EDB172 Lecture Notes - Episteme, Cultural Intelligence, E.G. Time
Social Governance and Schooling
Lecture
How the past differs from contemporary society
• No longer based around sovereign rule
o Previously no constant governance, executions reinforcement of sovereign power
o No 'welfare of the people'
• Society was undifferentiated; no individuality, has only developed recently
o People were parts of communities
• A large number of aspects shape individuality e.g. health, intelligence
• A change of 'episteme' (system of understanding and knowledge)
The structure of modern institutions
• Hierarchical observation
o We're a society based on continual surveillance
• Normalising judgement
• Particular kinds of institutions constructed based around surveillance, regulation,
management and governance come out into society
• Threefold process:
o Individuation
• sat in rows and columns, given a number
• locate in space and time
o Differentiation
• Assess
o Normalisation
• Intervene
What is normality?
• Paadoiall…. That hih is atual, that hih ust e oked at
• Shapes what we think natural is
• Provides a reason for intervention when 'real' life differs from these norms
• Normalisation can be more problematic than believed to be
Assessment
1. Assesset is a uial opoet of ode goeet, hoee…
2. Assessment is never neutral;
3. Assessment is about authority
• Knowledge is always constructed within particular context
o Culture spills into it
Psychology and the Government of the 'Inner Self'
Conclusion
• We now live in a disciplinary society
• Schools exemplify this type of logic/organisation, indeed they were one of its main points of
origin
• Even those areas of schooling which seem to be free of government intervention
(kindergartens, playground, subjective experience of pupils) are closely and effectively
managed
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Readings
Chapter 4: Governance
• Mass education has a crucial role to play in managing the conduct of the population
• Questions the assertion that schools have nothing to do with social administration, being
there solely for educational purposes and that the internal structure of the school - its
organisation of space and time - isn't that relevant
• Mass schooling formed a crucial component of a new form of social regulation: an increased
focus on individuality, conforming to the requirements of the state, and disciplinary
management of the population made possible through continual surveillance
• Myth #1: Society has always been simply a collection of individuals - Modern governance came
with new techniques of information gathering which allowed for the construction of new
categories of difference, bringing new possibilities of intervention and regulation
• Myth #2: Schools are primarily about education, not regulation - mass schooling is 'governing
at a distance'; required capacities instilled into the population without the government
seeming to be involved
• Myth #3: The structure of the school isn't really that important to the education process - Mass
school's institutional logic spilled out into society; schools, and in turn society, are based upon
continual surveillance, the close regulation of space and time, and the detailed management
of behaviour. The threefold process of individuation, differentiation and normalisation came
to organise society
Rose, Nikolas, and Peter Miller. Governing the Present : Administering Economic, Social and Personal
Life, Polity Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=1184189.
Created from qut on 2018-02-23 22:35:42.
P.: The to, appaetl illieal, poles of poe oe life that Fouault idetifies – the
disciplines of the body and the biopolitics of the population – thus find their place within liberal
mentalities of rule; as rule becomes dependent upon ways of rendering intelligible and practicable
these vital conditions for the production and government of a polity of free citizens
--> So, keeping order and control of the 'people' - something that would normally be considered
illiberal - has a place in liberal mentalities of rule because, without this, the governing of a an
organised society of free citizens isn't possible.
• Censuses and statistics are perceived as necessary for having a government that has been
mandated to enhance the populace's well-being
• There has to be a knowledge of those who are ruled in order to rule them appropriately and
desirably
• Individuality is shaped and regulated in particular ways through a range of novel practices
• P.204: "Liberal strategies of government thus become dependent upon devices (schooling, the
domesticated family, the lunatic asylum, the reformatory prison) that promise to create
individuals who do not need to be governed by others, but will govern themselves, master
themselves, care for themselves."
• Social insurance: one of many ways in which, at the start of the twentieth century, the
'privacy' of the private spheres of family and factory was attenuated (weakened, reduced)
• P.: "The idiidual ad the fail ee to e siultaeousl assiged thei soial duties,
accorded their rights, assured of their natural capacities, and educated in the fact that they
need to be educated by experts i ode to esposil assue thei feedo ‘ose :
13)."
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• A citizen could be afforded rights to social protection and social education in return for duties
of social obligation and responsibility
Advanced Liberalism (210)
• Aftermath of WWII had some believing that the logics of the interventionist State set nations
of the paths towards totalitarian States such as Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union -
"subversive of the very freedoms, democracies and liberties they sought to enhance"
• Criticisms of social government were rife from both left ('fiscal crisis of the State') and right
('unproductive' welfare sector vs. 'productive' private sector):
o Arrogance of government overreach
o Dangers of imminent government overload
o Measures aimed to decrease poverty had increased inequality etc.
o Welfare services destroyed other forms of social support - church, community and
family
• Neo-conservative (eventually termed 'neo-liberalist) political regimes in Britain and US 1970s-
1980s
Governing in an 'advanced liberal way' (212)
• Sought to develop techniques of government that created a distance between decisions of
formal political institutions and other social actors
o Shaped and utilised social domains (actors) to be 'free' and have more responsibility,
autonomy and choice
• Three shifts:
o A new relation between expertise and politics
• Authority can be scrutinised through new techniques such as budget disciplines,
accountancy and audits
o A new pluralisation of 'social' technologies
• Shift in relations: the responsible individual and their self-governing community -->
the social citizen and their common society
• Government shifts to shaping the powers and will of autonomous entities:
enterprises, organisation, communities , professionals, individuals
• Service and dedication have been replaced by competition, quality and customer
demand --> different networks of accountability
• Various government activities disassembled; non-governmental organisations
taking on regulatory functions (e.g. private tertiary training, prisons, 'public'
utilities
• Conduct of non-government organisations governed through contracts,
performances mesaures, evaluation, etc.
o A new specification of the government
• Individual responsibility and fulfilment within micro-moral communities (families,
workplaces, schools etc.), that shape an acceptable lifestyle
• Self-enterprise to maximise quality of life
• Appearance of personal choice within areas to make is possible to govern in an
'advanced liberal' way:
▪ Common language, skills of literacy
▪ Transportation networks
▪ Mass media communication and pedagogies through documentary and soap
opera
▪ Opinion polls and other devices that provide reciprocal links between
authorities and subjects
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Document Summary
How the past differs from contemporary society: no longer based around sovereign rule, previously no constant governance, executions reinforcement of sovereign power, no "welfare of the people" Society was undifferentiated; no individuality, has only developed recently: people were parts of communities, a large number of aspects shape individuality e. g. health, intelligence, a change of "episteme" (system of understanding and knowledge) The structure of modern institutions: hierarchical observation, we"re a society based on continual surveillance, normalising judgement, particular kinds of institutions constructed based around surveillance, regulation, management and governance come out into society, threefold process: Individuation sat in rows and columns, given a number locate in space and time: differentiation, assess, normalisation. Shapes what we think natural is: pa(cid:396)ado(cid:454)i(cid:272)all(cid:455) . That (cid:449)hi(cid:272)h is (cid:374)atu(cid:396)al, that (cid:449)hi(cid:272)h (cid:373)ust (cid:271)e (cid:449)o(cid:396)ked at: provides a reason for intervention when "real" life differs from these norms, normalisation can be more problematic than believed to be.
