Power and Will: Power Ascending

Abstract

Let us stop for a moment and measure the distance traveled. We sought, through an analysis of Sieyès’ writings, to identify a separation of power from society prior to the emergence of a representative power (and thus prior to the separation of the state from society). This in contrast to the more prevalent conception where power was considered largely synonymous with society because directly productive of the social totality. In this latter conception, power reclaimed an ontological primacy which enabled it to acquire a symbolic role of considerable significance. And though we had not yet discussed the state, the implication was that the symbolic imperatives of this power supposed constitutive of society would be passed on to its institutional embodiment within representation. In fact, we suggested, if only in passing, that such imperatives would place the representative power under great strain; for any threat to the latter, when the latter identifies itself closely with the sovereign power of the nation, will appear to place the entire edifice of social relations on the verge of symbolic collapse.