A Homo Calculator at Large: Reading the Late Work of Foucault in the Light of Ivan Vladislavić’s “Villa Toscana”

Abstract

This essay takes the form of a reading of Foucault’s late work on the subject and power, particularly that concerned with the technologies of self, and the implications this work has for an understanding of the relationship between questions of government and those of self-government in modernity. Focusing on the figure of Jeff Budlender, central character of the opening story of Ivan Vladislavić’s The Exploded View, the essay explores how, from the point at which the state engages in biopolitics – that is, systematically invests in a technology of individuals – forms of government cease to translate spontaneously into practices of self-government. The result, expressed at the level of the individual, is, I argue, the often uneasy attempt to orientate the self to the individual self while at the same time taking cognisance of that self’s position in the social entity as a whole. This conflicting position is, I suggest, vividly revealed in Vladislavić’s account of the inner life of Budlender, demographer and statistician, as he attempts to make sense of South Africa, himself, and even the woman he loves in ways that alternate between brief concerns with the individual followed by more lasting preoccupations with the group, finally doing justice to neither.

Opsomming

Hierdie essay is in die vorm van ’n lesing van Foucault se latere werk oor die onderwerp van mag, veral die mag wat betrekking het op die tegnologieë van die self, en die implikasies wat hierdie werk inhou vir ’n begrip van die verhouding tussen regerings- en selfregeringskwessies in moderniteit. Deur te fokus op die figuur Jeff Budlender (sentrale karakter van die openingsverhaal van Ivan Vladislavić se The Exploded View), ondersoek die essay hoe – van die punt waar die staat biopolitiek begin toepas (d.i., stelselmatig in ’n tegnologie van individue belê) – regeringsvorme ophou om spontaan in selfregeringspraktyke omgesit te word. Ek voer aan dat die resultaat, uitgedruk op die vlak van die individu, die dikwels ongemaklike poging is om die self ten opsigte van die individuele self te oriënteer, terwyl daar terselfdertyd kennis geneem word van dié self se posisie in die sosiale entiteit as geheel. Voorts voer ek aan dat hierdie konflikbelaaide posisie tekenend onthul word deur Vladislavić se relaas van die innerlike lewe van Budlender, die demograaf en statistikus, na gelang hy poog om Suid-Afrika, homself, en selfs die vrou wat hy liefhet te verstaan op maniere wat kortstondige bemoeiing met die individu afwissel met meer blywende ingesteldheid op die groep, sodat daar uiteindelik nie reg geskied aan een van die twee nie.