Elsa Dorlin in Radical Philosophy Magazine

Affiliate Fellow Elsa Dorlin has recently published an article entitled What the body can do in Radical Philosophy Magazine.

“From the iron cage to certain modern and contemporary torture techniques, it is entirely possible to identify a common framework, a repertoire of techniques of power that can be distilled into the following adage: ‘the more you defend yourself, the more you’ll suffer, the more certain you are to die’. In certain circumstances, for certain bodies, to defend oneself is equivalent to dying from self-exhaustion: to put up a fight is to struggle in vain, to become defeated. Such an unhappy mechanics of action has implications at the level of political mythology (what will our resistance accomplish?), as well as for our representations of the world and of ourselves (if every effort to save myself only leads to my ruin, what can I do?).”