While national cultural and identity politics seeks stability, roots, national feelings
and community, the rhetoric of the market and the economy demand aflexible
individual adapting to an ever-changing environment. Miller ( 1993 ) analyses these
paradoxes in the formation of the individual in his bookThe Well-Tempered Self.
According to Miller, we are in a cultural-capitalistic state which is dominated by
two major discourses. First, a capitalistic-economic discourse that has change,
development, profit and wealth as its themes. This discourse identifies and produces
individuals who are utilitarian and selfish, who are trained to seek profit and are
willing to adapt to the ever-changing environment of the market. Under metaphors
of marketing, corporation, development, production and consumption, identities as
worker, employer and consumer—a creative,flexible and changeable individual—
are set up for the citizen to develop, in order to expand the economy.
On the other hand—there is a political discourse that tries to produce citizens
who are moral, with feelings of community and societal spirit—both in the public
sphere and in private life. Stability, cultural identity and recognition of the com-
munity of politics, its institutions and representations are central themes within this
discourse. Miller ( 1993 ) points out that these paradoxical discourses have important
functions in forming a well-tempered and docile self. According to Miller, the state
needs to produce a sense of oneness among increasingly heterogeneous populations
because political systems are under question by new social movements and the
internationalising of cultures and economics. The state works to create loyalty to
market economics, to parliamentary democracy and a sustainable society through
the formation of cultural citizens who can be docile and efficient participants in this
cultural-capitalistic state.
For Miller ( 1993 ), a key concept of this global cultural-capitalistic state is to
implement a feeling of ethical incompleteness in the individual. The individual is
trained to strive hard within different discourses and is invited to unite the con-
tradictory discourses in his/her personality. The subject goes on an endless seminar
with it selves and in their process of reflection will be managed to manage it
(govermentalitè). Teacher agency, in light of these discourses, will be an agency of
structuring personalities and skills to both the economic and the cultural-political
discourses, and to train individuals in reflections to implement ethical incom-
pleteness so that the individual is managed to manage him or herself in this mix.
24.6 The Teacher as a Bildung Agent
Influential sociologists have critically challenged the promotion of globalisation as
being a mere positive force and constructive social process for most humans.
Zygmunt Bauman ( 1998 ) claims that powerful stockholders from global economic,
corporate and political institutions promote a globalisation of self-interest. Bauman
points to the emergence of new inequalities and injustices. Globalisation can leave
areas and people behind in disorderly, jobless and hopeless environments.
24 The Paradox of Teacher Agency in a Glocalised World 367