In my last meeting with my PhD supervisors I was asked “are you arguing that a personal blog is the self or a production of the self?” It was evident I was not being clear.

My initial reaction was that I was arguing that a personal blog is a production of the self. It is an object separate from the subject in the same way as the paper on which I write this (yes, I wrote this long-hand first) is something separate from me.

Such a line of reasoning works well if we start from the position of a pre-existent subject. In other words, if thinking creates the subject as in “I think, therefore I am”, then mental activity produces an I ­– an individual – that is separate from a world of objects.

Such a notion works to support the idea that we area all born with a ‘personality’ and that our subjectivity takes shape through the Freudian Oedipal phase in early childhood. We are already and always an individual and our selfhood is shaped by our relationship to the penis or an object that stands in place of the penis.

In Lacanian terms we are trapped in our subjectivity that was formed in the Oedipal phase in a denseness of language that allows no release. In other words, we are made of language.

More importantly, to both Freud and Lacan, our subjectivity is already and always interior and hidden, an essence to be discovered and revealed. It is, as it were, a kind of tiniest building block of our universe that will always be ‘yet to be discovered’. This hidden self is produced through a never-ending always-present sense of lack.

If I accept this Freudian-Lacanian view of the pre-existent subject then I must also accept that a blog is an object that can be studied, analysed and written about. In doing so I would then look at the blog as a tool of signification, a series of sign posts that point back inwards to a fixed human essence. In other words, what does this blog reveal about its author? What does the blog mean to the blogger? What lack is being redressed through the act of blogging?

I am inclined to join with Deleuze and Guattari, and to a lesser extent Foucault, and subscribe to the radical effacement of the subject. In their view the subject never existed and until the project of psychoanalysis; and this produced an object of study and never-ending analysis. Of course, this view was shared by their contemporary Foucault who believed that the creation of the individual was the preeminent move of power. Through fields of study, such as psychiatry, the individual came to exist and could thus be categorised and normalised.

What does this mean for the personal blog? If I start from the Deleuzian position of the non-existent subject I immediately obliterate the object called the personal blog for it is only through the creation of the subject that the object of the blog can come into existence.

For Deleuze and Guattari it is from this non-position of existence that a purely creative humanity can emerge. Unencumbered by the morbidity of Freud and Lacan humans are free simply to become.

Where does this leave my research? As I see it Freud and Lacan weigh heavily on the modern understanding of the subject. Any analysis of the ways in which personal blogging is productive of the self would be deficient if it ignored (especially) Lacan’s notion of lack whereby all actions taken by the subject compensate for a always-present sense of lack. An analysis of personal blogging in this way would posit the pre-existent subject interacting with the external object of the blog generating the self always clambering for a return to the imaginary of the pre-Oedipal phase.

Equally, there is merit in analysing personal blogging through the lens of Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg. Using the cyborg as a metaphor the personal blog becomes, not an external object or tool, but an integral part of the subject. The machine of the blog contains no ghost, no inherent pre-existent nature, but, rather, constitutes an integral, indivisible part of the subject.

In Haraway I find a particularly useful and promising line of thinking where she connects the narratives about technology and racism. In Haraway’s view, fear of societal decline through advancement of technology and the mixing of races are one and the same action of thought. . It is through the use of technology (and here I refer to personal blogging) she believes that racism can be problematised.

Haraway, along with Deleuze and Guattari and Foucault share a postmodern conception of the subject. Each offers a fresh way to understand personal blogging. In the case of Foucault, as a technology of the self, a practice of living as a work of art. And through Deleuze we can understand it as a moment akin to the chaos inherent when the artist’s brush meets the canvas.

Bibliography

Mansfield, N. (2000). Subjectivity: theories of the self from Freud to Haraway. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin.

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.

The following are my notes from reading:

Poster, M. (1995). Databases as discourse, or electronic interpellations. In The second media age (pp. 78-94). Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Descartes famously states: “I think therefore I am”. By these few words he articulates a dividual, a binary human-thinking divided within. I am nothing – I don’t exist – without my thoughts. My thoughts precede my being. There are thoughts and there is an Other. The two is established; in Descartes and later by Kant in the Enlightenment. The human subject is born. Now that I am separated from my thoughts, I am also born into a world of objects separate from the I.

The subject is interpellated or “hailed” thus reconstituting themselves as a subject. The teacher, when calling on a student to answer a classroom question, presupposes the student as an “autonomous rational agent” and the student, in answering the question, must “stand into” this position firstly to answer the question and secondly in declaration of their being a student. “Linguistic interpellation” operates through the subject complying with the configuration of their subjectivity without question and reflection (p. 80). Such a configuration can be at the level of race, sexuality, class, age, gender and presupposes the individual as a subject. The process of interpellation is conducted at the level of language.

The interpellation of the subject is always incomplete. One interpellation does not deny the existence of another. For example, I could be interpellated (invited to act) as a student, a husband, a male, as straight; each of which I am free to reject but each of which appear in their formation as a certain conclusion, as if already answered by me, the subject, in the affirmative. In each instance of interpellation the subject is fixed and frozen into the state of subjectivity, an end, a conclusion; the finished product so to speak. How quickly we lose our childhood.

It is important to understand the post-structuralist relationship of language to the development of the subject which helps to us understand the nature of databases as discourse. Foucault employed the term discourse to counter those who claimed writing as being a reflection of a human subject; we can’t hear or read words and deduce from those words a consciousness. Rather discourse is an exterior totality in which a subject is dispersed and formed. Discourse is not the manifestation of the unfolding of a thinking subject but rather it is a totality of the discontinuous planes through which the subject is variously enunciated. In other words the subject is created through discourse rather than the creator of discourse. (The blogger as subject is often created through legal and capitalist discourses). Discourse and power become imbricated upon one another.

Our culture creates, through discourse, a subject as a rational, autonomous individual. Foucault managed to point to the problematic of the assumption of a preexistent rationality; rationality is historically constructed. According to Foucault there never was a founding, universal, or sovereign subject but rather the subject is produced through “practices of subjection, or in a more autonomous way, through practices of liberation…” (p. 83). Discourse then has a power effect on “…the subject even in movements of “liberation”" (p. 84).

The power effect of discourse is to bring the subject into a position in relation to the structure of power so as to then apply and exert influence; and this is done in a way that disguises the constitution of the subject as a subject until after the subject becomes such.

The panopticon “…is not simply the guard in the tower but the entire discourse/practice that bears down on the prisoner, one that constitutes him or her as a criminal” (p. 85). The panopticon subjectifies and normalises.

A database is a discourse because it constitutes subjects. Poster proposes that databases produce subjects who are to a lesser or greater extent willing participants in their own surveillance. The combination of infrastructure and commerce combine to produce a far lighter and easier maintained panopticon – the super-panopticon – which is a never ceasing machinery of surveillance. The super-panopticon works beyond the reach of individual agency and makes a mockery of concepts of rational autonomy and social action. The super-panopticon interpellates the subject through the discourse of databases. The database produces subjects that are multiple and decentred and in contradistinction to the hegemonic concept of the subject as a rational, autonomous, centred agent.

Databases are the perfect “grids of specification” in that they divide and contrast, group and classify; and they constitute objects of which they speak. (Worth noting here that most blogging software is database driven; and the possible relationship to RSS feeds, feed readers and archives).

Unlike the panopticon where the subjects became interiorised, conscious and aware of their own self-determination through an awareness of the presence of surveillance, subjects produced through databases are dispersed and diverse and often unknown to their embodied counterpart. How can we resist the development of these subjects? Our bodies no longer provide a refuge against the incursion of the discourse of the database.

Please note: this post is under construction whilst I read the article below. This notice will be removed when it’s complete.

The subject and power

Why study power? The question of the Subject

Foucault states that it his intention to establish the historicity of the modes by which individuals become the subjects of power. Foucault believes there are three modes of objectification by which a person becomes a subject; the subject being the focus of his work. These modes are:

1. Modes of inquiry that attempt take on the status of science e.g. the analysis of economics and wealth through the measurement and examination and objectification of the productive subject and the objectification of the fact of a person’s being alive in the study of natural history.
2. Modes of objectifying through “dividing practices” whether that be dividing the subject from others or dividing the subject internally e.g. the good and bad, the sick and healthy, and the rich and poor.
3. Modes by which human beings turn themselves into subjects e.g. objects of their own sexuality.

Foucault notes that an examination of the concept of power had, until his analysis of the subject, only relied on a study of the legitimation of power through models offered by the legal system and of institutional models through examination of the nature of the state.

So what does Foucault mean when he discusses power? In order to outline a new economy of power relations we need to look, as a starting point, the forms of resistance against different forms of power. These forms of resistance are a “chemical catalyst” to highlight power relations, locate them, and demonstrate the methods used. Power relationships can therefore be analysed through the antagonism which can be found in their strategies.

What do these struggles against authority have in common?

1. They can be found anywhere in the world, under any government.
2. Their aim is to put effect to power, for example the way medicine has uncontrolled power over the lives of its subjects.
3. The struggle is against an immediate enemy, with an immediate solution.
4. Struggles are against the “government of individualisation, asserting the right for humans to be different but fighting the separation of, the “individualisation” of the individual.
5. They are opposed to the effects of power through the use or abuse of knowledge, competence, and secrecy, in other words, they are a fight against the privileges of knowledge. “What is questioned is the way in which knowledge circulates and functions, in relations to power” (Foucault, p. 781)
6. These struggles revolve around the question “Who are we?”

In summary it could be said that all struggle is a struggle against a “form of power” that “categorises the individual, marks him by his individuality, [and] attaches him to his own identity”. In short this form of power is one that “makes individuals subjects”, subjects who come under the control and dependence of another, or tied to their own identity through “conscience or self-knowledge” (Foucault does not elaborate on the concept of conscience and how conscience may be affected by self-knowledge privileging conscience with an almost mystical quality that creates subjectivity).

Having outline the commonality can be found in forms of resistance Foucault proceeds to outline three types of struggle: against domination on religious, ethnic, and religious grounds, against exploitation that separates individuals from that which they produce, and subjection caused by tying an individual to themselves and submitting them thus to others. He points out that state power tends (or tended) to be totalising, ignoring the individual but a new form of power – pastoral power that is at once both individualising and totalising – has come to dominate the social body.

Pastoral power derives from the development of Christianity that organised itself through the development of churches and, amongst others, the appointment of pastors. The form of power can be noted as being:

1. Aimed at assuring individual salvation in the next world.
2. It doesn’t demand a sacrifice from the subject to save the sovereign but rather is prepared to sacrifice itself for the salvation of the individual.
3. It looks after the community but also the individual for life.
4. It requires an intimate knowledge of the mind of the individual, their conscience and secrets in order to provide direction.

This individualising form of power, despite the decline in the pastorate, has become diffuse through the social body through its adoption by the state. Whereas once pastoral power came from individual salvation, the meaning of salvation acquired new meanings including wealth, well-being, prosperity, and security. Concurrently the number of officials charged with providing pastoral care increased and included police, welfare agencies, agencies of the state, and the field of medicine. Additionally those in positions of power began to collect and develop knowledge; knowledge that was both globalising and quantitative concerning the population as a totality and analytical knowledge concerning the individual. As a result this pastoral power came to be an individualising mechanism pervading every aspect of the social body, from the family to medicine to politics and all the places in between.

The individualisation of society is problematic for Foucault. He questions the relevance of answering or even posing the question put by Kant as to who or what we are in relation to the Enlightenment. Rather the refusal of what we are deserves much thought and effort, largely as a way to break free from the individualising and totalising power of these new power structures pervading the social body. The imperative therefore becomes: “We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed on us for centuries” (Foucault, p. 785). (Let us bury the ghost of Descartes).

How is Power Exercised?

To assume power just “is” may be a form of fatalism according to Foucault. Rather then answering the question “what is power”, which assumes it already exists Foucault explores the exercise of power through the the means by which power is exercised, how it might come into existence. There are three aspects to power each of which are independent but overlapping. First the physical, the capacity to shape objects, to bring them into being, to destroy them, to change them, to make them different to what they were. Secondly this form of exertion is distinguished from power that is exercised through relationships existing between individuals and groups. Finally, there are relationships of communication through which relationships of power may work but that may not be utilised as a means for the exercise of power.

Foucault doesn’t expand here how power might be put to effect without relationships of communication. How is it possible for a relationship of power to exist without the agency of communication, some means by which meaning is signified to another? I suggest that relationships of communication may exist without the need for the existence of relationships of power but the reverse isn’t possible. Communication, some form of exchange of meaning, must surely be essential in the structuring and maintenance of any form of relationship.

“Blocks” in which power is exerted include the school, says Foucault. The layout of school buildings and windows (objective capacities), relationships of communication through lessons, demonstrations, tests), and surveillance, reward, and punishment (power relations) all exist and are finely adjusted to maximise the extent of the exercise of power within the block. Thus the block becomes a place for the constitution of disciplines, for the ongoing adjustment of capacity-communication-power to produce an ever more rational and economically focussed society.

What constitutes the specific nature of power?

Foucault next turns his attention to the nature of power which he believes is exercised through the relationships of power with the aim of using actions to modify the actions of others. Power therefore exists only when put into action and is not a function of, or reliant on, consent; although consent may be given. Power then doesn’t act directly on another, it acts to take action that affects the actions of others. Power is not violence, although violence may be used. There are two essential elements required for the articulation of a power relationship; the “other” maintained always as a person who acts, and an endless amount of options available as potential actions. Power then is:

“…a total structure of actions brought to bear upon possible actions; it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult; in the extreme it constrains or forbids absolutely; it is nevertheless a way of acting upon an acting subject or acting subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action. A set of actions upon other actions” (Foucault, p. 789).

The exercise of power, therefore, requires the guidance of another’s actions and this is done through ‘government’ as a means to structure the available choice of actions of the governed; a way to give structure to the possibilities available to a subject. In the interplay between actions upon actions guided through government we see that an important element must be present; and that element is freedom. Power can only be exercised over a free subject and only to the extent that they are free. Slavery is therefore not a relationship of power, and power and freedom are mutually exclusive. The two are constantly involved in a struggle, an “agonism”:

“At the very heart of the power relationship, and constantly provoking it, are the recalcitrance of the will and the intransigence of freedom” (Foucault, p.791).

How is one to analyze the power relationship?

Foucault believes that it’s quite possible to define and analyse power by focusing on specific institutions such as schools, hospitals, and asylums. He notes the problems of such an analysis, particularly that one might attempt to explain power as something emanating from the institution. In this regard he highlights the importance in an analysis of power to recognise that the fundamental anchorage of relationships of power is external to the institutions in which they are found. Rather relationships of power are found deep within the social body, not as a political overlay supra to the social body.

At this point Foucault appears appears to develop a criticism of the Habermasian notion of the public sphere by suggesting that power comes from deep within society. Habermas contended that power was external to the public sphere, whereas notions of civil society as proposed by Dean and others side with Foucault positioning power as an integral part of civil society.

“That is to say, power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, not reconstituted “above” society as a supplementary structure whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of. In any case, to live in society is to live in such a way that action upon other actions is possible – and in fact ongoing. A society without power relations can only be an abstraction” (Foucault, p.791).

Resulting from the deep-seated nature of power relationships Foucault proposes that their study and analysis and the analysis of the “agonism” occurring within power relationships is an inherent political task of social existence. In order to undertake such an analysis he proposes five points that must be established as follows.

1. The system of differentiations which is to say the difference that is required by and caused by a relationship of power (economic, competencies, linguistics).
2. The types of objectives that are being attempted to be achieved through actions upon the actions of others (profits, legislation, control).
3. The means of bringing power relation into being: how power relationships come into being (threat of violence, legislation, rules, surveillance).
4. Forms of institutionalization: what types of institutions are used (state legislation, economic/financial/commercial, closed, systems of surveillance)
5. The degree of rationalization: how effective are the instruments of power in relationship to their effect? Are they appropriate to the ends? Cost effective?

Relations of power and relations of strategy

Referring to the achievement of power being actions taken on the actions of others Foucault outlines three uses of strategy: the means to attain an end; the manner in which a person anticipates and responds to the moves – anticipated and actual – of their adversary; and the means by which a combatants might end a struggle by depriving the other of the resources and/or will to continue. These elements of strategy are that which is utilised in all power relationships as part of the essential struggle, potential flight to freedom (with a possible nod of the head to Deleuze), the agonism that marks a power relationship.

“…there is no relationship of power without the means of escape or possible flight. Every power relationship implies, at least in potentia, a strategy of struggle, in which the two forces are not superimposed, do not lose their specific nature, or do not finally become confused. Each constitutes for the other a kind of permanent limit, a point of possible reversal” (Foucault, p.794).

The end game of a relationship of confrontation is a relationship of power. The finality of a relationship of power is either total subordination (unlikely) or ongoing confrontation with a newly acquired adversary.

At a later date I intend to expand on the relevance of Foucault’s work in relation to employee bloggers. How might the subjectivity of an employee be affected both by the very fact of their writing about their work, and by the response to their blog from the people in a position of power, their employer? How might we relate to the power/knowledge shift when it comes to bloggers? What could be said about surveillance? Are employees engaging the same methods of surveillance on their employers as employers are imposing on employees? Is their a shift away from the judicial system in terms of the source of potential strategies available to both?

References

Foucault, M. (1982). “The subject and power.” Critical Inquiry 8(4): 777-795.

Note

Ontology – the study of being or existence; a specification of a conceptualization; the theory of objects and their ties.