HOW TO BE GREAT (AT EVERYTHING)
Based on psychological life as enterprise: social practice and the government of neo-liberal interiority by Sam Binkley
Key author/concepts/quote
- Michel Foucault (1926-1984) – philosophical historian who was concerned with how history can help us to better our lives in today's world
- Subjectification – positions we naturally tend to move towards
- De-subjectification – breaking free from those subject positions
- Dispositif - the various institutional, physical and administrative mechanisms and knowledge structures which enhance and maintain the exercise of power within the social body
- Governmentality - the way in which a government guides us to the right direction
- Psy-function - a shifting field of knowledge and power, occupied by psychoanalysis, psychology, psychotherapy, psychiatry, social psychology, criminology and pharmacology
“Individuals are to become
entrepreneurs of themselves, shaping their own lives through the choices they
make among the forms of life available to them” - Nikolas Rose
--> Example: Kyle MacDonald, One red paperclip
• Traded the paperclip for a pen
• Traded box truck for recording contract
• Traded film role for a two-story farmhouse
1 – Dispositif
In the words of Michel Foucault the dispositif is "a thoroughly diverse
ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms,
regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements,
philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions – in short, the said as
much as the unsaid”
In other words exercising power, i.e. getting out and bettering ourselves, is influenced by factors such as sexuality, confession, psychology, liberalism and incarceration
As humans we have a natural tendency to move towards obstructing and fettering (synonym: restricting) positions of laziness, dependency, habit, social loyalties and have a fixed institutional mindset. It is our decision not to act independently which does not benefit society to the extent it should do.
The dispositif, therefore, encourages individuals to become free individuals through their own freedom ("shaping their own lives through the choices they make")
The neoliberal governmentality asks us to transform:
- How to be great (at EVERYTHING!)
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- How to stop worrying and start living
2 - Psy-function
In order for the government to "do things to people" and reinvent the technologies and opportunities of the general public, they attack the family model to get their way
--> Example: "Look at how historically the obligation of military service was imposed on people who clearly had no reason to want to do their military service: it is solely because the State put pressure on the family as a small community of father, mother, brothers and sisters...that the obligation of military service had real constraining force"
According to Foucault the family acts as an alleyway between one state of dispositif to another
--> Example: Commodities that are marketed as "fun for all the family"
• Changes children from state of laziness to a state of activeness
• Changes adults from state of dependency on caring for children to a state of having fun
3 - De-subjectification and state-phobia
Through an indirect set of processes in rolling-back the state, the neoliberal government aims to activate a vital, entrepreneurial and enterprising spirit among its subjects.
"Insentivization, responsibilization, privatization and marketization take the place of regulation, normification, standardization and collectivization"
3 - De-subjectification and state-phobia
Through an indirect set of processes in rolling-back the state, the neoliberal government aims to activate a vital, entrepreneurial and enterprising spirit among its subjects.
"Insentivization, responsibilization, privatization and marketization take the place of regulation, normification, standardization and collectivization"
State-phobia is "characterized by a paranoid and contemptuous regard for government and its interventionist policies" - a phobic believes that governments possess an indefatigable (synonym: relentless) power of expansion.
--> Example: The Ministries of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
• Belief that the government controls its people through means like the Thought Police
• People are living in a constant state of fear
• Solution? - fight back and make the individual an entrepreneur
Such phobia kicks us onto the path of de-subjectification, a denial of the government and denial of the dependence, docility, parasitism and inaction subjectifications that as we have already seen, are toxic in the pursuit towards making individuals entrepreneurs.
"In short, this is a vision of psychological life as enterprise, one centered on the individual pursuit of well-being as one of calculating self-interest, and a project of repudiation centered on the inherited dependencies of social government"
--> Example: Self-help books as mentioned above in point 1 - dispositif
4 - Coaching as neo-liberal dispositif (in other words - neoliberal psychology in practice)
Positive psychology - The science of happiness: "focus on the unlocking of the rich potentials for a fulfilling life of expressive well-being"
It is a new approach which is more beneficial compared to the previous therapeutic methods in which an individual in therapy was lulled into "reflective wallowing, rather than driving her or him to take responsibility for and action toward the realisation of her or his own happiness"
Emotional intelligence - Reflecting upon, controlling and apply one's emotions in order to achieve specific goals (usually job-centered) or managing one's emotions in regard to one's marriage and interpersonal life
Applying the theory of dispositif to this idea, the dispositif of life coaching disposes the individual to his or her own autonomy through the introduction of fixed and precise measures, benchmarks and goals - one is able to transform one's identity or way of life.
--> Example: "I choose to"
• "I choose to exercise consistently so that I have the energy and health and capacity to live the way I want"
• "I choose to wake up early every morning so that I have the capacity to be extra productive that day"
Conclusion
We are going to denounce our lazy ways (subjectification), we are going to be more pro-active (de-subjectification) and through the neoliberal psychological influence, we are going to make ourselves great again!
Bibliography
Binkley, S. (2011) 'Psychological life as enterprise: social practice and the government of neo-liberal interiority', History of the Human Sciences
Foucault, M. (1977) 'The Confession of the Flesh (Interview)'
--> Example: The Ministries of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
• Belief that the government controls its people through means like the Thought Police
• People are living in a constant state of fear
• Solution? - fight back and make the individual an entrepreneur
Such phobia kicks us onto the path of de-subjectification, a denial of the government and denial of the dependence, docility, parasitism and inaction subjectifications that as we have already seen, are toxic in the pursuit towards making individuals entrepreneurs.
"In short, this is a vision of psychological life as enterprise, one centered on the individual pursuit of well-being as one of calculating self-interest, and a project of repudiation centered on the inherited dependencies of social government"
--> Example: Self-help books as mentioned above in point 1 - dispositif
4 - Coaching as neo-liberal dispositif (in other words - neoliberal psychology in practice)
Positive psychology - The science of happiness: "focus on the unlocking of the rich potentials for a fulfilling life of expressive well-being"
It is a new approach which is more beneficial compared to the previous therapeutic methods in which an individual in therapy was lulled into "reflective wallowing, rather than driving her or him to take responsibility for and action toward the realisation of her or his own happiness"
Emotional intelligence - Reflecting upon, controlling and apply one's emotions in order to achieve specific goals (usually job-centered) or managing one's emotions in regard to one's marriage and interpersonal life
Applying the theory of dispositif to this idea, the dispositif of life coaching disposes the individual to his or her own autonomy through the introduction of fixed and precise measures, benchmarks and goals - one is able to transform one's identity or way of life.
--> Example: "I choose to"
• "I choose to exercise consistently so that I have the energy and health and capacity to live the way I want"
• "I choose to wake up early every morning so that I have the capacity to be extra productive that day"
Conclusion
We are going to denounce our lazy ways (subjectification), we are going to be more pro-active (de-subjectification) and through the neoliberal psychological influence, we are going to make ourselves great again!
"Individuals are to become entrepreneurs of themselves, shaping their own lives through the choices they make among the forms of life available to them" - Nikolas Rose
Bibliography
Binkley, S. (2011) 'Psychological life as enterprise: social practice and the government of neo-liberal interiority', History of the Human Sciences
Foucault, M. (1977) 'The Confession of the Flesh (Interview)'
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