Philanthromentality: celebrity parables as technologies of transfer

Abstract

The way in which individualised acts of attention-seeking by celebrities become entertaining scripts of subjectivity for a population that is increasingly aware of an overall decline in well-being offers a lens into the ways in which excessive celebrity selves and their philanthropic temperance have become ascetic cues directed at the stability of a global governing regime. In this essay I argue that modern-day parables of philanthropic celebrities powerfully govern the oppositional impulse as they impart as sense of ‘benevolence’ in the form of an individualised disposition towards well-being and entitlement. I begin by considering how celebrated parables are continuous with previous governing practices aimed at the management of sense of well-being. I then observe the role of contemporary neoliberal parables of philanthromentality in the construction of a new asceticism of global capitalism, to which celebrities contribute. I conclude that these parables represent technologies of governing that operate through the celebration of a philanthropic ascetic that facilitates the continued suppression of imagination about alternatives.

Keywords:

• artificial negativity
• ascetic
• capitalism
• governmentality
• philanthropy

Notes

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2010 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., September 2–5, 2010.Thanks to Kevin Dew, Manfred Steger, Gavin Fridell, Martijn Konings and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

2. I would argue that, in spite of their distancing, Boltanski and Chiapello are building on the tradition of Weber and also Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, the Frankfurt School and Foucault.

3. The Buffett Foundation was set up in the 1960s. According to Buffett, the plan always has been to give his fortune away; what is different now is the highly visible narrative surrounding his decision and the decision to give it away immediately, rather than following his death.

4. Based on Luke's earlier analysis of artificial negativity, I assume that contragovernmentalities can be stabilising or destabilising. Building on Luke, I have used contragovernmentality (Nickel, 2010) to describe governance, including non-profit organisations and philanthropists, outside of the nation state or the logic of sovereignty.