The Sovereign Individual and the Control of Inner Authority

1551 Words7 Pages
Self-autonomy versus the embodiment of society; these contrasting perceptions of power in regards to the sovereign individual are the foundations of Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault’s individual genealogies of free will and an individualized self. Though the concept of power plays a significant role in each philosopher’s establishment of the sovereign individual, it is the impacting nature of societal force that drives separate conceptions towards attaining such free will. It is in Nietzsche’s genealogy where one may only truly come to self-determination by transcending the ideals of society, and elaborating solely on one’s inner mastery. Contrary to this concept, Foucault proposes that to enhance one’s inner strength and power, one must embrace that which society imposes upon humanity. It is these notions in regards to power that embellish a debate towards the construction of the sovereign individual. “It was by means of the morality of custom and the social straight-jacket that man was really made calculable.” (Nietzsche 40) The social constraint of society according to Nietzsche is an inhibiter in the growth of oneself. By conforming to collective norms one may never truly become an individual, and will forever be repressed by a false power. According to Nietzsche, “the individual who resembles no one but himself, who has once again broken away from the morality of custom, the autonomous supramoral individual (since ‘autonomous’ and ‘moral’ are mutually exclusive) – in short, the man with his own independent, enduring will, the man who is entitled to make promises.” (Nietzsche 41) A promise is a contract made with oneself to uphold a value of trust. Nietzsche perceived the idea of a promise to be hallowed and to be something that can only be holistic from that of a complete being; a sovereign individual. “Anyone who promises like a sovereign –
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