Author | Lightnews

Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 18m

Tonight is chainsaw man. I have made a watchlist to take my revenge. It's entirely slow cinema.

Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 21m

This sounds absolutely amazing

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 3h

I am politics posting, please be patient with me

Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 3h

If someone told me I had cult followers in my replies I'd inform them of the fact that I'm 41 years old and get on with my day

Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 3h

In short, the double-bind can be seen as a general form of power today because it reflects how structural, social, and institutional pressures operate through contradictory, no-win demands. It is not positive, as Han says, but it is not negative either; it is ambivalent and paradoxical.

Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 3h

This is even mirrored in our politics. The politics of refusal, the great resignation, desertion — these are forms of resistance and perpetuating mechanisms. That's because they feedback into governance structures that respond by tightening rules, adjusts policies, or imposing constraints.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 3h

The double-bind's no-win structure:

1. If you fully embrace productivity, you risk burnout, stress, and mental exhaustion.
2. If you fully embrace rest and self-care, you may feel guilty, fall behind, or worry you’re “failing” in a hyper-competitive society.

The double-bind is systemic.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 3h

Modern culture imposes incompatible ideals: be relentless and ambitious and be calm, mindful, and resilient. Social media amplifies this because it constantly reminds people of both what they "should" be doing and what they "should" feel like doing. The ideal subject is a mindful(ness) hustler.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

I think that when we start looking, we can see this double-bind structure everywhere. For example, when I was a nurse, I was expected to work through my breaks, after hours, on my days off AND be careful to avoid burnout, vicarious trauma, and be managing my resilience.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

Returning to the original point, this shows that Han is wrong, but in a useful ways. His emphasis on the positivity of neuronal power is the other side of the ambivalence of a form of power that is exercises through double-bind structures, and that retains the negativity of immunological politics

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

I don't see how we can avoid the conclusion that widespread exposure to paradoxical injunctions erodes trust, increases social tension, and contributes to forms of social breakdown.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

What is really interesting is how this is taking place in contexts that priotisie "legitimate concerns" about "social cohesion".

When power operates through double-bind injunctions and ambivalent norms, a dysregulating psychological pattern has become a macro-social stressor.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

If this is how power operates under pandemic conditions, if it is how it operates in general, in this ambivalence of negativity and surplus positivity, then it 's no wonder our society fragmented over lockdowns and mandates; no wonder that it continues to

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

R.D Laing went on to emphasize the subjective experience of the double-bind, describing how a person trapped in repeated contradictory messaging could develop disorganized thinking, confusion, feelings of unreality — contributing to psychosis.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

Bateson's account of the double-bind gives the example of a parent who embraces a child coldly while saying “Don’t be so afraid of me.” The explicit message says love, but the tone and body language communicate rejection, and the child can neither withdraw nor resolve the contradiction.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

The pandemic subject was therefore commanded to self-regulate in ways that remained undefined, and thus could only ever fail. The apparent emphasis on autonomy served to conceal a displacement of responsibility from the institution to the individual and the absence of responsibility in power.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

"Exercise judgement" has the same structure as "Enjoy responsibly": it operates within pandemic conditions of genuine uncertainty and risk and provides no really clear knowledge or criteria for what constitutes “correct” judgement.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 4h

Even prior to that, in July 2021, we get a clear articulation of precisely what I'm talking about:

“As we begin to learn to live with this virus, we must all continue to carefully manage the risks from Covid and exercise judgment when going about our lives.”

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Johnson Tells Britons to Use Judgment When Covid Curbs End

Boris Johnson is urging Britons to “exercise judgment” to protect themselves from Covid-19 as the government prepares for the final unlocking of the economy in two weeks.

www.bloomberg.com

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 5h

For example, consider the words of then PM Boris Johnson:

"we can now deal with it [COVID] in a very different way, moving from government restrictions to personal responsibility."

www.gov.uk/government/s...

PM statement on living with COVID: 21 February 2022

Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a statement in the House of Commons on the government's strategy for living with COVID.

www.gov.uk

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 5h

Of course, this is already something that Foucault considers as responsibilization; governing by producing self-governing subjects who internalize control.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 5h

I said I used to point to this as an example, because now we've now had more direct examples of this double-bind injunction: In the later part of the pandemic many governments (including in the UK) made a shift from issuing mandatory guidance to asking people to exercise their own best judgement

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 5h

It commands contradictory actions, offers no coherent standard for resolution, and displaces accountaibility onto the subject, thereby creating a loop in which the consumer is both morally obliged and inevitably fails to meet that obligation.

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 5h

Thus, responsibility is invoked but left undefined — it becomes an empty moral placeholder. Furthermore, it commands you to both enjoy and restrain enjoyment, without a clear way to satisfy either or both.

Power without responsibility issues injunctions with a double-bind structure

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 5h

The phrase “Enjoy responsibly” appears ethical, but it issues a paradoxical imperative: one the hand, it is a positive injunction to consume, to indulge in pleasure; on the other, it issues a moral constraint on that pleasure. However, no criteria is given for what it means to be responsible

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Shimmering Vapors @shimmeringfire.bsky.social · 6h

The phrase “Enjoy responsibly” functions as a pseudo-ethical appeal. On the surface, it suggests a concern for consumer safety or moral behavior. But it actually displaces responsibility under the guise of ethical concern and issues an injunction that has no criteria for being met.

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