Reconstruction Vol. 13, No. 3/4
Return to Contents»
In Defense of Narcissism: Blogging as Foucauldian Technology of the Self / Evgeniya Boklage
Abstract: The application of the idea of narcissism stretches from a description of a narrowly conceived mental illness to a more general characterization of contemporary social condition. It has been used pejoratively to describe self-absorbed, egoistic, and uncivic attitudes and behavior. Returning to the Foucauldian technologies of the self – a philosophical account which tries to rehabilitate the love of the self and the idea of self-care as a positive social force – the present article utilizes this perspective to analyze the narcissistic, yet not uncivic, nature of blogging. It addresses a long-standing conflict between individualist and collectivist values in which the former are often labeled narcissistic. Using Foucauldian ideas of the “aesthetics of living” and “care of the self”, particularly by means of writing, this paper tries to reveal the civicness of blogging as self-writing practice and how this seemingly narcissistic activity can be beneficial for both individuals and society as a whole.
Keywords
blog, Foucault, individualism, Lash, narcissism, technologies of the self, writing
Introduction
<1> According to the Greek legend, Narcissus was a beautiful young man. Although courted by many women, he remained indifferent and for that was punished with an overwhelming love towards his own reflection, which eventually killed him. Ever since the name of Narcissus has been a symbol for cold and uncaring beauty. In the beginning of the twentieth century Freud described narcissism as a mental illness characterized by pathological self-absorption. In the following decades the concept underwent significant transformation from being considered a psychiatric disorder to a liberating energy of individualism and eventually a destructive cultural tendency.
<2> The step toward the individualization of media sparked off a new discussion on how narcissistic behavior affects individuals and society at large. Blogging, as an introspective type of writing, is a narcissistic activity. However, it is not necessarily self-absorbed or egoistic for it does not seek to benefit the blog writer alone. The narcissism of the blogger is civic and even socially advantageous in a similar manner to self-expression values. To deepen this argument the present article will address the Foucauldian concept of the technologies of the self which, albeit criticized for its presumed lack of ethics and explicit narcissism, can actually be seen as a practice of freedom (Fornet-Betancourt et al. 1987).
<3> The paper explores the idea of narcissism, citing as an example the activity of blogging. It chronicles the notion of narcissism and its evolution from a solely clinical concept to a more popular diagnosis of cultural and social condition to the most recent idea of civic narcissism. The conception of civicness herein refers to the duties and activities of people in relation to their communities. It continues with addressing Foucauldian technologies of the self and his account of the aesthetic aspects of existence. The practice of writing and its centrality in the process of the formation of the self is considered in greater detail. In the end, the article focuses on blogging as a technology of the self exemplary of civic narcissism which emphasizes the self-expression values but which also has a liberalizing effect on society at large.
The concept of narcissism: evolution
<4> The concept of narcissism has a special place in contemporary critical discourse. It was proposed as a psychoanalytical concept to describe a mental disorder, but was later introduced into a non-clinical vocabulary to designate a personality trait and characterize a contemporary social condition with a negative connotation more often than not.
<5> Freud first addressed the phenomenon in his essay On Narcissism (1991 [1915]), in which he described a pathological self-absorption of individuals who consider themselves objects of their own attraction. He developed it into one of the central concepts in psychoanalysis which later became a grander theory of narcissism. Drawing on the earlier work of Näcke, who studied narcissism as a sexual perversion of individuals treating their own bodies as sexual objects, Freud assumed narcissism played a crucial role in ego formation. He distinguished between primary, or healthy, narcissism, which is directly linked to the inception of subjectivity and the development of an individual self, and secondary narcissism, which can vary in its degree from normal to pathological (Tyler 2007). Primary narcissism, according to Freud, appears in everyone in that the self, along with the nursing mother, is the person’s initial sexual object. Its secondary stage develops when individuals withdraw their libido from the people and objects in the external world and fully concentrate on the internal milieu of their own thoughts and feelings.
<6> Although Freud designated the idea in strictly psychiatric terms, it still reflected the realities of the early twentieth-century Vienna with its patriarchal social order inasmuch as he used the idea to reinforce existing gender and sexuality stereotypes (Tyler 2007). He framed the “others” – namely women, homosexuals, criminals, and those to whom he referred as “primitives” – as normatively deviant. Meanwhile he depicted heterosexual males as ethical beings with complete object-love of the attachment type. In other words, the ability for love and self-sacrifice was described as an intrinsically male characteristic. Following this train of thought, the narcissistic others are characterized as feminine, self-obsessed, childish, criminal, and sexually deviant. As Tyler eloquently puts it:
In effect Freud not only describes the regulatory function of narcissism, but, through his negative attribution of narcissism to specific types, deploys the concept in a regulatory fashion in accordance with his own social values. (345)
<7> In the course of the twentieth century the idea of narcissism underwent significant transformation and departed from being a merely clinical definition of a psychiatric disorder toward a category of cultural criticism related to political attitudes and what is often referred to as post-modern social condition. Zaretsky (2008) distinguishes four stages in the history of the concept which indicate the changes in its meaning, interpretation, and appropriation. It was Heinz Kohut who, although still within the confines of psychology, redefined narcissism as a positive source of development. It became politicized in the work of Marcuse while Lacan in his project proposed its decathexis by making narcissism a central aspect in the formation of selfhood. At the final stage narcissism was transformed into a concept of identity and group subjectivity as shown by the examples of the women’s and gay liberation movements.
Culture of narcissism
<8> As a result of social changes in the 1970s, narcissism became a keyword to define what was perceived as a cultural pathology of the era. One of the most influential works to advocate this position was the book of Christopher Lasch The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations published in 1979. Another piece, which appeared a few years earlier in 1976 and also utilized narcissism as a pejorative characteristic of the generation, particularly targeting the liberation movement, was an article by Tom Wolf titled The “Me” Decade and the Third Awakening.
<9> Lasch’s book concentrates on American society in which post-World War II prosperity generated a narcissistic personality as a symptom of the era unparalleled in the past. The author characterizes this personality as self-obsessed and grandiose in self-concept, fearful of aging, death and competition, anxious, depressed, bored, and incapable of loving and giving relationships. At the same time these Narcissi are said to have low self-esteem, suffer from insecurities and even self-hatred. He describes individuals who are overwhelmed by a sense of endless possibility and, however paradoxically, desperate to reconnect to a society which fails to provide a clear distinction between the public and the private spheres of life.
<10> The work, although enthusiastically received by many, including politicians and public intellectuals, generated a wave of criticism, in particular from feminist scholars. Just like the work of Freud, it was accused of drawing the “others” – in this case the initiators of the liberation movements, women, gays, and blacks – as narcissistic. In the words of Tyler (2007) the mainstream acceptance of the Lasch’s argument spread the belief that (as seen by the politicians, academics and mass media of the time) “the nation was being undone by the narcissism of the others” (357). She maintains that the pejoratively-tinted narcissism was used to “denigrate identity politics and forms of sexual behavior deemed counter-normative” (ibid).
<11> After the concept transcended boundaries of psychiatric discourse and entered more popular social critical debate, it continued, just as the Freudian concept had a few decades earlier, to reinforce what had been understood as a normal or “right” identity supported by the dominant values and public morality, that is masculine, patriarchal, family-oriented identity of white (upper) middle-class America of the times before the “Me” decade. It became instrumentalized to slander the identities which discorded with this standard. The others whose behavior and values were in dissonance with the “normal” were not only labeled narcissistic but also deemed threatening to the core societal values and archetypes of identity.
Civic narcissism
<12>The introduction of narcissism into critical social discourse coincided with the growth of the ideology of individualism. Individualistic values, opposed to the traditional collectivist values of a family, social group, and nation-state, emerged to symbolize the reorientation of individuals towards their own identities, feelings, and interests. The criticism was inevitable: individualist values were condemned as conceited and attached to uncivic attitudes, egoism, and self-centeredness. Special attention was paid to the role of the mass media first and the new media later in reinforcing narcissism through proliferation of images (Lasch 1979; Manovich 2001). The latest focus has been on the social media which thrive on personalization of content and representation. Some authors assume that the new online self of social networks becomes carefully manipulated under circumstances when the principle show yourself (Rosen 2007) is applied to most forms of interpersonal communication.
<13> The antagonistic relationship between individualist and collectivist values became one of the key subjects in critical social debate with commentators trying both to criticize and defend individualism. Some authors linked growing individualism to the self-interested narcissism. Others, however, engaged in an endeavor to exonerate the values of self-expression. Yankelovich (1981) in his study of self-fulfillment in American society claims that self-absorption of those seeking for self-fulfillment plays an important social role, no matter how disguised and implicit it may be. He writes that
those who engaged in their own search for fulfillment are at the same time doing society’s necessary work, conducting experiments with their lives that will in the long run benefit society. (37)
<14> The focus on self-fulfillment would eventually lead to the emergence of individuals with greater independence and relying more on themselves and other people rather than on bureaucratic institutions or government. For that reason the values of self-fulfillment should not be seen as entirely asocial or contradicting the principles of social responsibility and engagement.
<15> Similarly, Inglehart and Welzel (2007) point out that values of self-expression formed within the frames of individualism are not uncivic. On the contrary, they are central to the process of human emancipation by providing people with the motivation to engage in various civil movements. Whereas it may seem natural that the rise of self-expression values would inevitably lead to the decrease in political and civil participation, in reality they provide new possibilities of civic involvement which are not bound to the traditional (collectivist) institutions such as the church or political parties. In support of this theoretical assumption, empirical findings show the growth of emancipative orientations throughout different cultures all over the world, and although they are often intuitively linked to selfishness and egoism they are, in fact, associated with collective action and stronger social capital (Welzel 2010). This empirically-based interpretation allows for a definition of “socially responsible individualism” (172) which can be coupled with altruistic values instead of undermining them.
<16> The range of positive evaluations associated with the rise of individualism and self-expression values can be summed up under the category of expressivism (Zanders & Harding 1995). This moral stance occurs as a result of social changes which have led to a “more relaxed, more accepting, less rigid, less uniform social morality allowing the individual a broader range of life choices than in previous generations” (198-99).
<17> This paper partially draws on the notion of civic narcissism proposed by Papacharissi (2010), who employs the idea of narcissism not in its usual pejorative sense, but rather by addressing its possible social benefits. Her argument is that postmodern society, which emphasizes self-expression values, has produced what she calls a special breed of narcissism – civic narcissism. The proliferation of digital technologies which promote personalization has played a particularly important role in its formation. The new narcissism is introspective but not self-absorbed or selfish in the author’s view. It allows the questioning of the established social and political institutions in an anarchist manner.
<18> Later this article will elaborate on the concept of civic narcissism and its articulation in the practice of blogging. Following Papacharissi’s view of blogging as a playground where the boundaries between private and public spheres are shifted, it will look at the practice through the prism of Foucauldian technologies of the self. Finally, this paper will try to remove the pejorative tint associated with narcissism as an unethical way of thinking and behaving and rehabilitate its civic form as an ethical practice and “aesthetics of living”.
Ethical sensibility of the “aesthetics of living”
<19>Discussion of the ethical foundation within Foucault’s is inseparable from the idea of the self, that is of the individual subject, its nature, origin, inner cravings, and the morals which guide its existence. Foucault expressed his idea of the self in his project on the technologies of the self which has often been criticized for its alleged lack of ethical core. One of the main charges against it was its radical individualism augmented with a complete lack of concern for anything except oneself (Bernstein 1994). It is small wonder that the concepts of the “care of the self” and “life as a work of art” were quickly categorized as narcissistic.
<20> To some critics Foucault is responsible for the “aestheticization of ethics” (Bennett 1996). In other words, in his philosophy aesthetic components substitute ethical norms and eventually an “aesthetics of existence” becomes the new ethics. Traditional moral principles give way to the superficial principles of stylization and appearance becomes central. In her analysis of different strands of criticism, Bennett finds that heteronomy, hedonism, and theatricality are among the main indictments of the Foucauldian approach. Heteronomous subjects acting out of their own desires rather than using reason, in the view of critics, are incapable of “autonomy”. The Foucauldian subject is condemned for succumbing to its body, corporeal desires and pleasures instead of reason and moral duty. Bennett also points to the criticism of Foucault’s focus on dandyism. She paraphrases Wollin’s claim that for Foucault “the interest in collective action, rational consensus, and social justice”, all of it is replaced with “the beautiful, the sublime, and the tasteful” (662). According to this line of criticism, the main weakness of the aesthetic norms is that they cannot be used in order to establish what is morally right or wrong, just or unjust.
<21> To establish a link between the concept of narcissism, viewed in terms of the negative influence this condition has upon personality and Foucauldian technologies of the self, it is useful to return to the portrayal of narcissistic self provided by Lasch (1979). Drawing on the Goffmanian idea of representation of self in everyday life, he suggests that the contemporary self exists in a dissociated condition and is in a perpetual act of “role playing”. He continues that:
To the performing self, the only reality is the identity he can construct out of materials furnished by advertising and mass culture, themes of popular film and fiction, and fragments torn from a vast range of cultural traditions, all of them equally contemporaneous to contemporary mind. ... Life becomes a work of art, while ‘the first art work in an artist ... is the shaping of his own personality’. (166-67)
<22> For Lasch, the constant crafting of one’s own personality is a degradation of the individual which is symbolic of a present social condition. The need to present oneself to the others in a way similar to how actors present themselves to the audience is pathological and is derived from experiences of the individual’s sense of emptiness and anxiety, rather than grounded in their confidence about the selfhood. Life being a work of art in this sense is, therefore, not a path voluntarily chosen by individuals as a better way of living but a destructive model of behavior imposed on them by the historical changes in society and culture.
<23> Foucault offers a very different view of the self being a work of art. In the project titled Technologies of the Self he addresses the question of what constitutes the substance of the self and specifically the practices used by the individuals to form it. The self, he postulates, does not appear as a fixed subject hidden deep in the annals of individual unconsciousness waiting to be re-discovered, to be relieved, and thus facilitate individual freedom, as it is the case for Freud who, on the contrary, emphasized the need to use suppressed memories to expose the true nature of an individual (Hutton 1988). For Foucault, the existence of the fixture commonly understood as human nature is impossible, for it is always a construct of particular circumstances be they personal, political or cultural. Every historical moment offers its own idea of what the human nature is and what it means to be a rational subject. In that sense, even rationality itself becomes a social construct that appeared as a result of the Enlightenment. Since the unique and integrated true self does not exist, it cannot be discovered but only imposed on the individuals. In contrast with Lasch’s denunciation of the self as a work of art, for Foucault it must become the work of art and needs to be created in a manner similar to artists creating their oeuvre. Referring to Baudelaire, Foucault describes a modern man not as someone “who goes off to discover himself, his secrets and his hidden truths” but rather as a man trying “to invent himself ... to face the task of producing himself” (1994d, 312).
Ethics of the care of self
<24>Drawing upon the Greek tradition of “care of self”, Foucault suggests that the self can be transformed through personal experiences as well as by means of operations individuals can deliberately perform upon their bodies, souls, consciousness or behavior. In other words, the Foucauldian idea of the self is that it has to be produced in the course of life, and is different from the contemporary view which supports the notion of the self is to be recovered from the most abstruse parts of the individual’s consciousness (Crampton 2004). As a result, the key question for his ethics is not what the self is and where to find its deepest and most truthful form but how it is produced and what the practices and techniques to be used for it in different historical moments are. The self, which is not given, can be constructed by means of various exercises and practices one of which – writing – will be further examined at length.
<25> Foucauldian ethics is often accused of an individualism which allows personal desires to become the main concern of the individuals. However, the process and practice of the care of self requires a reflective component towards the relationships one has not only with the self but also with others (Campbell 2004, 28). Therefore, it is never a purely self-focused activity. According to Foucault, it was the desire for physical purity and demand for renunciation of the self, fostered by Christianity which made the love for the self suspect and conflicting with the love for the others. Yet the earlier Greco-Roman tradition had focused on epimeleia heauton (“care for oneself”) which implied both knowing oneself and one’s position towards others. Individuals who take care of themselves must be knowledgeable about what their duties are in the family or in the city (Fornet-Betancourt et al 1987, 120). In other words, the care of oneself always includes concern for the others by ensuring proper relationships with them.
<26> Foucault stresses that epimeleia heautou was an extremely powerful idea and went beyond mere self-interest, self-attachment or self-fascination. As it meant being concerned with something, it also had a political significance referring, for instance, to the monarch’s care for his citizens. He points that the care of self meant an activity requiring attention, knowledge, and technique. In its ancient interpretation the idea contradicts the self-absorption characteristic of modern society (which Foucault calls “Californian cult of the self”). The key objective of the contemporary cult of the self, according to Foucault, is extraction of one’s true self which he viewed as “diametrically opposite” to what the ancient Greeks implied by the epimeleia heautou.
<27> Together with epimeleia heautou Foucault talks about the founding principles of his ethics, which are refusal, curiosity, and innovation. By refusal he means non acceptance of the things proposed as axiomatic. For instance, naturalized cultural norms which are offered as established truths must always be brought into question. Curiosity indicates the need for analysis, critical approach, reflection, and understanding of those conventional norms. The principle of innovation calls for seeking new objects for critical analysis and reflection, objects which were never thought of or analyzed before. In support of these principles Foucault himself devoted most of his work to marginalized figures in order to show that the things which appear omnipresent and common today are in reality the results of historical changes.
<28> These three principles point to a new role Foucault ascribed to the human subject. The liberated and daring individuals live their lives as works of art and take responsibility for their own experiences (Vintges 2001). He justly notices that ethics in the form of prescribed moral codes are not sufficient for contemporary subjects knowledgeable of their constructed nature. What he proposes is for the fragmented subjects to take responsibility for their own existence through the practices of good living, which cannot simply be reduced to corporeal needs and pleasures, but also include the cravings for personal and political freedom as well as proper care of relationships with others.
Self writing
<29>Foucault (1988a) names four key technologies individuals use to understand themselves and the surrounding world with each being “a matrix of practical reason” (18). These are 1) technologies of material production used in order to produce, transform, and manipulate things; 2) technologies of sign systems expressed in the use of signs, meanings, symbols, and signification; 3) technologies of power; and, finally, 4) technologies of the self
which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality. (18)
<30> Foucault imagines writing as one of the technologies of the self and is particularly interested in what he calls self writing, an activity in the context of ancient Greek tradition in which it was one of the key components of the practice of taking care of the self. Self writing emerged in the form of personal notebooks and letters to friends. The former, called hupomnẽmata, referred to personal notebooks or memory aids. They were kept as books of life where individuals could write down everything they had done or contemplated. Foucault emphasizes that their function went beyond being a recollection of the events or thoughts past. In fact, these notebooks constituted “a material and a framework for exercises to be carried out frequently: reading, rereading, meditating, conversing with oneself and with others” (1994b, 210). However, they should not be confused for intimate journals or diaries of confessionary nature which would constitute the “narrative of oneself”. On the contrary, the aim of hupomnẽmata was to capture the fragmentary logos, that is what has been learned, read, heard or spoken by the individual and in doing so to produce the self. These notebooks were crucial in establishing the fixed relationship between individuals and their past which is necessary in order to be able to turn back and to detach one’s soul from the concern for the future. Writing the hupomnẽmata was also a personal exercise in selecting and collecting heterogeneous fragments which aimed at finding “the local truth of the percept” and were appreciated for their “circumstantial value”. It was
done by and for oneself [and] is an art of disparate truth – or, more exactly, a purposeful way of combining the traditional authority of the already-said with the singularity of the truth that is affirmed therein and the particularity of the circumstances that determine its use. (212)
<31> Lastly, writing hupomnẽmata as a personal exercise was always a process of unification of the heterogeneous elements through their subjectivation. The writers were expected to change the absorbed fragments, assimilate them into aspects of their own character, charge them with their own emotions and experiences, and create their own truth. This assimilative writing must not result in the reproduction of a doctrine but rather in creating a body which would reflect both the initially perceived discourses and the subjectivity of the writer. To put it differently, the practice of hupomnẽmata led to the constitution of “oneself as a subject of rational action.”
<32> Another form of writing important to the constitution of the self that Foucault considers in his essay is correspondence. Although similar to ancient hupomnẽmata in the sense that it is also a personal exercise, correspondence differs from it significantly as to its purpose, which mechanisms of influence it uses, and, therefore, the effects it has upon the self. The most explicit difference between the two modes of writing is that correspondence always implies an addressee and a reciprocal relationship between the writer and the recipient. A letter can be written with various purposes – to offer help, to provide advice or report on an individual’s health or everyday life – but it always affects both parts. In the process of writing a letter the writer, for instance, may receive training in different life situations. Writing an invigorating letter to an ill friend is helpful in case the author herself might have to deal with own illness in the future. Likewise, the writer might benefit from the soul service in the form of “return advice” from his correspondent. In the words of Foucault:
as the person being directed [addressee] progresses, he becomes more capable, in his turn, of giving opinions, exhortations, words of comfort to the one who has undertaken to help him. The direction does not remain one-way for long; it serves as a context for exchanges that help it become more egalitarian. (1994b, 215)
<33> One of the most profound effects the writing of correspondence has on the constitution of the self is that writing letters becomes for the writers a way of manifesting themselves and being “present” to the addressee. Foucault stresses that the letter is a gaze of the writer towards the recipient but also an invitation to be gazed upon. Hence, correspondence is more than just a reciprocal relationship of one offering help or advice to another, it is also “the reciprocity of the gaze and the examination” (1994b, 216). It is not anymore a collection of the fragments heard or read, but an active exchange with the others. In contrast to a personal notebook, a letter is not an effort of oneself to examine oneself, but giving the others an opportunity to do this. For that reason it was in the form of correspondence that the narrative of the self began.
Blogging as technology of the self
<34> Blogging by the private individuals has been generally acknowledged for its democratizing effects. Even when concerns are raised about how it might affect traditional journalistic values of objectivity and trustworthiness, blogging, together with other digital media technologies, has been appreciated for the new place it secured for the audience and various opportunities of engagement in information production and distribution it gave to the citizens. In addition to its great societal importance, the present article thinks of blogging in terms of Foucauldian ethics as a technology of the self which helps the individuals writing blogs build meaningful connections to their own self and the others.
<35> Yet, writing a private blog as a public outlet is an inherently narcissistic activity, for it displays bloggers’ self-awareness as well as importance they attribute to the values of self-expression. Blogs allow for a careful crafting of the self-image and are a digital production of the self in a way a photograph or a motion picture were its mechanical production. Lasch wrote The Culture of Narcissism prior to the prevalence of the internet as a popular medium and therefore does not address it. However, he does address the reinforcing role the mechanical production of culture plays in the formation of the narcissistic personality type which he describes. He argues that the “society of spectacle” was created by the rapid increase in numbers of the recorded images which undermined individual’s sense of reality. As a consequence, one’s selfhood is perceived within the context of the multitude of images of the self one is surrounded with. In this society, which Lasch calls “an enormous echo chamber” and “a hall of mirrors”, individuals are engaged in a permanent process of self-surveillance by means of video and photo cameras, of transmitting their images to an abstract audience, and simultaneously bringing into question the reality of the outside world.
<36> In this context, the activity of blogging is narcissistic because it implies a high degree of awareness about the self-image which is then exhibited to an unknown audience in textual, visual or video form. Bloggers can also consume their own self-image, come back to old posts, re-read texts, re-view photos, re-assess the outcome of this self-disclosure, and decide whether the created persona is that which is intended by the author. Papacharissi (2010) considers Lasch’s culture of narcissism a suitable theoretical framework to examine blogging practice, for “bloggers engage in typical secondary strategies of narcissist: ‘pseudo self-insight, calculating seductiveness, nervous, self-deprecatory humor’” (238). Blogs are the venues where the distinction between public and private is constantly shifting and for that reason blog writers are permanently in the process of orchestrating their identity which they, as private individuals, translate into public space or vice versa.
<37> The practice of blogging is similar, in many instances, to the hupomnẽmata analyzed by Foucault. Not necessarily a complete recollection of what one has read or spoken of, a blog is still an anthology of one’s experiences and thoughts. Personal blogs are personal notebooks which bloggers can use to accumulate the fragments of what they have learned. Blogs can be used with the purpose of sharing one’s thoughts and reflections with others. The technological structure also makes them a perfect outlet to “navigate the past” for those who write and read them. Arranged in a reversed chronological order and equipped with comprehensible archiving mechanisms, blogs make previous posts easily accessible. Tagging is another navigation tool that helps access the posts on a particular topic of interest.
<38> Both hupomnẽmata and blogging are very specific writing practices with certain commonalities between them. Hupomnẽmata was not written simply as an “account of oneself” (Foucault 1994c, 273). It was not used for a confession, to reveal a secret, or to say the undivulged. On the contrary, it sought to constitute the self through the reminiscence of things already heard, read or spoken, “of the fragmentary logos transmitted by teaching, listening, or reading a means to establish as adequate and as perfect a relationship of oneself to oneself as possible” (1994a, 274). Similarly, a blog appears as an aggregation of information and events which its author has encountered or experienced on- and offline. Compiling an array of texts, photos or videos, the author practices the formation of the self through sorting out and arranging the information. Dean (2010) observes that with a post as its building block, blogging subjectivity does not constitute a narrative. Instead, she continues, it is “presented in moments as an image, reaction, feeling, or event” (47). Sometimes blogs eschew revealing aspects of the authors’ factual identity such as name, age or gender. Thus, it is solely a gathering of fragmentary knowledge which becomes the self’s building blocks.
<39> Foucault spoke distinctively of the care of the self not as an activity of self-absorption: most importantly, he pointed to its orientation toward others. To take good care of oneself implied knowing one’s place in the community and forming proper relationships with the others. In similar fashion blogging does not imply being selfish or neglectful of others. Despite the central place which the self takes in this writing practice, it is equally inherently social as it is narcissistic. Blogs are based on sharing and referring to one another. They imply the writer’s relationship to others in many ways: posting content authored by others, linking to other blogs, and interacting with others through comments. The constitution of the self through the blog is always inseparable from the relations to the others.
<40> The care of the self for Foucault is a way to establish relationships with oneself, others, and one’s environment. This article argues that blogging is also care of the self which allows bloggers to constitute their relationships to other individuals as well as to elaborate their place and role in the community. Take, for instance, a visibly civic practice of political blogging by citizens, who are not necessarily journalists or qualified political commentators. On the contrary, bloggers are often those who use the medium to channel their own impressions and pass personal judgments about the social events. They do not claim objectivity or universal value. The very fact of posting personal commentary on public matters on the blog indicates that the authors try to approach reality critically and observe it while also finding their own place in it. There are also relationships writers strive to establish with the readers. In other words, there is always an implication of the audience as a body of unidentified others.
<41> Foucault highlights the importance of the existing culture and the prevalent social norms as determinants of every technology and practice of the self, namely that these practices are “not something invented by the individual himself. They are models that he finds in his culture and are proposed, suggested, imposed upon him by his culture, his society, and his social group” (1994c, 291, in Rabinow). Following this logic, blogging is a practice of fostering the self, which is also embedded in the existing social and cultural context. Blogging has arguably appeared at the intersection of a few social tendencies. Describing the proliferation of blogging in the early 2000s in the USA, Bai (2007) speaks of three different societal drifts which in the aggregate created a solid foundation for this process. First he names a genuine passion for technology, which grew rapidly in American society and showed itself in the enthusiasm the general public expressed towards digital technology and the opportunities it offered. Second was what the author called a yearning for connection to overcome the feeling of isolation and to regain the sense of belonging which was lost with the disintegration of traditional community. Finally, what made it possible for bloggers to enter public debate as legitimate pundits was a general devaluation of expertise combined with the loss of the privileged status of the traditional institutions, such as churches, political parties, and mass media.
<42> With attitudes toward the traditional institutions changing, citizens reappraised their perspective on how to evaluate the world around them. Events could now be interpreted in novel, more independent ways. Blogging emerged as an unprecedented technological platform marked by its simplicity and accessibility and brought an array of voices into the public discourse, shifting the power relations between the audience and the mass media. Now “the people formerly known as audience” (Rosen 2006) could raise new issues ignored by the traditional media and set their own agenda. In this way blogging comes to embody the virtuous Foucauldian tenets of refusal, curiosity, and innovation.
<43> The principle of refusal, on the one hand, follows directly from the narcissistic character of blogging, in that the individuals place their own judgments at the forefront of the discourse while refusing to acknowledge the long-established and authoritative opinions. On the other hand, refusal is connate to the practice of blogging, for it is a way to broadcast information, socially relevant or not, without an editor, therefore eschewing traditional information sources and their mechanisms of dissemination. It is even more defiant in the case of bloggers as citizen journalists, when they reject the convention of mass media being the single reliable source of information. In that sense blogging may not be directly contributing to the public good, but its endowment is a challenge as to what the public good is (Papacharissi 2010). It is the refusal to be satisfied with the work of traditional media which is one of the key motivations for bloggers to start writing. Couldry (2010) cites an example of a doctor blogger:
Currently as a doctor I feel totally misrepresented and distorted by the press. Blogging levels up the playing field, and if I can present the doctor’s side well and get enough readers/leverage then I can make a very positive difference to my profession. (143)
<44> Here the main accent is placed on the motivation of a medical practitioner to reject the norm, that is the representation offered by the institutionalized news media, in order to make a positive change in his profession. This motivation is self-oriented – he is a doctor himself – but also civic in that it takes into account his profession as a community. The first part of the sentence refers to his personal as well as occupational identity. For Foucault, the identity is fragmented and unstable while identity-building is a life-long process to be undertaken by individuals using their experiences. It is always interfered with by external factors in the form of imposed norms, one of which is the idea of the existence of a fixed, deeper identity inside each of us. For instance, in The History of Sexuality he argues that sexual identities, such as heterosexual or homosexual, do not exist, but are appointed to us by means of various discourses: psychiatry, psychology or medicine. In a similar manner, the example of the doctor illustrates the rebellion against the normative concept of what it means to be a medical professional in the eyes of society which is foisted upon it by the mass media. Using a blog as an outlet, which is also an implementation of contemporary culture, he opposes the dominant discourse and engages in a practice of discursive self-defining.
<45> Bloggers make decisions to display themselves to readers and the practice, therefore, implies concern for others and not only for the self. Openness and sincerity towards the audience, while being the central aspects of blogging rhetoric (Rak 2005), also stir up Foucauldian curiosity and danger. Writers expose themselves to the audience and allow to be gazed upon by strangers. Knowing whether the posts can be seen only by familiar people or by a readership including strangers also affects the content and the style of writing. Bloggers engage in a game with the elements of their own identity, which can potentially be a threat to their personal ethics. Therefore, it is one of the blogger’s tasks to see how far this experimenting can be taken.
<46> Different aspects of blogging as an activity reside at the junction of the private and public spheres and become interwoven into a process of self-formation facilitated by social interaction. It is “writing one’s self into existence for others to read and comment upon” (Rak 2005, 176). Study of the blog writer-reader relationships indicates that the readers play a significant role not only in contributing to the blog through comments and “setting the tone” but also in the construction of bloggers’ identity (Baumer et al. 2011). The role of the reader goes beyond mere perception of bloggers, that is knowing who they are and what their views are. Blog writers are exposed to constant examination and judgment by the audience, which occur as remarks, sometimes sarcastic or poignant, and this can change the way they see themselves and even lead to reevaluation of their own thoughts and behavior.
Conclusion
<47> This article further developed the idea of civic narcissism and tried to support the notion of civicness of the individualist values illustrated by the example of blogging. While the cultural narcissism introduced in the second half of the twentieth century offered a pessimistic outlook for the post-modern society, it was Foucault who offered an alternative to this pejorative view of narcissism as a disease of the era which often equated self-expression values with egoism, social alienation, and eventual decadence. Foucault dismissed what he called a “Californian cult of the self” and proposed a new set of ideas which he called technologies of the self. Using the genealogical method, he put forward a concept of the self which is produced rather than given and floating rather than fixed. This self need not be discovered in the depths of subconsciousness, but has to be actively created by means of various practices. The present paper tried to show how blogging is used as a technology of the self to constitute an ethical subject.
<48> While acknowledging that blogging is self-directed, at times self-centered, and to a certain degree narcissistic, the article rejects its perception as selfish or self-obsessed. Just as Foucault argues that technologies of the self always take into account others and the individual’s proper relationship to them, writing a blog is an activity which embraces the readers and their opinions. It allows the blogger to challenge the traditional structures and modes of relating. Writing a blog embodies the Foucauldian principle of danger which consists of the elements of curiosity, refusal, and innovation. Its civic importance is in the fact that blogging allows us to question traditional institutions such as mass media. Even when they do not comment on public issues or try to challenge the general public discourse and its agenda, it still may change the idea of what this discourse is and in which ways it is to be conducted. Blog writers take the risk of shifting the boundaries between private and public spheres while engaging in the process of self-formation. Similar to the ancient writing practice of hupomnẽmata, blogging is always a constellation of fragments of knowledge which shape the individual’s self.
<49> Notwithstanding the fact that the dispute between collectivist and individualist values will continue, with the latter inescapably being labeled narcissistic, this paper tried to accentuate the necessity to search for civic aspects in the seemingly self-directed activities. Multiple new forms of self-expression made available by the new media forms will probably prove some of the most fruitful subjects for future examination.
References
Bai, Matt. The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics. New York: The Penguin Press, 2007. Print.
Baumer, Eric P.S., Mark Sueyoshi, and Bill Tomlinson. “Bloggers and Readers Blogging Together: Collaborative Co-Creation of Political Blogs.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work 20 (2011): 1-36. Print.
Bennett, Jane. “How is it, then, that we still remain barbarians? Foucault, Schiller, and the Aestheticization of Ethics.” Political Theory 24.4 (1996): 653-72. Print.
Bernstein, Richard. “Foucault: Critique as a Philosophical Ethos”. Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate. Ed. Michael Kelly. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994. 211-41. Print.
Campbell, Elaine. “Narcissism as Ethical Practice?: Foucault, Askesis and an Ethics of Becoming.” Cultural Sociology 4.1 (2010): 23-44. Print.
Couldry, Nick. “New Online News Sources and Writer-Gatherers.” New Media, Old News. Ed. Natalie Fenton. London: SAGE Publications, 2010. 138-52. Print.
Crampton, Jeremy. The Political Mapping of Cyberspace. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2004. Print.
Dean, Jody. Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010. Print.
Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl, et al. “An Interview with Michel Foucault.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 12 (1987): 112-31. Print.
Foucault, Michel. “Technologies of the Self.” Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Eds. Luther R. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton. Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988a. 16-49. Print.
---. “Power, Moral Values and the Intellectual.” History of the Present 4.1-2 (1988b): 11-13. Print.
---. “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of the Work in Progress.” Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Ed. Paul Rabinow. London: Penguin Books, 1994a. 253-80. Print.
---. “Self Writing.” Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Ed. Paul Rabinow. London: Penguin Books, 1994b. 207-22. Print.
---. “The Ethic of Care for the Self as a Practice of Freedom.” Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Ed. Paul Rabinow. London: Penguin Books, 1994c. 281-301. Print.
---. “What is Enlightenment?” Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Ed. Paul Rabinow. London: Penguin Books, 1994d. 303-20. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis (trans. J. Strachey). London: Penguin, 1991 [1915]. Print.
Hutton, Patrick. “Foucault, Freud, and the Technologies of the Self” Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Eds. Luther R. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton. Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. 121-44. Print.
Inglehart, Ronald, and Christian Welzel. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy. Cambridge. UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
Lasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism. London: Abacus, 1979. Print.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001. Print.
Papacharissi, Zizi. A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010. Print.
Rak, Julie. “The Digital Queer: Weblogs and Internet Identity.” Bibliography 28.1 (2005): 166-82. Print.
Rosen, Christine. “Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism.” The New Atlantis 15 Summer 2007: 15-31. Web. 15 June 2012.
Rosen, Jay. “People Formerly Known as the Audience.” PressThink Archive, 2006. Web. 23 July 2012 <http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html>.
Tyler, Imogen. “From ‘The Me Decade’ to ‘The Me Millenium’.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 10.3 (2007): 343-63. Print.
Vintges, Karen. “‘Must we burn Foucault?’ Ethics as art of living: Simone de Beauvoir and Michel Foucault.” Continental Philosophy Review 34 (2001): 165-81. Print.
Welzel, Christian. “How Selfish Are Self-Expression Values? A Civicness Test.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 41.2 (2010): 152-74. Print.
Yankelovich, Daniel. New Rules: Searching for Self-Fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down. New York: Random House, 1981. Print.
Zanders, Harry, and Stephen Harding. “Changing Work Values in Europe and North America. Continents and Occupations Compared.” Values in Western Societies. Ed. Ruud De Moor. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press, 1995. 195-216. Print.
Zaretsky, Eli. “Narcissism, Personal Life and Identity: The Place of the 1960s in the History of Psychoanalysis.” Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 13 (2008): 94-104. Print.
Return to Top»