Abstract

KONIK, Adrian. The nomadic war machine of Gabor Mate's Compassionate Inquiry. Acta acad. (Bloemfontein, Online) [online]. 2025, vol.57, n.2, pp.142-165. ISSN 2415-0479.  https://doi.org/10.38140/aa.v57i2.10199.

In this article it will be argued that Gabor Mate's published/online works, along with Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo's documentary film The Wisdom of Trauma (2021), collectively comprise a digital nomadic war machine; one that works to heal the trauma otherwise precipitated by the State Apparatus's majoritarian channelling of certain desires for profit. As will be discussed, Mate's analysis of trauma not only rhizomatically connects Michel Foucault's theorisation of disciplinary/bio-power society with Gilles Deleuze's conception of control society, but also extends an earlier minoritarian vector of healing - ranging from Jean-Martin Charcot's to Francine Shapiro's works. And while this vector initially sought to address the increasing trauma deriving from disciplinary/bio-power's normalising judgement, and more recently has focused on vestiges thereof in our neoliberal/ digital societies of control, its extension has a bearing on democracy, because the persistence of such trauma inhibits the agency required for the functioning and development of this political system.

Keywords : disciplinary power; bio-power; societies of control; state apparatus; nomadic war machine; trauma.

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