Michel Foucault presents those revolutionary sorts of analyses that are rich not only for their content but for their implications and novel methodological approach. Just beyond the surface of his works lies such philosophical wealth that one can be overwhelmed by considerations of which vein to mine first, and what to make of the elements therefrom extracted.

I’ve broken earth in several attractive sites this last week. Some, it seemed, hid their treasures too deep for the scope of this excavation. Some presented me with granite barriers which I do not yet have the tools to penetrate. At other sites, the earth gave way easily and I made great progress, only to be flooded out. Finally, at the fifteenth hour, I have struck something shiny.

I wish to use Foucault’s accounts of socialisation, categorisation, and discipline, as the background for my analysis of a modern entity I call the “identity package.” I will define this concept and show how it fits into and is suggested by Foucault’s works. Following this I will deal briefly with supposed problems with Foucault’s account (or lack of an account) of subjectivity.

Narrative gives coherence to a life. Particular episodes make sense in light of a uniting theme. The simplistic world view of the Middle Ages left people satisfied with fairly simple narratives. One knew their personal obligations and had a vague idea of how they fit into the systems of king and God.

For the sovereign and the elite, their special status was confirmed in ceremony and artistic representations.^[1] The masses were unrepresented. The lack of demand for empowerment or change may be partly due to the fact that, having no representations of themselves in culture [where “culture” means: those products of a society which will characterise it historically], they were denied the opportunity of seeing themselves as objects. Since the average person could not take themselves as an object, they had to rely on that Other who does have himself as object (the sovereign) to tell them who they are, and what their relationship is to him, since he is capable of knowing both at once, and thus of comparing.

The Classical age saw an increased interest by the ruling classes, and the emerging intellectual class,^[2] in the affairs of the productive classes. The realisation of the significance of microphysical power is parallelled by the establishment of the subject as the final authority on belief (Luther), the foundation of knowledge (Descartes), and the establisher of rights (Locke).

These ideas gave power to masses who had hitherto seen themselves as having none (hardly having “seen themselves” at all), and fuelled the Age of Revolutions. The Classical discovery of the individual led, by the Romantic period, to its exaltation.

The belief in individual power and rights created a demand not only for access to the privileges previously enjoyed only by the elite (such as say in the direction of society), but also for comparable narrative distinctiveness.

As the romantics idealised the life of peasants, and socialists proclaimed the rights of workers, common folk began to see their images in culture. Individual enshrinement remained the privilege of a few, but the opportunity to see at least one’s class validated by culture gave that much more content to one’s personal narrative. Membership in a distinctive group provides a unifying theme to the events of one’s life. Especially effective unifiers are social or economic categories, since these provide themes that explain the daily material life of a person. Membership in the category “proletariat” makes each day at work part of my plot rather than incidental to it.

On one hand, the classification of persons is an act of limiting and controlling. It assigns expectations and prejudices. It also makes one a target for specialised forms of manipulation.^[3] The act of classification has more poetic, but no less significant consequences. It glosses the differences between individuals and plays up their commonalities. This is can have a uniting effect and result in the development of communities within a particular category, but it can also pit certain groups against each other. A final limiting result is that the possibility of originality is ignored in the loaded question, “Which are you?”

On the other hand, that-which-I-am is a sought-after piece of knowledge. If there is an answer to the above question, then as soon as the answer is found, much more information becomes available to oneself about oneself. Thanks to the research of experts, it is possible for me to trace from a few symptoms (be they descriptions of material conditions, personality traits, or sexual habits) to a condition. If I know my condition, then I can discover from there all of the other symptoms which I had not yet noticed. Once labelled, I also have the privileges of being part of a community, of shifting responsibility for some things from myself to my underlying condition, and of having my mode of being legitimated.

The acceptance of a label often leads one to believe those things about oneself which are associated with this label. What is believed about oneself is expressed in behaviour, and becomes true. The more the authority of the labelling system is accepted, the more it will be validated, since increased authority leads to increased belief that the label in question consists of necessarily related traits. The conceptual framework which posits types behind each instance lends to the interpretation of individual actions as expressions of an underlying character.

Different fields of research create different categories. Economics and sociology create social classes. Medicine and psychology create illnesses. Psychology and astrology create personality types. Anthropology and political science make types of one’s own society.  As more fields create more categories, individuals may more sharply define themselves; identity packages come in more flavours. This trend of increasing crystallisation counters the development of solidarity in identified groups. Categories need not be imposed externally in order to undermine solidarity. The necessity of rationalization in the organising of forces means that, since categorisation is the natural consequence of rationalization, any group that tries to organise will tend to stratify or fragment in some manner or other. An example of a “group” which has splintered into myriad mutually-hostile factions, because of an obsession with defining itself, are the Marxists.

The permanence of the an established grid of power relations is furthered by the weakening of the ability of loci to divert the flow of power either through individual resistance (such as eccentricity or radical critique) or by consolidation of a group. Two ways in which this weakening has occurred are: through the establishment of age groups as competing demographics, and through the possibility of social mobility. Each of these is interesting in that, rather than splintering a group, they splinter selves.

It is true of Canadian politics that some bureaucrats have more power than most elected officials because of their entrenchment in the positions they’ve had years to learn how to manipulate. On the grid of power, they have mastered those energies for which they are conduits. Analogously, if one retains the same identity for long enough, she may become master of it. One who has mastered her own identity may make an object of it, making possible scrutiny and modification. If the differences between age groups are stressed enough, one will adopt a new identity every few years. Grand projects are harder to conceive of when one feels obliged to make his decisions in accordance with what is appropriate for one’s age. Social mobility gives one incentive to abandon his class rather than stand with it, and makes the 1968 radical student into the 1998 conservative businessperson.    

Foucault recognised the power of experts to make the truth. By creating the categories which are used to identify individuals, they have also in a sense created those individuals. Foucault’s analyses focus on the powers related to governance and the social sciences. A massive normalising force of the late twentieth century which he did not deal with is pop culture.           

The demand for identities has, under consumerism, turned into a consumer demand. Identities are now marketable. They are created according to commercial appeal, rather than being rationally “discovered”. Whereas early categories were set up to limit and control what was perceived as having already been there, modern trend-setters prepackage identities and introduce them to the public according to a schedule based on economic utility.

Consumer identities, such as the granola-hippie, the skater, the punk, the goth, the jock, the prep, etc., appeal to a person at a certain stage in their life. Certain packages are geared towards certain demographics, and define the aesthetic of the demographic at which they are aimed. One who has bought into certain aspects of a package is expected (and usually eager) to accept the whole thing.

That new identity packages are being continually introduced, or at least the old ones rotated, insures that no identified group will exist in significant numbers long enough to form a serious menace to established power relations.

The pop establishment seems to have caught on to the idea that one feels legitimated by seeing themselves in culture. Game shows and “reality T.V.” show average individuals from all walks of life enjoying a minute of fame as they celebrate the ideals of consumerism. It is implied not only that anyone has the opportunity to strike it rich or to be heard, but also that our roles, whatever they are merit pride. Each contestant in a game show describes themselves as happy in their job or their marriage. The marine stands next to the housewife and the professor on Wheel of Fortune. They are all equal before the wheel. Meanwhile, sitcoms show how people with ordinary lives can have adventures every week. This is part of the modern trend of exalting mediocrity. Ordinariness is held up as an ideal, discouraging would-be heroes and rebels from trying anything foolish. Or at least T.V. says, if you’re going to rebel, do it our way (the bad-ass cop, the irreverent rapper, etc.).

A problem that keeps coming up in regard to Foucault’s theories of power and of identity formation is the role of the subject. If we are perpetually ensnared in power relations, and if self-preservation and expansion drive institutions of power and knowledge with the necessity of evolution, what role do the wills of individuals play?

First of all, without getting too far into it, I would like to blurt my opinion that there is nothing necessary about the course of evolution at all. It is, in fact, chaos at its finest. That said, I believe the problem of subjectivity in Foucault’s works is only a reflection of the larger determinism/free will difficulty that many of his readers were struggling with before encountering him.

Foucault does say that the individual, “is a product of a relation of powers exercised over bodies, multiplicities, desires, forces.”^[4] But here I believe he is using “individual” to denote the particular form that subjectivity generally takes in our age. The liberal humanist conceptual framework which underlies the institutions and culture of contemporary society universally supposes that the autonomous, rights-bearing individual exists essentially in all humans. His point is that the definition of an “individual” is not the description of human essence, but of a historically contingent way of seeing oneself.

That one cannot help but see themselves in a certain way does not entail that they have no power to refashion themselves. It may be true that one is defined by the power relations in which they are situated, but who say you can’t move to a new point on the grid? This is precisely what we do when we educate ourselves, start or change jobs, move, or dump our dates.

But if I am defined by my relations then who is the “I” that was once a student in Saskatoon and is now a hairstylist in Marseilles? If I am free to redefine my relations, but I am a product of my relations, does that mean that I am free not to be me?

I feel that these questions are not problems just for Foucault, but for metaphysics in general. At any rate, the common sense view that one is fashioned by her environment, but is also perfectly capable of refashioning her self or her environment, does not seem threatened by Foucault’s genealogies. If he avoids speaking of subjectivity it is because it would be unsuited to the material account that he commits himself to. 

It seems to be implied by the idea that social control has moved from the body to the soul that there is some sort of “soul” to control. While this thing may not exist prior to socialisation, its development needn’t be strictly determined. The fact that people can be poorly socialised or simply antisocial should attest to this. Of course, once “antisocial” is established as a category, perhaps a treatable medical condition, it could be said that it is itself now part of this system.

The process of categorisation seems to have an assimilative function. If you can’t beat them, label them. If it fits into our picture, it is ours. Put this way, it seems like we are imprisoned in a menacing matrix of metaphysical manipulation. However, as I have shown to be the case in pop culture, we are complicit in our captivity, in fact, all too willing to participate.