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Pastoral Power and Governmentality: From Therapy to Self Help
Author(s) -
Mutch Alistair
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/jtsb.12099
Subject(s) - governmentality , confessional , power (physics) , protestantism , sociology , value (mathematics) , self , aesthetics , philosophy , religious studies , law , epistemology , politics , political science , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , computer science
An examination of the practice of self‐examination in Scottish Presbyterianism shows the value of following the later Foucault in the examination of religion as a social practice. His attention to the influence of pastoral power on governmentality is shown to have been embedded in a Roman Catholic heritage leading to a stress on the confessional. By contrast, an examination of one aspect of Protestant pastoral power indicates the genealogy of practices of self‐help. An historical examination of both the structure of the Scottish church and the diaries of believers indicates the emphasis placed in this tradition on accountability. It also points to the need to reassess Foucault's treatment of Seneca, whose place in the Christian tradition, as exemplified by the Scottish experience, was more important than Foucault allows.