Experts of the soul nikolas rose

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Nikolas Rose Experts of the Soul1 Nikolas Rose Zusammenfassung: In den liberalen demokratisch-kapitalistischen Gesellschaften des Westens hat sich psychologisches Fachwissenunentbehrlich gemacht, nicht nur im H inblick auf die Regulation solcher Bereiche wie z. B. der von der Fabrik bis zur Familie, sondern auch in ethischen Systemen, nach denen Bürger ihr Leben führen. In diesem Beitrag werden einige Wege dargestellt, wie die Geburt dieser "Seeleningenieure" und deren Stellung in verschiedenen sozio-politischen Arrangements verstanden werden können. Psychologie, so wird argumentiert, schafft berechenbare Individuen, und so gestaltbare interindividuelle Räume, unterstützt Autorität mit ethisch-therapeutischer Begründung und stellt eine ethische Technologie zur Verfügung, mit der das autonome Selbst der Individuen geformt werden kann. Diese Kennzeichen der "techne" der Psychologie sind intrinsisch mit der Problematik liberaler Demokratien verbunden, die mit dem Anspruch von Privatheit, Rationalität und Automie regieren. Ferner haben diese Kennzeichen Bedeutung für die gegenwärtigen gesellschaftlichen Umgestaltungsprozesse in "Osteuropa". Summary: In the liberal democratic capitalist societies of "the west", psychological expertise has made itself indispensable, not only in the regulation of domains from the factory to the family, but also in the ethical systems according to which citizens live their lives. This paper suggests some ways to comprehend the birth of these "engineers of the human soul" and their place within different socio-political arrangements. Psychology, it argues, makes individuals who are calculable, makes intersubjective spaces that are manageable, underpins authority with an ethico-therapeutic rationale and provides an ethical technology for the shaping of autonomous selves. These features of the 'rechne' of psychology are intrinsically linked to the problematics of liberal democracies which seek to govern through privacy, rationality and autonomy. They also have implications for the current transformations in the societies of "Eastern Europe". It was, I believe, Joseph Stalin who refer- red to writers under his brand of socialism as `engineers of the human soul'. In the liberal, democratic and capitalist societies of „the West", the task of engineering the human soul has fallen to a different sector - to professio- nals imbued with the vocabularies, the evaluations, the techniques and the ethics of psychology. Whether it be at home or at work, in marketing or in politics, in child rearing or in sexuality, psychological expertise has made itself indispensable to modern life in such societies. How should this phenomenon be understood? I suggest that we should not answer this question in terms of the evolution of ideas, the appliance of science or the rise of a profession, but in terms of expertise. I use the term „ex- pertise" to refer to a particular kind of social authority, characteristically deployed around problems, exercising a certain diagnostic gaze, 3. Jahrgang Heft 1/2 grounded in a claim to truth, asserting techni- cal efficacy, and avowing humane ethical vi- rtues. Whilst the notion of professionalization implies an attempt to found occupational exclusiveness an the basis of a monopolisation of an area of practice and the possession of an exclusive disciplinary base, expertise is hete- rogeneous. It amalgamates knowledges and techniques from different sources into a complex 'know-how'. The attempt to ratify the coherence of this array of procedures and forms of thought is made retrospectively, and characteristically not by deriving them from a single theory but by unifying them within a pedagogic practice. The notion of expertise enables us to distinguish between the occupational advan- cement of a particular professional sector, the spread of a particular mode of thought and technique, and the transformation of practices of regulation. For the social consequences of 91

Transcript of Experts of the soul nikolas rose

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Nikolas Rose

Experts of the Soul1

Nikolas Rose

Zusammenfassung: In den liberalen demokratisch-kapitalistischen Gesellschaften des Westens hat sichpsychologisches Fachwissenunentbehrlich gemacht, nicht nur im H inblick auf die Regulation solcher Bereichewie z. B. der von der Fabrik bis zur Familie, sondern auch in ethischen Systemen, nach denen Bürger ihr Lebenführen. In diesem Beitrag werden einige Wege dargestellt, wie die Geburt dieser "Seeleningenieure" und derenStellung in verschiedenen sozio-politischen Arrangements verstanden werden können. Psychologie, so wirdargumentiert, schafft berechenbare Individuen, und so gestaltbare interindividuelle Räume, unterstütztAutorität mit ethisch-therapeutischer Begründung und stellt eine ethische Technologie zur Verfügung, mit derdas autonome Selbst der Individuen geformt werden kann. Diese Kennzeichen der "techne" der Psychologiesind intrinsisch mit der Problematik liberaler Demokratien verbunden, die mit dem Anspruch von Privatheit,Rationalität und Automie regieren. Ferner haben diese Kennzeichen Bedeutung für die gegenwärtigengesellschaftlichen Umgestaltungsprozesse in "Osteuropa".

Summary: In the liberal democratic capitalist societies of "the west", psychological expertise has made itselfindispensable, not only in the regulation of domains from the factory to the family, but also in the ethical systemsaccording to which citizens live their lives. This paper suggests some ways to comprehend the birth of these"engineers of the human soul" and their place within different socio-political arrangements. Psychology, itargues, makes individuals who are calculable, makes intersubjective spaces that are manageable, underpinsauthority with an ethico-therapeutic rationale and provides an ethical technology for the shaping ofautonomous selves. These features of the 'rechne' of psychology are intrinsically linked to the problematics ofliberal democracies which seek to govern through privacy, rationality and autonomy. They also haveimplications for the current transformations in the societies of "Eastern Europe".

It was, I believe, Joseph Stalin who refer-red to writers under his brand of socialism as`engineers of the human soul'. In the liberal,democratic and capitalist societies of „theWest", the task of engineering the human soulhas fallen to a different sector - to professio-nals imbued with the vocabularies, theevaluations, the techniques and the ethics ofpsychology. Whether it be at home or at work,in marketing or in politics, in child rearing orin sexuality, psychological expertise has madeitself indispensable to modern life in suchsocieties. How should this phenomenon beunderstood?

I suggest that we should not answer thisquestion in terms of the evolution of ideas, theappliance of science or the rise of a profession,but in terms of expertise. I use the term „ex-pertise" to refer to a particular kind of socialauthority, characteristically deployed aroundproblems, exercising a certain diagnostic gaze,

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grounded in a claim to truth, asserting techni-cal efficacy, and avowing humane ethical vi-rtues. Whilst the notion of professionalizationimplies an attempt to found occupationalexclusiveness an the basis of a monopolisationof an area of practice and the possession of anexclusive disciplinary base, expertise is hete-rogeneous. It amalgamates knowledges andtechniques from different sources into acomplex 'know-how'. The attempt to ratifythe coherence of this array of procedures andforms of thought is made retrospectively, andcharacteristically not by deriving them from asingle theory but by unifying them within apedagogic practice.

The notion of expertise enables us todistinguish between the occupational advan-cement of a particular professional sector, thespread of a particular mode of thought andtechnique, and the transformation of practicesof regulation. For the social consequences of

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psychology are not the same as the socialconsequences of psychologists. Psychology isa `generous' discipline: the key to the socialpenetration of psychology lies in its capacityto lend itself freely' to others who will `bor-row' it because of what it offers to them in theway of a justification and guide to action.Hence psychological ways of thinking andacting can infuse the practices of other socialactors such as doctors, social workers, mana-gers, nurses, even accountants. Psychologyenters into alliance with such agents of socialauthority, colonising their ways of calculatingand arguing with psychological vocabularies,reformulating their ways of explaining nor-mality and pathology in psychological terms,giving their techniques a psychological colo-ration. It is precisely though such alliances thatpsychology has made itself powerful: not somuch by occupational exclusiveness or mono-polization but because of what it has providedfor others, on condition that they come to thinkand act like psychologists.

These alliances do not simply provide psy-chology with a means to gain its hold on socialreality, as it were, by proxy. They also providesomething for the doctors, nurses, social wor-kers and managers who enter into psychologi-cal coalitions: those engaged in the prolifera-ting practices that deal with the vagaries ofhuman conduct and human pathology andseek to act upon it in a reasoned and calculatedform. Psychology promises to rationalise thesepractices, to systematise and simplify the waysin which authorities visualize, evaluate anddiagnose the conduct of their human subjects,and conduct themselves in relation to them. Inpurporting to underpin authority by a coherentintellectual and practical regime, psychologyoffers others both a grounding in truth andsome formulae for efficacy. In claiming tomodulate power through a knowledge of sub-jectivity, psychology can provide social aut-hority with a basis that is not merely technicaland scientific but 'ethical'.

Making psychology technical

From the perspective of expertise, our ana-lysis of the proliferation of psychology connectswith a number of other reflections on trans-formations in social arrangements and formsof authority in European societies over the lastcentury. our focus shifts from psychologyitself to the modes in which psychologicalknowledges and techniques have graftedthemselves onto other practices. Psychologyis seen as offering something to, and derivingsomething from, its capacity to enter into anumber of diverse 'human technologies'. Theterm 'technology' directs our attention to thecharacteristic ways in which practices are or-ganized to produce certain outcomes in termsof human conduct: reform, efficiency, edu-cation, cure, or virtue. It directs analysis to thetechnical forms invented to produce theseoutcomes - ways of combining persons, truths,judgments, devices and actions into a stable,reproducible and durable form. But the notionof a human technology is not intended to implyan inhuman technology - one that crushes anddehumanises the essential personhood of tho-se caught up within it. Psychology has becomeenmeshed within such technologies, in part,because it answers to the wish to humanisethem, to make them adequate to the real natureof the Person to be governed.

Unlike the ancient professions, psycholo-gy has no institution of its own: no churchwithin which to redeem sin, no court of lawwithin which to pronounce judgment, no ho-spital within which to diagnose or cure. Psy-chological modes of thought and action havecome to underpin - and then to transform -practices that were previously cognized andlegitimated in other ways - via the charisma ofthe persona of authority, by the repetition oftraditional procedures, by appeal to extrinsicstandards of morality, by rule of thumb. Itfinds its social territory in all those dispersedencounters where human conduct is probte-

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matized in relation to ethical standards, socialjudgments or individual pathology. What is itthat psychology can offer to such encounters?

Making individuals who are calculable

Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Lukacs, Haber-mas and Foucault each, in their different ways,suggested that calculation was central to thesocial arrangements and ethical systems of thecapitalist, bureaucratic and democratic socie-ties of North West Europe and North America,not only in the domination of nature, but alsoin relation to human beings. We have entered,it appears, the age of the calculable person,whose individuality is no longer ineffable,unique and beyond knowledge, but can beknown, mapped, calibrated, evaluated, quan-tified, predicted and managed.

For those who take their cue from Marx, itis in the workplace and in the activity ofproduction that the rise of calculability is to begrounded, in the capitalist imperative of mana-gement, prediction and control of labour. Forthose who take their cue from Weber, calcu-lation is an inherent part of rational administ-ration, bound up with the desire for exactitude,predictability, and the subordination of sub-stantive or ad hoc judgment to the uniformityofarule. In each of these cases, the calculabilityof the person is seen as the effect or symptomof a process that has its roots elsewhere. Butwhat is at stake should not be seen as belongingto the order of effects. One should investigatemore directly the practical conditions and socialarrangements that made it necessary and pos-sible for the human individual to becomecalculable. Through what procedures of in-scription, differentiation and cognition did theknowledges and procedures emerge whichwould make of the human being a caiculableentity? How did this caiculation come to ap-pear, not the result of disputable value choicesor social goals, but of objective criteria, arisingout of scientific investigation, and madethrough technical rather than political proce-dures?

The social vocation of psychology and itsstatus as expertise is intrinsically bound tosuch questions. For it was through the forma-tion of a specifically psychological expertise,and through the construction of institutionaltechnologies that were infused by specificallypsychological values, that individual differenceWarne scientifically caiculable andtechni-cal administrable (Rose, 1985; 1988). Apsychological knowledge of individual diffe-rences did not emerge from a mysterious leapof the intellect or from laborious theoreticaland scientific enquiry, but neither did it merelyanswer to the demand that capitalist control ofthe labour process be legitimated, or spreadbecause of its eleetive affinity with a rationalcaiculating „spirit of the age". lt needs to beunderstood as an „institutional epistemology"(Gordon, 1987), Born within the mundaneorganizational practices of those social appa-ratuses constructed in so many European sta-tes in the late nineteenth century that sought toorganize persons en masse in relation to par-ticular objectives - reform, education, cure,virtue. Schools, hospitals, prisons, reformato-ries and factories acted as laboratories for theisolation, intensification, and inscription ofhuman difference. They were simultaneouslylocales for observation of and experimentati-on with human difference. Knowledge itseifneeds to be understood as technique, rooted inattempts to organize the environment accor-ding to certain values. And truth becomespowerful to the extent that it becomes techni-cal.

The psychological „test", in all its forms, isthe paradigmatic technique of the caiculableperson, for visualising and inscribingindividual difference in a caiculable form. The test isa tiny but all pervasive diagram of a certaincombination of power, truth and subjectifi-cation: tests and examinations render indivi-duals into knowledge as objects of a hierarchicaland normative gaze, making it possible toqualify, to classify and to punish (Foucault,1977, pp.l84-5). The invisible, subjectiveworld of the individual can now be visualisedand represented in ciassifications, in figures

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and quotients. The psychological test thusplays a crucial organizational rote within thecaiculative attitude that has become Zentral toall those disciplinary' institutions that are theother normalising' side of liberal democracy,institutions where individuals are to be

governed in terms of their individuality, in such away as to maximise their organizational utilityand utilise their powers in a calcutated form.

Critics of psychology often portray its uti-lisation of tests and numbers as the antithesisof humanity and democracy, reducing theperson to a mere number. But one dimensionof the „power of psychology" lies in its „hu-mane" capacity to shift judgments about per-sons from a sphere of values, prejudice or ruleof thumb to the sphere of human truths, equalityof standards, cogentiy justifiable choices andobjective criteria of efficacy that should reignin a democracy. Psychological expertise ren-ders human difference technical: judgmentcan appear to answer only to the demands ofnatural differences and human truths.

techniques of attitude measurement and theattitude survey open the social actions of in-dividuals to systematic planning and mana-gement by authorities. The notion of the groupenables thought to grasp and administer ahuman domain that inhabits the architecturalspace of the factory, the schoolroom, the ho-spital and the office. The notion of publicopinion and the technique of the opinion pollopen a relation between political authoritiesand those they govern that goes beyond therequirement that political leaders periodicallyseek a democratic mandate through an electi-on that can only acclaim or condemn.

In each case, the aspiration is that psycho-logical expertise can produce techniques bywhich authority can be exercised in the light ofthe personal commitments, values and moti-vations of those subjected to it. In a liberalsociety, authority is only effective and legiti-mate to the extent that it is exercised in the lightof a knowledge of those who are governed.

Making spaces that are manageable

Psychology is often criticised for its indivi-dualism. But psychology also makes possiblea technology of spaces and relations, comingto infuse all those practices where authoritieshave to administer individuals in their collec tiveexistence. What is it that psychology offers tothose charged with the administration of grouplife?

Psychological expertise makes inter-sub-jectivity calculable, enabling the calculatedsupervision and administration of collectivities.Social space has thereby been opened to cali-bration and management (Miller and Rose,1988; Rose, 1989; Miller, 1989). Whether viathe notions of individual attitudes, of publicopinion, of the human relations of the work-place, of the psychodynamic relations of theorganization - those who are charged with theresponsibility for administering the socialexistence of individuals may redefine theirtask in psychological terms. The language and

Making authorities who are ethical

Psychological expertise promises some-thing to those who have the responsibility ofwielding a power over others. On the one handit enables them to assemble their various tasksand activities within a certain order and tosubject them to a consistent set of calculations.On the other, it promises to 'ethicalise' thepowers of authorities from business consul-tants in search of profits and harmony to mi-litary men in search of efficient fighting forces.In this combined promise of rationality andethicality, psychological expertise can promiseto make authority simultaneously artful andwholesome.

Psychology grafts itself onto practices oflaw, punishment, management, parenthoodthrough its promise to combine efficacy andutility with humanity and truth. In installingitself within the self-guidance systems of themanager, the parent, the social worker, psy-chology turns the authority into a psychologi-

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cal calculator - one who visualises the factoryor the family in psychological terms, analysesits strengths and weaknesses in psychologicalvocabularies, and makes decisions accordingto a psychological calculus. Those in authorityare offered ways of deliberating about, jud-ging, organizing and simplifying the multitu-de of decisions that confront them. No longerare the various activities of the manager or theparent merely an array of tasks that happen tocoincide within the remit of the decision ma-ker. These tasks can be linked up, related,explicated in terms of knowledge, made accor-ding to certain formulae and adjudicated interms of justified criteria. Whether instructing,managing, curing, punishing, educating or re-forming, one can first „understand", via ahermeneutics of the soul conducted in psy-chological terms, one can then „diagnose"according to a cogently justifiable system ofclassification, and finally one can „prescribe"a response via a calculated knowledge of sub-jectivity and techniques for its transformation.

But it is not merely that psychologicalexpertise is „simplifying" . This, after all,could be said of any other form of expertise tothe extent that it renders a diverse assemblageof issues cognizable within a single explana-tory space. Psychology offers also an ethicalmeans of exercising authority, one that is notbased upon an external truth - be it divine rightor collective good - but on a truth internal to theperson over whom it is exercised. Exercisingmastery over others in the light of a knowledgeof their inner nature makes authority almost atherapeutic activity. The possibility emergesthat the decisions made by authorities can bealigned with the best interests of those overwhose lives they will affect - be they worker,prisoner, patient or child. This ethical-thera-peutic transformation is one aspect of the fortethat bonds diverse social authorities to psy-chological expertise and makes it so powerful.It also explains the seductive promise held outby psychology to those who will exerciseauthority. It gives a new kind of human andmoral worth not merely to the gross and evi-dent wielding of power over others, but also to

the mundane activities of daily decision ma-king in the factory or in the family.

This points to a characteristic that givespsychological technologies a general politicalsignificance within liberal democratic techni-ques of government. The seduction of thepsychological enables 'private' domains suchas the business enterprise and the family to beregulated by means of, rather than in spite of,their autonomy and responsibility. Psycholo-gical expertise is dissem inated not only throughthe activities and ministrations of expertsthemselves, but also through school curriculaand educational courses, radio and televisionprogrammes, popular books, magazines andadvertisements. The norms and vocabulariespromulgated confer a new of visibility uponthe workings of the family or the factory andnew ways of identifying its malfunctions.Certain features become visible, certain notionsare used to judge them, certain vocabulariesare installed to renderorganizational or familiallife into speech in the form of problems re-quiring solution. Now mothers, fathers, mana-gers, bosses can themselves take on calculati-ons and make judgments in these terms. And,when problems get too great for self-regulati-on, they can consult the experts to seek toovercome the anxiety formed in the gap bet-ween what they are and what they want to be.The 'private' domains of the family and thefactory can thus be normalised though theanxiety of its internal authorities without bre-aching their formal autonomy: 'private' aut-hority is bound into `public' values by meansof psychological expertise.

Psychology does not simply ally itself withauthorities in private domains by promising tosolve their problems. In „applying itself" tosuch problems it transforms their terms. In-dustrial accidents become a matter of the hu-man relations of the workplace. Profitabilitybecomes a matter of releasing the self-actua-lising potential of the workforce. Naughtychildren become a matter of the emotionalheritage of the parent's own childhood. Careeradvancement becomes a matter of self-confi-dence, and self-assertiveness. Marketing be-

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comes a matter of segmenting consumers bytheir psychological profiles, and advertising amatter of linking your product with the desiresof those who must come to purchase it. Each ofthese problems now becomes inconceivable inother than psychological terms.

The application of psychological expertiseto a domain itself generates new ways ofconstruing ex istence as potentially problematic.Thus one sees the correlative emergence ofnormality as something to be achieved and asrisk as something to be calculated and admi-nistered. The retro-direction of the psycholo-gical gaze can identify problems in potentiaand hence generate prophylactic strategies fortheir preemptive solution. In the shift of pro-blematization from pathology to normality,normality itself is rendered as the fragile out-come of the successful averting of risk. Ex-pertise offers to turn chance into certainty: theproduction of normality can itself become anendeavour suffused with psychological cal-culation. Normality is to be produced by apermanent modulation of deliberations anddecisions by psychology in the light of a calcu-lation of risk.

In this process, a new kind of relationshipis established between the psychological ex-perts and those who consult them. Whetherthey be managers, parents or patients, theirrelation to authority is a matter neither ofsubordination of will nor of rational persuasi-on. Rather it has to do with a kind of discip-leship. The relation between expert and clientis structured by a hierarchy of wisdom, it isheld in place by the wish for truth and certainty,and it offers the disciple the promise ofselfunderstanding and seif improvement. It is notmerely the promise of professional advance-ment that attracts business people, social wor-kers, doctors, police officer and so many othersto psychologically informed training coursesin managerial skills. Not is it merely the hopethat, once schooled in psychological vocabu-laries, techniques and ways of calculating onewill be able to simultaneously do a good joband do good. The insight conferred by thepsychologisation of one's job is also an insight

into oneseif and ones life. For the allure ofpsychology is that the ethical pathway forauthority is also an ethical pathway for the self.

Working on our selves

Psychological languages and judgmentshave the capacity to graft themselves into theethical practices of individuals - their ways ofevaluating themselves in relation to what istrue or false, good or bad, permitted or for-bidden. Ethics here is understood in terms ofspecific `techniques of the seif', practices bywhich individuals seek to improve themselvesand their lives and the aspirations and normsthat guide them. Many have commented uponthe ways in which contemporary practices forthe interpretation and improvement of the seifhave achieved a psychological coloration,operating according to psychological normsand in relation to psychological truths (Rieff,1966; Lasch, 1979, 1984; Rose, 1990). Psy-chological languages and evaluations havetransformed the ways in which we construeand conduct our encounters with others - withour bosses, employees, workmates, wives,husbands, lovers, mothers, fathers, childrenand friends. Each mode of encounter has beenre-configured in terms of personal feelings,desires, personalities, strivings and fears. Psy-chological techniques have come to infuse,dominate or displace theological, uroral, bodily,dietary and other regimens for bringing theself to virtue or happiness, and also thosedeployed for reconciling the self to tragedy ordisappointment. The experts on hand to guideus through the conduct of our lives are by nomeans all psychologists. But, increasingly,they deploy a psychological hermeneutics,utilise psychological explanatory systems andrecommendpsychological measures ofredress.

The ethical technologies deployed withinthis regime are, of course, heterogeneous.Nonetheless, the technology of the confessio-nal is perhaps most significant. It characterisesalmost all systems of psychotherapy and coun-selling. It also provides a potent technical form

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that has come to install itseif in a range of otherpractices where the conduct of personal life isat stake, from the doctor's surgery to the radio`phone in', from the social work interview tothe frank interchange of lovers. For MichelFoucault, confession was the diagram of aparticular form of power (Foucault, 1978).The truthful rendering into speech of who oneis and what one does - to one's parents, onesteachers, ones doctor, ones lover - was bothidentifying - in that it constructed a self interms of a certain norm of identity - andsubjectifying - in that one became a subject atthe price of entering into a certain game ofauthority.

To speak the truth of one's feelings anddesires, to share' them as the saying goes, isnot merely the rendering audible of the inar-ticulate murmuring of the soul. In the veryprocedure, the confessing subject is identified:the „I" that speaks is to be - at least when„insight" has been gained „ - identical with the„I" whose feelings, wishes, anxieties and fearsare articulated. One becom es, at least in poten-tia, the subject of one's own narrative, and inthe very act itself one is attached to the work ofconstructing an identity. In the same processas the subject affiliates him or herself to suchan identity project, he or she is bound to thelanguages and norms of psychological exper-tise. For the words and rituals that govern theseconfessions are those prescribed by an autho-rity, albeit one who has replaced the claims ofgod and religion with those of nature and thepsyche.

Some contemporary psychologists interpretthe outcome of such processes, in which in-dividuals scrutinise, interpret and speak aboutthemselves in a psychological vocabulary, interms of the „social construction" of the Per-son (eg. Shotter and Gergen, 1989). I amagnostic about such ontological claims. It isnot so much a question of what people are, butof what they take themselves to be, the criteriaand standards by which they judge themselves,the ways in which they interpret their problemsand problematize their existence, the authori-ties under whose aegis such problematizations

are conducted - and their consequences. If wehave become profoundly psychological bein-gs, it is not that we have been equipped with apsychology, but rather that we have comethink, judge, console and reform ourselvesaccording to psychological norms of truth.

Confession has been joined by a range ofother psycho-technologies of the self, frombehaviourial techniques for teaching the artsof existence as social skills to bioenergetictechniques of bodily therapy. The details areless significant than the mode of operation ofpsychological expertise that is involved. It isnot only that the truths of psychology havebecome connected to our practices of the self,with the notions that happiness and successcan be achieved through the engagement of theseif in a psychological regime of therapeuticremodelling. It is also that a psychologicalethics is intimately tied to the liberal aspirationsof freedom and autonomy. It promises a systemof values freed from moral judgment - itsnorms answer not to an arbitrary moral orpolitical code but only to the demands of ournature and our truth as human beings. It doesnot try to impose a new moral self upon us, butto free the self we truly are, to make it possiblefor us each to make a project of our lives, tofulfil ourselves and shape our existence accor-ding to an ethics of autonomy.

Critics tend to view the rise of the thera-peutic as a symptom of cultural malaise: of thepervasive individualism of modern westernculture; of the decline of religion and othertranscendental systems for imparting meaningto quotidian existence; of the transformationof familial authority and the rise of narcissism;of the loss of the old solidities in a post-modernworld in flux. But a different approach issuggested by the prominence which contem-porary psychological ethics gives to the normof autonomy. Contemporary rationalities ofgovernment also attach considerable value tonotions of individual liberty, choice and free-dom as the criteria by which government is tobe calculated and judged. Perhaps the potencyof psychological expertise in advanced liberaldemocracies can be related to the rise of social

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arrangements that presuppose human indivi-duals to be committed to shaping a meaningfor their lives through the maximization of apersonal lifestyle. The ethical technologieswithin which psychological expertise is sodeeply enmeshed provide a means for shaping,sustaining and managing human beings that isnot in opposition to their personal identity butpromises to produce such an identity. Psy-chological expertise should be seen, perhaps,as a necessary reciprocal element of the poli-tical valorisation of freedom.

Psychological expertise and liberal go-vernment

There is a particular salience to an inve-stigation of the relations between the politicalrationalities of freedom and the growth ofpsychological expertise at the present time.The societies of „Eastern Europe" are currentlyattempting to cast off their allegiance to thepolitical problematics of Marxism-Leninismand to the associated regulatory technologiesof the party apparatus, the central plan and theethics of social duty and collective responsibi-lity. In their place, they look to the economicand industrial technologies and expertise of„the West" in order to re-construct their eco-nomic orders on the principles of the market,competition and enterprise. But the experien-ce of „the West" might imply that there is alsoa relationship between liberal democraciesand expert technologies of a different sort.This would be a relationship between politicalproblematics articulated in terms of indivi-dualism and freedom and the expertise of thepsy sciences, in particular of psychology.

Three broad themes are important in ex-amining this relationship between psycholo-gical expertise and liberal democratic forms ofgovernment: rationality; privacy and auto-nomy. First, in liberal democratic societies theexercise of power over citizens becomes le-gitimate to the extent that it claims a rationalbasis. Power is to become painstaking, calcu-lating and justifiable. This dependence of power

upon a claim to rationality opens up a vast andauspicious territory which expertise can col-onise.

Second, liberal democratic problematicsof government depend upon the creation of`private' spaces, outside the formal scope ofthe authority of public powers. Yet the eventswithin these 'private' spaces - notably 'themarket', 'the organization' and 'the family' -are construed as having vital consequences fornational wealth, health and tranquillity. TheJanus face of expertise enables it to operate asa relay between government and privacy -their claims to truth and efficacy appealing to,on the one hand, to governments searching foranswers to their problems of regulating eco-nomic, industrial or familial life, and on theother hand to those in authority over theseprivate spaces - be they industrialists or parents-attempting to manage their own private affairsefficaciously.

Third, liberal democratic problematics ofgovernment are autonomising, they seek togovern through constructing a kind of regula-ted autonomy for social actors. The modernliberal self is `obliged to be free', to construeall aspects of its life as the outcome of choicesmode amongst a number of options. Eachattribute of the person is to be realized throughdecisions, and justified in terms of motives,needs and aspirations of the self. The techno-logies of psychology gain their social power inliberal democracies because they share thisethic of competent autonomous selfhood, andbecause they promise to sustain, respect andrestore selfhood to citizens of such polities,They constitute technologies of individualityfor the production and regulation of the indi-vidual who is free to choose'.

The rise of psychological expertise, that isto say, is intrinsically bound to the problematicsof liberal democratic government, of governingthrough privacy, rationality and autonomy.Hence it is appropriate to ask, in this era ofsocial transformations, what role did the psy-chological technologies play under commandeconomies and in planned societies. And willthe transition to what may be described, at a

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rhetorical level, as market societies, require asits necessary corollary not just the importationof the material technologies of liberal de-mocracy but also their human technologies -the engineers of the human soul that are theother side of what we have come to termfreedom.

Anmerkungen

1. This is a revised version of a paper delivered at the 9thCheiron-Europe Conference, Weimar, 4 - 8 Septem-ber 1990.

Literatur

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth ofthe Prison. London: Allen Lane.

Foucault, M. (1978). History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. London:Allen Lane.

Gordon, C. (1987). The soul of the citizen: Max Weberand Michel Foucault on rationality and govemment. In

S. Whim ster & S. Lash (eds.), Max Weber: Rationalityand Modernity. London: Allen and Unwin.

Lasch, C. (1979). The Culture of Narcissism. New York:Norton

Lasch, C. (1984). The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival inTroubled Times. New York: Norton.

Miller, P. (1989). Calculating selves and calculable spaces.Paper presented at Workshop on Controlling SocialLife, European University Institute, Florence, May1989.

Miller, P. & Rose, N. (1988). The Tavistock programme:governing subjectivity and social life, Sociology.

Rieff, P. (1966). The Triumph of the Therapeutic. Lon-don: Chatto and Windus.

Rose, N. (1985). The Psychological Complex: Psycholo-gy, Politics and Society in England 1869-1939. Lon-don: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Rose, N. (1988). Calculable minds and manageable indi-viduals. History of the Human Sciences.

Rose, N. (1989). Social Psychology as a Science ofDemocracy. Proceedings of 8th Annual Conference ofCheiron Europe. Goteborg: Cheiron.

Rose, N. (1990). Governing the Soul: The Shaping of thePrivate Self. London: Routledge.

Shotter, J. & Gergen, K. (eds.) (1989). Texts of Identity.London: Sage.

Zum Autor: Nikolas Rose is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths' College,University of London. He is coordinator of the History of the Present Research Network, an international network of rese-archers whose work has been influenced by the writings of Michel Foucault. He is the author of The Psychological Complex:Psychology, Politics and Society in England, 1869-1939 (Routledge, 1985) and Governing the Soul: the Shaping of thePrivate Self (Routledge, 1990), and joint editor of The Power of Psychiatry (Polity, 1986). He is currently writing a socialand intellectual history of the Tavistock Clinic and Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and researching changing formsand strategies of political power.Anschrift: Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths' College, University of London, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW,Großbritannien.

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