Defacing Power: The Aesthetics of Insecurity in Global Politics

1. Aesthetic Power and Counterpower

one Aesthetic Power and Counterpower This chapter advances an account of aesthetic power and counterpower. It begins by de‹ning power as an aesthetic subjectivity of a centralized body of individuals, groups, nation-states, or transnational organizations . Again, this is not intended to be a full-frontal assault on the typologies already introduced—at least not in an analytical sense. Instead, the purpose of this chapter is to propose that aesthetic subjectivity obtains in power. It stems from several resources, spanning from John Dewey’s work on the “experience” of art to the Foucauldian observation that subjects create the Self as a work of art but do so removed from or sometimes in opposition to comprehensive moral codes. The process of self-creation inevitably entails an engagement of the aesthetic as a communal experience; subjects look inward for guidance on the construction of the Self but also do so within a community of fellow citizens. Power is therefore consolidated not necessarily through the relations with an Other external to this community but, rather, intrinsically with a centralized Self. This is not, however, an argument advanced solely on the terrain of ideas—acquired material resources are necessary. They are used not only to further survival, moral purpose, or the self-identity of collective bodies but also to continuously re-create the Self. Returning to the “makeup” metaphor discussed in the previous chapter, centralized bodies of power utilize resources to apply a cosmetic image to the operation of power. These resources are disseminated throughout the various agencies (or “applicators”) to coordinate the movements of a centralized body—in a national context, this would include bureaucracies, branches 25 of government, the military, science, and art. As a result, this aesthetic construction helps regiment the legitimacy of power. It accomplishes this regimentation, however, by individualizing power—organizing it from the individual up to the centralized body. Aesthetic visions of power are engaged in a multitude of fashions by the individual—the openness to interpretation that de‹nes the aesthetic allows the individual to internalize the Self of power. What makes power so attractive and legitimate for these subjects is the freedom to choose the meaning of this beauty. While theorists have established an ability of the nation-state to extend a “political power beyond [its spatial limitation]” (see Rose and Miller [1992], quoted in Löwenheim 2007a: 205)—shaping citizen choices for travel abroad with warnings, for example—the conceptualization of power here assumes that it is an attraction constituted within and between the con‹nes of individual subjects. Let me also provide here a bit of background to the role aesthetics plays in political and moral philosophy and justify why I choose John Dewey and Foucault as my philosophical building blocks of the aesthetic, as opposed to Kant, who is the inspiration for a substantial amount of aesthetic analysis. In Critique of Judgment, Kant sought to identify the process by which humans can judge something to be beautiful and agree with one another on that judgment. Though we can never know if others truly concur about a common object of beauty, the ability to make a judgment and to communicate that subjective judgment to another individual is evidence for Kant that we are rational beings (Kemal 1999: 287–88). What is important for Kant is not the knowing about the objects themselves but the “nature of our perception of them” (Bleiker 2001: 513). Therefore, it is not the object of art itself but, rather, the judgment as a form of assented communication that possesses a universal validity. The faculties of human judgment regarding other forms of cognition allow for us to claim, according to Kant, that our judgments about what is beautiful also are universally valid. While this view by Kant is by no means ignored throughout the remainder of this book, the aesthetics of insecurity ‹nds a bit more inspiration from the philosophies of Foucault and Dewey (among others), because of their emphases on the ability of art to work back upon the subject and their mutual rejection that any “ground” or scienti‹c knowledge of the Self can be established. They also confront the notion that humans contain a universal will toward rational judgment, especially when confronted by the aesthetic. Instead, subjects continually transform so that judgment is always contingent in time and place. Or, as I dis26 • defacing power cuss in chapter 5, a transgressional limit, when breached...