From the individual to the dividual (Deleuze) and the larval subject (Agamben): the processes of desubjectification and subjectivation in contemporary society

Abstract

Based on Deleuze's thesis that in "societies of control" there is more room for the "dividuum" than for the individual and Agamben's thesis that in the "extreme phase of capitalism" the processes of desubjectification are have become indistinguishable from the processes of subjectivation and give rise only to a “larval subject”, we analyze the subjective formation that is brewing in the contemporary configuration of power. Analysis we carried out based on the notions of “dividuation” (Raunig) and “machine servitude” (Lazzarato), and from the platform known as “Facebook”. What has allowed us to highlight the way in which this device gives rise to the “individual” and the “larval subject”, the way in which it mobilizes the desiring production of the “user”, and propose that it is a device of desubjectification, against those They place it only as a subjectivizing or surveillance device.