link 2004 - from the power of the norm to flexible normalization

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From the "Power of the Norm" to "Flexible Normalism": Considerations after Foucault

Author(s): Mirko M. Hall and Jrgen LinkSource: Cultural Critique, No. 57 (Spring, 2004), pp. 14-32Published by: University of Minnesota PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4140757 .Accessed: 20/03/2011 14:08

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FROMTHE"POWEROFTHENORM"TO"FLEXIBLENORMALISM":CONSIDERATIONSAFTERFOUCAULTTRANSLATEDBYMIRKOM. HALL

J I r ! I n i n k l

One of the most frequentlyquoted and thereby well-knowndicta of Foucault is that his theory is a "toolbox"-this remark willcertainly not be entirely perverted if I simply relate it, as it so oftenhappens, to tinkering with theory. Even so, I would not like to spareyou its rather cultural-revolutionary wording:

All my books, be it Madnessand Societyor this one here [DisciplineandPunish],are-if you like-little toolboxes. If people want to open them,and use this or that sentence, this or that idea or analysis as a screw-driver or wrench [dessere-boulon]to short-circuit,dismantle, or explodethe systems of power, including perhaps those systems from whichthese books of mine have emerged-all right, all the better.1

Unfortunately, it appears to me that the subdued message of this pas-sage is considerably less practiced than quoted. I say this right at thebeginning, because this paper will deal less with the impressions of a(so-called) "study of Foucault" and more with the results of a "work-ing with Foucault."Now and then, there are views that see in Foucault a "philosophyof the norm"-or also of "normalization" or of "the normative." I willleave open the question of whether Foucault felt any pleasure in this"devenir-philosophe"-in any case, during his lifetime, he protectedhimself against such a pleasure. I am more interested in the genitiveattribute: What is "norm," "normalization" (herein, it appears, also

CulturalCritique57-Spring 2004-Copyright 2004 Regentsof the Universityof Minnesota


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hide "normal" and "normality") and "normative"? Are they syn-onyms (if only approximately)? Is "normal" (outside of a purely for-mal etymological understanding) the appropriate adjective for "norm"?Is "the normal," therefore, in conformity with a "norm"? And does"normalization" mean "to make normal" in the sense of "to makeaccording to a norm"? But is "to make normal" (in German anyway)at all the same as "to make according to a norm"? If I were to repeatall these questions in French (in which Foucault writes), English, andother languages, your head would surely spin, if it does not already.However, I believe that we cannot avoid first mapping out this sem-antic labyrinth more precisely. This became clear to me as of late, whenI looked up the term normalisationin the Bibliotheque Nationale inadvance of my studies on normalization: more than 95 percent of thetitles applied to industrial norms; most were publications related tothe AFNor, the French equivalent of the German Industry Norm[DIN]. The corresponding term in German would have to be Nor-mung [standardization]-Normalisierung [normalization], clearly stated,would be an erroneous translation, a contre-sense.Dictionaries con-firm this semantic nonidentity between normalisation and Normal-isierung.2 After checking these entries, I asked myself if Foucaultreally means, when he speaks of normaliseror normalisation,what cor-responds to most German translations: "to make people normal" or"to make normal people," or rather, what in my opinion would notbe at all the same, "to standardize people" (like industrial products),"to make standardized people." That Foucault's German translatorWalter Seitter must have repeatedly arrived at the same doubt isshown quite clearly in the following (extremely important) passagefrom Discipline and Punish. I will give first the original, then the Ger-man version:

Lapenaliteperpetuellequitraversetousles points,et contr1letous lesinstants des institutions disciplinaires compare,diff rencie,hierarchise,homogendise, exclut. Enun mot elle normalise.3Das hickenlose Strafsystem,das alle Punkte und alle Augenblicke derDisziplinaranstaltenerfa.I t und kontrolliert, wirkt vergleichend, dif-ferenzierend, hierarchisierend, homogenisierend, ausschlielend. Eswirkt normend, normierend, normalisierend.4


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[Theperpetual quality that transverses all points and supervises everyinstant in the disciplinary institutions compares, differentiates,hierar-chizes, homogenizes, excludes. In short, it standardizes, normativizes,normalizes.]5Here three German terms, which are absolutely not synonymous,serve to convey the one French term normalise.This is nice and intel-

ligent-but the translator probably provides these meanings for Fou-cault instead of simply translating them. The context in Foucault'soriginal calls for "to standardize" or at the most "to normativize."

In the course of this consideration, I hope to convince you thatwe are not dealing with word splitting. Foucault, as a theorist of"normalization," appears to have indeed struck a crucial nerve ofcontemporary cultures. Where do we postmodern westerners live,then, if not in a culture of "normalities" and "normality,"of "normal-izations" and "normalization." But is this identical with a hypotheti-cal assertion that we live in the culture of the "norm"? Hardly, Iwould like to think: but what exactly, then, is the difference? Toanswer this question, I would like to first allow our culture to speakfor itself. Here are several exemplary contexts:

"Itick quite normal."(WAZdiscussion with swimming star Franziskavan Almsick [WestdeutscheAllgemeineZeitung,February13, 1993])"The naked truth is-I am normal!" (Interview with TV journalistFriedrichKiippersbusch[Unicum,April 1997])A normal vacationer.The chancellor enjoys the intimate surroundingsof St. Gilgen. (WestdeutscheAllgemeineZeitung,July29, 1995)Quite normal German careers.Why the Federal President invited therising generation of East Germans to coffee. Modesty as virtue. (Frank-furterAllgemeineZeitung,November 2, 1996)A normal life was not possible for Princess Diana, photographerswereconstantly following her. (Die Tageszeitung,September1, 1997)Does "normal" in these instances mean something like "in con-

formity with norms" or "standardized"? My thesis, supported bycomprehensive material, is the following: there is practically no-where where "normal" could be substituted by "in conformity with


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norms" or "standardized" without semantic turbulence. Moreover,there is almost no difference between the German use of the wordin everyday language and, for example, that of the French or the Eng-lish. In my own study, Versuchfiberden Normalismus, I was able toshow in detail, both historically and systematically, that this usagein contemporary everyday speech is the result of a more than two-hundred-year development-in the course of which the discursivecomplexes of the normal and the normative have developed in twocompletely different directions. For its part, this drifting apart issimply the symptom of the emergence of new combinations of dis-positives that have, above all, created entirely new cultural objects,and specifically, what we call "normalities." I call this combination ofdispositives modern "normalism." I further claim that, regarding"normality" and "normativity," we are dealing with, in the former, anultramodern and, in the latter, an ancient and already antediluvian(in a literal sense) phenomenon. In order to better situate Foucault'sconsiderations (as well as those of Canguilhem, Castel, Donzelot,Ewald, and Guillaume) on "norme," "normal,"and "normalisation"(which I will leave for now in the French original), I find the follow-ing semantic prolegomena useful, which succinctly summarizesseveral conclusions of my Versuchfiberden Normalismus.6

According to concurrent interpretations of ethnology, anthropol-ogy, and sociology, all human societies possess and have possessed"norms" and "normativity." Explicit and implicit regulatives, whichare reinforced through sanctions, pre-scribe a specific action to mate-rially or formally determined groups of people. "Norms," therefore,always pre-exist (social) action: they are already known to at least afew professionals of the norm before such action. In the large major-ity of the above relevant discourses, "normativity" is used as a gen-eral abstract category for the entire field of the above understood"norms." Here, in a further sense, "normativity" has a legal overtone.I say this because Georges Canguilhem's use of "pouvoir normatif"and "normativitede la vie" deviates considerably from this interna-tional common usage. From this deviation, additional difficulties oftranslation and understanding arise, to which I will return in thecourse of my paper.7On the other hand, according to my thesis, "normality" is a his-torically specific "achievement" of modern western societies, which


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never before existed, and even today does not exist in numerous soci-eties or cultures, or is only in its beginning stages. Furthermore, inmy thesis, "normality," which incidentally is contradicted in neitherCanguilhem nor Foucault, presumes-quite fundamentally-statisti-cal dispositives and is defined in relation to "averages" and otherstatistical sizes. If one takes this defining criterion seriously, thereare (now formulated differently) "normalities" only in strictly data-processing societies: only in cultures that continuously, routinely,comprehensively, and institutionally make themselves statisticallytransparent. This kind of statistical transparency, which Foucault inmany ways had also in mind, is surely related to panoptic trans-parency but is not identical to it: they can be as different as the secretpolice [Stasi] and public opinion polls. If a "normal" action is statisti-cally constituted as "average" (or is situated on a distribution curvewithin a "normal" distance from the average), then "normality," incontrast to "normativity," is essentially postexistent to action (insteadof pre-existent). If an action is to be valid as "normative" (i.e., corre-sponding to a "norm" in the "normative" sense), it is, as previouslystated, already known beforehand-if it were "normal," on the otherhand, it is certainly capable of being first established retrospectivelythrough its positioning on the concrete-empirical statistical distribu-tion curve. This difference is absolutely fundamental for the func-tioning mode of contemporary western societies (that is, those that Ihave suggested, within this corresponding parameter, naming "nor-malistic.") In such societies, there is in effect, namely, a final func-tional dominance of "normality" over "normativity" (which, of course,does not foreclose conflicts, but rather presumes them outright. Onethinks of such topics as abortion, traffic offenses, and drugs. A recentexample is the sensational court ruling in Aachen against specificvocal mannerisms of the mentally handicapped. Although the major-ity of the media, and presumably of the entire population, now viewsthese mannerisms as "normal," they should now be sanctioned as"normative").

Whereas my suggestion for understanding "normativity" corre-sponds to the dominant language use of the relevant sciences, thisis only partly the case for "normativity," which I must now address.Admittedly, the operational praxis of all the sciences relevant tonormalism (particularly medicine, psychiatry, psychology, sociology,


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and economics) corresponds to my postulated regime of data pro-cessing and the determination of "normalities" through statisticaldistribution. However, there is the custom of an ahistorical, pan-chronological concept of "normality" in ethnological sociology. Ac-cording to this custom, "normality" is similar to "everydayness" in ahistorically all-encompassing sense, which affects all ages and cul-tures. One can thus talk about "normality" in both shamanistic soci-ety and in antiquity and the Middle Ages. I have already explainedwhy I suggest restricting this concept to data-processing societies.Theoretically, this disagreement concerns different views regardingthe constitution of socio-cultural objectivities: we can certainlyassume that there must have also been "objective" distributions ofbehaviors and "averages" in antiquity. Since these objectivities do notexit "subjectively" in the form of data-collecting dispositives, theprocess of data processing does not create any condition of possibil-ity for constituting specific "everydays." Phrased more sharply, usinga tool from Foucault's toolbox: data processing is certainly a histori-cal a priori of modern, but not of classical cultures. Therefore, wecan discover only with difficulty how an ancient "everyday" mayhave possibly generated other types through interferences (of whatkind?) between normative (especially religious customs) and "spon-taneous" factors. We can say with certainty, however, that statisticaldispositives did not play any role in an ancient "everyday": theagents of (social) action just did not possess any "knowledge" of dataprocessing-they did not know how many beatings a slave was dealton a yearly average in Athens, Attica, or Magnia Graecia, or which"value" could be seen as "normal." Therefore, if one takes seriouslyFoucault's insights into the fundamental role of discursive factors inthe constitution of social objectivities, then this is also valid for thesocial objectivity of the "everyday." If "normality" cannot be thoughtof as specifically and meaningfully separate from data processing,and if "normality" presumes data processing as its historical a priori,then the concept must be restricted to the modern "everyday," andconsequently "normality" and "everydayness" are not synonymous.This ahistorical retrospective projection of "normality" and its his-torical a priori, data processing, into a pan-chronology is also foundin Foucault's most important informant in the field of normality,Georges Canguilhem. This retrospective projection is in a certain


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way even more radical in Canguilhem, because it extends into phys-iology and biology. Again, of course, we can assume that the medianpulse frequency of Homo sapiens ten thousand years ago wouldhave objectively corresponded to the frequency of today. But again,this objectivity was not subjectively apparent to itself because it wasnot measured, averaged, and compared, because therapy could nothave been understood at the time as the adjustment of deviating val-ues or practiced as such. Accordingly, one must carefully differentiatethe underlying biological objectivity from the objectivity of data-based medicine: the latter is cultural and not biological, and only thelatter can constitute corresponding "normalities," which can there-fore, as Canguilhem admits, never be treated as synonymous with"naturalness."

The principal orientation of Canguilhem toward the biologicalparadigm now produces even more important consequences for ourproblematic, namely, that "normality" and "normativity" appear toactually interfere in the field of biology, if one discounts my previ-ously suggested differentiation of terms. If one retrospectively pro-jects "normality," then the long-lasting, stable biological objectivitiescan be characterized as both "normal," in the descriptive sense ofbeing near the statistical mean, and "in conformity with norms" (i.e.,"normative"), in the sense of adhering to a postulate that must befulfilled lest life be endangered. Canguilhem (and following him,Henning Ritter) has thematized this quid pro quo as the alternative of"descriptive vs. normative," but does not advance, I think, into asatisfactory analysis.8 In my opinion, it is advisable to generally ex-clude quasi-postulates (and, therefore, normativities) from biology.One could ask how Canguilhem came to this quid pro quo: I thinkthat it could be linked to the specifically French meaning of normali-sation as "standardization," as mentioned earlier in the sense ofindustrial standardization. With this meaning, Canguilhem obvi-ously suggested an analogy between the "normative activities of life"and the "standardizing/normalizing" [normalisatrice]activities of mod-ern industry.Justas the industrial norm, afterFrederickTaylor,searchesout the technical adaptation of the "one best way," so is nature sup-posed to search for the optimal "norm" on the path of evolutionaryadaptation. The inherent anthropomorphism can hardly be over-looked here. Thus, Canguilhem's concept of the "norm" produces a


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confusing interference between biological quasi-constants, statisticalnormality, industrial norms, and normative postulates.The quid pro quo of Canguilhem is, therefore, ultimately basedon a real fundamental problem of our culture: the role of the indus-trial norm within modern normalism. Intuitively, it appears highlyprobable that the industry norm belongs to the field of modern "nor-malism" rather than that of the juridical-normative. With regard toboth the industrial and juridical norm, we are dealing with a struc-tural arbitrariness and we are dependent upon decisions. Actually,the industrial norm must be distinguished from both normativityand normality-however, it has historically positioned itself along-side normality, which I cannot address here in detail.Michel Foucault at first "inherited" Canguilhem's complex ofnorme/normal/normalization.In this sense, he uses "norm" in thechapter on the human sciences in The Orderof Things.9But alreadysymptomatic here is the opposition between loi and norme, whichFoucault-in the sense of my introductory semantic cartography-basically uses to distinguish the normative field (juridical and jurido-analogous) from the normalistic and to place them in opposition.Unlike in Canguilhem, this originality continues strongly in Fou-cault's later texts, although his main model appears to be the in-dustry norm. Conversely, Foucault's use of the categories, which arerelated at least etymologically with norme, remains dependent onCanguilhem to the extent that Foucault's concepts of a pouvoirde lanorme and a socidtdde normalisationrepresent the decisive, concrete"realization" of bio-pouvoir.This concept remains peculiarly fuzzy, inmy opinion, despite its great career. Bio-pouvoiris supposed to char-acterize that modern type of power that manifests itself, for example,in intervening, stimulating, and regulating population policies (andalso in racisms); here, the dispositives of sexuality are also seen tobe linked. Francois Ewald has expanded this parameter around thedispositives of social security, that is, around the "social net."10Isbio-pouvoir,therefore, the same as pouvoirde la norme?And what doesthe following mean? "It (bio-power) effects distributions around thenorm."11Is the adjustment of statistical values meant, or rather quasi-industrial standardization? The mix-up with normativity, which occursin Canguilhem, is avoided by Foucault-but not with regard to in-dustrial standardization. The following typical binary oppositions arise:


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* sovereignty/bio-power [souverainetd/bio-pouvoir]* law/norm [loilnorme]* right/technique [droit/technique]* law/normalization [loi/normalisation]* punishment/control [chdtiment/contr6ler12Nevertheless, the question remains whether, in a considerable sub-field of the dispositive of so-called bio-power, industrial profitability(industrial work, if you will) is not more likely to be stimulated as"life." Here, Canguilhem's poor differentiation between biological,medical, and industrial norms appears to continue. Bio-politics ap-pears as a second, cultural biology, which guarantees somethinglike second-degree adaptations (by analogy with the biological) bymeans of the industry norm and analogous psychological and socialstandardizations or "normativizations." To me, Foucault appears toboth reproduce (for example, when he speaks of "a society's 'thresh-old of modernity"' in the first volume of the Historyof Sexuality)13 andexplode Canguilhem's framework.Let us take as a concrete example Foucault's term sanction nor-malisatrice,which is, after all, an entire subchapter of Discipline andPunish. Seitter avoided the contre-sens "normalizing sanction" [nor-malisierendeSanktion]and went the middle road with "normativizingsanction" [normierendeSanktion].4 I will be more precise and claimthat the correct translation would have to be "normendeSanktion"or"standardizing sanction" [standardisierendeSanction]. The GermanNormung and the French normalisation mean "standardization" inEnglish. Therefore, I am inclined to assume that Foucault, like Can-guilhem, thinks that the normalisationof individuals is, in the field ofinfluencing human behavior, something analogous to the industrynorm: i.e., a standardizing, industrial-like subjectivation, which par-allels the industrial standardization of objects. This analogy is in noway far-fetched; after all, there is a broad discursive trend in thetwentieth century based on this analogy that was extremely wellknown by both Canguilhem and Foucault-that is, behaviorism.Foucault's typical, contextualized concepts of "discipline" match thistrend, especially disciplinedu corps,dressage,and manipulation,whereinthe "machine" model of such trained bodies is stressed.15 On theother hand, from the beginning on, the aspect of subjectivization has


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also been thematized in this connection. As you know, we mustread out the double meaning of this wordplay, subjectivation:"subjec-tivizing through subjection" and, conversely, "subjection throughsubjectivizing." In subjection, there hides the industry norm, stan-dardization, and "other-direction" [AufJenlenkung]-in subjectivizing,there also tends to hide self-adjustment and "inner-direction" [Innen-lenkung].At the end of this essay, I will turn again, through Foucault,to the paradox of the rejection of the "repression hypothesis." Fou-cault's predominant interest in the complex norme/normal/normaliza-tion in his investigations is, therefore, the interest in historicallyspecific types of subjectivization. Just as he historicizes the a prioris(in brazen contradiction to Kant), he also historicizes the subject,including the core of the subject (in brazen contradiction not merelyto Kant, but also the neo- and ultraneo-Kantians like Habermas).Obviously, he sees in the discursive complex of normalisation anessential factor for the production of modern subjects. This connec-tion is among Foucault's most exciting questions, and surely it is alsohighly topical for us all. What, therefore, characterizes normalisticsubjectivities and how are they produced? To answer this fundamen-tal question, Foucault offers, in a heuristic manner, several not al-ways congruent categories and thought configurations [Denkfiguren]or models, from which we could develop a theory of normalism aswell as both reconstruct and critically analyze and expand such a the-ory. While he still follows, above all, Canguilhem with categories likepouvoirde la norme,socidtdde normalisation,and so on, his concreteexamples-especially those in the field of sexuality-appear to me togenerally explode this framework.I would like to illustrate this with a concrete example of the Fou-cauldian theses of sexuality: the four dispositives of sexuality-the hysterization of women's bodies, the pedagogization of children'ssex, the socialization of procreative behavior, and the psychiatrizationof perverse pleasure16-deal with completely normalistic parameters:sexual and psychiatric limits of normality, as well as demographicstatistics and birth control. In all these cases, Foucault is above allinterested in the "training," disciplining, and "outer-directing" quasi-industrial standardization. As is well known through the so-called sex-ual revolution after World WarII, all of this now appears to have beenpassed over. Foucault considers this revolution now also normalisatrice:


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The most important elements of an erotic art linked to our knowledgeabout sexuality are not to be sought in the ideal, promised to us by med-icine, of a healthy sexuality, nor in the humanist dream of a completeand flourishing sexuality, and certainly not in the lyricism of orgasmand the good feelings of bio-energy (these arebut aspects of its normal-izing utilization), but in this multiplication and intensification of plea-sures connected to the production of the truth about sex.17The tone of this representation is, without doubt, polemic, per-

haps even unfair. It is similar to the talk of a "normalizing impulse inFreud."'18Certainly, the question being posed here is whether we aredealing with the same kind of normalisationof subjects, whether itregards the previously mentioned four basic types of disciplining sexor rather the "lyricism of orgasm." Foucault admits at least that itcould be the question of a "tactical shift."19This paradox in Foucault, which is inherited from Canguilhem,consists of roughly equating des sujets normalisis-i.e., standardizedor "other-adjusted" subjects ("other-directed" in Riesman)-withself-normalizing subjects in the German sense of normalizing ("inner-directed" in Riesman). This paradox is even more heightened by Fou-cault's younger peers Robert Castel, Francois Ewald, and JacquesDonzelot (as well as by Marc Guillaume). This is because they con-cern themselves explicitly and thoroughly with the development ofthe twentieth century. As an example, I chose Robert Castel's path-breaking representation of the development of the psychotherapeuticcomplex.20 In several relevant publications, he set Foucault's grandenfermement(the forced internment in the asylum of all those judged"abnormal") in opposition to the grand d6senfermement(the "open-ing" of the doors of the asylum) after World WarII:just like he set thesymbolic year 1838-the year in which France adopted the first sys-tematic modem insane-asylum law, and the state act of obligatorypsychiatrization, by way of hospital internment and the deprivationof the right to decide, became regulated by law-in opposition tothe symbolic years 1968 and 1975, when, through legislation for thehandicapped, the largest possible portion of the previously commit-ted population was integrated into the open and ambulant "therapyfor the normal." Castel coined the term "therapy for the normal" todescribe the so-called therapy culture in the United States, whichserves more to stimulate the creativity of "normal" individuals than


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to heal the sick in a traditional sense. Castel sees the leading proce-dure of this therapy culture as psychoanalysis, within which herefuses to differentiate among degrees of "revisionism," as, for exam-ple, in the case of Lacan. In this respect, his view of psychoanalysisis even more critical than Foucault's. Castel both recognizes andrelativizes the innovative character of psychoanalysis through thecriterion of "normalization" when he describes the contemporarycondition as follows:

At the end of this range [of an all-encompassing therapeutization ofsociety], there is still, then, the administration of "risky"populations,which is still always conducted directly by the state apparatus on thebasis of a profileof socialschemataof actionthat one is compelledtoadopt. This is social risk management. On another pole, innovations ofa play-like type flourish: intensity training for "human potential,"development techniques for "relationshipcapital,"and the productionof a psychological mass culture, which are devoured by craving con-sumers like analogues of a lost sociability.This is the management ofindividual frailties.21In developing the second pole of this range, psychoanalysis has

played the role of forerunner:

Psychoanalysis becomes, thereby, the most important vehicle for thepropagationof a psychological culture--which, as will be shown, pointsinto the still barely measured fields of the "therapy for the normal,"beyond the dividing line between the normal and the pathological.22

The ambivalence of the new situation is sharply stressed: for one,the forces of the old "psychiatric order" should have been moderatedthrough the new, flexible dispositives--but instead psychosocial ther-apy has tended to extend into the entire society, so that, essentially, itis (merely) a question of an "adjustment to modernity" [aggiornamento].

Therefore, we have to deal with a kind of paradox in bothFoucault himself and in his students: on the one hand, considerableinnovations are established and are excellently presented, in part, bydiscourse analysis-on the other hand, a fundamental continuity of"normalisation,"indeed an increase of this "normalisation,"is claimed.In conclusion, I once again would like to not merely interpret Fou-cault, but rather change him. But in doing so, I will also make use of


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a tool from the Foucauldian box. When he admits a "tactical shift" forthe newer developments in the second half of the twentieth century,he sees possible innovations in the field of strategy and tactics. InFoucault's concept of strategy and tactics, there is also a provocationin the disavowal of an origin of the subject [Subjektorigo]:

Power relations are both intentional and nonsubjective ... there is nopower that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives.But thisdoes not mean that it results from the choice or decision of an individ-ual subject;let us not look for the headquartersthat presides over itsrationality;neither the caste which governs, nor the groups which con-trol the state apparatus ... the rationalityof power is characterizedbytactics that are often quite explicit at the restrictedlevel where they areinscribed (the local cynicism of power), tactics which, becoming con-nected to one another,attractingand propagatingone another,but find-ing theirbase of support and their condition elsewhere, and by formingcomprehensive systems: the logic is perfectly clear,the aims decipher-able, and yet it is often the case that no one is there to have inventedthem, and few who can be said to have formulated them: an implicitcharacteristicof the great anonymous strategies,often unspoken ...23

Obviously, this passage discusses a trans-subjective and "implicit"intentionality of strategies. I believe to be able to confirm this argu-ment to a higher degree by developing the example of the two mainnormalistic strategies, which I would like to now address. I haveeven asked myself if at least the category of "intention," regardingthe major strategies, must not also be relativized or modified (forexample, through the strategies of "direction"). I have attempted thefollowing formulation:

I thereby use the concept of [discursive] "strategy"in the sense of a"directed"combination of individual "tactics,"whereby "direction,"asa rule, is not predeterminedin a teleological, subjective-intentional,andcompletely consciousmanner-but is rathertrans-subjectively"adjusted"through variations in the course of "tactical"processes, like an "evo-lution" that is "generally provoked" through the structure of milieusand ecological niches. It is, therefore, those respective situations andconjunctures (analogous to military or play-like contexts) in specialand integrative fields of the normal, which additionally (and alwaysin a cairological manner) determine, specify, and adjust the alwaysalready adopted "basicdirection"through the "challenge"of a specifi-cally historical "need for normalization" [Normalisierungsbedarf].Such


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correctionsto the courseof strategies,thereby"offerthemselvesup,"becauseof situationsand conjecturesin the field of normalism.Theycan, then, be both "exploited"and "given away."24Inthis sense,accordingto an importantconclusionof my Versuchiiberden Normalismus,two diametricallyopposed normalistic strategiescan be distinguished, which can be derived from the "PrincipleofBroussais and Comte"that is constitutive of normalism.Accordingto this principle,which Canguilhemproperlystressed,the limits ofnormality are always dynamically adjustableon a continuum. Putdifferently,the transitionsbetween normality and abnormalityarequantitativelyfluid; there is no differenceand distinction of being.This is the result of statisticalmethodology.If a "population"is dataprocessed under a specific viewpoint, it becomes thereby homoge-nized. Itsdistributioncurve aroundthe averageis continuous;hence,it neverknows anythinglike intrinsic,"qualitative"breaksordiscon-tinuities. Where the border between "normal"and "abnormal"islocated, there one is always subjectedto discussion. If "softdrugs"(becauseof theirstatisticaldistribution)canqualifyas "normal,"thenwhere exactly is the border with "hard"(i.e., not normal) drugs?When a somewhat "relaxed"monogamy appears statistically"nor-mal,"then wheredoes "abnormalsex-addiction"begin?(Iwill returnto this at the end of the paperin orderto pay tribute to the topicalityof "Zippergate.")Theestablishmentof the principalcontinuitybetween "normal"and "abnormal,"through the "Principleof Broussais and Comte"(alreadyin the first half of the nineteenth century),provoked fromthe startan enormousfear,which I describeas the "fearof denormal-ization."If there areno essentiallimits, then we can all be orbecome"abnormal"-and if not ourselves, then our children. In this way,the (often secretlyand silently asked)question "Am I still normal?"became the question of fate in the past two centuries.This continu-ing structureand fear now make two entirely different"strategies"possible,with regardto the fixing of the limits of normality:the firststrategy(whichprevailedin the nineteenth and first halfof the twen-tieth century) attempts to secure itself against the fear of denormal-ization through the establishment of the borders of normality that areas fixed as possible for the longest possible span of time, and through


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zones of tolerance that are as restricted as possible. I call this firststrategy protonormalistic. To this strategy belongs the semantic and(in particular) symbolic reinforcement of the borders of normalityand their conversion into "stigma borders," which once again tend tomaterialize in the form of, for example, walls. This is the "birth of theprison" or of the insane asylum, as described by Foucault. Likewise,another example, analyzed by Foucault, would be the dispositives ofsexual abnormalities in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.Here, the protonormalistic strategy, in the interest of the semanticprotection of borders, tends constantly toward a "dependence" [An-lehnung] on prenormalistic, qualitative delimitations and exclusions,especially toward a redependence on normativities-for example,toward juridical normativities, which, in the case of criminality, isnow constituted normalistically as abnormality.The risk of this strategy lies in blocking the modern dynamic ofgrowth and in crises of "gridlock" with "breaches" and, subsequently,catastrophic denormalizations. A second oppositional strategy, whichI call "flexible-normalistic," attempts to both take into account andsecure such risks. Unlike the protonormalistic strategy, the limitsof normality are managed here in the most flexible manner possibleand are fixed for the shortest possible span of time. Zones of toler-ance and transition are established to be as "broad" as possible, sothat short-term adjustments remain possible, despite the unforeseendynamic of statistical values. Whereas the protonormalistic limits ofnormality are structured to be as "restricted" as possible (i.e., to be-have, symbolically, as walls), there is within flexibility-normalism"broader" limits, so that specific modes of behavior (located withinthe "field of the limit") can still be tolerated de facto. The specific riskof this strategy lies in the threatening "dissolution of borders,"through which, under certain circumstances, catastrophic denormal-izations could be evoked. In protonormalism, the stabilization offixed limits of normality presupposes other-directed subjectivity, dis-cipline, training, and repression. Here, we find ourselves entirely onthe terrain of Discipline and Punish. Individuals must be frequently"normalized" against their will and wishes along established guide-lines-in the French sense of normalisis,that is "standardized." Hence,they need a "strong super-ego," a psycho-terroristic conscience. Suchother-direction is incompatible with flexibility-normalism. In order


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that this normalism can function, subjects must be capable of "nor-malizing" themselves (that is, in the German sense of flexiblemEinpendeln,or "to reach one's equilibrium, or 'normal swing' in a flex-ible manner"). They must be able to "freely" chose their "locations"in the respective fields of the normal (if near the average in the "mid-dle," or more or less removed in the zones of tolerance, or even on theborder of normality) by making tactical calculations, especially riskcalculations, but also frequently with a certain "spontaneity" (i.e., thejust-for-fun principle)-but above all, always under the considera-tion of the totality of normality, which it should not endanger. Thisability of self-normalization (in the sense of dynamic self-adjustment)presupposes a new type of inner-direction, which I have newlydefined in addition to Riesman. This flexible-normalistic kind ofinner-direction is acquired, in particular, through psychotherapeutictraining programs in the widest sense (counseling, self-experience,creativity, and so on). Here again, we find ourselves on terrain thatFoucault-especially in places like sexuality-and his younger col-league Castel-have systematically and thoroughly investigated.

My thesis is now this: behind the overdrawn, far-reaching equa-tion of other- and inner-directed normalism in Foucault hides thecorrect insight into the continuity of normalism. Actually, with regardto both strategies, we are dealing with normalistic strategies that con-cern the fabrication and maintenance of normalities. Despite this fun-damental solidarity, however, these strategies are indeed in concretooppositionally directed. I am surely not the only one not convincedby Foucault's remarks about the so-called "repression hypothesis" insexuality: how could one also deny the massive repression of sexual-ity in Victorianism? Now and then, Foucault himself appears toexplicitly acknowledge the fact of this repression,25but then, in thenext moment, it appears to be already relativized. In my view, thisback-and-forth is easily explained, because of the missing differenti-ation between both normalistic strategies: flexible normalism, then,either becomes subsumed under protonormalism or the sexual revo-lution after World War II becomes reduced to normalisation (in thesense of "standardization"). Or, an absence (or, at least a subdomi-nance) of "repression," within the dominance of creative stimula-tion, becomes-contrary to the facts-retrospectively projected fromflexibility-normalism into Victorianism, that is, into protonormalism.


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Formy conclusion,I announcedthe prospectof a topical eventforyou:here it is. The caseof "Zippergate"allows me simultaneouslyto concretize,to some extent,my analyticalcategoriesand to outlineits necessarilydifferentiatingusage.I am assumingthatwith "Zipper-gate"we aredefinitelynot dealing with a case of Clinton,but ratherwith a case of U.S. mediaculture.For some considerabletime, theflexible-normalisticculture of the United Stateshas been searchingfor the limits of its brilliantupward swing following WorldWarII.Fromthebeginning,the protonormalisticcounterstrategyhas warnedagainst the blurring of all the borders of normality.This strategyrages on, not only in religious fundamentalism,where the consider-able weight of juridical normativity (legalaction)has structurallysupportedit. (Amoreexactanalysis,forwhich thereis no spacehere,must-additionally and above all-show that the strongposition ofthe law, and thereby a specific normativityin the United States, isin no way always antagonisticallyrelated to normalism.)Withoutdoubt, the media image of "BillClinton"lives with connotationsofflexible normalism:saxophone player, swing rhythm, pot smoker,draft dodger,an emancipatedwife, a double careercouple, and sig-nals of an open marriage.Clinton'spopularityis supportedby suchsignals,which at times aredifficult to understandin Europe,becausehis concretedomestic and foreign policies appeardifficultto distin-guish from those of GeorgeH. Bush.Accordingto all opinion polls,such flexibilityis also held to be "normal"by the majorityof the U.S.population.Theproblemof the flexible-normalisticstrategies,as rep-resentedabove,is the necessityof both exploringthe limitsof flexiblenormalitiesand of implementingthem throughthe play of "reachingequilibrium."Under normalisticpremises, every kind of normality,including flexiblenormality,will end somewhere-and those proto-normalisticsubjectsonly wait for the failureof the flexiblestrategyinthis game of "reachingequilibrium."The limit of normalityof "softdrugs"lies in "drugaddiction,"that is, "addiction"in general-cor-respondingly,the limit of normalityof "sexbasedon open marriage"lies in "sex addiction,"that is, the addiction to sex (of which thefemale accusersindict the president).When is a man a "sexaddict,"and is Bill Clinton a "sex addict"?This is the question that theU.S. media culture must have put on the table. And, implicit therein,one finds a still more exciting question: on its home turf, does the


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flexible-normalisticstrategy prove itself incapable of establishingfunctionally capable and flexible borders of normality,which canagain functionin the future within the open game of "reachingequi-librium"?Does it come to a toppling of both normalisticstrategies,and does the protonormalisticstrategy againhold a chance for dom-inance and hegemony?It is exactlyfor this reasonthat "Zippergate"is fascinating,becauseit confrontsboth possibleanswers-"yes, thatis the limit"and conversely "inno way is that the limit;thatis com-pletely normal"-in a kind of stalemate,and becauseboth answersappearto fluctuate fromday to day in theirrespectivemedia domi-nance.Canthe flexible-normalisticstrategybe toppled?Thatwouldbe,more andnotless,a mega-eventat the end of thetwentiethcentury.In any case, I hope this analysis has shown how much my toolboxpresupposesFoucault'sown toolboxas its historicala priori.

NotesJiirgen Link, "Vonder 'Macht der Norm' zum 'flexiblen Normalismus': Ober-legungen nach Foucault," in ZeitgendrssischefranzisischeDenker:Eine Bilanz,ed.JosephJurt(Freiburg:RombachVerlag,1998),251-68. All translationsof materialquoted within the text, unless otherwise noted, areby MirkoM. Hall.1. Michel Foucault, "Des Supplices aux cellules (entretien avec R.-P.Droit),"LeMonde9363 (February21, 1975):16.2. Normalisation:"1. Action de normaliser.Standardization ... Definitionde specifications techniques, de normes, de performances,de methodes d'essaisrequises pour un produit ... Associationfranqaisede normalisation(AFNor) ... 2.Action de rendrenormal,de r tablir (une situation) dans l'Ytatanterieur.Normal-isationdesrelationsdiplomatiques."Paul Robert,Le nouveaupetitRobert:dictionnairealphabitiqueet analogiquede la languefranqaise,eds. JosetteRey-Debove and AlainRey (Paris:DictionnairesLe Robert,2000), 1682.Comparethe article "normalisa-tion" in the Tr6sorde la languefranqaise:dictionnairede la languedu XIXe et du XXesiecle,1789-1960,ed. Paul Imbs (Paris:Editions du Centrenationalde la recherchescientifique, 1986),12:235-36.

3. Michel Foucault, Surveilleret punir.Naissance de la prison(Paris:Galli-mard, 1975),185.4. Michel Foucault, Uberwachenund Strafen.Die Geburtdes Gefiingnisses,trans.WalterSeitter(Frankfurt/Main:Suhrkamp,1976),236.5. Michel Foucault,DisciplineandPunish:TheBirthof thePrison,trans. AlanSheridan(New York:Vintage, 1995),183. Translationslightly modified.6. JiirgenLink,Versuchfiberden Normalismus.WieNormalitaitproduziertwird(Opladen:WestdeutscheVerlag,1996).


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7. Georges Canguilhem, On the Normaland thePathological,trans. CarolynR. Fawcett, ed. RobertS. Cohen, intro. Michel Foucault (Boston:D. Reidel Pub-lishing, 1978).8. Ibid. See also Henning Ritter, "Normal, Normalitiit," in HistorischesW6rterbuchder Philosophie,ed. Joachim Ritter et al. (Basel: Schwabe, 1984),6:920-28.

9. Michel Foucault, The Orderof Things:An Archaeologyof the HumanSci-ences(New York:Vintage, 1994).10. FrancoisEwald, L'Etatprovidence(Paris:B.Grasset,1986).11. Michel Foucault, TheHistoryof Sexuality:An Introduction,trans. RobertHurley (New York:Vintage, 1990),144.12. Ibid.,88.

13. Ibid., 134.14. Ibid., 177.15. See, for example, ibid., 139.16. Ibid., 104-5.17. Ibid., 71.18. Ibid., 119.19. Ibid., 131.20. RobertCastel, FranCoiseCastel,and Anne Lovell, ThePsychiatricSociety,trans. ArthurGoldhammer (New York:Columbia University Press, 1982);Robert

Castel, Lagestiondes risques:de l'anti-psychiatriea'l'apres-psychanalyse(Paris:Edi-tions de Minuit, 1981);RobertCastel, Lepsychanalysme:l'ordrepsychanalytiqueet lepouvoir(Paris:Union gendraled'6ditions, 1976).21. Castel, Lagestiondesrisques,14.22. Ibid., 101.23. Foucault,TheHistoryof Sexuality,94-95.24. Link,Normalismus,77.25. See, for example, Foucault,TheHistoryof Sexuality,45ff.

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