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We are perhaps living the end of politics, wrote Michel Foucault at the end of the 1970s. With the exhaustion of utopias and radical alternatives to capitalism, what was now at stake, he wrote in a memorable way, was to developing new types, new types of relationships with ourselves. Political advancement is no longer assured by parties, unions, bureaucracy and politics, he wrote. Instead, politics has become an individual moral concern.
In this new definition of politics in which everything is politics and the personal is politics, the ego was thought to have become the battleground for contemporary politics. At this time, many intellectuals, including Foucault, announced the end of the era of revolution, opening an era in which to transform becomes the most popular conception of social change. With the collapse of the great collective narratives, they said, we now had to look within. From the end of the 60s, political change would be reframed as a struggle against oneself, against our internal enemy. We had to face the fascist inside.
This shift has made the auto another market to conquer, with self-help coaches, new age gurus, energy healers, diet counselors, alternative therapists, and lifestyle brands all trying. to take advantage of this inward shift. Politics, as Christopher Lasch would write, would degenerate into a struggle not for social change but for self-actualization. But, contrary to what Lasch believed, the growing therapeutic sensitivity he observed did not become an anti-religion, based on rational explanation and scientific methods of healing, but would deploy its own denominational techniques, endlessly re-presenting the social as well as personal issues.
Much like soul-focused Christianities, this new self-politics produced a denominational culture, in which the battles and struggles taking place within were to be discussed, confessed, and shared with those on the outside. Awareness, self-examination or empowerment have become key techniques. This trend has been accelerated by the self-help literature and consultancies, which have helped bring denominational culture to the fore in our contemporary political practice.
Today, this change has been particularly visible in the denominational tone of many forms of contemporary anti-racism. Discussing racism in America in one of her trainings on white fragility, diversity consultant Robin DiAngelo confessed to her audience that she herself had colluded with him every moment of [her] life.
I try, as hard as I can, to counter it, she added, but we can never free ourselves from it.
Likewise, successful anti-racist educator Ibram X Kendi argued that being anti-racist is still going on; it requires persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism, and regular self-examination. Anti-racism then becomes a practice of endless work on oneself, made of constant introspection, whether in the street or in the training spaces of companies and universities.
A visual depiction of what this type of politics looks like was captured in the viral photo of top Democratic leaders, including Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, kneeling on the floor in Ghanaian kente silk stoles after the police murder of George Floyd, and the death that followed. of the Police Justice Bill. Similar ceremonies have been hosted by professional sports teams, celebrities or wealthy executives such as Jamie Dimon kneeling in front of his Chase bank vault.
Likewise, this is reflected in the anti-racism pledges posted by several Hollywood stars on social media. In an openly confessional tone, they filmed themselves taking responsibility for every uncontrolled moment, every stereotype, every time they remain silent or close their eyes. Rather than just looking within, however, this denominational politics is played out in public. Unlike the private voting booth or the sanctity of the ballot box, confession today takes place in the streets, in art galleries, in the workplace and on social media.
Despite what Foucault had hoped, we have not witnessed a decline in confession but an intensification and multiplication of it in the public space. Today’s lay confessionals increasingly resemble the noisy and public forms of penance of the early Christian communities where penitents were to publish themselves (publicatio sui, as the church father Tertullian said) through rituals of humiliation to choose the path of purity.
This new type of denominational politics is taking shape today through publications and challenges on social networks, viral hashtags created by influencers, companies such as Coca-Cola or Disney training their staff to be less white and to work. out of feelings of guilt, shame and defensiveness or The CIA runs agent ads denouncing internalized patriarchy.
This phenomenon is reinforced by self-help businesses and industries that are sinking deeper and deeper into our psyche.
It is a confession made not under the priestly vow of silence but under the full gaze of publicity. He inaugurates a work of a lifetime, as DiAngelo said, fighting the evil within and joining with other penitents. It is a world in which the abandonment of the struggle against social and economic exploitation has shifted politics into a struggle between competing faith groups, each publicly asserting the rightness of its own path to salvation.
This political phenomenon is picked up and reinforced by the self-help businesses and industries that penetrate ever deeper into our psyche, encouraging us to practice mindfulness techniques at work, for example. This is reflected in everything from management guru Peter Druckers’ call for self-management to bestsellers in the billion dollar personal development industry to Canadian psychologist Jordan Petersons of living standards.
Despite the ever-growing presence of this policy, its shortcomings are increasingly evident. White guilt and black outrage, as Cedric Johnson, professor of African American studies recently pointed out, has limited political value, and neither has ever been a lasting basis for building the kind of popular majorities and legislative necessary to really challenge the entrenched power in any meaningful way.
In fact, he added, this militant expression of racial liberalism will continue to differ from the kind of public goods that could actually help anyone who is routinely watched, harassed, arrested, convicted, incarcerated and condemned as failures. As the material issues of politics become more and more urgent, many in the liberal center would much prefer that we attend to loud rituals announcing our internal battles. They thus reveal the failure of a policy based on the thesis, advanced by Foucault 40 years ago, that the struggles around oneself are becoming more and more important in our world compared to those of exploitation and some inequalities.
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