Det utilstrækkelige subjekt: En foucauldiansk analyse af selvhjælpslitterær selvstyring

Abstract

Denne artikel undersoger, hvordan bestemte personlighedstraek soges problematiseret og kultiveret i moderne selvhjaelpslitteratur. Undersogelsen, som har et saerligt fokus pa autonomi, traekker teoretisk pa Michel Foucaults begreb problematisering samt Foucaults tanker om governmentality og selvstyring. Artiklen kombinerer disse analytiske perspektiver i et forsog pa at vise, hvordan det autonome subjekt forsoges kultiveret pa trods af det paradoks der indtraeder, nar kultiveringen sker gennem subjektets underkasten sig litteraturens anvisninger. Det konkluderes i artiklen, at problemer i selvhjaelpslitteraturen generelt formuleres som forskellige typer mangler, der som losning indebaerer konstant udvikling hen mod et mal om selvrealisering, som aldrig helt kan opnas. Subjektet subjektiveres dermed som et ufaerdigt projekt, der aldrig er helt godt nok, og som altid har brug for forbedring. Dette gaelder ogsa for autonomi som problem, og i artiklens anden halvdel vises det, hvordan den allestedsnaervaerende ufuldendthed ved subjektet manifesterer sig i paradokset, hvor subjektet bor vaere selvstaendigt, autonomt og handle ud fra sin egne overbevisninger, men samtidig udleder denne evne til at handle autonomt fra de samme autoriteter, som det bor vaere autonomt fra. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Erik Mygind du Plessis: The Inadequate Subject: Self-Help Literature and the Government of the Self – a Foucauldian Analysis This article investigates how current self-help literature seeks to problematize and cultivate certain personality traits. The study emphasizes individual autonomy, and is based on an analytical framework employing Michel Foucault’s concept of problematization and his insights into power and governmentality – particularly those concerned with the various ways in which subjects govern themselves. The article combines these two analytical perspectives in an attempt to show how the objective of creating autonomous subjects is carried out in this literature, despite the paradoxical nature of doing so through the readers’ subjection to self-help instructions. The analysis concludes that the problems taken up in the self-help literature are generally formulated in terms of various forms of incompleteness. This entails a constant and never ending development towards, as a final objective, a self-realization, which can never quite be achieved. Thus the subject is construed as an unfinished project that is never quite good enough, always requiring improvement. The second part of the article analyses how this ubiquitous incompleteness of the subject manifests itself through the paradox of creating autonomy through subjection. Key words: Foucault, problematization, self-help, autonomy.