In Psychopoltics (2017), Byung-Chul Han writes:
“Every dispositive – every technology or technique of domination – brings forth characteristic devotional objects that are employed in order to subjugate. Such objects materialize and stabilize dominion. Devotion and related words mean ‘submission’, or ‘obedience’. Smartphones represent digital devotion – indeed, they are the devotional objects of the Digital, period. As a subjectivation-apparatus, the smartphone works like a rosary – which, because of its ready availability, represents a handheld device too. Both the smartphone and the rosary serve the purpose of self-monitoring and control. Power operates more effectively when it delegates surveillance to discrete individuals. Like is the digital Amen. When we click Like, we are bowing down to the order of domination. The smartphone is not just an effective surveillance apparatus; it is also a mobile confessional. Facebook is the church – the global synagogue (literally, ‘assembly’) of the Digital.”
In "Missionary Positions" (1995), Gina Dent devotes much of her essay to a "missionary feminist" who presented at a Minnesota conference on feminism. Here is the concluding paragraph:
"My Minnesota missionary attempted to gain the authority to take control of our collective stories simply because she was speaking from personal pain. When these gestures are legitimated by an audience of converts, they create the appearance of putting oneself on the line. They may well come from the good intentions of promoting another way of being in the world, but confession is less about changing positions than converting souls. There is no purity in that."
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