Critical resistance: from poststructuralism to post-critique

摘要

In her influential book States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity, Wendy Brown presents a powerful critique of the notion of resistance that predominates in 'postmodern' political discourse. 'The contemporary vogue of resistance,' Brown writes, 'is more a symptom of postmodernity's crisis of political space than a coherent response to it' (1995, p. 49). The problem with resistance, as Brown sees it, is that by itself, resistance contains neither a critical stance nor an affirmative vision for collective transformation. As she puts it: 'resistance goes nowhere in particular, has no inherent attachments, and hails no particular vision' (Brown 1995). Like the toddler's tantrum, resistance is a kind of blind flailing against domination, both reactive and directionless. Brown's critique has been widely taken up in political theory circles, such that in those circles, the term resistance is on the verge of becoming passe. As a result, those of us who like to talk about resistance have increasingly been on the defensive, compelled to apologize for continuing to use this term as opposed to transformation or democratic contestation or some such alternative.