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which we slowly learn to become certain sorts of people - indeed, to become
different people over time.
In his late work, Foucault coined the term
governmentality
to describe
this uncoordinated, multifaceted and sometimes contradictory process of
subjectification
. Because of its filiations with the more familiar word
gov-
ernment
, this (ungainly) first term usefully reminds us that, even when it
seems
not
to be the case, various actors, groups and institutions are actively
trying to govern our 'selves and souls' - even if not always consciously. I use
the word 'govern' here in the original etymological sense meaning to 'steer'
(or 'direct') and I use the word governmentality in a generic sense (rather
than Foucault's more specific, technical and historically specific sense). In
Mitchell Dean's expansive definition, it is 'any more or less calculated
...
activity, undertaken by a multiplicity of authorities and agencies
that
seeks to shape conduct by working through our desires, aspirations, interests
and beliefs' (Dean, 1999: 11).
There's nothing necessarily sinister about this, though nothing necessar-
ily innocent about it either. While Foucault was given to saying that all
subjects are the 'effects of social power', he did not mean that everyone
from science teachers to environmental lawyers are engaged in some con-
scious conspiracy against the masses. Instead, Foucault enjoined us to look
well
beyond
the 'obvious' institutions - for instance, schools or the family -
if we're to understand fully whose ideas, values and practices determine
the sort of people we become. Analytically, as Joe Hermer notes, this lib-
erates us from 'a narrow view
...
...
which posits a compliant “subject” that
can be commanded, repressed, restricted and prohibited' (Hermer, 2002: 6).
The capacity to shape and mould - including also the capacity to chal-
lenge those who currently have that capacity far more than others do -
is potentially widespread rather than concentrated in the state apparatus
same genre and representational community often differ and disagree con-
siderably, meaning that they disseminate a plurality of (often contradictory)
ideas, images, facts, contentions and so on. For these reasons, as I've already
said, ordinary people cannot be said to be 'subject' to any one producer of
knowledge or any one communicative genre.
And yet, notwithstanding the large number and variety of epistemic com-
munities extant in the world, I should note that it's frequently been argued
by left-wing and liberal critics that too many people are these days fed a
very narrow discursive and experiential diet. The attack on Fox News in
the United States by the political comedian Al Franken is one example of
this (Franken, 2003). Franken was hardly alone in arguing that Fox's news
reporting is highly biased: it tends to align itself with the values of cultural
and political conservatives, as if these are the values shared by all 'normal'
and 'right-thinking' Americans. This is one example of the argument that,
while power is irreducible to the words and deeds of just a few large insti-
tutions, it is nonetheless not shared equally among many. The so-called
