Interpassivity revisited: A critical and historical reappraisal of interpassive phenomena

The concept of interpassivity, coined by Žižek and Robert Pfaller in the nineties, delineates an original and fruitful field of research that deserves to be developed further. First, interpassivity should be understood in a historical way, as originating with modernity. Second, interpassivity should thus be identified with modernity, in that it expresses modernity’s preoccuption with activity. This explains why interpassivity should be understood as the delegation or ‘outsourcing’ of passivity, in order to become even more active, as Pfaller and Žižek claim. But thirdly, the occupations of late or post-modernity invite us to understand interpassivity still differently: as the outsourcing of activity, not passivity