Came across a couple of neat definitions today in McNaly (1994).

Autonomy: “a process in which the interrogation of the established limits identity leads to an increased capacity for independent thought and behaviour (p. 145).” This constant interrogation fights off the individualizing and normalizing effects of power. Foucault retained an Enlightenment notion of which McNaly describes as a state of “positive liberty”: an “individual’s ability to exercise critical judgement free from the influence of dominant beliefs and desires” (p. 144). I wonder what is meant by a dominant belief. How does a belief become “dominant”? Does my belief that I feel tired and need to sleep become a dominant belief that disables my autonomy?

Subject: is subject to another through dependence and this normalising view of the self is tied to a person’s own identity through “conscience or self-knowledge (p. 142).” I think here of the way that psychology and psychiatry create a normalised view of a person, or at least encourage people to become normal. Foucault cringed at the thought of this normalisation and instead wanted scholars to fight normalising power so as to allow for the development of the pure aesthetics of the self.

Freedom from normalising forms of individuality come from exploring the limits of our subjectivity; and these limits can come from our sexuality or any other number of normalising structures. (p. 145)

McNaly, L. (1994). Foucault. Oxford: Polity Press.

Correction: The following post refers to Lois McNaly and should properly read Lois McNay. My apology to the author.

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In the book, Foucault, Lois McNaly (1994, p. 149) critiques Michel Foucault’s notion of aestheticism or the aesthetics of the self/existence as being overly reliant on the heroization of the self.

Foucault utilised Baudelaire the Dandy as a way to exemplify the way an individual might bring themselves forth into the world; a way of producing oneself as a work of art. This work of art is said to have a non-productive quality and by that I believe Foucault was suggesting the production of art for arts sake, not the production of art in some attempt at communicative reason. It sounds as though he was attempting to be elitist by having people create themselves as pieces of high art that served ‘no’ purpose. But in reality he was attempting to bring art to the grasp of all individuals. We can each create our own lives as a work of art without first finding some form of hidden existential being lurking deep below the surface. Foucault, I believe, was simply attempting, through Baudelaire the Dandy, to demonstrate that self mastery was immanent and immediately available for all human beings. No need to wait for the shrink, just start producing art.

But McNaly’s critique is leveled against what she sees as the underlying gendered tones of the invocation of Foucault’s heroic male artist. McNaly believes that the subtext of Foucault’s Dandy is unaddressed and therefore the aesthetics have become fetishized; given more meaning and power then they deserve.

I don’t share McNaly’s criticism. Foucault might have employed any other of a myriad illustrations to explain and demonstrate his notion. Instead he chose a Dandy artist who become heroized by academics; and its regrettable this occurred. For me, Foucault was simply attempting to provide a sense of the now available to each of us. In the same way as an artist stills the mind in the creative moment, Foucault was attempting to explain something difficult, if not impossible, to understand at the level of the intellect.

McNaly, L. (1994). Foucault. Oxford: Polity Press.