180 RüdigerKunow
normalizations,^27 Foucault's analytics of the biological basis of human
lifewasbyandlargecontenttoshowhowthehumanbodyisbecoming
more and more the subject/object of governmental techniques: "A
normalizing society is the historical outcome of a technology of power
centered on life"(History of Sexuality144). Such an analytics carries
much weight in the face of the new biotechnical opportunities of
inventionandofneoliberalgovernmentalagendastoproduceprecarious
populations as "enterprise subjects" to which I will turn in another
chapter of this book (Massumi, Power91-92). On the other hand,
Foucault does not often, if at all, envision the body in terms other than
those of a passive object of normative outside forces, certain sexual
practices such as sado-masochism being a notable exception here. This
istruealsoofthehistoricalperspectiveofferedbygenealogicalanalysis,
according to which the body "manifests the stigmata of past experience
and also gives rise to desires, feelings, and errors" ("Nietzsche" 148).
These drives and desires of the body briefly mentioned here remain
pretty much by the wayside of Foucault's critique, except for his
endorsementofnon-heteronormativesexualpractices.^28
From an American Cultural Studies point of view, it is certainly
worth noting that the Foucauldian optics on norms "designed for the
phenomena of power" (Honneth, "Foucault's Theory" 157) brings with
them not only a restrictive vision of the human body but also an often
myopic view of the role of culture in setting, questioning, revising
norms.Howeverwide-ranginghisanalyticsofculturalpracticesmaybe,
Foucaultobservesthemmostofthetimemerelyfromtheperspectiveof
their role in stabilizing or at least supporting the rule of norms—norms
almost exclusively understood as manifested in and realized by
(^27) Cf. also Honneth's commentary that in Foucault "the techniques of social
dominationaremeasuredprimarilyintermsoftheireffectonthebodilyconduct
of individuals" ("Foucault's Theory" 160); in Foucault's view, the law is
internalized, the body signifies the law, as also Judith Butler notes
("PerformativeActs"171).
(^28) RichardShustermanhasnotedthatFoucault'scritiqueatthispointperformsa
normalizing of its own, in that it "unwittingly reinforces the homogenizing
normalizationofpleasureassexual..."(33).