Michel Foucault

2011 was the year of Jacob’s Ladder. At the start of the year I set a goal of climbing Jacob’s Ladder 5000 times. That goal was completed in early November. It defined me and set a very clear mandate for every day, every week and every month.

I also set a goal of a daily blog post. I was on pace for about 2 months and then fell away. One of the issues I struggle with is what I’m going to write. I get started and then can’t figure out what I want to achieve, what I want to say and then it all falls apart.

One post in particular brought me undone. It was a long and well thought out post about the future of real estate data. Unfortunately it took me days to research and even longer to put what I wanted to say into words. Instead of publishing I thought and worked on getting it right. In the end it was a post that achieved some kudos from some key players from the industry but it cost me about two weeks of posts.

During my recent uni studies my blog was used as a research tool. It was where I kept all my research notes so you’ll find articles about the hupomnemata, technologies of the self and the death of god. I loved it but once I finished my studies I started thinking that I needed to blog for Google juice and write what my audience wanted.

The problem with doing that is that often I don’t want to write for other people, I want to write for myself. I did that during my studies and it changed the direction of my honours thesis. It introduced me Jeremy Crampton (@jeremycrampton), who, through a pingback on a post about Foucault’s theories on power relationships, alerted me to his book and created in me a drive to analyse the dismissal of Heather Armstrong using Foucault’s theories as a tool kit. So without this blog I would have written a very different honours thesis and wouldn’t have experienced the joy of months of immersion in French philosophy.

What’s been valuable about this blog – and blogging generally – is that it’s been a place for me to get my thoughts in order. As Crampton put it so well,

Now the content of the post is unremarkable and not especially exciting, but the author remarks that this is a post designed to help him think through some issues. It’s not the content, it’s the process (emphasis mine).

So this blog is going to (continue to) be a public hupomnemata, a public place for me to record what I’ve learned and a way for me to take actively take care of the (my) self. It’s a place for me to record what I’ve learned from my daily experiences. Although some of what I learn will be about social media and digital strategy it will also include what I learn from personal experience, such as what I learned from leaning into the pain.

This strategy will have its costs. For a start it will be difficult for Google to work out what my website is about. Is it about social media, digital strategy or Michel Foucault? Google will find it hard, almost impossible to work out.  It’s going to cost me traffic.

Then there’s the readers or subscribers. Those who subscribe to my blog wanting posts about digital strategy will be disappointed when they’re presented with articles (like this one) about Michel Foucault and the hupomnemata. If you could name the top blogging sins what I’m doing would be close to the top of the list.

But I’ve decided that having a space to remember and reflect is far more important than worrying about readers and traffic. If this blog becomes a window into my mind then so be it. If it helps me become a better thinker, even better.

And I’ll end this post without a clear conclusion. That’s because I wasn’t sure what it was that I wanted to do with it in the first place.

Photo credit: The Magnet Magazine

A friend on Twitter posed a question in the form of a statement recently. She asked, “Still searching for the full official launch birthdate of Twitter! Only got March 2006 so far…Even tweeted the creators!”. It was an innocent enough request.

In reading Foucault’s Nietzsche, Genealogy, History I can’t help but think about posing the response to this question in a different light. Or, as Foucault did in The Subject and Power, ask it a different way. Foucault reformulated the question “what is power?” to “how has power come to operate in our society?”. I could do the same with the Twitter question. Rather than “when was Twitter launched” it could become “what is it in our recent past that allowed Twitter to emerge?”.

Of course I could be accused of being pedantic and rightly so. But the question of when evades the why and the how. It also performs a function that Foucault was particularly wary of, and that is to inscribe a linearity of history, an assumption of a unified whole having an unbroken line of existence from a distant past to the present.

In establishing his genealogical method (based on the work of Nietzsche) Foucault made it clear that it was with the body, inscribed as it is with the marks and fissures of history, that we must start. Unlike the traditional historical approach where the historian starts at a distant past and moves back to the metaphysical present, the genealogical approach begins at the most recent history – the body – and traces these many fissures and ruptures into the distant past.

In proposing this method of analysis Foucault sought to establish the many and variant influences that serve to shape the notions we hold as universal truths today. Ideals, such as liberty, freedom and rationality, are but creations of society at various stages. Each serve a particular end and purpose in the ebb and flow of a will for power and knowledge.

Foucault warned that, rather than some human rationality being responsible for the emergence of various phenomena, these occurred through accident and cleavage at points far distant from their apparent metaphysical arising. History, then is laden with contingency and breakages that can be observed shaping all phenomena, particularly the human body.

“The body”, he said, ” is molded by a great many distinct regimes; it is broken down by the rhythms of work, rest, and holidays; it is poisoned by food or values, through eating habits or moral laws; it constructs resistances. “Effective” history differs from traditional history in being without constants. Nothing in man – not even his body – is sufficiently stable to serve as a basis for self-recognition or for understanding” (p. 88-9)

So to ask “when was Twitter launched?” is to miss the richness of its emergence into social consciousness. It misses the many accidents that made it possible and the many discourses that prevailed in so many ways to invite its emergence. It treats Twitter as a body whole and complete from its birth.

But it’s still a good question. The answer is July 15, 2006.

Here’s a fascinating entry relating to Armstrong’s account of her first kiss. It combines a number of elements anticipated in Foucault. First, the post contains a quote from a letter Armstrong sent to a friend. Foucault would probably read this as a hupomnema or perhaps more accurately as correspondence. Letter writing is an important technology of the self in Foucault’s technologies of the self. Second, the account documents a limit moment where Armstrong’s bodily experience lead to the creation of new limits. She uses this experience as a source of reflection on her various relationships with power. Finally, she refers to her conscience at play as a result of the experience, a move anticipated in Foucault’s understanding of power and subjectivity.

Here is a quote from the post:

David kissed me in I guess what he would consider sensual fury, what I
would consider beastly uncoordination. At about midnight I pulled out of his
driveway never to see him again, well, never to see him for a long, long time. I
was really messed up from the experience even though all we did was smooch. In
the eyes of the Church, I thought, I must be a heathen, a stiffnecked wayward, a
virtual Lamanite. For about three months I lingered on the brink of
self-destruction. David was gone forever far far away in a land called Caltech.
My innocence was gone forever far far away with Nirvana as my only
witness.

And then Armstrong reflects on her subjectivity at the time:

And then I remembered just how distraught I was at that first kiss, how I seriously thought I was going to hell because my tongue had entered another human being’s mouth for purposes other than life support. And I so totally and completely don’t want my daughter to ever have to go through that sort of self-loathing.

So I’m going to keep this letter — a single-spaced account of my whole sexual non-history from ages 14-18 that is written in one whole paragraph and stretches over seven pages — and hope that when the time comes I’ll be able to teach my daughter about making healthy personal decisions about sex and about relationships, and about never using the word “uncoordination” because it DOESN’T EXIST.

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.

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.

In Technologies of the Self Foucault states:

“[In ancient Greece] it was generally acknowledged that it was good to be reflective, at least briefly…Writing was also important in the culture of taking care of oneself. One of the main features of taking care involved taking notes on oneself to be reread, …and keeping notebooks in order to reactivate for oneself the truths one needed. Socrates’ letters are an example of this self-exercise” (p. 27).

Foucault continues:

“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…it is one of the most ancient Western traditions” (p. 27).

And then:

“This genre of epistles shows a side apart from the philosophy of the era. The examination of conscience begins with this letter writing. Diary writing comes later” (p. 30)

Foucault refers here to what he later describes as the hupomnema, the writing of the self into being.

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

Giddens, A. (1995). Surveillance and the capitalist state. In A contemporary critique of historical materialism, 2nd Edn. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Giddens defines surveillance as two connected processes of accumulation of information and of the supervision of the activities of subordinates in a collective. He believes that information gathering is a prime generator of power.

Human beings are knowledgable agents acting within “unacknowledged conditions” and “unintended consequences” of their actions (p. 171).

Whilst he recognises that Foucault connected the abolition of the violence of the spectacle with the rise of capitalism, he maintains that Foucault’s connection between the factory and the prison were too close to be sustained. Rather, he notes that workplaces are not, as with prisons, “total institutions” (a phrase he credits to the work of Goffman) in which resistance may develop. As a result Foucault’s “docile bodies” become not so docile after all and become knowledgeable agents. (p. 173)

He notes that the freedom of labour in capitalist systems are really just a sham and create the exploitation of workers through more subtle means, but he points out that the rise of “mere bourgeois freedoms” have lead to the development of genuine gains in judicial reforms allowing and encouraging the formation of organised labour movements which have challenged the hegemony of capitalism.

Giddens maintains that Foucault’s ideas about the sequestration of prisoners become more a comment about the parts of capitalist society that commodify, regulate, and smooth time, removing from our day-to-day lives those aspects which are directly connected to the ebb and flow of nature. (p. 173)

Despite his criticism of Foucault, Giddens recognises the importance of surveillance to studies of capitalism. He observes that “classical social theory” – and by that I assume he refers to Marxism – did not recognise the threat to personal liberties from systems of surveillance. (p. 174)

Finally he points to what he sees as the oppressive potential for a combining of a Taylorist supervision of workers with an information collection mechanisms that result in anonymous “technical control” (p. 176).

Notes from:

Elmer, G. (2003). A diagram of panoptic surveillance. New media and society, 5(2), 231-247. Retrieved June 7, 2008, from SAGE Publications database.

Not proof-read, read generously.

The development of a theory of panoptic surveillance is often hampered by an overly literal interpretation of the panopticon.

Criticisms of panopticism are made in three broad categories:

1. The shifting of architectures of surveillance from “carceral enclosure” to databases which plays to debates about invasions of personal privacy.
2. Questioning of the “automatic disciplinary effect of panopticism” and argues that people voluntarily participate in their own surveillance through exchanging private information about themselves for reward. These critiques miss the automatic nature of information collection on the web and the inability for opt-out.
3. Through new media technologies the panopticon is now a synopticon where the many watch the few. This critique relies on an understanding that panoptic power comes from corporeal observation whereas it is derived from the architecture of light which is suggestive of surveillance

Each of these critiques are useful in further developing the concept of the panopticon but each is limited by their “heuristic points of departure” (p. 233).

Elmer sets out to explicate the diagrammatic aspects of panoptic surveillance and to explain the continuous way consumers and their data selves are integrated into the collection of personal information processes.

The panopticon relies on the hegemony of light and vision as central to the development of Foucault’s thesis of self-discipline and governance. The all seeing gaze is both marked and masked, visible yet invisible, by the architecture and arrangement of light. Thus, those subject to this unseen gaze assume its presence and modify their behaviour.

The panopticon is a “system of light and language” (p. 234) where the collection of information is foundational and essential to the operation of a system of classification and individuation. Deleuze in Postsripts points to this matter.

Foucault’s theories of surveillance maintain a lingering reliance on a spatial dimension but it is equally important to note the data gathering aspects of the system which, in effect, begin before a person’s incarceration within the confines of the panopticon. The customers were already classified and separated before their violent enclosure. Foucault was concerned with a generalisable system of power rather than the development of a specific architecture; but how might his system be imagined in the face of highly mobile modern subjects.

Elmer notes Foucault’s development of theories of power through reference to the confessional which exposed inner-most secret self and which went unquestioned as a means for the assertion of power.

Criticisms of panopticism critique the technology rather than the technique (p. 235).

Roger Clarke (Information technolgy and dataveillance, 1998) proposes that surveillance is enabled and augmented by technologies but he does not address the specific moments of data gathering. At the data gathering moment the process of collection of information and surveillance is automated in a way reminiscent of the panopticon.

Elmer notes the work of Tim Mathiesen who proposes the idea of the synopticon which inverts or locates a parallel panopticon enabling the many to watch the few via the agency of mass media; and discipline arises in this process from a disciplining of our consciousness through the media message. Elmer develops an argument that TiVo can be understood synoptically noting the way the system learns, recommends and customises (other systems such as Kwikflix perform similarly). These recommendations, based as they are on aggregates of anonymous viewing patters, raise questions about how they may may be imagined within panopticism. Elmer argues for a redrawing of the panoptic diagram.

Such a rethinking was specifically considered by Deleuze in Postscript on societies of control in which he noted that we had already ceased to be members of societies of discipline and had now become modulated by and within societies of control. Signatures and numbers which marked individuality and place within a mass had given away to a code which denies or permitted access to information and locations.

Deleuze’s diagram describes a digitally languaged system of ever changing shape and size which described the decentralised movement and flow of information throughout a network.

Elmer mentions “simulation” a great deal in relation to technologies but I’m unsure if he means that technologies tend to simulate the corporeal flow. If anyone can help me understand this I’d appreciate the help.

Deleuze and Guattari introduce the possibility of mapping the continuity between light and language. Again, I’m not sure what this means. Help anyone?

In another work, Deleuze proffers the concept of the rhizome as a diagram which evokes a sense of the space between architectural drawing and built form.

One of the key claims of panopticism is its ability to function with little or no supervision as a mechanism for automatic and constant observation and data collection. (p. 243)

In the panoptic diagram consumers are both rewarded and punished for their behaviour. Rewarded with an all-too-familiar set of images and content that leads to the consumption of more of the same and punished with extra work when attempting to seek out the unfamiliar (p. 245).

Further to my earlier, and very brief post about Green’s A plague on the panopticon I’ll add a few more detailed notes here.

Green argues that Foucault’s concept of Panopticism is a defective metaphor that promotes misunderstandings about the way surveillance works in the real world. Green attests: “Despite Foucault’s claims to the contrary, surveillance is ultimately conceived as the handmaiden of dominant power” (p. 27). He argues that the panopticon as a metaphor does not sufficiently address the complexities of power and misses an opportunity to recognise the benefits (lowering crime, provision of customised products and services) that flow from surveillance.

Green proposes the rethinking of Foucault’s observations of the management of plagues and believes that a new and more fruitful way of understanding the workings – and the benefits – of surveillance is possible as a result. He opines that Foucault’s concept of Panopticism invokes a form of totalising power from which it is impossible to escape. For Green, a failing by Foucault of not delimiting who is in power and who has power creates a paradigm that is difficult to sustain. He wants to see – and here he relies on Gramsci – a restoration of human agency and an essential freedom of the individual from power.

He dismisses observations of the applicability of Panopticism as being overly dismissive of the downgrading of “liberty, ‘personhood’ and resistance” (p. 30) and points to a “legion” (p. 31) of problems with the concept. Citing both Giddens and Lyon he critiques panopticism as tending to the technological determinist and claims that the individuation central to the panopticon, far from destroying individuality, provides a way for the individual to break free from the “mass of autonomy” (p. 31).

Suggesting plague response as a relevant way to conceive of surveillance, Green notes the utility of the categorisation of healthy and sick people during a plague event, and points to the integration of surveillance within the fabric of community. He points to the messiness of the plague form of surveillance – people were able to hide in dark corners – and this enables a degree of access to individual resistance that he believes Foucault did not permit within the panopticon. Such a messy understanding of the effects of surveillance is far more contemporary he suggests in that it provides for a clearer understanding of the uneven manner of the deployment of surveillance.

He points to the inversion of surveillance through technologies such as digital cameras and video recorders that captured the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989 and astutely observes the way resistance movements such as the Chiapas, Zapatista Army, and other change advocates use technology to maintain surveillance over authority. Green believes such an inversion of surveillance was not contemplated in Foucault’s panopticon.

Green, S. (1999). A plague on the panopticon: surveillance and power in the global information economy. Information, Communication & Society, 2(1), 26-44. Retrieved June 7, 2008, from Informaworld database.

In applying Foucault’s concept of Panopticism to the surveillance of personal blogs I will use Deleuze’s critique found in Postscripts. I should also use Foucault’s own critique based on his development of the concept of pastoral power as set out in Subjectivity and Power. Pastoral power is much more modular and smooth then the exercise of power through the spatially bound panopticon. Pastoral power retains a sense of the authoritative gaze that is more reliant on the revealing of a person’s inner thoughts than is found in the gaze of the panopticon. Pastoral power involves a greater level of participation by the subject although the aspects of internalisation of governance have similarities.