers.
Meaningful statements, useful implements, and built environments are the filters and channels that both constitute powers and determine the stability the powers they constitute. Whereas statements, implements, and environments that constitute stable powers make for deathly worlds, those that constitute unstable powers make for living worlds. This is because the “strong foci” that I have written about as the defining features of living worlds are themselves, in turn, defined by the multiple confluences that both bound them and connect them to other foci. Counterpowers are formed of and by statements, implements, and environments that feature strong foci bounded by multiple confluences; stable powers are formed of and by statements, implements, and environments that feature “weak foci” that are disconnected from others because they are not bound by multiple confluences.
In sum, weaker foci make for stable power formations and for deadlier worlds, stronger foci make for unstable power formations and for livelier worlds, and the liveliest worlds are those that feature the least stable power formations.
Of the four processes that are most pivotal to the creation of living worlds, it is the process of NOT-SEPARATENESS that is the most pivotal all, for it is itself the very process of countering power, of destabilizing power formations, of multiplying confluences.
