Interpassivity

Interpassivity is a concept in social anthropology and psychoanalysis referring to instances where some entity consumes, enjoys, or believes in the place of the original consumer or audience. Interpassivity is not simply the opposite of interactivity since passivity is here conceived metaphorically as encompassing passion, intense experience, deeply held belief or personal affective identification, rather than mere lack of action. Interpassive outsourcing is explained by the psychic transfer of demanding or potentially traumatic experience into a less demanding and more comforting one. Hence, interpassive subjects often prefer to delegate, if only unconsciously, through minor acts of disengagement or keeping distance, their enjoyment or consumption to others for a less intense kind of enjoyment or pleasure experienced through this entity, be it purely symbolic, cultural or technological artefact. The meaning of the term was interpreted mainly (in German) by Robert Pfaller in 1996, and was later taken up by Slavoj Žižek.