Ontopower : war, powers, and the state of perception / Brian Massumi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Massumi, Brian, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Power (Social sciences)--United States--History--21st century.

Power (Social sciences).

War on Terrorism, 2001-2009.

National security--United States--History--21st century.

National security.

History.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 306 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2015.

Summary:

Color-coded terror alerts, invasion, drone war, rampant surveillance: all manifestations of the type of new power Brian Massumi theorizes in Ontopower. Through an in-depth examination of the war on terror and the culture of crisis, Massumi identifies the emergence of preemption, which he characterizes as the operative logic of our time. Security threats, regardless of the existence of credible intelligence, are now felt into reality. Whereas nations once waited for a clear and pressent danger to emerge before using force, a threat's felt reality now demands launching a preemptive strike. Power refocuses on what may emerge, as that potential presents itself to feeling. This affective logic of potential washes back from the war front to become the dominant mode of power on the home front as well. This is - mode of power embodying the logic of preemption across the full spectrum of force, from the "hard" (military intervention) to the "soft" (surveillance). With Ontopower, Massumi provides an original theory of power that explains not only current practices of war but the culture of insecurity permeating our cintemporary neoliberal condition. Book jacket.

Contents:

The primacy of preemption : the operative logic of threat

National enterprise emergency : steps toward an ecology of powers

Perception attack

Power to the edge : making information pointy

Embroilments and history

Fear (the spectrum said)

The future birth of the affective fact

Afterword : After the long past : a retrospective introduction to the history of the present.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-285) and index.

ISBN:

9780822359524

0822359529

9780822359951

0822359952

OCLC:

900609634