“Foucault demonstrates the
extent to which the reception of Hellenistic self‐cultivation has been marred
by Christian polemics against self‐love, which its early theologians consider
the besetting sin of all paganism. These polemics, Foucault shows, have cast a
long shadow over every attempt to recover a positive notion of the work of
the self on itself. In other words, one of the great merits of Foucault’s
excavation of the Hellenistic practices of the self lies in the way it frees the
reception of this tradition from the incrustations of Christian polemics. He
demonstrates that Christianity wrongly interprets Hellenistic self‐cultivation
as closely connected, either historically or analytically, with a “conceited
ontology” that gives license to various brands of hyper‐individualism.13
Foucault’s interpretation of Hellenistic self‐cultivation sets it apart
from individualism understood either as a solipsistic withdrawal into the
private sphere, a crude exaltation of singularity, or, as indeed Augustine saw
it, an inflamed self‐love that blossoms into a love of power over others.”
© Michael Ure, 2007
ISSN: 1832-5203
Foucault Studies, No 4, pp. 19-52, Feb 2007
Senecan Moods: Foucault and Nietzsche on
the Art of the Self
ISSN: 1832-5203
Foucault Studies, No 4, pp. 19-52, Feb 2007
Senecan Moods: Foucault and Nietzsche on
the Art of the Self
I return to this article and this paragraph in particular because in the Fellowship cult this drama is carried out with minute precision! Burton extracts one main idea from the Fourth Way System, the idea of self-remembering which is the practice of keeping awareness of one’s self as one carries out one’s life. “Remember your self always and everywhere” is the quote that opens his book “Self-Remembering”. The “self” matters to the point that it’s the only thing that matters and it matters so much that each member should take care of his own self and not bother him or anyone else with it, particularly economically but also, emotionally and intellectually. “If you can’t take care of your self, you are not a good enough householder to even be in the “School””. We all bought it… and paid for it! Showing that we had enough money not only to take care of our selves but for him and his every whim, became the main unacknowledged objective for we must have unconsciously realized that the more money we paid the “closer” we could get to him, getting to sit next to him at events and even get invited every once in a while. Soon the only self that mattered was his persona.
He lives what people of today would call “well”, as someone who “knows” his self and is very clear about what and how he wants what he wants! His “persona” matters to him. He always looks like he’s come out of a film and has everything arranged as he wants it. He has the power to do it but besides the power, the conviction and members take that for “consciousness”. Everyone else, EVERYONE else in the cult looks and acts as if they were four echelons beneath him. That is how they are meant to look precisely so that he looks even better. The “care of the self” of his self is so pronounced in the cult that over time it becomes clear that the whole cult has become like a beehive at the care of the queen bee and Mr. Haven, the second in command, a big martial American that walks about with firm conviction, carries out the act of submission methodically by going up to greet the guru like a little boy for his kiss on the front-head. This is repeated every time they encounter each other at a dinner event. Such “rituals” are the ones that establish who is who, what and how. They do more brainwashing than any word can accomplish, they move in the realm of action and strike directly on the “form” that must be kept, they establish the hierarchy without anyone ever having to talk about it. No uniforms are used in the cult: They are not necessary. The behavior is so codified that the uniform disappeared. Everyone acts and looks alike even if their clothes are different. The only thing that differentiates the members is how they are addressed by the guru. Those who are not addressed by him simply exist to pay the monthly “donation” to keep watching the show.
“The Self” in the Fellowship Cult is the guru himself, the cult itself. Everyone without exception relates to the Cult as if it were their alter ego and it is cared for with clock precision. Every pebble is put in place to make it look good according to their American code of what good looks like: very nouveau rich, extremely “made-up” but with little traces of life, of nature: Barbie like.
This is how the “self” is cared for in the cult. Nature not only disappeared, according to the guru, nature is “mechanical”, “sleep” and he certainly does everything to get “nature” out of the picture. He “trims” everything like that serial killer recently in the news trims his hair, as if everything that has gone rotten inside had to be compensated for externally. As if they had to put every effort in decorating the externals to make up for the internal decay. The act of caring for the self turns into the act of disguising the self. It is not a mask representing a being behind it like in early cultures, it is a mask hiding the being behind it, “masking” it to fool both his and other people’s self. In the process, the multiple personality disorder, the hasnamuss, the “split personality” reveals itself with unquestionable clarity.
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