Between 1975 and 1984, at a moment when political thought was going through a stagnant phase, the works of Michel Foucault came and got rid of the false concepts that were preventing it from moving forward. In a class from January 5th 1983, Foucault offers a summary of his strategy in two parts: Firstly, substitute a historical analysis of the techniques and procedures of governmentality for the history of dominations. Secondly, replace the theory of the subject and the history of subjectivity with the historical analysis of subjectivation and practices of the self. So, departing from a clear rejection of the empty universal formulas – law, sovereignty, general will, etc – that were monopolizing the theoretical attention given to politics going into a detailed analysis of governmental mechanisms and practices. Power not as a separate hypostasis but regarded as a set of relations. In the place of a transcendental subject, a punctual analysis of the processes of subjectivation.
Giorgio Agamben, ‘On Tiqqun.’
The thing about the intersection between Foucault and social movements is I guess the period that leads to the Italian 'Hot Autumn' of 1966 and the ‘Movement of 77’― 'Autonomia' breaks from the workerist-Marxists (or ‘Operaismo’) and organizes an antagonistic social force within the realm of 'leisure time'― a leisure time that is begun to be recognized as to be just as regulated as 'work time'. And so sociology's (Daniel Bell's) obsession-with / mourning-of the cultural 'schizophrenic' tension between the hedonism necessary for consumption and the asceticism necessary for work. But for all its advances, the autonome project was a failure (in the sense that it didn't accomplish its stated goals, in the sense that it didn't last forever). And in its failure it revealed (again) that the disciplined individual subject perceives herself as always observed, and this perception shapes the actual tactics of a social movement. For the activist, any daily moment could become a point of rupture: the activist/anarchist preoccupation with 'prefiguration', moral behavior, 'being the change you want to see', etc. The activist is the beautiful soul in her own biography (not the sovereign's biography, but the emergence of the 'mass biography')― a trail of documents (birth certificates, vaccinations, certifications, report cards, degrees, citizenship papers, work papers, utility bills) records one’s movements and choices and appears to confirm such biography― when in fact communism/anarchy/whatever are propositions to become 'terrible'. (‘Men will not turn into angels: why should they?’ G. Dauve) The point is that in fact no one is watching― or rather, no one is watching meaningfully― the meaning/enchantment of the sovereign’s (or god’s) vertical surveillance is destroyed for the barren horizontalism of democratic/self surveillance. No such meaning/god could be brought down to democratic surveillance. And so when the literature students read Foucault to become evermore textual, and the art students obsess about the 'process' of making art 'collectively', etc, they hide themselves within the lie of the mass biography. The biography remains still sovereign and divine― decidedly not the mass individual; the pervading ideology is that it is mass. Where is rupture/god?
Billy, thank you for the brilliant introduction to the Italian and French autonomism movement in the 1960/1970s. Unfamiliar with the historical moment, I did a quick browse through a few sites to understand the basics. I am very much interested in how the autonome project specifically failed to meet its stated goals (which goals?, since there seemed to be many) not just from a Foucaultian perspective (although you make a good case for bringing Foucault to the foreground). You are certainly suggesting that the activist qua disciplinary subject was involved in this failure, but I am interested also in how the power relations played out on the ground and if they differed based on region (France, Greece, Italy, Germany).
ReplyDeleteAlso, when we read Fanon, he will offer (as you likely know) a different understanding of violence, as a cleansing, unifying force. In The Wretched of the Earth, we have not non-violence but daggers as a means to liberation. The autonomism movement seemed to practice a “work-to-rule,” a certain form of protest. Does working to rule and other strategies blur the assumed boundary between fierce violence and passive non-violent action? Does it require a more rigorous notion of “non-violence” as an active or activated passivity? Does absenteeism and “slow working” only potentially work in concert with union protection? Would it be possible under contemporary neoliberal times? You can see that some of these questions are not just about violence per se, but about possibilities and failures.
I am also interested in the idea of a “mass biography.” Is this your term?It seems oxymoronic in that biographies are usually thought to be about a single person. It's a dazzling term. You seem to be suggesting that “mass biography” is a sort of coercive force that regulates and controls more fecund activism. What are the institutions or media (in the general sense) that ensure, perpetuate, and/or benefit from mass biography? Is Howard Zinn (RIP)’s Voices of a People’s History a version or manifestation of this mass biography?
These are just some quick responses to your beautifully written post. Thank you for this illuminating and provocative Foucaultian scene.