Foucault’s Power-Knowledge and Apocalyptic Resistance

Apocalyptic resistance, a term that this paper uses to refer to the resistance presented in and by the apocalypse, is inseparable from the notions of knowledge and power. However, the conception of knowledge and power and their interrelation in apocalyptic resistance deserve more examination that goes beyond the simple moral representation of (revealed) knowledge as good and pure or the common reading of a unilateral causation – knowledge giving rise to the power to resist. This essay will conduct this examination by critically engaging with Michel Foucault’s analysis of power-knowledge and showing how it problematizes the general apocalyptic understanding of revealed knowledge as merely a reception occurring in an external process outside the spatial and temporal dimensions of the world, unrelated to its existing power relations. This essay argues for a wholistic understanding of revelation, with which the power-knowledge complex that exists in apocalyptic resistance can be better identified and examined.