Pastoral Power and Algorithmic Governmentality

Abstract

This paper contributes to inquiries into the genealogy of governmentality and the nature of secularization by arguing that pastoralism continues to operate in the algorithmic register. Drawing on Agamben’s notion of signature, I elucidate a pair of historically distant yet archaeologically proximate affinities: the first between the pastorate and algorithmic control, and the second between the absconded God of late medieval nominalism and the authority of algorithms in the cybernetic age. I support my hypothesis by attending to the signaturial kinships between, on the one hand, temporality and authority in our contemporary conjuncture, and, on the other, obedience and submission in Christian thought from late antiquity and the late Middle Ages. I thereby illustrate the hidden genealogical continuities between theological-pastoral technologies of power and technocratic-algorithmic modalities of governance. I conclude by suggesting that medieval counter-conducts may be redeployed in our present circumstances for emancipatory ends.

Power, Freedom and Obedience in Foucault and La Boétie: Voluntary Servitude as the Problem of Government

“…A similar point is made by Zygmunt Bauman who, in his consideration of the new modes of 'liquid surveillance' -digital and biometric technologies -argues that the tendency of power in contemporary societies has shifted from the governors to the governed, who no longer need to be coerced or mastered by some top-down force because they voluntarily give up their desire for freedom and freely participate in their own domination (Bauman and Lyon, 2013: 52-3). Foucault might consider this a kind of digital pastorate, a new way of governing people through their own freedom (see Cooper, 2020). In an age when we willingly consent, in the name of convenience, to myriad forms of digital surveillance, biometrics, and the RFID microchipping of products, credit cards, clothes and even of our own bodies (see Hayles, 2009;Metz, 2018), it would appear that the notion of voluntary servitude has lost none of its currency.…”

Verändert Covid-19 unsere Konzeption von Spiritual Care? Von Michel Foucault inspirierte Thesen unter dem Eindruck der unbewältigten Corona-Krise

“…Pastoralmacht der Politiker und Ärzte Foucault (1979Foucault ( /1981) prägt den Begriff "Pastoralmacht", indem er das biblische Motiv der Sorge des guten Hirten säkularisiert und auf individualisierte Überwachung des Seelenheils, von Leib und Leben der "Schafe" anwendet. In der Medizin prägt das pastorale Prinzip die therapeutische Beziehung (Rose 2001) und den epidemiologischen sowie gesundheitspolizeilichen Datenaustausch (Cooper 2019).…”

“…Die neue Form der Panoptizität ist die Herrschaft mit Zahlen und Daten (Cooper 2019), "Nexistenz in der Matrix": Die Existenz in der Matrix beinhaltet ein diffuses Gefühl der Existenz ohne Geheimnisse, das geradezu offensiv verleugnet werden muss. Die Beruhigungsmantras lauten: Wer soll denn die ganzen Daten überhaupt verarbeiten?…”

Staying with the Secret: The Public Sphere in Platform Society

“… 6. Turning to premodern notions of secrecy, as I am suggesting here, is close to theorizing algorithmic control as a machinic update of pastoral power, enacting an ‘economy of souls’ (Foucault): ‘The anticipatory techniques undergirding the software-mediated conducting of souls thereby extend and intensify the twin pastoral concerns to produce obedient servitude and foreclose upon the human will’ (Cooper, 2020: 40). …”