Word.ws English Dictionary

interpassivity

interpassivity noun: a state of passivity, particularly cognitive or emotional passivity, enabled or facilitated by the appearance or potential of interactivity.

Noun

interpassivity (uncountable)

  1. A state of passivity, particularly cognitive or emotional passivity, enabled or facilitated by the appearance or potential of interactivity
    • […] interpassivity, the exact obverse of "interactivity," which refers to the sense of being active through another subject who does the job for one […]1998, Slavoj Žižek, “Cyberspace, or, How to Traverse the Fantasy in the Age of the Retreat of the Big Other”, in Public Culture, volume 10, number 3, page 483
    • A film like Wall-E exemplifies what Robert Pfaller has called ‘interpassivity’: the film performs our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue to consume with impunity.2009, Mark Fisher, chapter 3, in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, Zero Books, →ISBN

Origin of interpassivity

Blend of interactivity + passivity, coined by cultural theorist Robert Pfaller.

Questions about interpassivity

What does interpassivity mean?
Interpassivity means a state of passivity, particularly cognitive or emotional passivity, enabled or facilitated by the appearance or potential of interactivity.
What part of speech is interpassivity?
Interpassivity is a noun.

Words near interpassivity in the dictionary

  1. interparticulate
  2. interparticulately
  3. interpartner
  4. interparty
  5. interpassive
  6. interpassivity
  7. interpatch
  8. interpathologist
  9. interpathovar
  10. interpatient
  11. interpausal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: interpassivity (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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