Making Revolt Impossible

Abstract

In this article, originally published in France (Rendre la révolte impossible, Rue Descartes, 2013/1, n. 77, pp. 121-128), Thomas Berns reflects on a new kind of normativity, which departs from the legal-discursive model and subverts a fundamental aspect of what we traditionally understand by norm: the possibility of disobedience. The author seeks to discern, in contemporary normativities, a new relationship with reality, a claim to govern the reality. Unlike the legal norm, which expresses an act of will that seeks to govern the reality, such normativities are conceived as immanent to the real, allowing government practices to become more insidious, almost imperceptible, as we see in “algorithmic governmentality”. The translation of this article into Portuguese seeks to contribute to the dissemination, in Brazil, of this important debate on politics and the law in contemporary times.