SPOILER ALERT: YOU CAN SUCK IT, plus Mormon Doctrine recited from memory | dooce ®

SPOILER ALERT: YOU CAN SUCK IT, plus Mormon Doctrine recited from memory | dooce ®: "'We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are FIRST faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, SECOND repentance, THIRD baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, FOURTH laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.'

That's right. LAYING ON OF HANDS. It doesn't get much truer than that. As a former President of Early Morning Seminary and Earner of the Young Women's Medallion and as Someone Who Repented of Her First Kiss,..."

There's an indication here of a key aspect of pastoral power and that is the revelation of all of a person's truth - an important part of repentance and something that is performed in Rousseau's Confessions - and we see Armstrong claiming to repent of her first kiss, a classic instance of revealing the tiniest truth and the shaping of an individual through the confession.

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold | dooce ®

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold | dooce ®: "I think that's the thing I've realized lately through all the reading I've been doing, that I didn't have a choice. I was forced at birth into a life full of guilt and repression, a life of thinking that my eternal salvation was at risk with every thought and desire in my heart. I lived 22 years in constant fear."

This post gets to the heart of the individualising influence of pastoral power. The care for the individuals soul in this life and the next and the creation of an individuality borne out of a personal confession that both creates and shapes the individual. As Foucault attests, the power of pastoral care is the way the individual is shaped and submitted to "a set of very specific patterns." In Armstrong's case these patters are those developed and dictated by the Mormon church.

Heather Armstrong (Dooce), August 2005 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging

Heather Armstrong (Dooce), August 2005 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging: "Some days I feel my website writing itself".

What I find interesting here is Armstrong's reference to her website having a life of its own. Such an understanding of a blog is anticipated by Foucault in that he suggests that self-writing isn't the revealing of the self but in fact the self being expressed.

The hupomnema and correpsondence as techne of the self

Self-writing is likened to the digestion of food. It's all very well to read many books but at some point the bee must return to the hive and turn the pollen into food. Put another way we must stop eating and digest our food (what we read) so that it becomes a part of our soul and serves to shape who we are.

Stultia: A kind of mental agitation which has one jumping from one idea to the next without ever settling. Has a future focus which the hupomnema resists through fixing acquired elements. "The hupomnemata contribute one of the means by which one detaches the soul from concern for the future and redirects it toward contemplation of the past" (Foucault, 1997, p. 212).

The hupomnema is a way to gather together disparate thoughts and ideas and create from these heterogeneous elements one's own truth.

Unification is achieved through the author digesting what is read and written so that concepts become flesh and blood. They are no longer memory but have changed the soul of the author. (p. 213)

In the hupomnema one does not simply regurgitate what is written - much as I'm doing here - but rather makes it one's own through reflection. Nevertheless a genealogy is present in that one can see the genesis of one's identity through the writing in much the same way as one's ancestors can be known by one's face. (p. 214)

Thinking about this as it relates to Armstrong we can see her emergence through her blog. The history of her identity is knowable through her writing.

The hupomnema is more in the style of a personal journal or an account book of what is happening in one's life. Correspondence is something a little different. Both are similar in that they create a reading of what is written. As I'm writing this I'm also reading it (just as when I'm speaking I'm also listening) and this acts as much on me as on the receiver of the communication.

In the process of both teaching and writing we also learn so writing is both benefit to the writer and reader. Which reminds me of the saying "the teacher teaches what he/she needs to learn the most." No truer is that than it is for me this semester. I'm tutoring in Dreamweaver and have never used the programme. Steep learning curve here I come.

Correspondence is more than an extension of the huomnema, a training of oneself. It's a way of manifesting ourselves to another, of being present to the reader - almost as if physically present in a face-to-face meeting - and a way of the writer gazing upon the reader through the content of the letter and in turn offering oneself to the gaze of the reader. There exists a reciprocity of both gaze and examination. My, how much fun would Foucault have with the Internet. (p. 216)

An observation. Correspondence works differently to surveillance in that the authoritative gaze goes in one direction and is, at least as understood as a panopticon, internalised. With correspondence though their is a mutual gaze of authority. Power flows in both directions through the internalisation of the mutual gaze. Blogs, or might we say self-publication on the Internet, are much more akin to correspondence in that there exists in the writer an ever-present sense of an other, an audience, whether that audience is intended or otherwise.

Finally, the letter is a way of presenting to another all that can be said about everyday life, a reviewing of one's everyday life as a form of self-examination. "[I]t is a matter of bringing into congruence the gaze of the other and that gaze which one aims at oneself when one measures one's everyday actions according to the rules of a technique off living" (p. 221).

Armstrong's blog contains much of the banality anticipated by Foucault's concept of the letter. Nappies, bowel movements, drinking, drugs all form part of the complete (almost) revelation of the self to the gaze of botht the self and the other. Over the longer term we can see evidence of the reconcilliation of gazes to which Foucault refers wherein Armstrong writes about matters that were, up until the point of writing, previously unknown by the readers - her family and her supervisors. Through the process of her writing she came to be seen in a congruent manner by both herself and her readers.

Foucault, M. (1997). Self writing. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: subjectivity and truth. New York: The New Press.

The hupomnema

"...the intent is not to pursue the unspeakable, nor to reveal the hidden, nor to say the unsaid, but on the contrary to capture the already-said, to collect what one has managed to hear or read, and for a purposes that is nothing less than the shaping of the self" (Foucault, 1997, p. 211).

In this we see the project on which Armstrong embarked, not as a way to reveal something deep and hidden within herself, but as a way to reveal that which she heard and saw. These included interactions with her supervisor, the Asian database administrator, and the colleague with whom she car-pooled. Her hupomnema - her blog - also shaped the self free from the constraints of her religion through the revelation of what she heard, did, and said in relation to her departure from the church.

Foucault, M. (1997). Self writing. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: subjectivity and truth. New York: The New Press.

A can of worms | dooce ®

A can of worms | dooce ®: "I have been reluctant to write about it here because my response to this show goes way beyond a cursory thumbs up or down. It is inextricably tied to how I feel about the Mormon church, and if I explain those feelings I am going to be crossing into some really uncomfortable territory for many members of my family who read this website."

Armstrong backgrounds her departure from the church and her reluctance to discuss some matters on her blog.

Relaunch | dooce ®

Relaunch | dooce ®: "Dooce.com, however, will continue to offer up the best in expletive-laden religious and social frustration. This is who I am, just now I will leave my family out of it."

Note the words "this is who I am". An initial reading of the statement would suggest that the words represent who Armstrong is, but a post-structuralist understanding of the statement would indicate that the blog itself is Armstrong. Armstrong is not separate from the blog.

Memoirs of a Recovering Mormon | dooce ®

Memoirs of a Recovering Mormon | dooce ®: "I have wasted the last several hours of my life reading my journals from my freshman and sophomore years at BYU. I don't think any other activity could be quite as depressing, except perhaps actually attending BYU. The following are selected excerpts from the sophomore year journal. Accounts of my freshman year are just too horrifying."

It's worth noting here that Armstrong makes a claim to being a prolific journal writer. This is one of the technologies of the self outlined by Foucault.

Baptistic Jihad | dooce ®

Baptistic Jihad | dooce ®: "It's a little known fact that I grew up in a Mormon household in a very non-Mormon part of the country some like to call The Bible Belt, or what I like to remember as The Bible Shall Be Shoved Down Your Throat Or We Shall Whip You With a Belt."

Is Ellen Simonetti going through a crisis?

It's fascinating to see that Ellen Simonetti appears to be going through something of an identity crisis. She's changed the name of her blog to Diary of a Human Being. I find it interesting because it plays to much of what I'm reading in Technologies of the Self. I note that she claims to be self-censoring the interesting stuff out of her posts and yet she persists in creating a self through her writing.

The confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau

THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU: "I have entered upon a performance which is without example, whose accomplishment will have no imitator. I mean to present my fellow-mortals with a man in all the integrity of nature; and this man shall be myself.

I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read this work..."

Technologies of the self

Michel Foucault (1998): "This contact between the technologies of domination of others and those of the self I call governmentality" (p. 19).

In ToS Foucault was more interested in the latter.The Greeks believed it was important to take care of oneself but this was replaced by the now more common concept of know thyself. But in ancient times knowing oneself came out of taking care of oneself. This has occurred possibly due to the Christian idea of self renunciation being essential for salvation. We are also conditioned to accept external rules as the basis of morality rather than something internal. Additionally, since Descartes, self-knowledge is important for the development of the thinking subject.

Epimelesthai: An activity that involves taking care of ones health and wealth. "Taking pains with oneself" (p. 25). What is the self to which Alcibiades was to be concerned? The question really becomes, rather than "what is the self?", "what is the plateau on which the self might be found?". When we take care of the body we don't take care of the self. It's taking care of the activity of taking care of the soul that is care of the self. (p. 25) How can we take care of the soul? First, we must know what it is by looking into a mirror. We must contemplate the divine element of the soul which will then give us the right rules for action. Writing was seen in ancient Greece as an important technique of taking care of the self.

"Taking care of oneself became linked to constant writing activity. The self is something to write about, a theme or object (subject) of writing activity. This is not a modern trait born of the Reformation or of romanticism; it is one of the most ancient Western traditions. It was well established and deeply rotted when Augustine started his Confessions" (p. 27).

This style of writing marked a shift to a new experience of self that involved introspection. Writing and vigilance were connected. A new range of experiences were opened up as a result. 

Anachoresis: As in the retreat of an army, a retreat into oneself, a spiritual retreat, a retiring into the self to uncover, not faults but to "remember rules of action, the main laws of behavior" (p. 34). 

Askesis: A Stoic technique, "not a disclosure of the secret self but a remembering" (p. 35).

Stoics believed the truth was in the logoi, the "teaching of the teachers". You remember what you hear and convert that into rules of conduct and a subjectivity based on this truth. It's not a renunciation of the self or of reality but a progressive working on oneself through the "acquisition and assimilation of truth" and allows one to access the reality of this world rather than some future reality (p. 35).

Truth is tested by melete (meditation), a form of remembering certain truths and arguments so as to have them available during (real or imagained) dialogue and gymnasia (testing oneself through bodily training).

Christianity is both a salvation and confessional religion. One must believe certain truths and dogma and show that you believe them and accept institutional authority. (p. 40) Individuals must know who they are so they can confess their sins and weaknesses to God or another. 

Exemologesis: The public recognition of the fact of ones Christianity and faith, the recognising oneself as a sinner seeking penitence. (p. 41) "The acts by which he punishes himself are indistinguishable from the acts by which he reveals himself." Exemologesis "rubs out the sin and yet reveals the sinner" (p. 42). The thinking behind this revealing behaviour is the appeasement of the judges by being contrite and the way a person should face martyrdom before relinquishing his faith. "The theories and practices of penance were elaborated around the problem of the man who prefers to die rather than to compromise or abandon the faith. The way the martyr faces death is the model for the penitent. For the relapsed to be integrated into the church, he must expose himself voluntarily to ritual martyrdom" (p. 43).

*Interesting aside here in relation to Armstrong who had a similar defiance after being fired. It appears that her ritual martyrdom may have been performed in an attempt to be (re)-integrated back into the folds of the secular church (main-stream society); and we could analyse her pre-dismissal interview with her immediate manager as a way of being offered penance but accepting the offer. A bit speculative possibly but worth considering.*

"Penance is the affect of change, of rupture with self, past, and world. It's a way to sho that you are able to renounce life and self, to show that you can face and accept death. Penitence of sin doesn't have as its target the establishing of an identity but serves instead to mark the refusal of the self., the breaking away from the self: Ego non sum, ego...It represents a break with one's past identity. These ostentatious gestures have the function of showing the truth of the state of being of the sinner. Self-revelation is at the same time self-destruction" (p. 43).

Exemolgesis is not verbal but, rather, ritual and symbolic and the truth about the self is imposed by violent dissociation and rupture, whereas in the Stoic techne self-knowledge is achieved through memorising rules.  

Exagoreusis (p. 42-49): a Christian tradition based on obedience and contemplation; a continual verbalisation of thoughts to the master; all aspects of ones life is addressed in this techne; attempts to still the consciousness through awareness of thoughts that lead to, or away from, God. We must be like the miller who sorts the good grains from the bad or the money changer who examines and weighs coins to determine their value. The way to know if a thought is "good or "bad" is to tell all to a master, a "permanent verbalization of our thoughts" (p. 47);

"By telling himself not only his thoughts but also the smallest movements of consciousness, his intentions, the monk stands in a hermeneutic reations not onlyy to the master but to himself" (p. 47).

*Armstrong may have performed a similar act through creating her readers as a master and continually expressing her inner thoughts on her blog to her reader-masters and therefore being guided to the "right" answer. It appears that Penelope Trunk is on a similar path.* Everything that can't be expressed becomes a sin and therefore the techne relies on a vigorous and all-encompassing confession.

The common theme between exomologesis and exagoreusis is that one "cannot disclose without renouncing" (p. 48). In the latter the permanent disclosure of self and permanent obedience to master renounces the self but it is possible to use this constant verbalisation of the self as a means to create a new self. *Which is what I contend was Armstrong's project.*

Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the Self. In L. Martin, H. Gutman & P. Hutton (Eds.), Technologies of the self. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Press.

Heather Armstrong (Dooce), August 2005 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging

Heather Armstrong (Dooce), August 2005 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging: "About a month after I lost my job I sunk into a suffocating depression and couldn't bring myself to write anything anymore. After that I took my site down for about six months. I think I had a bit of a pre-mid-life crisis and I didn't want to carry it out in public."

Heather Armstrong (Dooce), August 2005 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging

Heather Armstrong (Dooce), August 2005 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging: "I've come to terms with the boundaries I've had to draw to maintain order in my life."

CNN.com - 'Bridget Jones' blogger fire fury - Jul 19, 2006

CNN.com - 'Bridget Jones' blogger fire fury - Jul 19, 2006: "LONDON, England (CNN) -- A British secretary working in Paris who says she was fired because her Paris employer objected to her Weblog has provoked an old and New Media storm."

Relaunch | dooce

Relaunch | dooce ®: "You see, late last week one of the more technically-inclined members of my family found my website, serendipitously enough just after I posted an anti-Mormon diatribe Friday afternoon. They are devastated, and I've come to understand, rightfully so. I think that both my family and I have been living in a dream world when it comes to sharing who I am and what I believe."