The Charge of Resistance

This chapter takes seriously the reality that the relations that constitute us are not always good. Whereas process and relational theologies and philosophies often focus on positive aspects of relationality, the very excess of the material world can appear as precisely too much to handle, running the risk of separating any individual or singularity from a power of action. By placing Whitehead in conversation with Foucault and Nietzsche around the concept of power, I argue for a concept of power based in what Deleuze calls “the power to be affected.” The power to be affected is likewise the power to affect, or to unfold power as a means of action. Power is thus conceived as a particular type of agency, that thing which allows any given singularity not to come completely undone as it encounters the many forces whirling about, around, within, and without every occasion.