In other words, what I am trying to point to is the rise of more and more
affective techniques, premised on making appeals to the heart, passion, emotional
imagination, to and through a realm of affect that is co-present with the psychic
and the emotional rather than the intellect and reasoning. To put it another way,
I want to recall Tarde by paralleling imitation with invention. Moscovici (1985)
is writing about another less mediated time but his work seems particularly relevant
to the new mediated age of the imitative crowd we now inhabit, an age which
might well be caricatured as mass mesmerism gone bad (Barrows 1981; Peters
1999; J. Miller 1983). For Moscovici argues that affective appeals try to create an
‘illusion of love’ via a range of techniques – affective, corporeal, and psychological
- aimed at maximizing processes of suggestion and imitation, including the use
of symbols, images, flags, music, affirmations, phrases, speeches, and slogans, all
jammed, as I see it, into the half-second delay between action and cognition. These
are delivered through the hypnotizing use of repetition rather than didactic
command and instruction. Thus, the population is touched in ways which might
be non-conscious and may well instil the feeling that they are the originator of
that thought, belief, or action, rather than simply and mechanically reproducing
the beliefs of a charismatic other. The principle is to extend and reinforce ‘mental
touch’. In other words, waves of affect are transmitted and received, transmitted
and received, constantly challenging the Lockean citadel of the consenting self
(Barrows 1981) as they cook up an affective storm.
To begin to understand this process of continuous biocultural contagion, I will
begin by taking the corporate circuit as an exemplar, rather than the more obvious
cultural sources, like the arts. Why? First, at least arguably, large corporations
now rival states as generators of political power. Not only are they at the heart of
the economic system but they are also endowed with considerable political power,
both directly through the influence they can exert on the political process and
indirectly through the practices of government that they are able to disseminate.
Then, second, because they are a fertile ground of invention for techniques of
imitation-suggestion, affective, semiconscious imitation-suggestion. From the early
days of marketing through to the latter days of brand formation, they are skilled
in the art-cum-science of influencing disposition through various methods of en-
trancement. In this sense, they constitute a ‘système sorcier’ (Pignarre and Stengers
2005), able to deliver effective affective charges, if not with impunity then certainly
with a (lack of) will.
The affective corporation
The modern corporation has become an increasingly political entity. Of course,
since their inception, corporations have wielded political influence. Think only
of the East India Company or, later, the ways in which various plutocrats wielded
power in the USA. By the turn of the century, the political power of the corpora-
tion – and how to control it – had become a favourite theme. But this power has
become much greater of late. For example, currently, 51 of the largest 100
economies in the world are corporations and the 100 largest corporations control
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