Post on 22-Mar-2023
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John Paul Sartre was one of the first philosophers to argue that human beings objectify
themselves when confronted with the gaze of others, and that in doing so they lose their
inherent freedom. Since he put forward this thought, others have attempted to understand
what Sartre meant by these musings, where they originated from and how they affect
individuals. Through the evaluation of Michel Foucault’s theory of ‘governmentality’, this
research project will attempt to identify and investigate the outside influences that shape
individuals, and the techniques that they use to influence them. The research project will
then focus on how it is possible to exist outside of these influences and make inherently free
decisions. The psycho-analytical theories of George Cockcroft are examples of ways to live
inherently free, chiefly in his use of chance to make life decisions. The Abstract Expressionist
movement of the 1950s will also be used as an example of individuals attempting to express
freedom through their practises and lifestyle. Foucault’s theory of governmentality examines
the ‘Panopticon’ as a technique used to manipulate and control individuals for the benefit of
a governmentality state, as opposed to the individuals themselves. The benefit of the state
emerges to be why these influences are put into practice and why, in Foucault’s view,
government was created in the first place. By analysing how the oppressions that were
created by these kinds of techniques were inflicted on individuals, it can then be examined
as to whether Foucualt’s theory can be conquered and if it is possible to make free decisions
so that we might shape our own destiny.
Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality is the study of how to govern society and the
art of government. It is essentially the idea of ‘a reasoned state that is governed according to
rational principles which are intrinsic to it and which cannot be derived solely from natural
or divine laws’ (Burchell, 1991). Foucault’s concept does not specifically evaluate the political
aspects of a government but also includes its religious, spiritual and educational principles.
Foucault believes that the idea that we need to govern ourselves begun around the 16th
Century. This was partly due to society’s need to establish the way it was to be spiritually
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ruled, in order that it may achieve eternal salvation for its population. It was also, in part,
due to a collective subconscious reaction to larger and more varied populations that needed
to be managed (Miller, 1993).
Foucault analyses two separate theories of government that existed within societies during
this particular period. The first was a secular-based theory in which the role of a statesman
was to control conflict between its populations, and to protect its territories from outside
threats. Simultaneously, theologians treated the role of government as a pastoral leader that
was responsible for the salvation of its population’s souls. Foucault believes it was in the 16th
century that these two theories of government began to merge together to form one
universal form that’s primary concern was ‘monitoring the outward and inward life of each
and every citizen’ (Miller, 1993). This new form of government is labelled by Foucault as an
‘administrative society’ or ‘police state’. Through innovations in political science and
educational methods, an administrative society or police state could control the
development of individuals to ensure the continuing strength and profit to the state.
Foucault reasons that it was in the 18th and 19th centuries that a governmental state
emerged from the system of an administrative society. To Foucault, a governmental state
had an unparalleled power over individuals in determining their fate. It worked in a
machine-like fashion, purposefully designed to ‘incarcerate solitary human beings’ instincts
for freedom’ (Miller, 1993). In an article published in The Threepenny Review, Foucault
described this form of government as a system that ‘reaches the very grain of the individual,
touches his body, intrudes on his gestures, his attitudes, his discourse, his apprenticeship, his
daily life’ (Dillon, 1979). The governmental state’s ability to intrude on every aspect of an
individual made it possible to alter an individuals’ very self. By doing this, the system denies
an individual the freedom to choose their own destiny or make decisions of their own free
will.
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In Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, he outlines how a
governmental state achieved this level of control over individuals, focusing on the 18th
century feudal system of justice, created by Jeremy Bentham, known as the Panopticon.
Foucault uses this system of justice to illustrate the tools that his concept of governmentality
uses to purposely construct the self of individuals and to what ends. He first begins by
describing Bentham’s Panopticon in its architectural sense;
‘at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is
pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the
peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width
of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the
windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the
cell from one end to the other’ (Foucault, 1975).
The Panopticon was designed by Bentham as a prison, however to Foucault it was an
architectural figure that represented a new way of organising social relations. He labelled
this new way of organising social relations as a ‘disciplinary power’ that functioned as a
regime to produce ‘docile bodies’ (McNay, 1994). These ‘docile bodies’ produced by the
regime would provide capitalist-based societies, that operated under Foucault’s
governmentality concept, with a productive, submissive and trained source of labour
(McNay, 1994). Capitalist-based societies’ would then in turn use this source of labour ‘so
that the greatest quantity of wealth is produced, that the people are provided with sufficient
means of subsistence, that the population is able to multiply’ (Burchell, 1991).
The way in which a Panopticon would produce these ‘docile bodies’ is through a ‘panoptic
mechanism’ that ‘arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly and to
recognize immediately’ (Foucault, 1975). This ‘panoptic mechanism’ of the Panopticon could
observe an individual at all times within the parameters of the building. When an individual
is inside the Panopticon ‘the arrangement of his room, opposite the central tower, imposes
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on him an axial visibility; but the divisions of the ring, those separated cells, imply a lateral
invisibility. And this invisibility is a guarantee of order’ (Foucault, 1975). This form of
surveillance could permanently operate, even without an authority figure observing
individuals from the central tower of the structure. The sight of the central tower is enough
to inflict doubt on the individual as to whether or not they are being observed, meaning the
individual feels as if they are constantly under observation. This type of observation relied
on being unverifiable; the individual had to have the feeling of doubt about whether they
were being observed but also had be certain there was a possibility they could be being
observed. This also encompasses a notion of constant judgement and assessment of the
individual’s behaviour. By setting a standard of ‘normalised’ behaviour, control could be
regulated from judging an individual’s actions as to whether they cohere with the
standardised ‘normal’ behaviour. The ‘automatic functioning of power’ of the Panopticon
came from this ‘permanent visibility’ of the central tower that was inflicted on the inmates
(Foucault, 1975).
This form of surveillance ensures the order of the prison inmates, without the use of force
by the authority figures. Foucault states that this system designed to produce compliant
prisoners is the same system that governmentality regimes use to create submissive and
productive sources of labour. In the same way that if an inmate is being constantly observed
there is no danger of an escape, if a worker is under constant observation ‘ there are no
disorders, no theft, no coalitions, none of those distractions that slow down the rate of
work, make it less perfect or cause accidents’ (Foucault, 1975). If a worker also can also be
constantly judged and assessed, their development can be monitored to ‘distinguish laziness
and stubbornness from incurable imbecility’ (Foucault, 1975). Governmentality therefore
achieves its end of ensuring the ‘greatest quantity of wealth is produced, that the people are
provided with sufficient means of subsistence, that the population is able to multiply’ by
manipulating the consciousness of individuals so as to transform them into ‘docile bodies’
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(Foucault, 1975). The individual’s inherent freedom is denied to them and their self is
constructed to the benefit of outside powers, of which they have no control over.
There are possible ways in which one can break free from the influences of these outside
powers which Foucault believes constructs us, although it may seem impossible, as Foucault
describes, due to it being a ‘form of power [that] cannot be exercised without knowing the
inside of people’s minds, without exploring their souls, without making them reveal their
innermost secrets. It implies a knowledge of the conscience and an ability to direct it’
(Foucault, 1982). George Cockcroft is a psychologist who wrote the cult novel ‘The Dice Man’
in 1971 and experimented with chance in his psychological practise. Cockcroft’s theories,
that come from this practise and influenced his novel, coincide with Foucault’s concept of
governmentality. However, Cockcroft tries to realise a solution to outside powers
constructing the self by the use of chance to bring freedom to an individual. In Cockcroft’s
novel, the protagonist submits all his life decisions to chance by creating numbered lists of
choices and letting a die decide his actions. He also experimented with the use of this
technique on his patients and in his own life. In an interview with Cockcroft he stated that
‘today the machines have been planted inside us, planted there every day by
the corporate media who’s every emission is to spread the values of
consumerism and a society in perpetual war. The only way these internal
machines can be destroyed is within each individual. Our mental structures are
enslaved to a world view that can only lead to personal and societal
unhappiness’ (Cockcroft, 2013).
From this we see Cockcroft believes society manipulates our mental structures, and it works
in a machine-like way, similar to the ‘panoptic mechanism’ of surveillance that Foucault
describes in Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison.
Cockcroft proposes in this interview that the only way to combat the external forces in
society that seek to alter us ‘is within each individual’ (Cockcroft, 2013). He hypothesises
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‘diceliving’ as a potential way an individual can experience freedom that is beyond the reach
of society’s self-altering mechanisms. The act of diceliving’ involves ‘listing options that are
different from our habitual way of doing things’ and through this ‘we begin to realize the
degree to which we are enslaved to patterns of behaviour that are repetitious paths to
boredom and non-fulfilment’ (Cockcroft, 2013). Our ‘habitual way of doing things’ that
Cockcroft describes, could be compared to the ‘normalised’ behaviour that is set by
governmentality regimes to separate out individuals who do not have the capacity to
conform to the set beneficial standards of behaviour (Cockcroft, 2013). We can be freed
from the ‘patterns of behaviour’ that we are enslaved to by accepting all the responsibility of
our decisions to chance (Cockcroft, 2013). By doing this, a decision cannot be traced back
psycho-analytically to a conscious choice. It instead makes it an unconscious choice that is
protected from the manipulation of an outside influence, and brings freedom to the
individual’s decision.
However, Cockcroft’s solution of letting chance control an individual’s life-decisions poses
problems when practiced in real life. To submit wholly to diceliving, Cockcroft states that the
individual must become the ‘random man’, an individual who obeys no pattern of behaviour
whatsoever, meaning that the individual must be willing to do all options that it is possible
to list. The individual must be just as willing to give up all their possessions as much as they
are willing to murder someone. If chance deems they make that decision, then they must do
it if they desire to be completely free from manipulative influences.
We could ask how it is possible to make free decisions in this way, without the chance of
having to murder a person or commit other negative actions. Certain artists have attempted
to address this through practices and their lifestyle. Abstract Expressionism was an artistic
movement in American painting that was a response to society’s self-altering mechanisms.
The movement positioned itself around artists whose work not only operated outside of the
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established traditional forms of painting, but also around individuals who operated outside
the norms of society. Robert Motherwell, a significant figure in the movement, stated that
‘the popular association with art is its remoteness from the symbols and values of the
majority of men’ (Motherwell, 1944). From this we see Motherwell recognises the artist as a
figure who can distance themselves from the normalised values of society. In modern
society, particularly in America, the normalised values which artists strived to distance
themselves were, what Cockcroft describes as, ‘the corporate media whose every emission is
to spread the values of consumerism and a society in perpetual war’ (Cockcroft, 2013).The
artist was an individual that rejected society’s attempt to make them into a ‘docile body’
that the corporate media desired them to be (McNay, 1994).
William C. Seitz describes the figure of an artist as someone
‘who lives in a world of ideas vastly different from that of the businessman, the
merchant, or the worker…Society connotes to him not a social organism of
which he is part, but a huge middle-class world of property, manufacturing,
buying and selling – a society to which he is alien’ (Seitz, 1983).
The workers, merchants and businessmen he describes have been altered by the
standardising of what is ‘normal’ behaviour in a consumer driven society. This ‘normal’
behaviour in this circumstance is to undertake a profession that is based around
consumerism, which in turn profits the wealth of society. Artists become singled out in this
situation by the panoptic mechanism of identifying an individual’s behaviour that is not
‘normal’, so that they may be isolated from the majority. An artistic profession does not
contribute to, what Foucault describes as, the aim of society which is to ensure ‘the greatest
quantity of wealth is produced, that the people are provided with sufficient means of
subsistence, that the population is able to multiply’ (Burchell, 1991). Cockcroft suggests that
‘the only way these internal machines can be destroyed is within each individual’ and
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instead of using chance, Abstract Expressionist artists sought it through their individual
practices.
By functioning in isolation outside of the panoptic gaze of society, Abstract Expressionist
artists discovered a freedom in the actions of their practices. It could be said that they
metaphorically escaped from the surveillance of Bentham’s prison central tower and no
longer had to behave in the manner of a prison inmate. Willem De Kooning describes that
20th Century artists ‘were relatively freer than ever before because of that indifference’
(Kooning, 1951). The indifference described by De Kooning being to that of society, meant
their actions were freed from outside powers because what they did was not profit driven
like the ‘docile bodies’ of the worker, businessman or merchant (McNay, 1994). Their actions
were instead unconsciously driven and in turn, inherently free. Mark Rothko also describes
this indifference society felt towards the artist as ‘difficult for the artist to accept’, but that
the hostility could lead to ‘true liberation… both the sense of community and of security
depend on the familiar. Free of them, transcendental experiences become possible’ (Rothko,
2006). Freedom and thoughts beyond the common-place come from being alienated by
society, but they also come from the abandoning of the familiar. Cockcroft describes the
‘familiar’ as ‘patterns of behaviour that are repetitious paths to boredom and non-fulfilment’
of which we are ‘enslaved’ to (Cockcroft, 2013).It is clear then that both Cockcroft and
Rothko believe these patterns of behaviour exist, and to become alienated from them gives
an individual the opportunity to construct their own self rather than have it manipulated to
benefit an outside power.
Through the progression of this research project, it becomes clear from Foucault’s theory of
governmentality that there are systems in place to alter our own selves and that they make
us have almost no control of our own destiny. This control over an individual’s development
is so effective that the individual is virtually unaware that is happening. Its mechanical-like
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process of working also means that, like the surveillance system of the Panopticon, it
requires no force to function and is in a constant state of operation. Foucault offers no
alternative to how an individual might make decisions free of manipulation, but from his
definition and analysis it becomes possible to explore ways in which to do so. Cockcroft’s
theory of making unconscious decisions through the use of chance determining an
individual’s actions also recognises the effects of outside powers on the self, but the
practical sense of diceliving is not something to be easily exercised by an individual. Abstract
Expressionist artists offer the solution to escaping manipulation from their particular outside
influences by simply existing as an artist. By existing as an artist, an individual alienates
themselves from the consumer society they inhabit and escapes the influential gaze of
governmentality. Any action an individual does is inherently free because by rejecting the
normalised behaviour set by society, the panoptic mechanism excludes them. The
mechanism distinguishes those who cannot work towards the profit of society from those
who can, but by doing so the individual is left to his own devices and is free to make their
own decisions.
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Bibliography
Burchell, G., 1991. The Foucault Effect, Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Cockcroft, G., 2013. Interview with George Cockcroft (aka Luke Rhinehart) [Interview] (6 May
2013).
Dillon, M., 1979. Conversation with Michel Foucault. The Threepenny Review, Issue 1, pp. 4-
5.
Foucault, M., 1975. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House.
Foucault, M., 1982. The Subject and Power. 8th ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Kooning, W. D., 1951. What Abstract Art Means To Me. The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin,
Volume 18, pp. 5-6.
McNay, L., 1994. Foucault, A Critical Introduction. s.l.:Polity Press.
Miller, J., 1993. The Passion of Micheal Foucault. London: HarperCollins.
Motherwell, R., 1944. The Modern Painter's World. In: D. Ashton, ed. The Writings of Robert
Motherwell. New York: University of California Press, pp. 9-14.
Rothko, M., 2006. The Romantics Were Promoted. In: Writings on Art. New York: Yale
Univeristy Press, pp. 58-59.
Seitz, W. C., 1983. Abstract Expressionist Painting in America. Washington: Harvard
University Press.