"When philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk." -- G.W.F. Hegel, 'Preface', Philosophy of Right.
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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx
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on governmentality
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February 05, 2006
A paper on Foucault's notion of governmentality by Thomas Lenke. He says that the term:
"...pin-points a special form of representation;government defines a discursive field in which exercising power is 'rationalized'. This occurs, among other things, by the delineation of concepts,the specification of objects and borders, the provision of arguments and justifications, etc. In this manner, government enables a problem to be addressed and offers certain strategies for solving/handling the problem. On the other hand, it also structures specific forms of intervention . For a political rationality is not pure, neutral knowledge which simply 're-presents' the governing reality; instead, it itself constitutes the intellectual processing of the reality which political technologies can then tackle. This is understood to include agencies, procedures, institutions, legal forms, etc., that are intended to enable us to govern the objects and subjects of a political rationality."
Lenke says that Foucault uses the concept of government in terms of the older meaning of the term that adumbrates the close link between power relations and processes of subjectification:
"While the word government today possesses solely a political meaning, Foucault is able to show that up until well into the eighteenth century the problem of government was placed in a more general context. Government was a term discussed not only in political tracts, but also in philosophical, religious, medical and pedagogic texts. In addition to control/management by the state or the administration, 'government' also signfied problems of self-control, guidance for the family and forchildren, management of the household, directing the soul, etc. For this reason, Foucault defines government as conduct, or, more precisely, as 'the conduct of conduct' and thus as a term which ranges from 'governing the self' to 'governing others'."
So we can think in terms of different forms of governmentality, with neo-liberalism as a form that is different from the governmentality of classical liberalism.
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» governmentality and neo-liberalism from philosophy.com
Thomas Lemke says that Foucualt's concept of governmentality Foucault’s concept of governmentality has two advantages in theoretical terms for an analysis of the neo-liberalismthat we live within. First, the dividing line the liberals draw between th... [Read More]
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