Subjecting the Self to Power: A Review in The Psychological Life of Power by Judith Butler

Submission, is the most action that makes a person live fear in all its details, yet submission may turn into a reassuring state at the moment when a person is consistent with his idea, so he becomes a follower subject to accountability or subject to it, and this may lead us to question the reasons why the self is subject, and transforms it from a free active self to a defeated self, accepting the state of submission to authority, satisfied with it and surrendering, which is what the American philosopher Judith Butler addressed in her book (The Psychic Life of Power).

In her book, Butler discusses the concept of the subject of an authority, trying to explain how that subject submits, accepts, and sometimes gets involved in submitting to an authority that loses its identity. How does Butler explain the subjection of the self to authority? What is the psychological form exercised by power over the self? And what makes extra-self power a psychological form that constitutes the self-identity of power?

Butler's book is divided into six chapters dealing with the subject of self-subjugation to authority from the point of view of a number of philosophers and psychologists, and its discussion starts from the dialectic of the master and slave of the German philosopher Hegel, when the master's authority, which initially appears outside the same slave and causes oppression and suffering for him, is transformed into a part of the personal and basic component of it, submission in this case seems natural, as the subject of the slave does not crystallize except through its soft submission to authority, under the name of the controlling and regulating conscience of it at some stage, according to the words of the French philosopher Althusser.

The self is a partner in its submission to authority

The merit of Butler's argument is the discussion about the possibility of the subject being a partner in the submissiveness it suffers from, and in the psychological acceptance with which it can identify with and accept authority, an identification that begins from infancy according to Foucault, which assumes that the child is from infancy prone to dependence and exploitation as a result of the emotional attachment that makes him convinced from an early age that dependence on the one we love is a condition in the formation of the self.

This means, of course, according to Butler, that power precedes the self, but it does not acquire its essence and existence except when it becomes under the control of the self. The goals of power seem not only to suppress and control the self, but also to reshape it.

Butler concludes that the Nietzschean and Hegelian analysis make the subject participate in its subjection to itself, and this is evident when the slave abandons his body and treats it as the property of others and gives it to the master, which means that the same slave seeks to implement what the master demands by activating the slave's body to serve the master, as if the slave has become belonging to the master, an affiliation in which the master does not recognize at the beginning, but the slave can with time put his own signature on what he does, and the positions are replaced, so the slave becomes the master, and this means that the authority is the ruling, whether the power is for the master or it becomes in the hands of the slave It takes precedence, which always makes it the basis for the formation of the self.

The reversal of the will against itself

The separation of the self from the body leads to the transformation of the body into a complex instrument of oppression and control, and this corresponds to the logic of Hegelian and Freudian subjugation, as Butler points out. The submissiveness of supporters of extremist groups may be the best evidence of a person abandoning his body and making it a tool for carrying out the desires of power.

The matter does not stop at this point, but the will turns against itself, with the crystallization of the conscience that makes continuous self-reproach the basis for the formation of the self. In Nietzsche's words, her freedom is manifested in self-restriction, and in the pleasure derived from pain.

Is self-submission to authority linked to social organization?

Freud identifies the logic by which the social feeling of submission to authority is produced. The social ego has an ideal aspect that makes it restrict the individual’s narcissistic and sexual libido, enhances his guilt and works the conscience in the place of the observer. For example, Freud presents the ego’s rejection of homosexuality, considering that this rejection is a repression sexual albedo in exchange for the dominance of the social ego, which decides that such an act is unacceptable.

All of the above turns us into subjectivation in the words of the philosopher Foucault, this term carries with it the process of transformation of a submissive subject and the process of submission, and this appears clearly in the life of a prisoner in prison, as the individual is formed through his self-identity as a prisoner, and this means that he is under subjugation which represents the domination of the self and its production, and this is what can be called the discursive production of identities.

The rhetorical production of identities turns us all into prisoners

No body is out of power, as Butler puts it, aren't we all prisoners? Is not abandoning ourselves and identifying with society a prison that the self creates for itself and approves of it under the framework of assimilation into society? But does this mean that the self has to rebel against the societies in which it lives?

The self agrees to the authority, and identifies with it, clearly declaring that it will practice all the rituals required to be obedient, so its physical formation begins as far as it is committed to carrying out the material rituals of submission. A combination of rituals, gestures, and repetitive movements?

Yes, with the submissive self, this seems possible, as it becomes important for that self to confirm its adherence to what proves to others that it is steadfast in its faith, as if faith turns into a kind of display and proof.

The matter does not stop at matters of faith, but goes beyond it to love. In love relationships, the self believes that it exercises absolute freedom in choosing its partner, and in living the details of the relationship with him, but on the other hand, it is characterized by coercion. Sometime controls of the relationship are forced.

All of the above puts us in front of an important idea that Butler says: “The power imposed on a person is the power that induces his emergence, and this duality seems inevitable.” Despite our constant rejection of the possibility of submission, we find ourselves submissive in one way or another, and this submission becomes a "To reshape the self", the rule of social existence leaves its trace and its role in one's development submissive.

As a result, Butler's views seem to complement many of the philosophical theories that have tried to show the idea of submission as an inevitable possibility, in a reality in which all kinds of powers control, and perhaps this presents each of us with two frightening questions: To what degree are we submissive? Do we really have the power to create ourselves, or are we just dependent dependents?