The Friendly Mind
Table of Contents:
Introduction 3
Chapter 1: Is This The FriEND? 6
Section 1: Friendly Faderman 6
Section 2: The Centrality of Governmentality 14
Section 3: The History of Sexuality 17
Section 4: A History of Friendship 21
Section 5: Neoliberal Governmentality 24
Chapter 2: Games 29
Section 1: Games of Truth and Power 29
Section 2: Barthes’ Conception of Myth 34
Section 3: What’s Good About Games? 43
Chapter 3: Close Friendship as a Space Outside of Sexuality and Neoliberalism and
the Use of Myth to Promote Close Friendship 48
Section 1: Close Friendships as a Space Outside of Sexuality and Neoliberalism 48
Section 2: Making Myths of Friendship 50
Conclusion 58
Bibliography 59
Introduction
Tove Jansson was a painter and the author of the Moomins . She lived in Finland during a 1 time in which love between women was condemned. This was inconvenient for Jansson since she had a female lover, Tuulikki Pietilä. The pair lived in separate houses at each end of a terrace of houses. To visit each other they would crawl through the void in the roof of the terrace.
Jansson began writing the first Moomin book in 1939, wanting to write a book beginning with “once upon a time” in order to cheer herself up. She felt sad for good reason: the Nazi’s had just invaded Finland. In a preface written for the book’s republication in 1991 she
described the story as “my very first happy ending!” (Jansson 2012)
The Moomins grew, becoming emblematic of both a petit bourgeois and bohemian family. Whilst such depictions are generally positioned within the context of other such families, the Moomins inhabited a valley with far more biodiversity. There were very ambiguous family structures, like that of the Mymbles, very formal and stuffy family structures, like those of the many Hemulins, and hosts of historyless wanderers. The distinction between various family groups and individuals in Moomin Valley was not very distinct, with many characters either permanently or temporarily joining the Moomin family in one way or another.
This allowed the Moomin’s lived relationships to effervesce over their neatly taxonomized family unit and hence redefine the limits of their family. This was done through taking various new and old friends into their family for indeterminate lengths of time and hence becoming extremely interlaced with the other relational structures of their valley.
Of particular interest is the relation of the two children of the Moomin family, Moomin and Snorkmaiden. Most of the Moomin characters have origin stories that completely contradict themselves at one point or another in the overve; Moomin and Snorkmaiden seem to oscillate between being lovers and siblings. Perhaps it is telling that we struggle to imagine their relationship as being anything outside of these two modes of relating. I think Gandhi’s (2001) inability to imagine the relationship of a couple who choose not to engage in sex as modeling anything other than the relationship of brother and sister is emblematic of a cultural
1 The Moomins are a series of children's books centering around a family of hippo like creatures who live in Moomin Valley with various other groups of characters. The Moomin family structure is rather amorphous, with various other characters being temporarily included within the Moomin family unit
trend of whom’s midsts we are still well within.
There have been times when other forms of very close relationships have been
imaginable, and even endorsed. For example, there were times when certain forms of loves between women were accepted, in which Jansson and Pietilä’s clambering through the attic to visit each other would have been completely unnecessary. In the 18th century, for
example, the term “romantic friendship” was used to describe a love between women based around the desire to build a shared life together. Such friendships were often socially
endorsed.
My copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Capote 2011) has one review on the front cover. It reads “the most romantic story ever written” (James 1999). This seems an incredibly
insightful comment . A story of the transient friendship of a man (the narrator) and a woman 2 (Holly) with the expression of no sexual desire or conformation to the usual progression through the stages of living together, but with all the other trappings of romance (of the affections, gifts, very cute moments together), is considered the most romantic story ever written.
As Joe, a barman who had much the same feeling towards Holly as the narrator, puts it: ““Sure I loved her. But it wasn’t that I wanted to touch her.” And he added, without smiling: “Not that I don’t think about that side of things… I swear it never crossed my mind about Holly. You can love someone without it being like that.”” (Capote 2011, p.9)
We might think of a reclamation of the term “romantic”, and perhaps a rebirthing of the term “romantic friendship”. We wouldn’t want to recreate verbatim the term’s 18th century meaning, since romantic friendships from that era had their own flaws. However, there’s a lot that we can learn from such relationships. Imagine if we could all readily conceptualise our own experiences in terms of the romance of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, or that we could overflow the family taxonomies like the Moomins.
The topic of my essay the question of how such a notion as romantic friendship can be repurposed for a modern context: of how contemporary modes of such relationships might be induced to proliferate and how they might provide spaces for creativities outside of neoliberalism and sexuality.
My essay shall be in three chapters. The first gives a definition of a form of relationship which I want to promote, and looks at historical examples of such relationships with some help from Faderman (1981). It then discusses the problems to which I want to provide partial
2 Unfortunately it is not. The reviewer has just (mis)read the story along the lines of one of those awful Doctor Zhivago snowshoeing through the wilderness to reach a woman tropes.
solutions, these are neoliberalism and sexuality, which I shall look at through Foucault (2008). I shall also discuss how these problems lead to the demise of such forms of relationship as romantic friendship.
In chapter two I shall develop the Foucauldian notion of games of power to give an account of what is problematic about neoliberalism and sexuality. I shall also constitute Barthes’ concept of myth as a form of game of power in order to show that games of power are surface interactions which can be changed through such surface interactions, and also because it will be a useful tool in chapter three.
In chapter three I shall develop a little further why neoliberalism and sexuality are problems. I shall then develop a way to promote close friendship in answer to these problems through the naturalisation of close friendships in stories.
Chapter 1: Is This The Fri
END?
Section 1: Friendly Faderman
In this subsection I want to look at some properties of romantic friendship to get a sense of what close friendships used to be. I also want to look at the unimportance of whether or not there were sexual encounters in close friendships. I shall put forward a definition of close friendships which I shall use throughout this essay. To do this I shall look to examples of close friendships in Faderman’s Surpassing the Love of Men (Faderman 1981), which gives a history of close female homosocial and, after the construction of lesbianism, homosexual relationships.
Faderman begun writing her book as a study of what she thought were Emily Dickinson’s love poems and letters to another woman. However, she could not find a need for secrecy or trace of guilt which you might expect from lesbian relationships of the nineteenth century. Whilst some have considered the expressions of love in such letters as merely the result of the period’s affection for excessively flowery expressions of sentiment, Faderman was lead to the conclusion that this relationship “was not simply an example of Victorian rhetoric, but neither was this a lesbian relationship as such relationships have been lived through much of our century” (Faderman 1981, p.15). On further investigation she found there were common terms to “describe love relationships between women, such as “the love of kindred spirits,” “Boston marriage,” and “sentimental friends.”” (Faderman 1981, p.16) She favours the 18th century term “romantic friendship” to describe such relationships, and I shall follow this usage. These terms describe friendships which “were love relationships in every sense except perhaps the genital” (Faderman 1981, p.16).
I primarily want to use Faderman's book to illustrate what constituted a close friendship. I shall offer a definition of close friendship and then look at some close friendships outlined by Faderman to illustrate and motivate this definition. Before offering this definition I shall motivate it by briefly discussing shared lives in contemporary romantic relationships. People in standard romantic relationships pursue often a shared life together, aiming 3 perhaps to live together, to share many important aspects of their lives, to raise a family together... The goals of those in such relationships tend to morph into one, such that for
3 By this term I am referring to almost all romantic relationships. I am not just referring to heterosexual monogamous relationships, but also polyamorous and LGBT relationships which fall into the structure to a shared life that I shall outline later.
many purposes it makes more sense to regard the couple as a couple rather than as individuals. For example, many economic metrics consider household income rather than individual income.
These shared lives are based around some incredibly telic structures. You often hear people frustrated that their romantic relationship isn’t going anywhere, or even that
relationships which have gone on for over a certain number of years without a proposal of marriage are wasting someone’s time. They seem to rely on a variation on the theme of following a progression through such consummations as dates, sex, romantic holidays, meeting parents, living together, buying a house, marrying, having children, and raising children. Moving away from the telicism of these models is something that I think that a reinvention of close friendships can offer.
I want to define a close friendship as a relationship which pursues a shared life together such that the demarcation between the individuals in such relationships is porous, but which is not structured by the progression through a series of road marks as standard romantic relationships are.
I want to add another condition to my definition of close friendships, and shall look back at standard contemporary romantic relationships to do this. Once such romantic relationships have progressed to a stage where they are very committed, the desires, goals, and
aspirations of those involved in such relationships are often subordinate to the well being of the relationship. We can see this in the linguistic turn which often seems to occur of moving from those in romantic relationships asking “what’s the best thing for me” to “what’s the best thing for us”.
For instance, consider the example of someone in a contemporary romantic relationship who is offered a promotion which entails them needing to move far away. In a fairly
undeveloped relationship where the lovers haven’t known each other for all that long and are yet to progress through many of the roadmarks of such relationships it is likely that such a person would make their decision based on considerations of whether they would benefit more from being near by their lover or from taking the promotion. However, for those in more developed romantic relations who have passed through more of the roadmarks together, the consideration of someone offered such a promotion are likely to be more along the lines of what is best for the relationship, whether it will be harmed if they don’t take the promotion and blame their partner for a loss of opportunities or whether it will be adversely affected by the relocation. They would also consider whether the fulfilment of their personal goals, desires,
and aspirations will get in the way of the goals, desires, and aspirations of relationship, and whether taking the promotion will obstruct the relationship from progressing through its road marks.
I shall add to my definition of close friendship that the goals, aspirations and desires of the individuals involved in such a friendship are to some extent subservient to the goals,
aspirations, and desires of the relationship. By this I do not mean simply that one weighs one’s desires for the continuation and progression of the relationship that one is in against one’s desires for other things. Instead I mean that unless the relationship should become untenable then to an extent one’s goals, aspirations and desires are structured around a 4 concern for the relationship without analysing the worth of the relationship in terms of satisfying one’s goals, values and desires. Whilst the individuals goals, aspirations and desires might be subordinate to those of the relationship, neither individual’s goals and desires should be subordinate to those of the other individual.
An example of such a relationship in a fictional close friendship is the relationship between George and Lennie in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1993). They have a collective ambition to own a ranch together, but after Lennie’s death this ambition no longer makes sense to George. The ambition to own a ranch is not an ambition which he could fulfil with any person. Instead, it is an ambition which only makes sense in the context of George and Lennie’s relationship, an ambition of the relationship not an ambition of either of the individuals.
I offer my final definition of a close friendship as a relationship which pursues a shared life together such that demarcation between the individuals in such relationships is porous, but which are not structured by the progression through a series of road marks as standard romantic relationships are. They are relationships in which the goals, aspirations, and desires of those involved are to some extent subordinate to those of the relationship, although not subordinate to those of either individual.
I shall now move on to discussing some historical examples of close friendships. I want to do this both to give some examples of close friendships and to show that my definition refers to relationships that could exist. The term close friendships implicitly indicates sexless relationships. I do not want to exclude sex from close friendships. For example, I see no reason why a contemporary romantic relationship involving sex couldn’t be restructured to be a close friendship which also involves sex.
Foucault (1997) discusses friendships in gay relationships in the late 1970s and early
1980s. He claims that the readily available gay sex of the time lead to many gay
relationships only developing after sex. This, he claims, offered a mode of friendship that was not taxonomised by standard romantic structures.
I would like to emphasize that, whilst possible in close friendships, sex is nonetheless an unimportant feature in them. Thus I shall argue that sex need not be a part of the pursuit of shared lives together. I guess that in a sense this is an obvious point, but it also seems like a good idea to be reminded of it.
Firstly I shall give an example of a close friendship which meets my definition.
“The great "success story" of romantic friendship is that of Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler, "the Ladies of Llangollen."” (Faderman 1981, p.120) They were two upper class Irish woman who attempted to elope in 1778 but were foiled by their families. After a second attempt their families recognised that nothing would change their minds and let them be. Eventually they were given a small stipend, and Ponsonby a pension from the king. “Their relationship was considered not only socially permissible but even desirable.” (Faderman 1981, p.122). This was largely because the relationship was assumed to exclude genital intercourse. Whilst it was known that the women shared every part of their lives and even the same bed, the possibility of sex between the two women was not conceived of. Many 18th century women envied the relationship as they saw it as unbothered by what they would have considered the “duty and burden of sex” (Faderman 1981, p.121). Many men admired them because they imagined the ladies’ friendship to be “too spiritually pure to be sullied by the physical.” (Faderman 1981, p.122) They befriended many notable people, including the Duke of Wellington (by no means a progressive), Wordsworth, and Burke. Even the local papers supported them, calling them ““the Irish Ladies who have settled [here] in so romantic a manner”” (Faderman 1981, p.121).
This relationship seems rather subversive of the norms of the time. One might imagine that a subversion of the marital norms of the time might go hand in hand with other political radicalisms, but this was not the case. The Ladies of Llangollen complained that the ladies of Paris were ““so indecently naked that the sight is disgusting to the last degree”” (Faderman 1981, p.123), and the women dismissed a servant of theirs who was pregnant without a husband. Probably their relationship was non-sexual; “they were probably happy to be oblivious to their genitals.” (Faderman 1981, p.123).
We can see that this relationship is an example of building a shared life together with a porous boundary between the individualities of the two ladies. We can also see it not relying on the standard progression through roadmarks of standard romantic relationships. There are roadmarks in their relationship; becoming friends, running away together, getting familial
acceptance, obtaining a house, gaining social acceptance. However, these are somewhat unique to this relationship, and can not be seen as objectives from the beginning of the relationship, but only as road marks in retrospect. I am not aware of any evidence of whether or not the Ladies of Llangollen regarded their individual aims, desires and aspirations as to an extent subordinate to the well being of their relationship, but it seems reasonable to assume that this may have been the case. Thus this is an example of a close friendship as I have defined it, giving the added bonus of showing that my definition is not unreasonably idealistic.
Some romantic friendships were more politically radical, like the friendship of Edith Simcox and Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot). Evans “admired her [Simcox] as an intellect and
cheered her on to achievements” (Faderman 1981, p.163), including radical politics like feminism and trade union activism.
The viewpoint of the present age as seeing sexual romances as the set pieces of people's lives leads to errant conclusions, like that the non-genital nature of many romantic
friendships resulted due to the fact that “women in centuries other than ours often
internalised the view of females as having little sexual passion” (Faderman 1981, p.16). Or perhaps for romantic friendships that strongly resist the urge to classify as lesbian or proto-lesbian we might conclude that “male "muscle values" and "rational values" were fostered to the exclusion of women. The converse of this situation was, of course, that mother and daughter, and female and female, also formed stronger bonds largely based on "heart values," since male-directed society permitted them little else.” (Faderman 1981, p.158) This is not Faderman’s point (she always caveats such phrases as I have quoted 5 above), and it is not a point that we should draw from her.
5 The belief in the mystical difference between men and women was taken to some impressively bizarre extremes. “For example, in 1878 there was a serious debate, which lasted over several issues among correspondents in the British Medical Journal, about whether or not ham would be spoiled if cured by a menstruating woman. Several of the doctors who joined the debate agreed that it would.” (Faderman 1981, 158)
There was an hermeneutical injustice in the non-conceptualisation of female homosex. 6 However, today there is something of a hermeneutical injustice stemming from the excessive taxonomisation of sex, and with it an inability to understand possible non-sexual
6 I take the term from Fricker (2007), who defines it as the injustice done to someone for whom a significant part of their experiences are non-conceptualised due to systematic prejudice. In her examples of the term she touches on a deeper meaning of the term as she shows that this non-conceptualisation may lead to an inability to understand and come to terms with said
experiences. She gives the example of women who became able to understand and articulate what was wrong with their experiences of sexual harassment through the development of the concept of sexual harassment. This is the meaning of the term “hermeneutical injustice” that I am using.
In this case the hermeneutical injustice of the non-conceptualisation of female homosex is thought of as constituting women from these eras as unable to engage in homoerotics, or at least a large portion of homoerotics. This is due to the inability to identify these experiences because of the
modes of relationships. This injustice stemming from the excessive taxonomisation of sexuality is something that I think friendships can solve. Something important to draw from Faderman is the lack of important difference between genital and non-genital romantic friendships, and by extension, the potential for the unimportance of having or not having sexual encounters in close friendships. I shall now give an example of this.
Faderman discusses some romantic friendships which involved genital intercourse. For example, the boarding school mistresses Woods and Pirie of whom a pupil reported to her grandmother that “in the middle of the night Miss Woods would… climb on top of Miss Pirie, and shake the bed. Occasionally [that pupil] would overhear conversations between them:
“Oh, you are in the wrong place,” Miss Pirie said one night. “I know,” Miss Woods answered.
“Why are you doing it then?” “For fun,” Miss Woods said.
Another night Miss Pirie implored Miss Woods, “Oh, do it, darling.”” (Faderman 1981, p.148) The relationship of Pirie and Woods (except for perhaps this genital aspect) was typical of romantic friends of the time. This can be seen by comparing on the one hand the following excerpt from a letter Pirie sent to a female friend after an argument with Woods to an interaction from another romantic friendship, a sonnet by Seward addressing her romantic friend Sneyd:
“ . . . circumstances have arisen to shake my faith in my friend's affections for me. I always loved her as my own soul: and would willingly have laid down my existence to increase her comforts, till my confidence in her sincerity was so cruelly shaken. When I give way to doubts I feel miserable beyond description . . . How should I act? I can never conquer my affection, should she even declare herself my enemy. I have loved her for eight years with sincere and ardent affection, and have accustomed my mind to contemplate her as the model of very virtue. And if I cannot regard her as superior to everything unworthy of a great and exalted mind, I feel misery must be my portion in this life. You must aid me with your advice, as you can enter into my feelings and, perhaps, administer an opiate that can assuage the heart-rending sorrow I frequently experience. . .” (Faderman 1981, p.133)
“Farewell, false Friend!—our scenes of kindness close! To cordial looks, to sunny smiles, farewell!
And every joy soft sympathy bestows!
For alter'd looks, where truth no longer glows. Thou hast prepared my heart;—and it was well To bid thy pen th'unlook'd-for story tell,
Falsehood avow'd, that shame, nor sorrow knows. O! when we meet,—(to meet we're destin'd, try To avoid it as thou may'st) on either brow. Nor in the stealing consciousness of eye, Be seen the slightest trace of what, or how We once were to each other;—nor one sigh
Flatter with weak regret a broken vow!” (Seward 1810, p.76-77)
At least in the case of these letters there doesn’t seem to be much difference between these two relationships despite the one’s genital nature and the other’s probably non-genital nature. We might conclude that there would have been little difference in the kind of feelings the women in the genital and probably non-genital relationships had.
Furthermore, Woods and Pirie’s relationship followed a very similar model to other romantic friendships, of two romantic friends setting up some enterprise (in this case a boarding school) which would allow the two women to live together. There is little difference between this and other romantic friendships like the probably non-genital friendship of Scott and Montagu of which Scott gives a fictionalised depiction in A Description of Millenium Hall (Scott 2015). Scott left her husband after a failed marriage lasting for a year. Since her dowry was returned to her she was able to purchase a house with Montagu in which they could live together and pursue charitable projects. The friendship of the Ladies of Llangollen had a similar structure.
The genital aspect of the friendship between Woods and Pirie doesn’t seem to change anything important about their relationship. It doesn’t seem more profound than that of Scott and Montagu, or of Ponsonby and Butler.
Fortunately, things ended well for Woods and Pirie. Their trial went to the House of Lords, who were incapable of conceiving of the possibility of two women having sex and thus concluded that Woods and Pirie must be innocent. The women used this to their advantage to go back to their shared life at their boarding school.
I shall now move on to discussing the aspect of my definition of close friendship entailing that the desires, aspirations, and goals of the individuals involved in a relationship are to
some extent subordinate to the desires, aspirations, and goals of the relationship. For this I should like to discuss another close friendship from Surpassing the Love of Men (Faderman 1981), the friendship of the authors Edith Somerville and Violet Martin.
Both women were brought up to have much more of a sense of independence than was customary for the late 19th century, with Somerville even receiving a college education. When the two women met Edith was already a professional artist, but by the the third time they met she decided to give this up and the two of them decided to collaborate as authors. Their romantic friendship was again probably non-sexual, and existed in the period marking the beginning of the proliferation of the term lesbian and the stigmatisation that accompanied it. Whilst these two women could be very open about their homosocial love for eachother, only a few decades later other women could not be.
Faderman (1981) describes their collective writing process: “one—or both
simultaneously—would come up with a proposition, argue it, then modify and approve it. Then whoever was holding the pen would write the idea down, and together they would revise it.” Somerville claimed that "there was never a break in the harmony of our work nor a flaw in our mutual understanding." (Cummings 1952, p.185) After Martins death Somerville continued writing under joint authorship with Martin (who used the pen name Martin Rose) until her own death. This was partly due to Somerville’s convictions that she could
communicate with Martin on the astral plane, but also due to the conviction to each other which these two women had.
In this relationship Somerville and Martin’s individual aspirations, desires and goals were largely subordinate to those of the relationship. Somerville gave up her career as an artist to pursue their collective writing, and later on the attribution of the writings of what we would usually consider an individual (Somerville and her supposed astral connection to Martin) were thought of as the product of the couple. In their writing process we can see how they had no focus on individual aspirations to certain creations or the desires for certain individual creativities, but that the process was subordinate to a collective project. Much of the shared life that these two women built together was based upon this subordination of their individual desires.
Within this subordination to the aspirations, desires, and goals of their relationship the two women were almost completely equal. However, many such relationships were not. As opportunities for middle class women to make a comfortable living for themselves opened up in the late 19th century, a number of such women found themselves in want of someone to play the traditional role of a wife for them. Such women began to seek a romantic friend who
would organise their household and care for them.
An example of such a friendship was that between Marie Corelli and Bertha Vyver, in which Corelli pursued a career as a bestselling author and Vyver cared for Corelli and her household. Vyver heralded Corelli as a literary genius and subordinated herself to Corelli’s success. Such a relation, although completely voluntary and largely formed by Vyver, we might still think of as exploitative. We might think this in all such cases where one person’s goals, aspirations, and desires are subordinated to those of another for an extended period. I wish to exclude such models of relationship from my definition of close friendship and hence have made a stipulation so as to exclude them.
In this section I have given a discussion of some historical accounts of close friendships. I have proposed the definition of a close friendship as a relationship which pursues a shared life together such that demarcation between the individuals in such relationships is porous, but which are not structured by the progression through a series of road marks as standard romantic relationships are. They are relationships in which the goals, aspirations, and desires of those involved are to some extent subordinate to the goals, aspirations, and desires of the relationship, although not subordinate to those of either individual.
Section 2: The Centrality of Governmentality
In this section I shall discuss Foucault’s concept of governmentality in order to outline the two problems which I want to discuss, sexuality and neoliberalism. I shall also use the concept to account for the demise of close friendships.
Foucault (1991) introduces the term governmentality to refer to states’ growing focus on the governing of populations. With the development of a focus upon populations, such states then use management techniques to manage the “conducts of conduct” (Foucault 2000, p.341).
There are two parts to this definition. First I shall look at what it is for a state to have a focus on the governing of a population, and then look at what constitutes a management technique.
To have a focus on the governing of a population a state must consider the population to be the main component of the state rather than other factors, like territory. This focus on population leads to a focus on political economy, which Foucault conceives “as the science and the technique of intervention of the government in that field of reality” (Foucault 1991, p.102). This entails “thep.roduction of knowledge, the multiplication of discourse, the induction
of pleasures, and the generation of power” (Foucault 1998, p.73).
For the most part the concerns of governmentality are ever expanding. Both new areas of concern and new ways of being concerned with existing areas of concern are developed. This requires the development of new areas of knowledge in order to make new areas of concern conceivable, and to make new ways of being concerned with existing areas of concern posible.
For example, we can see the development of quantitative statistics as opening up new ways to be concerned with an existing area of concern. Qualitative statistics was used to 7 study the existing concern of areas like criminality in the population. However, the
development of quantitative statistics allowed for the development of concerns with areas like the crime rate or the rate of re-offending. These could not have been conceived of as areas of concern until quantitative statistics offered a way to conceive of them (Hacking 1982 1990).
Such a concern with population cannot exist without being built into technologies of government. This moves me onto the second point of my definition, governmentality’s use of management techniques.
Management techniques are aimed at managing the aspects of a population with which a state is concerned. These might be the birth and mortality rate, the crime rate, or something more nebulous like the population’s productory diligence. The techniques used can vary from reasonably crude disciplinary techniques, like incarceration and fines, to much more nuanced techniques, like the cultivation in subjects of an interest in self improvement in a specific direction.
An important feature of management techniques is that they often aim at governing conduct rather than just bodies. This is a concern with conduct in both its ethical, behavioural, and self-regulatory senses. For example, in discourses on social security payments there are frequent considerations on how to arrange the system so as to incentivise people to get jobs, which often suggest the management technique of using financial incentives (usually tax credits). Such management techniques do not only seek to influence people behaviourally by changing their behaviour such that they are more inclined
7 Qualitative statistics is an early form of statistics or perhaps proto-statistics. It has as its topic the population as a whole or different groups within a population as modern statistics does, but instead of interpreting this topic through mathematical procedure it takes a more literary method of overviewing a population by making claims about trends in the population which are backed up more by sentiment that formula.
to find jobs. They also function on an ethical level, seeking to promote something like a Calvinist work ethic through the engagement in employment. They also function at the level of self-regulation, with an aim at altering people’s mindsets by promoting employment so as to form subjects who from then on will seek employment on their own accord.
Through the implementation of such techniques states come to consist of a network of management techniques. To illustrate this it is useful to compare modern states to the sovereign states which Foucault (1991) claims preceded them.
Sovereign states were based on models of exercises of power stemming from the central power of the sovereign. The state was largely regarded in terms of territory, and the focus of its government was to increase the power of the sovereign. We might think of this model as being structured like the spokes of a wheel, with the sovereign in the centre and power emanating into the rest of society from them like spokes.
In such sovereign states there is a clear distinction between ruler and ruled, and a clear structure to the technologies of governance. In contrast, in states of governmentality there is no centre from which
exercises of power stem. Instead there is an inter-relating network of micro-powers; management
techniques stemming from different sources and intersecting with one another.
In states of governmentality management techniques come from various government and non-governmental bodies: the education system, the courts, architecture, corporations… Management techniques come from a whole host of sources which do not relate back to the same centre of power. Whilst in sovereign states we can make a clear distinction between the prince and people, between the ruler and the ruled, within states of governmentality we can not.
The management techniques that constitute a state of governmentality have as their focus many different domains of concern. They also interact with instances of older sovereign systems like the concern for territory and the prestige of people in positions of power. We
can think of this nexus of management techniques and other forms of power like the many scattered sticks of a game of mikado, with scattered lines representing powers which do not emanate from the same place or act on the same domain, but which do intersect.
To change such patterns involves changing many different management techniques and the ways that they interact, not just overthrowing a sovereign from which the powers stem.
Section 3: The History of Sexuality
Now that I have given an exposition of the concept of governmentality I shall proceed to apply this in introducing the two problems to which I want to provide a partial solution
through close friendship. I shall discuss “the problem” of sexuality before moving on to giving an account of the demise of close friendships. Finally I shall discuss “the problem” of
neoliberalism.
In The Will to Know, Foucault (1998) charts the construction of sexuality, which he sees as both a construction of the taxonomisations of sexuality and as the construction of a truth of oneself as regards sex. He holds that discourses about sex have proliferated over the last few hundred years leading to the construction of a “truth of sex” (Foucault 1998, p.53) and the taxonomisation of various acts into sexuality. From this proliferation of discourses arises
a taxonomisation of collections of acts pertaining to sex, and from this kinds of person and identity associated with these acts.
Firstly, Foucault doesn’t have the standard meaning of sexuality in mind. Since he tracks the meaning of the term historically, the meaning of the term changes over the time period he discusses. As well as the usual categories of preference of sexual partners, sexual appetites, and so forth, he also includes many other considerations. For instance, he also sees physical traits pertaining to genitalia -like presbyophiles (an old category grouping together men who grow abnormally large breasts)- as coming under the banner of sexuality. Most importantly he includes as part of sexuality taxonomisations of ways of life which are constructed around or construct that which is more conventionally considered as sexuality. He considers the structure of the family, or the taxonomisation of the characteristics of the homosexual, as being parts of sexuality. This includes not only the relation of sexual
identities to forms of life -the heterosexual as taking a place in a family and the homosexual as taking part in some deviancy or other- but also the minute considerations of the
structuring of these lives, like the arrangement of sleeping quarters and hygiene regimens for breast feeding.
Foucault’s history of the construction of sexuality and a truth of oneself begins with the Council of Trent’s reforms of confessional practice in the 16th century, which moved
confession from being focussed on acts to being focussed on desires. Prior to these reforms confessions discussing sex would go into much detail about the particular acts of
transgression, considering the process leading to these events, the sexual positions taken… However, the Council of Trent cautioned against going into such details and instead
recommended a focus on confessing one’s sexual desires instead of particular
transgressions. This paved the way towards both the taxonomisation of those desires into sexuality and the owning of one’s sexual desires as an identity: the construal of a truth of oneself. These confessional practices proliferated, with it becoming prevalent to confess to one’s desires both in and out of confessional. One not only confessed to one’s priest, but to one’s friends, family, neighbours, and later one’s doctors and therapists. Most importantly, one confessed to oneself.
He then argues that discourses of sex proliferated, and with them the taxonomisation of desires, which were more and more being construed as a truth of oneself. This was to become the building blocks of sexuality. It is commonly held that sex and sexuality have been repressed since the Victorian era, which leads people to the conclusion that the main problem of sex is to liberate one’s desires from the sexually restrictive societies in which we
live. Foucault (1998) rejects this notion. Instead he claims that, whilst there may have been a repression of certain sex acts, the discourses on sex and formulations of sexuality have vastly proliferated. Whilst the Victorians might have done their best to keep sex limited to the marital bedroom (and certain accepted deviations from this, like brothels), they nonetheless spread discourses about sex over almost every surface they could find.
The regulation of sex became hugely important to institutions. In schools dormitories were organised to ensure students didn’t have sexual encounters with each other, as were toilet breaks and school yards. Perhaps the extreme form of this within the school system was the design of toilet cubicles. There were instances of cubicles designed with doors which were raised off the ground so that a teacher could see the pupils feet and low enough that they could see the pupils head. Of course, the side panels of the toilet cubicles were high enough to prevent the students from seeing each other. All this was done so as to ensure that the pupils weren’t having sex with each other. Whilst this was a repression of potential acts of sex, it very much constituted a proliferation of discourses on sex.
Likewise, medicine became very concerned with issues of sexuality, like masturbating children and hygiene routines for breastfeeding. The discipline of sexuology was formed, devoting great efforts to taxonomizing various forms of sexual identity. Such a proliferation of discourses developed a science of sexuality, which sought to uncover the truth of the
subjects sexual identity.
Through the growing practices of confessional, people had come to own their desires as a part of their identity, particularly their desires pertaining to sex. Accompanied by a
proliferation of discourses on sex this lead to a proliferation of discourses of sexual desires, of the truth of oneself and its relation to sex. Discourses taxonomised sex and sexual desires, and the proliferating acts of confession fixed these taxonomisations as truths of identity.
Such taxonomisations were extensive and arose from what were essentially qualitatively undifferentiated phenomena. Debauchery, adultery, rape, and sodomy were differentiated only by their relative importance. Sodomy as an act contrary to nature was perceived as an extreme on the same line of transgression rather than as a whole new category of deviance. This changed: “to marry a close relative or practice sodomy, to seduce a nun or engage in sadism, to deceive one’s wife or violate cadavers, became things that were essentially different.” (Foucault 1998, p.39)
was a domain in which there were normal and pathological processes, a domain in which one could concern oneself with therapeutic and normalising interventions. On top of this one’s identity became intrinsically tied to the sexuality that one was taxonomised into. One “became a personage, a past, a case history, and a childhood, in addition to being a type of life, a life form, and a morphology” (Foucault 1998, p.43). And with this, deviant sexualities became constituted “less as a habitual sin than as a singular nature.” (Foucault 1998, p.43) Both normal and abnormal sexualities became heavily taxonomised into ways of life. The possibilities of living for those constituted with sexual identities, a list which amounted to almost everyone, became very limited. The horizon of heterosexual life was the family, and the horizon of homosexual life enforced alterity and set pieces of transgression.
The most taxonomised and influential of these ways of life was that of the family. Sexuality was demarcatory for much of the family’s organisation, the division between the parents and childrens’ bedrooms and, space permitting, the division of the children's’ sleeping
arrangements by sex. Methods of surveillance were suggested to parents, and it became increasingly important to regulate the proper sexual developments of puberty, to prohibit child masturbation, to be concerned with infant sexuality… The family served “to anchor sexuality and provide it with a permanent support.” (Foucault 1998, p.108)
The family became a locus of confession. On top of this it established and enforced the proper progression through the stages of normal sexuality, and with this defined the beings of abnormal sexualities, as both mysterious and heavily taxonomized. The family as a heavily taxonomised structure becomes the roadmarks to the progression of one’s closest relations and thus a significant part of one’s life, as I have discussed previously.
Foucault does not like sexuality. However, he doesn’t want to make any explicit criticisms of it. Instead he just points out a contingency which could be thought of as problematic. However, he does make allusions as to why its bad:
We have arrived at the point where we expect our intelligibility to come from what was for many centuries thought of as madness; the plenitude of our body from what was long considered its stigma and likened to a wound; our identity from what was perceived as an obscure and nameless urge. (Foucault 1998, p.156)
In a later section I shall discuss some more specific reasons for why sexuality is a bad construct. However, for now I shall move on to discuss the demise of close friendships.
Section 4: A History of Friendship
In this section I shall give an account of a rather thorny problem for the formation of
contemporary close friendships: such relationships no longer exist. I shall argue that the joint movements of the taxonomisation of sexuality and the rise of governmentality lead to the problematization and subsequent disappearance of close friendships. Later in this essay I want to look at how to form close friendships anew.
This section is not meant as an attempt at some sort of definitive history of friendship. That would take far more than a couple of pages to do. Instead, it’s more a bricolage of some arguments/observations from Foucault (1997) and Faderman (1981) to make a provisional story of the disappearance of friendship which is sufficient to serve its role in this essay: the role of offering some sense of close friendship standing in opposition to sexuality and adding a bit more conviction to the point that close friendships for the most part have disappeared.
Faderman (1981) shows that such romantic friendships as discussed in the first section of this chapter were largely condoned socially. Whilst there were problematizations, like in the case of Woods and Pirie, for the most part those women who managed to devise a way to live together were left to be, or even praised. Within some periods female homosex was even accepted. However, the same was not true of male homosex. Bourdeille (1933) -a strange mix between a pornographic and moralistic male author writing in the 16th century- expressed under the pen name Seigneur de Brantôme a seemingly common sentiment of the time towards the difference of sex between women to any form of sex involving men, writing that “there is a great difference betwixt throwing water in a vessel and merely watering about it and round the rim” (Brantôme 1933, p.132-133).
However, Faderman (1981) charts the persecution of transvestite women, and particularly the persecution of the engagement of a transvestite woman in female homosex. Equally, she claims that male homosex was condemned and often punished in this time period. She posits that these relationships were punished because they upset the phallocentric order. She holds that the masculine role assumed to be assumed by one woman in an act of female homosex was permitted only “as long as a woman did not take her assumed masculinity too seriously” (Faderman 1981, p.29). The adoptions of an assumed feminine role by a man in an act of male homosex was considered abhorrent.
There is a similar idea in Foucault’s (1997) friendship interviews, that “even the Greeks had a problem with being the passive partner in a love relationship. For a Greek nobleman to
make love to a passive male slave was natural, since the slave was by nature an inferior; but when two Greek men of the same social class made love it was a real problem because neither felt he should humble himself before the other.” (Foucault 1997, p.152)
Such problematization did not seem to prevent close male friendships, as people like Montaigne (1938) testify. Whilst such close friendships existed, private acts of homosex could go readily unnoticed. “When you read an account of two friends from the period [the Hellenistic and Roman periods, but this applies just as well to friendships of the 16th century, like that of Montaigne and Boetie], you always wonder what it really is. Did they make love together? Did they have common interests? No doubt, it's neither of those things, or both.” (Foucault 1997, p159)
Faderman (1981) then claims that it was the rise of the sexologists’ category of “lesbian” which stigmatised and problematised female close friendships. From then on romantic friends had to contend with whether their love was lesbian. “If eighteenth-century romantic friends had lived in the twentieth century, however, they would have had to deal very consciously with the "sexual implications" of their attachments. To have disregarded them, as they could in a pre-Freudian era, would have been impossible. The knowledge that there was a label society could apply to passion between women would also have been
inescapable” (Faderman 1981, p.142).
Foucault (1997), taking somewhat the opposite position to Faderman (1981), claims that “homosexuality became a problem -that is, sex between men became a problem- in the eighteenth century” (Foucault 1997, p.171) with the dissolution of close male friendships. Thus, for him it is not the problematization of male homosex which lead to the demise of close male friendship. He instead attributes the demise of close friendship largely to the development of systems of governmentality, and the subsequent creation of more governable subjects:
I think that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we see these kinds of [close] friendships disappearing, at least in the male society. And friendship begins to become something other than that. You can find, from the sixteenth century on, texts that explicitly criticize friendship as something dangerous. The army, bureaucracy, administration, universities, schools, and so on -in the modern senses of these words- cannot function with such intense friendships. I think there can be seen a very strong attempt in all these institutions to diminish or minimize the affectional relations. I think this is particularly important in schools. When they started grade schools with hundreds of young boys, one of the problems was how to prevent them not only
from having sex, of course, but also from developing friendships. For instance, you could study the strategy of Jesuit institutions about this theme of friendship, since the Jesuits knew very well that it was impossible for them to suppress this. Rather, they tried to use the role of sex, of love, of friendship, and at the same time to limit it. (Foucault 1997, p.170-171)
Close friendships are strong bonds which -unlike the strong bonds of family- do not form populations consisting of easily governable units, since they do not lead to the formation of socially and economically quantifiable units like households. Furthermore, unlike in the standard family, the motivations and commitment of close friends to each other can be quite unclear, and thus hard to use in the government of populations. One could be unsure whether a romantic friend was really a romantic friend or just someone who liked to express over the top sentiments, but one can be fairly certain whether a certain collective is a family unit. The motivations and prerogatives of families are also much clearer. This makes close friendships resistant to the management techniques of governmentality, thus necessitating the regulation and even dissolution of close friendship in states of governmentality.
We can read these two movements in parallel. Governmentality breaks down bonds of close friendship through new regulations in the areas (like schools and armies) in which they formed. After this, close homosocial bonds became unusual, and subsequently suspicious. Discourses formed which criticised them and, being less common, those close bonds that still existed stood out more. This made them more readily problematised.
This problematization of close homosocial bonds lead to the greater awareness of such interactions, and as a result a greater attention paid to certain elements of such bonds. This drew attention to homosex relations, and as a result lead to the creation and
problematization of the homosexual. From this point both male and female close homosocial bonds had to contend with whether their nature was homosexual, and be stigmatised as being homosexual by society. This lead to a demise of close friendships.
An important feature which I want to defend more thoroughly is that the taxonimisation of sexuality precludes the formation of certain social bonds. In contemporary discourses on sexuality we see that certain forms of living are almost exclusively reserved for one’s sexual partners. Almost universally people live with their romantic partner or are aspiring to find a romantic partner with whom to start a shared life. These relationships are incredibly telic. Nowadays there’s much discussion of romantic relationships going too fast or going nowhere. One aims to progress through these stages, dates, sex, holidays, moving in together, buying a house together, marrying, having children, almost as if they were some sort of video game. Moreover, relatively little inventivity is allowed due to the imposed structure of these rituals.
This form of sexual relationship is regarded as the main social thrust of one’s life. This serves to discount other relationships as comparatively unimportant. Many people relocate for romantic love, but few people relocate to live near their best friend, for example. This precludes very many forms of living.
Section 5: Neoliberal Governmentality
I shall now discuss neoliberalism as a contemporary form of governmentality. Foucault’s analysis focuses on the neoliberal subject, a new form of homo oeconomicus. We can see
homo oeconomicus as a largely self regulating subject in which management techniques are applied by an individual onto themselves.
Previously, regulation of the subject occurred through bodies of experts and expert knowledges. We saw this in my discussion of the history of sexuality, where experts in medicine, sexology, religion, and morality -in conjunction with the corresponding bodies of expert knowledge- regulated the subject as having an identity based around sexuality. However, with neoliberalism the subject comes to be constituted as self regulating, although incentivised by experts. This cartograph granted to the subject so as they might regulate themselves intersects with the older forms of regulation stemming from experts and expert knowledge.
Foucault claims that neoliberalism becomes a “way of being and thinking” (Foucault 2008, p.218). This new neoliberal subjectivity is developed through a theory of human capital. Human capital is “the extension of economic analysis into a previously unexplored domain” (Foucault 2008, p.219), which regards a person as someone who “sells his labor power for a certain time against a wage established on the basis of a given situation of the market corresponding to the balance between the supply and demand of labor power.” (Foucault 2008, p.221) This provides the “possibility of giving a strictly economic interpretation of a whole domain previously thought to be non-economic.” (Foucault 2008, p.219)
The previously non-economic domain is that of the person as an assemblage “made up of innate elements and other, acquired elements.” (Foucault 2008, p.227) These elements have the potential to increase that person’s labour power. Thus, these elements influence the price at which one’s labour power can be sold.
This, along with insentivisations, changes the subjectivity of someone who is aware of these considerations, they become “an entrepreneur of himself” (Foucault 2008, p.226). Foucault refers to this new subjectivity as a new form of homo oeconomicus, a subject who
is “being for himself his own capital, being for himself his own producer, being for himself the source of [his] earnings” (Foucault 2008, p.226). For such a subject the increase in the value of their attributes is of immediate concern.
This can be expanded to conclude that the value of a state is influenced by the value of its subjects’ attributes. Thus, the increase of the value of the attributes of its subjects is of direct concern to a state. This can be seen in the development of a states’ concerns with
education. Here we can see one of the traits of governmentality outlined previously, the opening up of new areas of concern.
“Obviously, the neo-liberals pose their problems and set out their new type of analysis much more from the angle of acquired human capital, that is to say, of the more or less voluntary formation of human capital in the course of individuals' lives.” (Foucault 2008, p.229) This glosses over issues like sex, race, and class. Such innate (in the sense of being for the most part involuntary) factors have a substantial impact on the value which one’s labour power can be sold for.
They can also affect factors which might be seen as more voluntary. For example, in the instance of parental income: “experimentally, on the basis of observations, we know it [human capital] is constituted by, for example, the time parents devote to their children outside of simple educational activities strictly speaking. We know that the number of hours a mother spends with her child, even when it is still in the cradle, will be very important for the formation of … human capital, and that the child will be much more adaptive if in fact its parents or its mother spend more rather than less time with him or her.” (Foucault 2008, p.229)
The forms of capital that a homo oeconomicus aims for need not only be increased income. They might include enjoyment, for example. “We should not think at all that consumption simply consists in being someone in a process of exchange who buys and makes a monetary exchange in order to obtain some products. The man of consumption is not one of the terms of exchange. The man of consumption, insofar as he consumes; is a producer. What does he produce? Well, quite-simply, he produces his own satisfaction.” (Foucault 2008, p.226)
Equally, a homo oeconomicus need not only focus on the human capital provided by their economically pertinent attributes. They might, for example, focus on their “erotic capital” (consideration of one’s value in terms of sexual attractiveness and suchlike) in
considerations of how best to enable them to obtain a more desirable romantic partner. This neoliberal way of being and thinking tends to proliferate. For instance, a few months
ago on the business book table of a bookshop in Schipol airport I saw very many copies of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Intrigued by this I read the blurb, which contained descriptions like “as applicable to contemporary boardrooms as to the battlefields of ancient China” and “this is as essential a read for any executive as The Prince”. Whilst still unsure if this was some elaborate joke, I think this shows how nowadays almost anything can be re-appropriated as a source of human capital. Ten years ago The Art of War was to most people a curiosity of ancient Chinese thought; today it is a vital source of the human capital of having better knowledge of how to manipulate others in the boardroom.
This neoliberal subjectivity is not all bad. For example, the rationality of homo
oeconomicus is used positively in the effective altruism movement by encouraging people to consider how best they could use and develop their human capital in order to do the most good. However, the proliferation of neoliberal subjectivity into more and more areas in which it does not belong is a very bad thing.
For instance, the adoption of the rationality of homo oeconomicus in friendships and romances destroys a lot of what is good about such relations. If you appraise a friend or partner in terms of what they offer your human capital (in terms of the future potential for enjoyment or fulfilment...) then you circumnavigate a trust which is vital for any degree of depth in such relationships. Equally, considering that your friend or partner will appraise you through the same rationality negatively affects your relationship. It promotes cultivating a certain image in interactions with that person in order to “know that I kept it sexy, and know that I kept it fun” (Beyoncé 2016). The appraisal of whether to ask for help from a friend or partner, for instance, shouldn’t be attached to considerations of whether that help would tilt the relationship such as the resources that they have to invest in providing said help outweighs the benefits that the friendship/romance confers on their human capital, and if they will thus curtail the friendship/romance as a result.
The rationality of homo oeconomicus is also very compliant to governmentality since a
homo oeconomicus will act consistently according to certain easily predicted motives. This makes the adoption of certain behaviors in a population of homo oeconomicus easy to implement for government and non-government organisations. “Homo oeconomicus is someone who is eminently governable” (Foucault 2008, p.270).
You can see the proliferation of areas in which the subjecthood of homo oeconomicus is adopted by considering a character situated before the rise of neoliberalism using something very neoliberal. Let’s imagine Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (Austen 1998) using tinder.
For Tinder success first impressions are vital. This is something that Mr Darcy is famously bad at. Modern Tinder users are confronted by reems of considerations of how best to maximise their erotic capital, from what personality archetype to signal, to what lighting to use.
An important plot point in the novel is that Mr Darcy’s pride stops him from changing this, which looks like it might dash all his Tinder dreams. Mr Darcy is aware that his vast wealth
makes him a very desirable match. However, on Tinder he doesn’t have the advantage of gossip spreading the news of his wealth for him. Instead, he must signal his wealth tastefully in a photo. Perhaps a full body photo of Mr Darcy in a particularly flattering tailcoat smiling outside of Pemberley would do the trick.
However, further problems are in store if he wants to find his Lizzie B, for he may well swipe left on her, finding her “tolerable; but not
handsome enough to tempt me” (Austin 1998, p.9). Even if he should manage to match a fitting Lizzie, he may struggle since he does not have “the talent which some people possess… of conversing easily with those I have never seen before” (Austen 1998, p.100).
It particularly is not in Mr Darcy’s character to be good at Tinder. However, perhaps Mr Darcy would have a very different personality if thrown into the 21st century with the loss of much of his aristocratic privilege and the proliferation of the domains of the subjecthood of homo
oeconomicus.
This formation of a more self governing subject who organises themselves based on the principles of human capital ties into other moves towards self regulation which have
occurred since Foucault was writing. Within sexuality there has been a move from identity imposed from without to identity imposed from within. Instead of the experts and expert knowledge of various disciplines defining sexualities onto people, it is becoming much more
common for people to define their own sexuality. This still equates identity with sexuality to a large extent, but in a sense is less restrictive since one gets a say in one’s own sexual identification.
However, in a different sense this having to uncover a truth of one’s nature as regards the myriad of sexualities is very much a confessional process. Whilst there’s some choice in the definition, the increased degree of self inspection and specificity of labelling leads to the construction of an even more rigid identity. It allows for an increased ability to gain
recognition, but this comes at the cost of a significant increase in the detail and scope of the sexual confession.
Chapter 2: Games
In the previous chapter I gave a definition and some historical examples of close friendships. I have discussed the problems of neoliberalism and sexuality. I have also argued that historically close friendships have demised due to the regulations of governmentality and the taxonomisation of sexuality.
In this section I shall develop a framework in which to say more precisely what is bad about sexuality and neoliberalism. This is because they prevent many creativities in games of power. I shall then look at using Barthian myth as a tool to foster creativities in games of power. I shall use this in chapter 3 to look at how creativities outside of neoliberalism and sexuality can be created through close friendship.
To develop the notion of games of power I draw on some of Foucault’s (1997) interviews. Some of these are the interviews which he gave on the topics of friendship and the gay movement. I have drawn on these interviews previously when discussing the history of friendship. Equally, a lot of the material covered in these interviews is also covered in Faderman’s Surpassing the Love of Men (1981). Foucault (1997) sort of acknowledges this. He rather strangely talks about many things covered in Faderman’s (1981) book without acknowledging her, and then attributes to her some thing which she didn’t say. He seems oddly convinced that her book is about the importance of non-erotic physical contact in female homosocial relationships. It’s hard to see why.
Section 1: Games of Truth and Power
In The Use of Pleasure (Foucault 1992) Foucault coins the term moral codes. These are interdictions against certain actions and incitements to other actions which take place on the scales of societies, the scale of large conglomerates of people. They take in laws, but are a broader term than that, also taking in areas like interdictions and incitements in customs, societal prejudices, and the architecture of infrastructure as well as political and social institutions. For example, social interdictions of homosexuality and social incitements of the taxonomised family.
Foucault (1992) suggests that freedom can be practiced best in societies which have a fairly small number of moral codes. The thought is that when there are many moral codes, as in the Catholic Church, said moral codes are oppressive, but that when there are very few moral codes, as in frontier settlements, it is hard to establish many forms of interhuman
interaction and it is hard for societies to function. Having a relatively small amount of moral codes allows for many interhuman interactions and for society to function without the moral codes becoming too restrictive.
Such interactions also occur on smaller levels. In order to analyse these, in some
interviews Foucault (1997) introduces the concept of games of power, and a parallel but not synonymous concept of games of truth. He is thinking of the meaning of the term “game” in the way it is used in game theory to denote interaction between agents or groups of agents which follow certain consistencies and rationalities.
Games of power are strategic relations between individuals or groups in which one side tries to get the other to do something and the the other resists this. Games of truth are games of how truth is produced through “a whole series of social and economic processes at a given time, but also with institutions and practices of power.” (Foucault 1997, p.296) “One simply cannot say that games of truth are nothing but games of power” (Foucault 1997, p.296), since this construction of truth “in no way impugns the scientific validity or the therapeutic effectiveness” (Foucault 1997, p.296) of a discipline. It does mean that the construction of truths is “linked in a certain way -without thereby being invalidated in any way- to games and institutions of power.” (Foucault 1997, p.296)
Such games can not be avoided, and there would be little point in doing so since “we all know that power is not evil!” (Foucault 1997, p.299) Thus, he proposes that “the problem, then, is not to try to dissolve them in the utopia of completely transparent communication but to acquire the rules of law, the management techniques, and also the morality, the ethos, the practice of the self, that will allow us to play these games of power with as little domination as possible.” (Foucault 1997, p.297)
If there are very many moral codes in a society then the ways that games of power can be played are very limited. In such cases “one can criticize on the basis, for example, of the consequences of the state of domination caused by an unjustified political situation, but one can only do so by playing a certain game of truth, by showing its consequences, by pointing out that there are other reasonable options, by teaching people what they don't know about their own situation, their working conditions, and their exploitation.” (Foucault 1997,
p.295-296) In situations in which a society has fewer moral codes or in areas of a society in which the moral codes are not particularly prescriptive there are far more ways to play games of power. They need not be limited to critiques of domination.
Such spaces in which there are the right number of moral codes allow for games of power to become more than just games of truth aimed at the critique of domination. In such
