‘Postmodern Parrhesia: Edward Snowden and the Ethics
of Political Truth-telling in Modernity’
Emily Mills
Postgraduate HRC 2015 Working Paper No. 11
Abstract
This dissertation offers Foucauldian critique of the 2013 ‘Snowden revelations’ and
subsequent polemical debate. It shows how a reconceptualization of these disclosures using
the framework of ‘counter-conduct’ enables us to construct Snowden as an ethical truthtelling subject, as opposed to a ‘traitor’ or ‘betrayer’ of his country. By incorporating
Foucault’s analyses on the Greek concept ‘parrhesia’, this study aims to illuminate the
influential ethics of truth-telling and how this might subscribe to nuance forms of political
engagement. Ultimately it is deliberated that, despite the problematized place for truth-telling
in modern democratic politics, Snowden’s truth-telling underscored the capacity of personal
ethics to facilitate a more robust democratization of the liberal state regime.
Human Rights Centre
Table of Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 3
1.
Context ............................................................................................................................... 5
2.
Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 8
2.1 Governmentality............................................................................................................ 9
2.2 Counter-conduct .......................................................................................................... 12
2.3 Parrhesia ...................................................................................................................... 17
3.
The Political Problem of Truth-telling ......................................................................... 22
3.1 A Problem of Simple Vocabulary ............................................................................... 23
3.2 The Construction of Edward Snowden ....................................................................... 27
3.3 Polemics, Politics and Problematizations ................................................................... 32
4.
The Ethics of Truth-telling ............................................................................................ 39
4.1 Truth-telling and the Government of Self and Others ................................................ 40
4.2 Postmodern Parrhesia and a new Politics of Reformation .......................................... 48
Concluding Remarks ............................................................................................................. 55
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 61
2
Introduction
This dissertation is an extrapolation of the work of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), whose
transdisciplinary analytics contributed compelling nuances to poststructuralist thought of the
late twentieth century. His alternative analyses of conventional familiarities challenged
structural ‘norms’, and prompted a ‘look at the same things in a different way’.1 Accordingly,
this study critiques the dominant narratives attached to the recent disclosures of Edward
Snowden. By encouraging a reconceptualization of his political engagement, the uncredited
ethics mobilising and sustaining it are productively illuminated. Thereby enabling a
(re)construction of Snowden as an ethical truth-telling subject, as opposed to the stereotyped
denunciations of him as a ‘traitor’ or a criminal. By using Foucault’s concept of ‘parrhesia’,
this analysis aims to re-appropriate the ethics of truth-telling in the democratization of the
liberal state regime.
Modern democracies emerged premised on values such as liberty, equality and human
autonomy, and were generally structured so as to ensure public involvement at every level.2
Most have corresponding legal instruments or policies to protect such civil liberties and
robustly value those that facilitate equal political engagement, such as the freedom of speech.
The United States enshrines freedom of speech within the First Amendment and considers it
‘at the core’ of their democracy inasmuch as they resolutely secure even hateful speech.3
However this discussion considers the rather enigmatic treatment of speaking truthfully in
American politics. Whilst ‘free speech’ is pragmatically extended to all and doesn’t
discriminate between types, differentiation appears in who can acceptably use (and when they
can use) the right to speak, the right to give one’s views and the right to tell the truth.4 The
current context pushes the limits of this, whereby Edward Snowden, a 29 year old computer
analyst for the National Security Agency, publically disclosed highly confidential
information from, ‘one of the most secretive agencies in the world’s most powerful
1
Michel Foucault, ‘The Masked Philosopher’ in Paul Rabinow (ed.) Robert Hurley (trans.) Essential
Works of Foucault 1954-1984, Vol. I: Ethics (Penguin 2000) (herein, Ethics) 325
2
David Lewis and Wim Vandekerckhove (eds.) Whistleblowing and Democratic Values (The
International Whistleblowing Research Network 2011) 5
3
Speech from Hilary Clinton, Secretary of State, Center for Islamic Arts and History (Istanbul, July
15, 2011) <http://blogs.cbn.com/globallane/archive/2011/07/19/hillarys-religious-freedomspeech.aspx> (accessed 15 August 2015)
4
Michel Foucault, ‘1 February 1984: Second Hour’ in Frédéric Gros, François Ewald and Alessandro
Fontana (eds.) The Courage of the Truth: The Government of Self and Others II: Lectures at the
College de France 1983–1984 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) (herein, The Courage of the Truth) 35
3
government’.5 He believed that when governmental practices are ‘changing the boundaries of
the rights that we enjoy as free people in a free society’, it should be publically debated.6
However, as articulated by Daniel Ellsberg, ‘in this realm telling secrets appears unpatriotic
or even traitorous’.7 Thus, despite Snowden’s concern for due democratic process, it appears
that modernity is perplexed by ‘the importance of telling the truth, knowing who is able to
tell the truth, and knowing why we should tell the truth’.8
The crux of this analysis is that conventional accounts of Snowden’s ostensibly
political act undermine its ethical value and suppress the consequent productivity of truthtelling in democratic politics. These relations are illuminated by applying Foucault’s
methodological tools and reworking his specific conceptualisations on the Greek notion of
parrhesia; ‘a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth,
and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people
(as well as himself)’.9 Chapter 1 outlines the ‘Snowden revelations’ as they emerged in 2013,
providing an overview of the disclosure process, ensuing media reports, and general public
reaction. Chapter 2 elucidates relevant Foucauldian methodologies that will guide the
discovery of ‘alternative truths’ from conventional narratives. Chapter 3 then confronts the
political problem of truth-telling in democracy, examining issues of polemical debate and
political rhetoric that distorted the utility of Snowden’s modern use of parrhesia. The final
chapter, by embracing a philosophical reconceptualization, looks beyond political
contestation and redefines Snowden’s truth-telling as a practice of ethics. Ultimately it is
hypothesised that, despite the immediate challenges faced in democratic politics, Snowden’s
truth-telling underscored the capacity of personal ethics to vitalise political engagement.
5
Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State
(Penguin Books, 2014) 20
6
Lawrence Lessig, Interview with Edward Snowden (Harvard University, 20 October 2014)
<http://ethics.harvard.edu/lawrence-lessig-interviews-edward-snowden> (accessed 1 September 2015)
(Snowden)
7
Daniel Ellsberg, ‘Secrecy and National Security Whistleblowing’ (2010) 77:3 Social Research 773804, 773
8
Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech (Joseph Pearson ed., Semiotext(e), 2001) 170
9
ibid 19
4
1. Context
On 5th June 2013 The Guardian began successively publishing articles online, detailing
perverse and undisclosed surveillance practices with technological capabilities beyond that
ever known. The publications were annexed with highly confidential documents from the
National Security Agency (NSA), revealing the use of mass surveillance both domestically
and internationally, and the subsequent gathering and retention of private data on American
citizens. These leaks were shocking for a number of reasons. Firstly, the American public had
been reassured many times by their politicians that post-9/11 security measures did not
include mass surveillance of US citizens. Secondly, it quickly became clear from the detail of
the leaks that the American surveillance programme had international allies; consequently,
citizens worldwide were feeling both distressed and outraged. Finally, it was evident from the
scope of the leaks that only someone with very high-level security clearance and access to
top-secret documents at the highest level could have leaked the information. Ultimately, it
has been suggested these documents contributed to the greatest intelligence leak in US
history; additionally the informant identified himself with unprecedented haste. 10
On 9th June 2013 Edward Snowden, an NSA subcontractor, came forth and stated, ‘I
have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong’.11 With the
assistance of investigative journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras he had flown to
Hong Kong to coordinate media disclosures of NSA documents he believed to be in the
public interest. His primary concern in coming forward so quickly was his desire to spark
public debate about the information, rather than to seek notoriety; He explained,
I really want the focus to be on these documents and the debate which I hope
this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we
want to live in…My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is
done in their name and that which is done against them. 12
10
Luke Harding, The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man (Guardian
Faber Publishing 2014) 2
11
Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras, ‘Edward Snowden: the whistleblower
behind the NSA surveillance revelations’ The Guardian (11 June 2013)
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance>
(accessed 4 August 2015) (Snowden)
12
ibid (Snowden)
5
After years of working his way up the intelligence community, Snowden had become
increasingly aware of gravely unethical, bulk surveillance practices ‘seizing private
communications without a warrant, without probable cause or even a suspicion of
wrongdoing. For everyone, all the time’.13 He viewed this ‘suspicionless’ surveillance as the
ultimate threat to privacy and articulated its unchallenged violation of the Fourth
Amendment.14 But he specifically attributed his progressive disillusionment with the US
intelligence service to witnessing ‘a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress
– and therefore the American people’.15 He believed that officials, such as James Clapper
(Director of National Intelligence), lying to their public without repercussion was ‘evidence
of a subverted democracy’.16 After observing this fracturing of the democratic process
Snowden felt a compulsion to act, stating that he couldn’t ‘in good conscience’ help conceal
all this information from the public.17
Snowden’s revelations had both personal and far reaching politico-legal
repercussions. At a personal level, Snowden is essentially living life as a marked man,
currently in asylum in Russia. Just 18 days after the initial whistleblowing, the US
government revoked his passport and sought his extradition from Hong Kong, charging him
with two counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 – unauthorised communication of
national defence information and wilful communication of classified communications
intelligence to an unauthorised person - and theft of government documents.18 Each carrying
a maximum of 10 years in jail. He has since been likened to ‘a man without a country’ and ‘a
man without a body’ maintaining an international presence for ‘promoting encryption and
denouncing encroachments on privacy’ through remotely screened disembodied images at
various conferences.19 For many, giving up his life in Hawaii, a six-figure salary, a girlfriend
13
James Bamford, ‘Edward Snowden: The Untold Story’ Wired (22 August 2014)
<http://www.wired.com/2014/08/edward-snowden> (accessed 10 August 2015)
14
ibid
15
Edward Snowden, ‘Edward Snowden: NSA whistleblower answers reader questions’ The Guardian
(3 October 2014) <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-fileswhistleblower> (accessed 15 August 2015)
16
ibid
17
Greenwald (n5) 43-45
18
Peter Finn and Sari Horowitz, ‘U.S charges Snowden with Espionage’ The Washington Post (21
June 2013) <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-charges-snowden-withespionage/2013/06/21/507497d8-dab1-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html> (accessed 15 August
2015)
19
Bamford (n13)
6
whom he loves and all family ties, appears remarkable but Snowden commented, ‘I feel
satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets’.20
Early interviews with Greenwald and colleagues and subsequent remote broadcasts21 portray
Snowden as intent on telling the truth despite obvious personal danger;
I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions… I will be satisfied if
the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers
that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.22
His motivations and actions impressed and inspired the journalists who spent considerable
time with him in the initial stages. Greenwald describes him as appearing to be both
‘inconceivably calm’ and ‘profoundly at peace’, despite the high risks he took,23 and wanted
‘more than anything…for the world to see Snowden’s fearlessness’.24 Poitras’s documentary
film Citizenfour, provides useful ‘behind the scenes’ views of Snowden and his time in Hong
Kong.25 He can be seen to calmly and rationally answer questions about the extent of what he
knows and why he came forth:
You can’t come forward against the world’s most powerful intelligence
agencies and be completely free from risk because they’re such powerful
adversaries that no one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you
they’ll get you in time. But at the same time you have to make a determination
about what it is that’s important…26
Snowden ultimately believed that ‘citizenship carries with it a duty to first police one’s own
government before seeking to correct others’.27 Thereby expecting the US government to
confront the hypocrisy of these systemic abuses happening “in the interests of national
20
Greenwald et al (n11) (Snowden)
Edward Snowden, ‘Here’s how we take back the internet’ (TED, March 2014)
<http://www.ted.com/talks/edward_snowden_here_s_how_we_take_back_the_internet?language=en>
(accessed 15 August 2015)
22
Greenwald (n5) 32 (Snowden)
23
ibid 83
24
ibid
25
Citizenfour, dir. by Laura Poitras (HBO Films, 2014)
26
Greenwald et al (n11) (Snowden)
27
Greenwald (n5) 31 (Snowden)
21
7
security”. In particular, he was perturbed by President Obama’s vow to have ‘the most
transparent administration in history’ when in reality, there has never been more proof of the
obverse.28
2. Methodology
A critique does not consist in saying that things aren't good the way they are. It consists in
seeing on just what type of assumptions, of familiar notions, of established and unexamined
ways of thinking the accepted practices are based...
Michel Foucault ±
Foucault avoided grounding his work in a singular methodology or ‘complete’ theory and
instead was devoted to the on-going articulation and adaptation of his critique to current
phenomena.29 He provided an array of methodological tools which he destined for ‘users, not
readers’, to constructively and creatively apply ‘however they wish in their own area’.30
Despite this, the repetition of certain themes reveals some continuity to Foucault’s work, and
central to these was his objective ‘to create a history of the different modes by which, in our
culture, human beings are made subjects’.31 As a consistent feature of his work, these
relations often link his dispersed ‘fragments’ of thought but the application of specific ‘tools’
and frameworks make these otherwise invisible relations, visible.32 With coincident impetus,
this dissertation utilises a Foucauldian ‘lens’ to disclose alternative or subjugated truths from
the contextual narrative in Chapter 1. The methodological tools that facilitate this are
28
ibid 50
± Michel Foucault, ‘So Is It Important to Think?’ in James Faubion (ed.) Robert Hurley et al (trans.)
Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, Volume III: Power (New York Press, 2000) 456
29
Joanna K Fadyl, David A Nicholls and Kathryn M McPherson, ‘Interrogating discourse: The
application of Foucault’s methodological discussion to specific inquiry’ (2012) 17:5 Health 478 –494,
479
30
Michel Foucault, 'Prisons et asiles dans le mécanisme du pouvoir' in Michel Foucault, Dits et Ecrits
vol. 11. (Paris: Gallimard 1994) 523-524; in Clare O’Farrell, Michel Foucault (Sage Publications
2005) 50
31
Michel Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’ (1982) 8:4 Critical Inquiry 777-795, 777
32
Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose, ‘Introduction’ in Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose (eds.) Essential
Works of Foucault 1954-1984 (New Press, 2003)
8
elucidated below; 2.1 Governmentality and 2.2 Counter-conduct. Section 2.3 then introduces
the Greek concept of parrhesia.
2.1 Governmentality
In his 1977-1978 lecture series Security, Territory, Population, Foucault continues his
implicit analytics on the exercise of power by elaborating on its ‘macrophysical’ capacity; the
effects on an entire population.33 This series of lectures epitomises Foucault’s practical
approach to power by extending a framework that discerns it productivity and diffuse, lowlevel operation. He challenged conventional perceptions of power as “possessed” by
hierarchal structures, which identify it solely with repressive domination. Instead, his concern
was with the ‘institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, calculations, and tactics that
allow the exercise of [a] very specific, albeit very complex, power that has the population as
its target’.34 This he labelled as ‘biopower’, whereby biological features (births, deaths,
illnesses) of a human population are manipulated into a political strategy as a means of
control.35 Thereupon, coalescing his ‘question of power’ with political rationality and
mechanisms of government over ‘the social’.36
Consequently, Foucault began to contemplate the ‘problem of government’, more
specifically, the ‘how’ of government – ‘how to be ruled, how strictly, by whom, to what end,
by what methods, and so on’.37 Additionally taking issue with how government is thought in
modernity, where state centralisation has reduced its meaning to the political structures and
management of states. Instead, he encouraged a broader interpretation that designates ‘the
way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups might be directed … To govern, in this
33
Colin Gordon, ‘Introduction’ in James Faubion (ed.) Robert Hurley et al (trans.) Essential Works of
Foucault 1954-1984, Volume III: Power (New York Press, 2000) xxviii (emphasis added) (herein,
Power)
34
Michel Foucault, ‘1 February 1978’ in Michel Snellart, François Ewald, Alessandro Fontana (eds.)
and Graham Burcell (trans.) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College De France,
1977-78 (Palgrave Macmillian 2007) 145 (herein, Security, Territory, Population)
35
ibid 16
36
Bal Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Governmentality: Notes on the Thought of Michel Foucault’ (2014) Critical
Legal Thinking <http://criticallegalthinking.com/2014/12/02/governmentality-notes-thought-michelfoucault/> (accessed 16 August 2015) (herein, ‘Governmentality’); Where ‘the social’ refers to a
whole network of social relationships and phenomena effected through political power, not simply
people.
37
Foucault, ‘Governmentality’ in Power (n33) 202
9
sense, is to control the possible field of action of others’.38 This convergence of the
variegated ‘art’ of government (how it is practiced) with a specific rationality (way of
thinking about it) was encompassed by Foucault’s more appropriately termed
‘governmentality’.39 This refers to the whole ‘domain of strategic relations’ wherein human
conduct is regulated (conducted); put succinctly as the “conduct of conduct”.40
This ‘fragment’ of work he names ‘a history of governmentality’ whereby he traces
the ‘governmentalization’ of the modern state and identifies it as ‘a society controlled by the
apparatuses of security’.41 These are the regulatory mechanisms that seek optimization of the
population’s behaviour through tactical limitation, until equilibrium has been achieved.42
Therefore, the modern state is somewhat distinguished in its exercise of power from that of
the disciplinary forms of ‘the sovereign’ demanding the obedience of their lawful subjects.43
Instead it utilises flexible strategies and tactics of government through our ‘arts of existence’,
developing the ‘art of governing’ beyond simply laws and political institutions.44 To this
extent, Foucault appears to be integrating a degree of autonomy and personal responsibility
into this new form of neo-liberal governmentality; a self-regulatory exercise of power.45 Thus
he inevitably returns to the ‘microphysical’ processes of human subjects, whereby the
individual internalises these relations until ‘the self is constructed or modified by himself’ to
align with the populations “optimal” behaviour.46
The individual that is the object of regulation, thus becomes the subject of their own
self-government, by exercising ‘self on self’ practices in order to ‘exist better’ in their
38
Michel Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’ in Power (n33) 341 (emphasis added); in Sokhi-Bulley,
‘Governmentality’ (n36)
39
ibid
40
Michel Foucault, ‘Subjectivity and the Truth’ in Ethics (n1); and Thomas Lemke, ‘Foucault,
Governmentality, and Critique’ (Rethinking Marxism Conference, Amherst, September 2000) 2
41
Michel Foucault, ‘Governmentality’ in Power (n33) 221 (emphasis added)
42
Andrew Dilts and Bernard E. Harcourt, Discipline, Security, and Beyond: A Brief Introduction
(2008) 4 The Carceral Notebooks <http://www.thecarceral.org/cn4_dilts-harcourt.pdf> (accessed 17
August 2015)
43
O’Farrell (n30) 107
44
Rainbow and Rose (n55) 5
45
Thomas Lemke, ‘The birth of bio-politics: Michel Foucault’s lecture at the Collège de France on
neo-liberal governmentality’ (2001) 30:2 Economy and Society 190-207, 201
46
Michel Foucault, ‘About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Two Lectures at
Dartmouth’ (1993) 21:2 Political Theory 198–227, in ibid 200
10
society; a ‘technology of the self’.47 To that end, there is a reintegration of a form of
disciplinary power on which Foucault had previously written, drawing from Jeremy
Benthem’s panopticon; an architectural design for a prison where, under the guise of constant
surveillance, individuals begin to correct, mould and transform themselves to align with
certain ‘norms’ of conduct. 48 For Foucault, the panoptic schema most effectively illustrated
this ‘internalisation’ of disciplinary tactics. Wherein, individuals begin to self-regulate
through technologies of the self; ‘to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of
happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality’.49
Governmentality must necessarily ‘take into account not only techniques of
domination but also techniques of the self’.50 As Lemke articulates, this is apparent through
the co-determined emergence of the modern state and ‘the modern autonomous individual’.51
However, to creatively enrol in this more flexible and autonomous art of government
suggests that having the flexibility and freedom to participate is also a prerequisite. As
Foucault robustly stated,
Failing to respect freedom is not only an abuse of rights with regard to the law; it is
above all ignorance of how to govern properly. The integration of freedom, and the
specific limits to this freedom within the field of governmental practice has now
become an imperative. 52
He expanded on this concept further in an interview by elucidating the importance of space
within the ‘problem of government’. Governmentalized space now goes beyond territory, its
domain and its subjects but is a ‘complex and independent’ reality that is not wholly
‘penetrable’ by laws or police.53 Foucault warned that ‘if one governed too much, one did not
47
Bal Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Human rights as technologies of the self: creating the European governmentable
subject of rights’ in Ben Golder (ed.) Re-Reading Foucault: On Law, Power and Rights (Routledge
2013)
48
Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Alan Sheridan trans., 2nd edn,
Vintage Books 1995) 200
49
Michel Foucault, ‘Technologies of the Self’ in Luther Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick Hutton
(eds.) Lectures at Vermont University in October 1982 (University of Massachusetts Press 1988)
<http://foucault.info/documents/foucault.technologiesofself.en.html> (accessed 12 August 2015)
50
Foucault, ‘About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self’ (n46) in Lemke, ‘The birth of biopolitics’ (n45) 203
51
ibid 191 (emphasis added)
52
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (n34) 451 (emphasis added)
53
Michel Foucault, ‘Space, Knowledge and Power’ in Power (n33) 353
11
govern at all- that one provoked results contrary to those one desired’.54 This succinctly
encompasses the importance of studying governmentality; to determine those discrete tactics
of government that when understood, can be effectively, creatively and advantageously used
– and when arbitrarily intervened, can consciously be manipulated to perform the
impenetrable ‘art of not being governed quite so much’.55
Governmentality is regularly identified as a key concept within Foucault’s body of
work, but more than that - it’s an indispensable methodological tool that encapsulates,
extends upon and even introduced some of the central themes in Foucauldian analyses. This
brief articulation is by no means exhaustive and in fact, is decidedly selective, similarly
serving an introductory function to familiarise Foucault’s basic systems of thought and
specific rationalities with a view towards further development. The study of governmentality
is critical to understanding Foucault’s analytics of power; power that is relational, complex,
neither a substance nor hierarchal, limiting and liberating. For him, governmentality was a
kind of ‘contact point’ of technologies of domination and technologies of the self, effectively
collapsing the conventional dichotomies that distance ‘the governor’ from ‘the governed’,
government from freedom, and power from resistance.
2.2 Counter-conduct
From the mutually dependent relationship between power and freedom, it is evident that there
is no domain of exteriority to power relations. Essentially, the freedom to challenge and resist
governmental power is itself ‘bound up in networks of governmentality’.56 Such processes
will inevitably incur acts of refusal or revolt, as Foucault famously articulated, ‘where there is
power, there is resistance’.57 Consequently, in the final lectures of Security, Territory,
Population, Foucault proceeds to consider these ‘specific revolts of conduct’ to equally
specific ‘form[s] of power with the object of conducting men’.58 Nevertheless, he encounters
difficulty in designating a term, which fully encompasses the inversion of such a precise form
54
ibid
Michel Foucault, ‘What is Critique?’ in Sylvère Lotringer (ed.) Lysa Hochroth, Catherine Porter
(trans.) The Politics of Truth (Semiotext(e) 2007) 45
56
Carl Death, ‘Counter-conducts: A Foucauldian Analytics of Protest’ (2010) 9:3 Social Movement
Studies 235-251, 239
57
Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol. 1, An Introduction (Robert Hurley trans., New York:
Vintage 1990) 95-6
58
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (n34) 259
55
12
of conducting power, a kind of ‘web of resistance’.59 He eventually rejects ‘resistance’,
‘revolts’, ‘disobedience’, ‘insubordination’, ‘dissidence’ and ‘misconduct’ before settling on
the term ‘counter-conduct’.60
Evidently, terminology is of particular importance to Foucault who also meticulously
selected the term ‘conduct’ when discussing relations of power. Conduct does not merely
refer to the activity of conducting, but ‘equally the way in which one conducts oneself (se
conduit), lets oneself be conducted (se laisse conduire)…[and] behaves (se comporter) as an
effect of a form of conduct (une conduite)’.61 Consequently, as the obverse of
governmentality, acts of counter-conduct are a ‘struggle against the processes implemented
for conducting others’.62 They do not infer a complete rejection of government but more
specifically represent ‘the will not to be governed thusly, like that, by these people, at this
price’63 whilst simultaneously defining the active domain of one’s own conduct and the
government of oneself.64 To that end, it is not surprising that Foucault resisted attributing
these acts with overly ‘strong’, ‘negative’ or ‘passive’ terminology, as the objective of
counter-conduct is to look within government, not overcome it.65
To elaborate, these acts are both implicated in and reinforce the forms of conduct they
refuse; Foucault explicates using the context of pastoral power, where ‘the permanent use of
tactical elements that are pertinent in the anti-pastoral struggle [are used] to the very extent
they are part, even in a marginal way, of the general horizon of Christianity’.66 This
rationality distinguishes counter-conduct from those other forms of resistance and is as
suitably creative, productive and relational as governmentality itself. Furthermore, Foucault
prudently avoided a label which would have implicated a specific ideology or origin; ‘there is
no single locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellions, or pure law of the
revolutionary’.67 Counter-conducts can be individual and collective, spontaneous and
organised, political and ethical. Cogently paraphrased by Sokhi-Bulley, ‘counter-conduct
59
ibid 266
ibid 266-268
61
ibid 258
62
ibid 268 (emphasis added)
63
Foucault, ‘What is Critique?’ (n55) 75
64
Arnold Davidson, ‘In praise of counter-conduct’ (2001) 24:4 History of the Human Sciences 25–41,
27
65
Death (n56) 240
66
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (n34) 282 (emphasis added)
67
Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol. 1 (n57) 95-6
60
13
happens; it is fact’ and ‘need not be premeditated, or revolutionary to be part of
governmentality, part of the complex, strategical power relations within society’.68
Thus, Counter-conduct’s proximity to ‘the political’ is nevertheless still established,
that is – not simply the political and institutional organisation of society but the open field of
power relations operating within the social body.69 In addition, this approach looks beyond
the ‘spectacle’ of resistance by ‘bringing into play [the] theoretical elements which morally
justify and give a basis to these tactics in rationality’.70 This indicates that the mentalities
underpinning these practices are inseparable and evokes the notion that those performing
counter-conduct have done so with a sense of how one should be conducted (morally) and
namely, how one should conduct oneself in relation to this. Thereby integrating an ethical
dimension through a principle of care for the self, and a form of self-government; modifying
one’s own behaviour to ‘exist better’ within their society and contribute to the formation of
an individual’s ‘ethos’.
For Foucault, this concern for oneself or ‘care of the self’ was ‘required for right
conduct and the proper practice of freedom, in order to know oneself’.71 Drawing from Greek
culture, he shows how an individual’s freedom is problematized to the extent that an ethics of
care for oneself is essentially a precept.72 So, as a problem of individual ethics, ‘extensive
work by the self on the self is required for [the] practice of freedom’ which then materialises
as an ‘ethos’ that is good, honourable or exemplary.73 Ethos refers to both a way of being and
of behaving, evident in a way visible to others; this could be one’s appearance, gait, the way
in which one responds, and so on.74 Therefore, counter-conduct could represent an ethical
relationship with oneself, an ethos of freedom and a way of caring for others, whilst still
having political function. These aspects will be elaborated on through a discussion of the
Greek concept of ‘parrhesia’, a practice of fearless speech which exemplifies fluidity between
the political and ethical fields of counter-conduct.
68
Bal Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Counter Conduct or Resistance? The Disciplining of Dissent in the Riot City of
London’ (2014) Queen’s University Belfast, Research Paper 2014/07. 1-24, 6
69
ibid 3; Illan rua Wall, ‘Politics and the Political: Notes On the Thought of Jean-Luc Nancy’ (2013)
Critical Legal Theory <http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/02/20/politics-and-the-political-notes-onthe-thought-of-jean-luc-nancy/> (accessed 15 August 2015)
70
Foucault, Security, Territory Population (n34) 283
71
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 285
72
Foucault, ‘Technologies of the Self’ (n49)
73
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 286
74
ibid
14
Counter-conduct both de-stabilises and reinforces the processes that are shaping us.75
It is a refusal of an immoral rationality of government, yet complicit in improving
governmental control. This reciprocal relationship can occur somewhat advantageously
outside of the juridical sphere, by reinforcing the ‘relational fabric’76 of the social body and
allowing citizens to work with their government;
[W]e need to escape the dilemma of being either for or against… Working
with a government doesn’t imply either a subjection or a blanket acceptance.
One can work with and be intransigent at the same time. I would even say that
the two things go together.77
Thus, appealing to, or indeed nurturing, ‘the art of not being governed quite so much’. But for
individuals to change these relations in society, Foucault holds that one must first know
oneself, in order to ‘determine their identity, maintain it, or transform it in terms of a certain
ends’.78 This manifestation of an ethics of care for the self and others, can then be seen as a
refusal of an ‘individuality’ imposed on human subjects by their history; a demand for new
‘subjectivity’ as well as a new rationality of government. As Foucault contemplated,
‘[p]robably the principal objective today is not to discover but to refuse what we are’.79
Hence, counter-conduct serves the critically important task of transforming one’s relationship
to oneself and others, bringing new visibilities, knowledges, subjectivities and identities to
modern society.80
This methodological approach provides ‘the user’ with a framework in which to
reconceptualise acts of resistance and consider their agency. In practice, it refuses arbitrary
forms of conducting power whilst reinforcing the prudence of their ‘general horizon’ through
political and ethical processes. In this way, it is possible to conceive of alternative
rationalities and mentalities behind counter-acts which challenge conventional dichotomies
that subjugate the interrelationship between dominant power relations and underlying
practices of resistance. What concerned Foucault and indeed, what he brought to light by
75
Death (n56) 245
Davidson (n64) 33
77
Foucault, ‘So Is It Important to Think?’ in Power (n33) 456
78
Foucault, ‘Subjectivity and Truth’ in Ethics (n1) 87
79
Foucault, ‘Le sujet et le pouvoir’, in Dits et écrits, vol. II, 1976–1988. (Paris: Gallimard, 2001) in
Davidson (n64) 37
80
Death (n56) 247; and Davidson (n64) 32
76
15
using the governmentality framework, was that unchallenged practices allow potentially
arbitrary regimes to become normalised. This appearance of ‘normal’ or ‘rationalised’
governance may weaken the possibility of refusal, consequently delimiting an individual’s
ethical freedom.81 Counter-conduct as a ‘tool’ helps to confront and interfere with this
normalisation process, by distinguishing between power relations of domination and those of
liberation and tracing their mutual constitution. Methodologically, it allows users to ‘exhibit,
transform and overturn’ dominant narratives, whilst maintaining an openness ‘in which
people can make their own decisions, form their own movements, and reach their own
objectives’ as part of the progression of critical thought.82
Heretofore, this discussion has sought to illuminate relevant patterns, themes and
tools within Foucault’s large and complex oeuvre. It has shown the interconnectedness of
crucial principles which forge the fundamental techniques and methodologies utilised in
Foucauldian critique. The issues examined thus far are; questions of power, the problem of
government, complementarity and conflicts between technologies of domination and of the
self, ethos and the politics and ethics of resistance. Thereby defining relational themes of
power, resistance, knowledge, ethics, care of the self and freedom. Foucault submits that his
engagement with technologies of domination and power were ultimately to trace the
processes influencing the constitution of an individual’s subjectivity; ‘modes of
subjectivation’. More specifically, how the individual comes to act upon and form himself
‘within a nexus of relationships’.83
The final section in this chapter examines the reformulation of these ‘fragments’ in
some of Foucault’s final lectures, through the rather obscure Greek concept of parrhesia.
Foucault continued his interest of the different modes of subjectivation through political
practices that challenge domination and represent an ethos of self-care. More specifically, he
was concerned with the activity of truth-telling and these relations within democratic forms
of government. Conducive to this he created a ‘genealogy of parrhesia’ derived from Greek
literature, by tracing its practice in Ancient Athenian democracy and its evolution in both
Greek and Roman culture.84 Although open to a multiplicity of critical approaches, this thesis
uses parrhesia as a practical and theoretical framework to reconsider the interaction of
81
Davidson (n64) 32
Brent L. Pickett, ‘Foucault and the Politics of Resistance’ (1996) 28:4 Polity 445-466, 463
83
Rabinow, ‘Introduction’ in Ethics (n1) xxvii
84
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 1
82
16
practices of truth-telling, techniques of governmentality and technologies of the self. This
introductory
section
delineates
Foucault’s
approach
to
‘truth-telling’
and
basic
characterisations of parrhesia to guide its application in Chapters 3 and 4.
2.3 Parrhesia
Ordinarily, parrhesia would be characterised as “free speech” in English but Foucault was
primarily concerned with the etymological meaning ‘to say everything’.85 Thus, he was more
interested in a precise, open and frank form of free speech; truth-telling or, as he called it,
‘veridiction’.86 In the first lecture of The Courage of the Truth series, Foucault establishes the
theme ‘free-spokenness’ and directed his discriminative analyses to the production of truth,
namely the act by which it is manifested. 87 For Foucault, parrhesia operated within both the
political and ethical spheres, ‘[c]onnecting together modes of veridiction [truth-telling],
techniques of governmentality, and practices of the self’ which he concedes ‘is basically what
[he has] always been trying to do’.88
Prior to 1982, Foucault had written extensively on ‘truth’ through the analysis of
specific structures in various discourses that either claim to be or are presumed to be “true”.
He identifies this as an epistemological analysis and summarily differentiates it from the
study of truth-telling through parrhesia.89 In this lecture series, he effectively shifts analyses
away from the constitution of ‘the truth’ and instead considers the constitution of the subject
through an act of truth. He summarises, ‘[m]y intention was not to deal with the problem of
truth, but with the problem of the truth-teller, or of truth-telling as an activity’.90 He was
therefore more concerned with exploring ‘who is able to tell the truth, about what, with what
consequences, and with what relations to power’.91 Thus he arrived at the study of parrhesia
and ‘the parrhesiastēs’, as part of his long engagement with historical practices pertaining to a
‘culture of the self’.92 He traced these back to Ancient Greece, to the Socratic principle ‘know
85
Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 12
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 8
87
ibid 2
88
ibid 8
89
ibid 2
90
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 169
91
ibid 170
92
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 4
86
17
yourself’ evoking the familiar notions of self-care. It was here that a perceivable obligation to
tell the truth about oneself emerged.93
In Greek literature, the parrhesiastēs is the one who ‘says everything he has in mind:
he does not hide anything, but opens his heart and mind completely to other people through
his discourse’.94 Foucault importantly distinguishes between two types of parrhesia; the
pejorative sense of the word akin to unqualified ‘chattering’ and the classical positive
meaning congruent with truth-telling. Therefore, parrhesia could even entail telling ‘the most
stupid or dangerous things for the city’ in its “bad” pejorative sense.95 Although Foucault
stresses that most of the classical texts use parrhesia positively, whereby the parrhesiastēs not
only has sincere belief that what he says is true but he knows it to be true and will not ‘tell all’
without good reason.96 For the Greeks, parrhesia was indicative of a relationship to the
speaker and what he says; a verbalised union of belief and truth that presupposes the
parrhesiastēs possession of ‘certain moral qualities’.97 They were not overly concerned about
the procurement of such truth, as a form of authenticity was established through the risk taken
upon entering into the “parrhesiastic game”.98
In parrhesia, the act of truth-telling must involve danger or a conceivable threat from
the parrhesiastēs’ relationship to ‘the Other’. It’s a “game” that challenges the bond between
the one who uses parrhesia and the ‘interlocutor’, whom may become infuriated when
confronted with such truth.99 The truth-teller may risk punishment, isolation, exile or even
death in his dangerous act, but he courageously defies these consequences rather than live as
someone ‘who is false to himself’.100 This is where the interlocutor – be it a friend, a prince
or a tyrant – must listen and accept this truth to fully enrol in the parrhesiastic game.101 Thus,
parrhesia is not simply a matter of confessing or conveying a truth, it has an effective
function of criticism that similarly takes courage to accept.102 Although this could be
criticism against the speaker himself, parrhesia always emanates from a subordinated position
93
ibid 5-7
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 12
95
ibid 13
96
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 10
97
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 14-15
98
ibid
99
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 11
100
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 17
101
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 13
102
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 17
94
18
with respect to the interlocutor.103 However, quite crucially, this inferiority does not infer that
parrhesia materialises out of oppression, on the contrary the parrhesiastēs is free to keep
silent but feels it is his duty to tell all.104 This may arise from a sense of moral obligation or a
practical duty to improve or help others;
[T]he speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion,
truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and
security, criticism instead of flattery and moral duty instead of self-interest
and moral apathy.105
In this sense, the “true game” of parrhesia is contingent on the establishment of a
‘parrhesiastic pact’; where the orator has risked all and demonstrated ‘the courage of the
truth’ to receive acceptance or ‘greatness of soul’ of the person whom he criticised.106
Foucault expounds the importance of the parrhesiastēs’ commitment to what he states,
despite risking the breakdown of relations between himself and the interlocutor, the speaker
inevitably fixes a significant and constitutive bond between himself and his discourse.107
Thus, he contends that the ‘good’ parrhesiastēs can be notably distinguished from ‘the good
rhetorician’, who may practise his ‘art’ to produce convictions he may not even believe, think
or know, but has the finesse to simulate otherwise. Conversely, parrhesia is not so easily
defined because it is ‘a stance, a way of being which is akin to a virtue [or] a mode of action’
rather than an ascertainable skill or technique.108 It is, therefore, a modality of truth-telling,
one that is discernible from others often seen in Antiquity (the prophet, the sage and the
teacher), as it draws upon ethos.109
Within Foucault’s earlier analyses of Athenian democracy, parrhesia emerges as
fundamentally a political concept; a type of political virtue that is characteristic of ‘good’
citizens and enjoyed publicly amongst them (usually in an assembly or ‘agora’).110 Whilst it
cultivates this democratic ethos it also demands the right to speak freely (‘isegoria’) as a
103
ibid 18
ibid 19
105
ibid 20
106
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 12
107
ibid 13
108
ibid 14
109
ibid 25
110
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 22
104
19
prerequisite; ‘For there to be democracy, there must be parrhesia; for there to be parrhesia
there must be democracy. There is a fundamental circularity’.111 As expanded upon in chapter
3, the political practice of parrhesia is thusly exposed to democratic paradox. Though once
thought of as the ‘privileged site of parrhesia’, it appears that democracy has insurmountable
structural ‘impossibilities’ in that, ‘the very form of democracy cannot leave any place for
truth-telling’.112 However, it is conceivable that this original focus on institutionalised
settings aided the divergence of parrhesia as a politically useful practice towards its
individually constitutive role; the government of the self. As Foucault states in his 1984
series, this foundational political engagement does not displace it from ‘the sphere of
personal ethics’, parrhesia is inextricably linked to the formation of the ethical subject.113
Thus recalling techniques of governmentality and practices of the self, whilst interweaving
them with modes of truth-telling (veridiction).
Foucault situated his study of parrhesia in a relational and mutually-constitutive
analysis of those three elements, ‘without ever reducing each of them to the others’.114 It
reveals a strength emanating from his fragmented ‘methodologies’ that enable him to trace
correlative dimensions and reinforce, instead of diminish, their purpose. As posited by Gros;
[N]ever studying discourses of truth without at the same time describing their
effect on the government of self and others; never analyzing [sic] structures of
power without at the same time showing the knowledge and forms of
subjectivation they rely on; never identifying modes of subjectivation without
including their political extensions and the relations they have to the truth.115
Parrhesia patently presents a three dimensional exploratory approach that integrates
philosophical discourse to specific situations by tracing the relations between thought and
reality rather than keeping them methodologically distinct.116 This form of critique is used
111
Michel Foucault, The Government of Self and Others, Lectures at the Collège de France 19821983 (Palgrave Macmillan 2010) 155
112
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 45
113
ibid 8
114
ibid 9
115
Frédéric Gros, ‘Course Context’ in The Courage of the Truth (n4) 346
116
Thomas R. Flynn, Sartre, Foucault & Historical Reason, Vol II: A Poststructuralist Mapping of
History (University of Chicago Press 2010) 262
20
frequently by Foucault, who goes beyond a strictly analytic or epistemological framework in
his explorative analyses.
To elaborate, Foucault identifies two ‘Western’ philosophical approaches to his
discourse on truth; one is concerned with ‘determining how to ensure that a statement is true’
(or the ‘analytics of truth’) and the other questions ‘the importance of telling the truth,
knowing who is able to tell the truth, and knowing why should we tell the truth’ (the
“critical” tradition in the West).117 His engagement with the latter in the study of parrhesia
shows his interest in historical-cultural context (‘real’ phenomenon) and the relational ethical
transformations in the subject (philosophical).118 In this sense, he asserts that his objective
was ‘to analyse the process of “problematization”- which means: how and why certain things
(behaviour, phenomena, processes) became a problem’.119 For he believes that ascertaining
the problematization of a concrete situation through this process, is an “answer” to the given
scenario. For example, by analysing the problematization of the truth from Pre-Socratic
philosophy to the beginning of modernity, he was able to ‘construct a genealogy of the
critical attitude in Western philosophy’.120 It is an “answer” in the sense that it illuminates the
strands of thought neglected ‘at a given historical moment’ and therefore likely to be
impaired in present Western attitudes.
Very schematically, this chapter outlined the particulars of Foucauldian methodologies to be
applied in the succeeding discussion. However it should be noted that in the practice of
critique, these ‘fragments’ are not kept as distinct and methodical, and in fact come to be
quite relational and complex. But by assimilating Foucault’s approach, this analysis will
concentrate on ‘precise and discriminative’ circumstances, whereupon techniques of
governmentality, consequent counter-conducts and modes of truth-telling are encompassed
by a singular occurrence of parrhesia. The remainder of this dissertation aims to re-evaluate
the contextual narrative in chapter 1, in order to reconceptualise ‘the Snowden revelations’ as
a modern parrhesiastic practice. Further, it situates this unique type of truth-telling within the
counter-conduct framework to provide nuances in this rather under-theorized area of
Foucauldian critique. For it is believed that parrhesia and counter-conduct are not only
117
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 170
Gros in The Courage of the Truth (n4) 344
119
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 171
120
ibid
118
21
complementary, but may induce the effects of the other by instilling correspondent ethical
principles and an ethos of critique.
3. The Political Problem of Truth-telling
[W]hat is at issue is really the criticism of the traditional pretensions of democracy, of
democratic institutions and the practices of democracy… [as] the privileged site for the
emergence of truth-telling… democracy appears instead as the place where parrhesia (truthtelling, the right to express one’s opinion, and the courage to go against the opinions of
others) increasingly becomes impossible, or at any rate dangerous.
- Michel Foucault 1984 ≠
This chapter examines the points at which truth-telling in democracy came to be a problem. It
first considers how an apparent crisis of labelling Snowden’s political activity diverts
attention away from its ethical impetus. The ‘whistleblowing’ lexicon surrounding this event,
only further complicates current political debate. In the US, specific forms of whistleblowing
are protected by law, allowing the government to construct “the whistle-blower” as an
individual who performs their politically ‘useful’ practice within a strictly legal framework.
However, as Foucault queried, ‘how is it possible to give legal form to someone who relates
to truth?’121 Thus, Snowden’s behaviour is positioned in the counter-conduct framework, to
illuminate the ethics of political action and challenge the notion that productivity is reached
by juridical deference. This leads to reconceptualising Snowden as a truth-telling
parrhesiastēs through reviewing the context with Foucauldian insight. Ultimately, it is
contended that truth-telling in the democratic political arena is extensively problematized,
and explores the troublesome paradox whereby the democratic values Snowden seeks to
reinstate, are precisely the ones making it increasingly impossible to recognise his legitimacy.
≠ Michel Foucault, ‘8 February 1984: First Hour’ in Frédéric Gros, François Ewald and Alessandro
Fontana (eds.) Graham Burchell (trans.), The Courage of the Truth: The Government of Self and
Others II, Lectures at the College de France 1983-1984 (Palgrave Macmillan 2011) 35-6
121
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 72
22
3.1 A Problem of Simple Vocabulary
Not only have the ‘Snowden revelations’ uncovered the largest and most covert surveillance
system in history, they also illuminate a perplex ambiguity of the term ‘whistleblowing’.
There is a pervasive crisis of labelling across the media and within legislation regarding both
the event and the actor (“whistle-blower”), evident from the constant fluctuation in how,
when, where and why an act is designated as ‘whistleblowing’. Despite positive connotations,
for some, it is important to explore how specific terminology could actually misrepresent
productive, organised struggles against unjust power. Accordingly, Foucault took issue with
the ‘problem of simple vocabulary’ and its ability to obfuscate or mislead analyses
concerning ‘the enigma of revolts’.122 Snowden has reiterated that he did not intend ‘to
destroy’ the NSA but ‘to allow the public to decide whether they should go on’.123 His
actions can therefore be seen as a counter to being governed in that way, by invasive,
clandestine and unjust apparatuses of “security”. Thus, evoking Foucault’s notion of counterconduct and enabling a more productive reading of the event as a political and ethical refusal
of being governed undemocratically.
Snowden received unprecedented transnational support for his actions, however, there
was corresponding polemical uproar within the media. Generally, the disclosures satisfy
positive definitions for whistleblowing, ‘the act of telling the authorities or the public that the
organization you are working for is doing something immoral or illegal’.124 Yet, taken
literally, to ‘blow the whistle’ on something carries accusatory connotations, encapsulated by
negative synonyms in both UK and US thesauruses, such as ‘betrayer’, ‘tell-tale’, ‘fink’,
‘snitch’ and ‘big mouth’.125 Similarly, narratives surrounding Snowden associate him with
everything from patriotism and heroism, to dissidence and civil disobedience; regularly
implicating ‘whistleblowing’ in diametrical senses. This ambiguity also appears ‘higher up’
122
Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (n34) 266: full quote; ‘I would just like to raise a
problem of simple vocabulary. Could we not try to find a word to designate what I have called
resistance, refusal, or revolt?’ (emphasis in text added): see also, Michel Foucault, ‘Useless to
Revolt?’ in Power (n33) 450
123
Greenwald (n5) 47 (Snowden)
124
Collins English Dictionary, ‘Whistle-blowing’ (Collins 2015)
<http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/whistle-blowing> (accessed 10 August 2015)
125
Cambridge English Dictionary, ‘Whistle-blower’ (Cambridge Dictionaries Online: Synonyms
2015) <http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/whistle-blower> : see also, MerriamWebster, ‘Whistle-blower’ (Merriam-Webster Online: Thesaurus 2015) <http://www.merriamwebster.com/thesaurus/whistle-blower> (both accessed 10 August 2015)
23
in the US government. For example, whilst the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act
of 2012 explicitly excluded NSA employees from protection, later that year Presidential
Policy Directive No. 19 narrowly extended it to them.126 Nonetheless, Obama indicated that
such protection would not be afforded to ‘a 29 year old hacker’ (and NSA subcontractor) by
consistently refraining from identifying Snowden’s “unauthorised disclosures” as
whistleblowing.127
The convoluted rhetoric surrounding the event has instigated a crisis of labelling as a
superfluous addendum to Snowden’s message. Conflicting implications and broad usage of
the term ‘whistleblowing’ advances variegated connotations characterising the event, rather
than giving meaning to it. Complicating the terms of Snowden’s conduct could be considered
within a wider purposeful goal or process, only influences unproductive ‘substantification’.128
For example, if the event is considered ‘dissidence’, ‘civil disobedience’ or ‘patriotism’ it
posits his behaviour in a particular camp of thought that obscures the diffuse components of
each struggle that simply happen, ‘in the very general field of politics or in the very general
field of power relations’.129 However, by avoiding labelling the event, as Obama attempted,
portrays Snowden’s conduct as an anomaly or rash criminality; thereby, distancing the event
from the solidity or productivity of other forms of ‘proper’ resistance.130 Thus, it is contended
that Snowden’s behaviour should be considered as an inevitable part the ‘web of resistance’
that refuses conducting governmental power; part of the ‘immense family’ of counterconducts.
Conventional perceptions of ‘resistance’ distinguish between those considered more
‘politically palatable’ (thereby ‘proper’) and those resorting to violence or chaos which
reduce to simple criminality.131 Sokhi-Bulley explored this in relation to the ‘apolitical’
narratives surrounding ‘destructive and senseless’ spectacles of rioting, wherein the counter126
Whistleblowing Protection Act of 1989, P.L. 101-12, see also; Presidential Policy Directive/PPD19, The White House, Washington, 10 October 2012
<http://www.va.gov/ABOUT_VA/docs/President-Policy-Directive-PPD-19.pdf> (accessed 10 August
2015)
127
BBC News, ‘Barack Obama: 'Won't scramble jets for Snowden'’ (BBC News, 27 June 2013)
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23085138> (accessed 10 August 2015)
128
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 268
129
ibid
130
Bal Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Performing Struggle: Parrhesia in Ferguson’ (2015) Law & Critique
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s1097801591521?sa_campaign=email/event/articleAuthor/onl
ineFirst (accessed 9 August 2015) (herein, ‘Performing Struggle’)
131
ibid
24
conduct perspective enabled reconsideration of the rationality behind such an unruly
display.132 Similarly, despite Snowden’s disclosures undeniably pertaining to politics, the
counter-conduct framework establishes their proximity to ‘the political’ so as not to deny
them meaning across the social. Analogously, this is the effect of the Obama administration’s
promulgated narration of Snowden’s ‘dangerous’ and ‘criminal’ behaviour. In fact, Obama
himself has remained remarkably silent on any other aspects of the event and even stated he
is ‘not going to dwell on Mr Snowden’s actions or motivations’.133 A recent statement by
Lisa Monaco, the President's Advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, explicitly
distinguishes between Snowden’s conduct and that of civil disobedience as ‘a constructive act
of protest’ where one would ‘accept the consequences of his actions’.134 Monaco accuses
Snowden of ‘running away’ and portrays his behaviour as futile and devoid of any rational
political thinking.
Conversely, resituating this event in the counter-conduct framework enables us to go
beyond preoccupation with ‘acceptable’ forms of resistance, avoiding conflation of
productivity with juridical outcomes. Rather than bypassing the omission of specific ‘actions
or motivations’ it engages with the rationality of the struggle by primarily looking to what it
represents; ‘the will not to be governed like that, by that, in the name of those principles... by
means of such procedures’.135 The event can then be understood as struggle against (or
refusal of) the oppressive ‘processes implemented for conducting others’.136 Ergo,
reasonable, response to unsound government, not ‘revolt’ or ‘dissidence’ bluntly resisting
such practices. Ascribing direct criminality to Snowden’s behaviour places him at odds with
the democratic regime (thus, apolitical); yet, his stated motivations appear to be acutely
compatible, ‘I gave this information back to public hands and the reason I did that was not to
gain a label, but to give you back a choice about the country you want to live in’.137
Collaterally consistent with a counter-conduct approach whereby one’s way of behaving is
132
Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Counter Conduct or Resistance?’ (n68) 3
Matt Sledge ‘Edward Snowden Vindicated: Obama Speech Acknowledges Changes Needed To
Surveillance’ (Huffington Post, 17 January 2014)
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/obama-edward-snowden_n_4617970.html> (accessed
12 August 2015)
134
Official White House Response to ‘Pardon Edward Snowden’ (We The People, 28 July 2015)
<https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/edward-snowden> (accessed 12 August 2015) (Lisa
Monaco) (emphasis added)
135
Foucault, ‘What is Critique?’ (n55) 75
136
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (n34) 268
137
Bamford (n13) (Snowden) (emphasis added)
133
25
part of a wider process and within the ‘general horizon’ of governmentality, emphatically not
in direct opposition.
Snowden’s dismissal of ‘labels’ does not suggest a will to be identified within a
specified ideology, nor points to a premeditated ‘source’ of his rebellion. Ostensibly it
emphasises that this counter-conduct just happened, it is fact and does not need to assign a
revolutionary cause to be considered constructive.138 Manifestly, Snowden enacted an
individual decision to come forth, performing with a sense of how the collective should be
conducted so they might autonomously say, ‘[w]e do not want to be held in this system of
observation and endless examination that continually judges us’.139 His action, therefore,
represents an ethos that imparts concern for the self and for others; striving towards different
conduction, by other ‘conducteurs’ to foster better relations with oneself and subsequently,
society.140 Thereby refusing the imposition of ‘individuality’ through oppressive techniques
of governmentality and instead, producing new subjectivities to ‘exist better’ in modern
democracy. Snowden himself recognises an ethical dimension to his counter conduct; ‘If the
government will not represent our interests…then the public will champion its own interests.
And whistleblowing provides a traditional means to do so’.141 His language not only
reinforces the inevitability of such struggles against unjust power relations, but
contemporaneously it reveals an ethics in his individual response that takes on the interests of
the entire population.
Snowden’s counter-conduct is demonstrably an act of parrhesia; as courageous truthtelling about the immorality of a governmental regime. The perplexing lexicon of
‘whistleblowing’ contiguous with the dominant narrative of the event, had obscured this
positive sense of the word. Extant in the literature on whistleblowing, phrases like ‘ethical
resistance’ or ‘ethical dissent’ are used in an effort to reinstate its positive value.142 However,
counter-conduct avoids terminology too localised, strong or negative in the conventional
resistance framework and covers the full sense of a struggle against conducting power.143 The
counter-conduct framework provides nuanced ways of reading ambiguous or unorthodox
138
Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Counter-conduct or Resistance?’ (n68) 6
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (n34) 267
140
ibid 259
141
Bamford (n13) (Snowden)
142
Tina Uys, ‘The politicization of whistleblowers: a case study’ (2000) 9:4 Business Ethics 259-267,
259
143
Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Counter-conduct or Resistance?’ (n68) 6
139
26
forms of political expression.144 Such a viewpoint challenges previously held assumptions
whilst maintaining openness in the characterisation of political and ethical struggle.
Moreover, it distinguishes a structure within which this event may be extrapolated as a
process; one that unveils new knowledges, produces new subjectivities, overturns arbitrary
practices and transforms relations to oneself and others, all through an individual’s act of
truth.
The counter-conduct framework is paramount to understanding the underlying ethical
dimension of political expression. Incidents portrayed as ‘unruly spectacle’ or theatrical
displays of ‘resistance’ are often underpinned by specific rationality and thus, practices
pertaining to unseen ethics. However, by ‘giving agonism a greater emphasis within a
society’ in a more generalised sense influences productive reading of such events and
recognises their capacity to effectuate change.145 The portrayal of Snowden as an anomaly, or
as an isolated, senseless act of criminality is thereby delegitimised, because counter-conduct
does not need to be one ‘revolutionary act’ from the collective. For Foucault, it is precisely
the diffuse and low-level operation of power challenging dominance, obedience and
“individuality”, that is indispensable to the field of governmental practice and individual
ethos. The focus is no longer on the destruction of the struggle and instead looks at its
innovation in terms of what is produced.146 Therefore, the counter-conduct approach
illuminates how practices of the self and techniques of governmentality interweave; and
allows Snowden’s behaviour to be ‘organised, developed and stabilised’147 through the notion
of parrhesia.
3.2 The Construction of Edward Snowden
The utility of the counter-conduct framework comes from its aptitude to look beyond
‘spectacles’ or labels and robustly engage with ethics; a process precisely encapsulated by
tracing the practice of parrhesia in Ancient Greece. Parrhesia exists in literature in both a
positive and a pejorative sense; for Snowden’s truth-telling to be aligned with ‘good’
parrhesia, thereby providing ‘a role which is useful, valuable and indispensable for the city
144
Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Performing Struggle’ (n130)
Pickett (n82) 464
146
ibid
147
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 12
145
27
and its individuals’, it must resemble certain ‘parrhesiastic’ characteristics and techniques.148
If this can be established it would then challenge Foucault’s contemplation in The Courage of
Truth that the ‘parrhesiastic modality of truth-telling’ has somewhat disappeared from the
modern epoch.149
Snowden took significant personal risks to convey his truth to civil society, he did not
concede to powerful interests but spoke up against them with conviction. He didn’t restrict
himself to “whistleblowing” laws in the US because he was completely committed to his
discourse. This constitutive bond between Snowden and what he had to say is indicative of
his frank and honest words; he bound himself to this truth because he knows it is true, it is not
speculative but sincere. Whilst a number of news reports could implicate him in the
pejorative sense of parrhesia, claiming his behaviour was ‘futile and clumsy’,150 Greenwald
gives a full account of Snowden’s meticulous reasoning and careful vetting of that which was
shared.151 Interviews reveal that Snowden claimed to have purposefully left ‘a trail of digital
bread crumbs’ for the NSA so they could discern exactly which files he had copied and avoid
embroiling any of his co-workers.152 Despite his disillusionment he showed real commitment
to establishing a cooperative relationship to the US government through this ‘game of truthtelling’.
Snowden’s mode of action was aimed at ‘truthfulness rather than at persuasion’ and
despite involving technical aspects, is not akin to the practised technique of rhetoric.153 He
demonstrated values, not held by virtue of a well-defined skill or technique, but possessed by
a more organic way of being that bespeaks ‘blameless principle and integrity’.154 If one
needed ‘a kind of “proof” of the sincerity’ of Snowden it his courage, not his skill as an
orator.155 At only twenty-nine years old Snowden exposed corrupt, illegal, unconstitutional
and morally bankrupt systems from one of the world’s “superpowers”. He was fully aware of
148
ibid 14
ibid 29-30
150
Mark Pritchard ‘Edward Snowden is a traitor to the United States: he must be brought to justice’
(The Telegraph, 18 June 2013) <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10127864/EdwardSnowden-is-a-traitor-to-the-United-States-he-must-be-brought-to-justice.html> (accessed 12 August
2015)
151
Greenwald (n5) 43, 53
152
Bamford (n13)
153
ibid 465: Foucault, The Courage of Truth (n4) 13
154
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 58
155
ibid 15
149
28
the resultant great personal cost and understood that he could even risk his own life but he
was not prepared to remain silent or anonymous; ‘I decided a while ago that I can live with
whatever they do to me. The only thing I can’t live with is knowing I did nothing’.156
Moreover, Snowden’s manner is indicative of quiet confidence and command over his
perceived duty, ‘I couldn’t wait for a leader to fix these things. Leadership is about acting
first and serving as an example for others, not waiting for others to act.’157
Snowden chose this role as a fearless speaker and courageous truth-teller ‘rather than
as a living being who is false to himself’.158 This sense of duty emanates from personal
virtues and is representative of a concern for the self rather than founded on political
motivations.159 Snowden faced an internal moral dilemma initiated by ‘disturbing’
realisations about the true breadth of the NSA’s covert systems, choosing to act as an
exemplar rather than ‘join fools in their foolishness’.160 As a citizen and employee of the US
government, he operated from a distinct position of weakness, but it is evident that neither
fear nor self-interest was his impetus. Snowden recognised the crucial function of criticism
that extends beyond the reveal-all ‘moment’ of his truth and engages in a constructive process
of change. Despite risking a complete breakdown of relations between himself, the
government and the public, he needed an agonistic and dangerous confrontation to generate
conditions of trust.161 His concern was not to seek belief in the ‘truth’ of his claims but to
emphasise the importance of practical endeavours of this critique; ‘While I pray that public
awareness and debate will lead to reform, bear in mind that the policies of men change in
time’.162 Ultimately he gave both the US government and the population a chance to enrol in
a ‘parrhesiastic game’; the public are now aware of ‘that which is done in their name and that
which is done against them’,163 giving them an opportunity to respond democratically. If the
US government can listen and accept, they may then transform to serve the best interests of
the population. The potential for transformative action then resides in the act of truth-telling
rather than imploring the acquisition of that truth itself.
156
Greenwald (n5) 51 (Snowden)
ibid 43 (Snowden)
158
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 17
159
Nancy Luxon, ‘Truthfulness, Risk and Trust in the Late Lectures of Michel Foucault’ (2004) 47
Inquiry 464-489, 470 (herein, ‘Truthfulness, Risk and Trust’)
160
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 29
161
Luxon, Truthfulness, Risk and Trust’ (n159) 465
162
Greenwald (n5) 24 (Snowden)
163
ibid 23 (Snowden)
157
29
Snowden’s act of truth-telling was not simply ‘a practice of revealing facts, but also
[…] a political practice that challenges and seeks to transform the disciplinary techniques of
secrecy’.164 This demonstrates the proximity of his mode of action in modern democratic
societies to the parrhesiastic modality of truth-telling seen in Antiquity. Snowden’s truthtelling should then be as distinctive from the three other modalities of truth-telling identified
by Foucault; the prophet, the sage and the technician. Unlike the prophet, who speaks on
behalf of someone else, Snowden went to extreme measures to demonstrate that he acted
alone, in his own name and expressed his own convictions. He identified himself early on,
taking personal responsibility by explaining himself in frank and plain speech. He left
nothing open to interpretation and even deliberately ensured his movements could be
accounted for in Hong Kong (where he stayed during the initial media disclosures), by
deliberately paying with credit cards and staying in a busy, popular hotel.165 He prioritised
unambiguity in all respects, only leaving the ‘tough task of having the courage to accept this
truth, to recognize it, and to make it a principle of conduct’.166
Whilst the sage modality similarly involves speaking on behalf of oneself, Snowden
differs from ‘the sage’ in a number of ways. In ancient text Diogenes Laertius implicitly
characterises the sage as someone who does not feel a duty to share that which makes him
wise or speak plainly even when he does. In fact he is often portrayed as enigmatically
advancing ‘useless knowledge’ to his interlocutor.167 Snowden interpreted his truth-telling as
an obligation and exposed the reality of a situation as it currently pertains to individuals in
society. He revealed a truth about the way people are governed and the hidden decisions of
‘an elected and unelected class of bureaucrats that can… degrade the quality of government
that we as individuals enjoy’.168 By disclosing relevant information to the public and helping
the US government recognise and confront the reality of their conduct; ‘[t]he parrhesiast does
not reveal what is to his interlocutor; he discloses or helps him to recognize what he is’.169
Finally, Snowden undoubtedly has similarities to the technician (professor, teacher, expert),
164
Lida Maxwell, ‘Truth in Public: Chelsea Manning, Gender Identity, and the Politics of TruthTelling’ (2015) 18 Theory &
Event<http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=facpub>
(accessed 15 August 2015)
165
Greenwald (n5) 53
166
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 16
167
ibid 18
168
Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
169
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 19 (emphasis added)
30
speaking on ‘the basis of knowledge accumulated over a substantial period of time’.170
However he actively took steps to reduce the likelihood of having a pedagogic function. He
removed himself from the disclosure process and instead delegated to the press, recognising
that his ‘expert understanding’ would unavoidably contain biases.171 Additionally, unlike the
technician who fosters bonds through shared knowledge, Snowden necessarily risked
hostility, hatred or even death before his truth could unite or reconcile; before the interlocutor
can accept such criticism and enter into the game of parrhesia.172
Whilst Foucault concedes that parrhesiastic roles can be located in various discourse
in modernity (namely revolutionary) or underpinning one of the other three forms, he
believed that the parrhesiastic modality itself had ‘precisely disappeared as such’.173 Insofar
as Snowden’s truth-telling can be understood as an ethos (a way of being and a way of
behaving), displaying ‘those qualities that, at that particular time and for that particular
society’ constructively speaks truth to power, this dissertation asserts that Snowden yields a
modern development of a core parrhesiastic modality of truth-telling. 174 Thus his disclosures
go beyond exposing ‘facts’ and reveal the ways in which a specific type of relationship to
oneself, others, the truth and life itself can manifest in a visible and existing manner of being
in modernity. As Foucault distinguished, modalities of truth-telling are not to be narrowly
considered as social characters or roles, they are modes of action akin to a virtue.175
Therefore, Snowden should not merely be thought of as performing a “role”, rather his
certain manner of acting, reflects a certain manner of being.176 Thereby extending
philosophical and pragmatic critique to modern democratic politics, and enabling thorough
reconsideration of any corresponding polemical debate.177
170
Abraham Mansbach, ‘Political surplus of whistleblowing: a case study’ (2007) 16:2 Business
Ethics 124-131, 126
171
Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
172
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 25
173
ibid 30
174
Luxon, ‘Truthfulness, Risk and Trust’ (n159) 485
175
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 26
176
Luxon, ‘Truthfulness, Risk and Trust’ (n159) 478
177
ibid 485
31
3.3 Polemics, Politics and Problematizations
Foucault’s engagement with parrhesia is indicative of his recurring interest in the
involvement of ‘laypeople’ in the political sphere, to the extent that they are free to exercise
their privileges and not marked by hierarchal domination.178 Snowden’s act of truth-telling
emulates this ‘discursive weaving of the social, the political and the personal’, but also
uncovers some fundamental tensions between democracy and ‘true discourse’.179 He
confronted the increasing number of surreptitious governmental decisions justified ‘in the
interests of national security’ and yet, conceivably acting on behalf of the public interest by
‘changing the boundaries of the rights that we enjoy as free people in a free society’.180 And
yet, virulent denunciations of Snowden circulate mainstream media, reinforced by death
threats from various government officials.181 Moreover, despite volunteering to go to prison
‘if it served the right purpose’, Snowden’s attempts at rational cooperation appear to be
continually overlooked by the US government.182 In fact, the more one contemplates
Snowden’s efforts at democratic deliberation, the more the political place for truth-telling
becomes imprudently ambiguous.
Foucault challenged dominant perceptions of politics as purely confined to the
institutional set-up of the state, and instead acknowledged the instrumental relations of civil
society within a broader political infrastructure.183 Parrhesia encapsulates this relationship
between political authorities and the citizenry, whereby ‘the governed’ speak a frank, honest
and politically useful discourse to ‘the governing’.184 However, as Maxwell denotes, the
‘parrhesiastic game’ requires that the challenge truth-telling presents is vindicated in order to
be productive.185 In democratic parrhesia (distinguished from monarchic parrhesia), this
necessitates vindication by the assembly and the public majority because ‘democracy draws
178
Torben Bech Dyrberg, Foucault on the Politics of Parrhesia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) 2
Abraham Mansbach, ‘Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Whistleblowing as Truth-Telling in the
Workplace’ (2009) 16:3 Constellations 365-376, 369
180
Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
181
Erik Kirschbaum, ‘Edward Snowden: There Are 'Significant Threats' To My Life’ (Huffington
Post, 26 January 2014) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/26/edward-snowdenthreats_n_4670786.html (accessed 23 August 2015)
182
Bamford (n13) (Snowden)
183
Dyrberg (n178) 4, 86
184
Joakim Kromann and Thomas Klem Andersen, ‘Parrēsia: the problem of truth’ (2011) 11:2
emphemera 225-230, 227
185
Maxwell (n164)
179
32
its legitimacy from the consent of its people’.186 In Edward Snowden’s case, his truth-telling
connected political authorities and citizens’ vis-à-vis the public realm in order to challenge
the legitimacy of a democratic government that appears ‘more politically motivated than
publically motivated’ with regard to state surveillance.187 He therefore speaks to this
institutional background of democratic parrhesia and depends on the courage of both the US
government and public to accept this ‘hurtful truth’.188
A significantly important issue for Snowden was the culture pervading the ‘upper
levels of government’ which effectively made government officials further down the line
‘less accountable to the public that they serve’.189 He aligns his motivations strongly with
democratic and public interests but is careful to expound that it was never his intention to
dictate or steer the outcomes. His engagement with truth-telling was to give ‘the public a
chance to participate in democratic processes in order to play their part in determining the
outcome’.190 Snowden was therefore not simply partaking in ‘politics for politics sake’,191 his
sense of duty emanated from the dearth of governmental accountability over the mass
wrongdoing he witnessed. By promoting the equality and liberty of individuals rather than
aiming for juridical reform, his truth-telling can be understood as a micro-political practice
that redefines personal autonomy and influences new subjectivities.192 Thereby enabling
personal transformations that refuse the ‘individuality’ imposed on citizens by virtue of their
obedience to unrecognised techniques of governmentality, in the sense they had ‘internalised’
the NSA’s constant gaze. Thus, parrhesia ‘opens the situation and makes possible effects
which are, precisely, not known. Parrhesia does not produce a codified effect; it opens up an
unspecified risk’.193
Snowden recognised that the best way to guarantee privacy (particularly, online) is by
mobilising a movement through civil society; to enforce principles, rather than laws. He
therefore made the definitive decision to involve the free press to allow existing, civil
186
Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
Dyrberg (n178) 2: Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
188
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 13
189
Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
190
ibid
191
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 68
192
Abraham Mansbach, ‘Whistleblowing as Fearless Speech: The Radical Democratic Effects of Late
Modern Parrhesia’ in Lewis and Vandekerckhove (n2) 21
193
Michel Foucault, Government of the Self and Others: Lectures at the College de France 1982-1983
(Palgrave Macmillan 2010): in Dyrberg (n178) 87
187
33
institutions to play a role and determine what the public should and should not know.194
Therefore, democratic values such as free speech, transparency, accountability and personal
autonomy are preserved insofar as they are also a precondition.195 However, such democratic
paradoxes troubled Foucault, and he began to question whether democracy was the most
effective political framework for parrhesia’s function. In fact, ultimately he states that
democracy is ‘the place in which parrhesia is most difficult to practice’ for, ‘[s]uch a
constitution…is condemned to give equal place to all forms of parrhesia, even the worst’.196
This problem is perpetuated by foundational principles of liberty and equality that enable
even the ‘bad, immoral, or ignorant speakers’ to engage in political expression;
[I]n democracy one cannot distinguish between good and bad speakers,
between discourse which speaks the truth and is useful to the city, and
discourse which utters lies, flatters, and is harmful.197
In effect, the game of truth-telling is subject to manipulation through the use of false ‘truths’
or those who may flatter and charm the populous with a refined technique of rhetoric.198 This
results in another paradox; there wouldn’t be democracy if it weren’t for the values preserved
by truth-telling, yet these same values threaten the survival of truth-telling within democracy.
So how can we recognise the speaker that tells the truth and is useful to democracy?
Foucault asserts that, structurally, democracy has condemned true discourse to
powerlessness because people are ‘unable to hear, to listen to and recognize the speaker who
tells the truth’ from that of ‘the lying rhetorician’.199 Therefore, because Snowden’s truthtelling cannot appeal to ‘whistleblowing’ protection, it becomes enmeshed in political
contestation It should be emphasised that this does not expel it from the ‘game’ of truthtelling; if the government or the public accept his criticism they may still respond and
transform from it. The problem becomes rhetorical; one that raises discussion and debate and
incites a multiplicity of reactions which may become easily side-tracked and reduced to
194
Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
Mansbach, ‘Keeping Democracies Vibrant’ (n179) 370
196
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 77
197
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 40
198
Signe Larsen, ‘Parrēsia: Notes on the Thought of Michel Foucault’ (2014) Critical Legal Thinking
<http://criticallegalthinking.com/2014/09/11/parresia-notes-thought-michel-foucault/> (accessed 22
August 2015)
199
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 40: see also, Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Performing Struggle’ (n130)
195
34
collateral issues.200 One of the most pressing matters regarding truth-telling in the ‘national
security’ area of the US government is the politicisation, and subsequent demonising, of the
truth-tellers’ “unauthorised” decision to share classified information. Thereby evoking
concerns about the capacity of the government to assume the role of the lying rhetorician to
‘jeopardize, smear, and delegitimize a very important movement’.201
The breach of policies and regulations overseeing state defence can easily be
portrayed as dangerous, irresponsible and destructive. However, the US government tends to
extrapolate by depicting this unwanted form of truth-teller as ‘the enemy within’ and a threat
to the very existence of the state.202 The Espionage Act of 1917 has repeatedly been used by
the Obama administration to this very effect; extending an ‘arcane World War I law’ intended
for spies to entrap those disclosing any “secrets of the state”.203 Jesselyn Radack, Snowden’s
legal advisor, explains that the Espionage Act has since ‘morphed into a strict liability law’
that disregards motivations, intent or public value of the disclosures and inhibits a person
from defending themselves.204 Further, after examining a number of these cases, Radack and
McCellen found not a single prosecution established consequent harm to national security as
a result of these ‘leaks’.205 It goes to show that, in democracy, truth-tellers are not only
manifesting a powerless discourse, but where the interlocutor has sovereign authority they
may use their power to dissociate from the parrhesiastic game altogether. The US government
has not only extended its legislative powers in these cases, but they have avoided any direct
dialogue with such truth-tellers and are able to do so dogmatically.
Though the government have not been able to physically suppress Snowden, the
suppression and distortion of his rationality through political rhetoric was aggressively
pursued. The portrayal of him as an enemy of the state was enough to envelop his character
200
Nadine El-Enany, ‘Ferguson and the Politics of Policing Radical Protest’ (2015) 26 Law &
Critique 3-6, 4
201
Bamford (n13) (Snowden); full quote; ‘I’m terrified of giving these talking heads some distraction,
some excuse to jeopardize, smear, and delegitimize a very important movement.’
202
El-Enany (n200) 5
203
Espionage Act 1917, Pub. L. 65-24, 40 Stat. 217 (15 June, 1917): see also, Jesselyn Radack, ‘Why
Edward Snowden Wouldn't Get a Fair Trial’ (Wall Street Journal, 21 January 2014)
<http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303595404579318884005698684> (accessed
22 August 2015)
204
ibid
205
Jesselyn Radack and Kathleen McCellen,’The Criminalization of Whistleblowers’ (2011) 2 Labor
& Emp. 57-77, 58
35
and motives in polemical debate (dubbed, the ‘hero-vs.-traitor’ debate),206 distracting from
the activity of truth-telling. These smears are particularly contestable in the US, where
patriotism and national security have remained high-priority for most political institutions
since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After such events, it is an expected and necessary reaction for
governments to foreground security in a bid to institute trust and political stability.207
However, as Foucault aptly acknowledged in the wake of World War II, ‘the problem of
security was so acute and so immediate that the question of dependency was practically
ignored’.208 The resonant concern was that citizens risk curtailing their autonomy
(unwittingly), and over time this dependence could engender ‘identical passions, desires,
pleasures, and opinions that need have no regard for what is true or just’.209 Thus superseding
their inclination for autonomous decision-making and instilling an appeal to the political
rhetoric that flatters and supports the government’s determinations made for them.
Therefore, not only has Snowden’s discourse been politically gridlocked, but also in a
democracy that may not respect risk or courage, even his actions go unrecognised.210 This is
evident from the repeat descriptions of Snowden as a ‘coward’ and a ‘self-publicising
narcissist’ whose primary interest is ‘a perverse sort of fame’.211 Despite having achieved an
encouraging antithesis response (i.e. the “hero” camp), this was not ultimately what his act of
truth-telling was about. Snowden has persistently stated he ‘doesn’t want to be the story’
because he wants the attention on what the NSA and the US government are doing.212 But the
ease at which the government can dissociate from the game of truth-telling makes the
political place for truth-telling not only ambiguous, but also increasingly dangerous. When
Obama was asked about these disclosures on an American talk show he rather disjointedly
replied; ‘We don’t have a domestic spying programme. What we do have is some
206
Jeff Jarvis, ‘The debate continues on Edward Snowden: hero or traitor’ The Guardian (26
November 2013) <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/26/edward-snowden-herotraitor-debate> (accessed 24 August 2015)
207
Luxon, ‘Truthfulness, Risk and Trust’ (n159) 483-84
208
Foucault, ‘The Risks of Security’ in Power (n33) 366: in, ibid
209
Louis E. Howe, ‘Genealogy and the Governance of Self and Others’ (2014) 36:2 Administrative
Theory & Praxis 219–239, 226
210
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 37
211
Michael Savage, ‘Snowden leaks help Russia, says Liam Fox’ The Times (16 April 2014)
<http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4064526.ece> (accessed 15 August) (quote by
Liam Fox) and, Anne Appelbaum, ‘Edward Snowden, the impulsive ‘martyr’’ The Washington Post
(14 June 2013) <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anne-applebaum-snowden-the-impulsivemartyr/2013/06/14/5c059462-d511-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html> (accessed 15 August 2015)
212
Greenwald et al (n11) (Snowden)
36
mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist
attack’.213 Despite being quite contradictory, it is a carefully worded response that avoids
addressing the significance of these leaks whilst bolstering their image as watchful guard.
Thus appealing to those ‘dependent subjects’ by effectively fearmongering. Snowden’s truthtelling is therefore transformed into deviance; in the political arena he’s been exposed to legal
sanctions as an ‘enemy of the state’ and through political rhetoric he has incidentally incited
anger. Thereby encapsulating the ‘sort of impossibility of making a full and positive use of
parrhesia in democratic institutions’.214 To elaborate…
Either democracy makes room for parrhesia, in which case it can only be a
freedom which is dangerous for the city, or parrhesia is a courageous attitude
which consists in undertaking to tell the truth, in which case it has no place in
democracy.215
In summation, this discussion has sought to illuminate the points at which truth-telling in
democracy became a problem. Whether that is a ‘problem of simple of vocabulary’, the
dangers faced by the one who speaks the truth or the challenge in recognising such a truthteller; it ultimately comes down to complications in the political architecture of modern
liberal democracies. However, by constructing Snowden as a truth-telling parrhesiastēs, as
opposed to ‘a traitor’ or ‘coward’, we began to contemplate the ethics and rationality behind
his political and ethical act. This is deliberated more acutely in the next chapter but, by way
of aid here, it set up comparative analysis to examine the ways in which Snowden’s motives
were reconfigured by political polemics. The counter-conduct framework revealed that
through his refusal of arbitrary oversight, he was actually robustly committed to the
democratic governmental regime; not seeking to destroy it, but reinstate the role of the
citizenry within it. Yet, upon reviewing the consequent political rhetoric, it appears that
Snowden’s modality of truth-telling is subject to the same ‘crisis of democratic institutions’
Foucault traced from Fourth Century B.C.216 Of critical concern, is the persuasive powers of
the US government as a rhetorician and their oft overlooked prominence as a polemicist, as
Foucault articulates;
213
President Barrack Obama, Interview with Jay Leno, The Tonight Show (August 2013) in
Greenwald (n5) 182 (emphasis added)
214
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 40
215
ibid 38
216
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 77 (emphasis added)
37
[T]he person he confronts is not a partner in search for the truth but an
adversary, an enemy who is wrong, who is harmful, and whose very existence
constitutes a threat. For him, then the game consists not of recognizing this
person as a subject having the right to speak but of abolishing him as
interlocutor, from any possible dialogue; and his final objective will be not to
come as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring about the triumph of
the just cause he has been manifestly upholding from the beginning. The
polemicist relies on a legitimacy that his adversary is by definition denied.217
Though Snowden differs from the classical parrhesiastēs in that his truth-telling was not
simply a verbal activity, his whole archive of documented proof became enmeshed in
rhetorical battle. Suddenly the context of the parrhesiastic act was side-lined and the ‘hero-vstraitor’ debate took the stage; distorting Snowden’s discourse across a fractured audience
rather than recognising ‘the importance of telling the truth, knowing who is able to tell the
truth, and knowing why should we tell the truth’.218 But, although it has incited debate with a
tendency to foreground collateral issues, it has nonetheless ‘induce[d] a crisis in the
previously silent behaviour, habits, practices and institutions’.219 Albeit a problematized
reaction to the significance of the truth-teller in democracy, ‘this problematization demands a
new way of taking care of and asking questions about these relations’.220 In spite of the
troubled place for political parrhesia in democratic institutions and structures, by
contemplating philosophical aspects of parrhesia the following chapter will develop how
Snowden may have actually entered into politics in a different way.221
217
Foucault, ‘Polemics, Politics and Problematizations’ in Ethics (n1) 112
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 170
219
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 74
220
ibid
221
Nancy Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity: Practices of Self-Governance in the Late Lectures of
Michel Foucault’ (2008) 36:3 Political Theory 377-402, 399 (herein, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’)
218
38
4. The Ethics of Truth-telling
Of course, parrhesia also involves acting on others, but not so much to order, direct, or
incline them to do something or other. Fundamentally, it involves acting on them so that they
come to build up a relationship of sovereignty to themselves, with regard to themselves,
typical of the wise and virtuous subject of the subject who has attained all the happiness it is
possible to attain in this world.
-
Michel Foucault 1982 ≥
For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished. I already
won… remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to
determine if it should change itself.
- Edward Snowden 2013 ±
In Foucault’s later lectures on The Courage of the Truth he notes that his initial engagement
with the political concept of parrhesia detracted somewhat from his ‘immediate project: the
ancient history of practices of telling the truth about oneself’.222 It was these different
practices and techniques through which individuals come to understand, know and care for
the self that remained of climatic interest to Foucault. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that
before diverging into ‘the sphere of personal ethics and the formation of the moral subject’ it
was necessary to first, quite schematically, decode the political practice of parrhesia as its
foundational concept.223 Similarly, the foregoing analysis of Edward Snowden’s truth-telling
dealt with its unassailable political dimension in order to facilitate this divergence into the
ethics behind this mode of being. The following discussion explores an alternative
≥ Michel Foucault, ‘10 March 1982’ in Frédéric Gros, François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana (eds.)
Graham Burchell (trans.) The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 198182 (Palgrave Macmillan 2005) 385
± Barton Gellman, ‘Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s
accomplished’ The Washington Post (Washington, 23 December 2013) (Edward Snowden)
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowden-after-months-of-nsarevelations-says-his-missions-accomplished/2013/12/23/49fc36de-6c1c-11e3-a523fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html> (accessed 10 August 2015)
222
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 8 (emphasis added)
223
ibid
39
interpretation of Snowden’s approach to truth-telling, mobilising it beyond the ‘crisis of
political parrhesia’ and illuminating the underlying practices of self-governance.
4.1 Truth-telling and the Government of Self and Others
Snowden represents a meaningful and exemplary manner of being in modern society, though
not in terms of the “roles” he has since been ascribed (‘whistle-blower’, ‘patriot’, ‘ethicaldissident’). Rather, it is contended that his approach to ethics through the practice of truthtelling presents him as a ‘man possessed of a splendid ethos…who practiced [his] freedom in
a certain way’.224 Ethics in this sense does not refer to ‘ethical ideals’ or concession to a
“universal” morality, instead it explores ‘the ambiguous ethical resources already possessed
by individuals’ and how they come to shape, construct or transform these from an exercise of
the self on the self.225 This expressive form of self-mastery manifests as ethos (a way of being
and of behaving), making the relations Snowden has to himself and others visible. It is
through Snowden’s game of truth-telling that ‘the relation of the self to truth or to some
rational principles’ is the operative disclosure, not simply the cache of top-secret
documents.226 This is where philosophical parrhesia differs from political parrhesia, by
articulating a different kind of governance that educates and inspires; ‘a model for ethical
self-governance’.227
While truth-telling in the national security area of the US government is by no means
unprecedented, Snowden’s has been described as a ‘uniquely postmodern breed’.228 He took
innumerable measures to effectively ‘disappear from view’ after his inaugural public
outing.229 As he was not concerned with how people perceived of him, but was acutely aware
of his probable biases as an expert in this field.230 Thus, he consciously removed himself
from the ensuing media spectacle specifically to avoid providing an overly pedagogical role
or engaging the persuasive powers of rhetoric to ‘self-legitimise’ his discourse. He acted both
frankly and freely, not concerned by external standards or subsequent interpretations of his
224
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 286
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 381
226
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 165
227
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 384
228
Bamford (n13) (Snowden)
229
Greenwald (n5) 52
230
Professor John Perry and Professor Kenneth Taylor, Interview with Edward Snowden, Philosophy
Talk: The Ethics of Whistleblowing with Edward Snowden, Stanford University (Stanford, 15th May
2015) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF8_XvrJbL8> (accessed 15 August 2015)
225
40
present reality because he was entirely present to himself and ‘the immediacy of one’s
experiences’.231 Snowden, like the Greeks, recognised that ‘it was the act that constituted the
important element’;232
The true measurement of a person’s worth isn’t what they say they believe in,
but what they do in defence of those beliefs…If you’re not acting on your
beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.233
By his own admission, his practice of truth-telling is representative of a certain manner of
being (i.e. that which is ‘real’). Thereby recognising it is fundamentally a self-referring
practice that inquires after ‘the truth of ourselves’234 in order to form this ethos; signifying a
profound concern for the self or, as favoured by Foucault, the theme of caring for oneself.
This notion of self-care emergent from ancient ethics subsumes the concept of
knowing oneself; to be equipped with knowledge or truths about ones being so ‘the subject or
the individual soul [can] turn its gaze upon itself’.235 It patently relates to self-examination
and the governance of one’s own conduct, rather than signifying self-love or selfishness.236
Paradoxically, Snowden stated on a few occasions that he acted out of ‘self-interest’,237 in
Foucauldian terms this phrase would clearly place at him odds with the “good” parrhesiastēs
(who chooses ‘moral duty instead of self-interest’).238 Yet the only interest Snowden
subsequently identified was the preservation of ‘room for intellectual exploration and
creativity’.239 Evidently he believed it was the freedom of the internet which allowed him to
explore his ‘full capacity as a human being’ and so, disclosed the pervasive systems
curtailing that.240 He articulated that with constant oversight, individuals are likely to ‘selfpolice’ their actions online (what they search for, who they talk to, what sites they visit).241
231
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 385-86
Michel Foucault, ‘À Propos de la généalogie de l’éthique: Un aperçu du travail en cours’ in Daniel
Defert and Francois Ewald (eds.) Dits et Écrits II (Paris: Gaillimard 2001) in ibid 387 (emphasis
added)
233
Greenwald (n5) 45 (Snowden) (emphasis added)
234
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 75
235
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 285
236
ibid 284
237
Greenwald et al (n11) (Snowden): see also, Perry and Taylor (n230)
238
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 20
239
Greenwald et al (n11) (Snowden) (emphasis added)
240
Greenwald (n5) 46 (Snowden)
241
Citizenfour (n25) (Snowden)
232
41
Implicitly referring to the internalisation of a disciplinary form of power, like that in the
panoptic schema, and the ensuing unrecognised governmentalities which regulate online
behaviours. Snowden therefore indicates a commitment to maintaining the freedom of space
wherein he is able to ‘conduct himself properly in relation to others and for others’.242 His
concern for the self is effectively still an ethical sense of caring for and thinking about others,
thus his “self-interest” should be redefined as a form of self-care; ‘to develop and transform
oneself, and to attain a certain mode of being’.243 This is less a matter of solitary enterprise
than ‘an opening one gives the other onto oneself’;244 enabling Snowden to construct and
govern himself through this game of truth-telling, and with pointed regard to his relations
with others.
To this effect, Snowden revealed his sense of self by assuming a specific position in
the world with respect to the problems he perceived.245 Although he repeatedly expounded he
is not a “hero”, his cogent and meaningful mannerisms convey a self-awareness of his own
moral constitution and how he identifies himself.246 In fact, Snowden disclosed that an early
interest in Greek mythology taught him to think ‘about how we identify problems, and that
the measure of an individual is how they address and confront those problems’.247 He
believed that such literature elicited ‘a model for who we want to become, and why’,
specifically acknowledging Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a key
influence.248 Potently, when Snowden first contacted Greenwald and Poitras through
anonymous emails he code-named himself ‘Cincinnatus’ and ‘Verax’.249 As Greenwald
articulated, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (a Roman farmer in the fifth century BC) is
remembered for his positive political influence and concern for the public interest, for which
he is hailed as a ‘model for civic virtue’.250 But perhaps even more telling to Snowden’s self-
242
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 287
ibid 282
244
Foucault, ‘Self Writing’ in Ethics (n1) 217
245
Edward F. McGushin, Foucault's Askesis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life (Northwestern
University Press 2007) 7
246
Perry and Taylor (n230): see also Greenwald (n5) 45
247
Bamford (n13) (Snowden) (emphasis added)
248
Greenwald (n5) 45- 46 (Snowden)
249
ibid 7, 16
250
ibid 5
243
42
identification and pursued moral construct was the second of the two, Verax, which in Latin
means truth-teller.251
The foregoing discussion on political parrhesia highlighted the problem of knowing
how to recognise the honest and virtuous truth-teller in democratic society. This was
troublesome due to the focus on rhetoric, however analysis of the philosophical foundations
of this practice elucidates Snowden’s manner of living. Specifically, it explores how he
brought his discourse (logos) to bear on his life-deeds (bios),252 as he himself articulated, ‘it
is we who infuse life with meaning through our actions’.253 In philosophical parrhesia,
‘practices gain ethical content from the manner by which individuals develop them into a
“harmony of words and deeds”’.254 Thus, if Snowden’s account ‘accords exactly with what
he thinks, and what he thinks accords exactly with what he does’ then he may function as a
parrhesiastic figure.255 This function is, therefore, not characterised by the political content of
his disclosures, rather ‘the measure’ of such a truth-teller resides in ‘one’s style of life, one’s
relation to others, and one’s relation to oneself’.256
Socrates provided the archetypal example of this philosophical-ethical practice of
parrhesia, since ‘there is not the slightest discrepancy between what he says and what he
does’.257 Like Snowden, Socrates renounced laws and political norms in order to speak a free,
courageous and beautiful discourse.258 But what distinguished him as a parrhesiastēs was the
ontological harmonic accord upon which he changed his style of life. Clearly Snowden’s
behaviour is reflective of fundamental characteristics of parrhesia; frankness, truth, risk/
danger, courage, criticism and duty. But his actions additionally emulate ‘Socratic parrhesia’
through similar, unequivocal commitment to, not simply his discourse, but his chosen mode
of life. It is a truth-telling which is lived, a life’s mission; ‘the task he had decided to pursue
until his last breath, the task to which he had bound his life, and for which he refuses any
251
ibid 16
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 388
253
Greenwald (n5) 45 (Snowden) (emphasis added)
254
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 388
255
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 101
256
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 106
257
ibid 100: see also Signe Larsen, ‘An Apology for Philosophy: On the contested relationship
between truth and politics’ (2014) 9:4 Nordicum-Mediterraneum <http://nome.unak.is/nm-marzo2012/vol-9-no-4-2014/75-conference-paper/515-an-apology-for-philosophy-on-the-contestedrelationship-between-truth-and-politics> (accessed 20 August 2015) (herein, ‘An Apology for
Philosophy’)
258
Flynn (n116) 268
252
43
payment or reward’.259 Snowden voluntarily abandoned all aspects of his previous life (US
citizenship, a well-paying job, a girlfriend whom he loved, family ties; what he called a
‘comfortable life’),260 in order to influence the public to think for and care for themselves, as
he has done for himself;
[I am] more willing to risk imprisonment or any other negative outcome
personally than I am willing to risk the curtailment of my intellectual freedom
and that of those around me, whom I care for equally as I do for myself.261
Snowden’s commitment to his task is augmented by his noncompliance with political norms,
where he would have resigned himself to the law. Instead, Snowden manifested his authentic
relationship to the self and his sensed responsibility; to show others that which they do not
know, so that they may come to know, how to ‘build up a relationship of sovereignty to
themselves’.262 He recognised a ‘useful, positive and beneficial relation’ to himself and the
population that necessitated his guidance and presence.263 If he were to comply with the US
‘whistleblowing’ legislation or allow himself be sentenced under the US government’s terms
then it would have compromised his mission. Therefore, it was not through fear or cowardice
that Snowden “fled” to Hong Kong to enact his task, it was to safeguard it and his
responsibility against a ‘mortal engagement in politics’.264
By way of ‘spiritual guidance’, Snowden (or rather, his soul) has become the
touchstone (‘basanos’) of the souls of others.265 The interlocutors may discover truths about
themselves and critique their own relations between their logos and bios.266 Apropos of the
US government, Snowden forced them to confront the manifest breakdown of this
relationship whereby their reputed democratic rationality of governance explicitly excludes
(and in some respects, violates) the demos in practice. The utility of Snowden’s relation to the
public (not strictly US citizens as he received worldwide attention) is the critique of the
individual’s ability to tend to himself and recognise a capacity for self-governance, beyond
259
Michel Foucault, The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France, 19821983 (Picador 2010) 326, in Larsen, ‘An Apology for Philosophy’ (n257)
260
Greenwald et al (n11) (Snowden)
261
Citizenfour (n25) (Snowden) (emphasis added)
262
Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject (n≥)
263
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 80
264
ibid 81
265
ibid
266
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 113
44
dependencies on institutional political authority.267 Snowden illuminated the misleading
distinction between ‘the governor’ and ‘the governed’, believing that the internet is a personal
‘means of self-actualization’ allowing individuals to ‘explore who they are and who they
want to be’.268 Thereby expressly acknowledging the imperative of personal constitution
(‘self-actualization’) operating beyond the parameters of state domination and through the
creative process of self-governance. A Foucauldian perspective insinuates that these relations
are fluid, dispersed across the social - giving the self (and these games of truth) effect in the
political. As the interlocutors additionally gain further truths, not simply about themselves,
but about their present reality.269 Indubitably, Snowden revealed not only the undisclosed,
ubiquitous surveillance apparatuses used transnationally, but also the ease with which US
government officials can lie and subvert democratic processes.270 Thus influencing
concurrent realisation of technologies of the self and educating individuals on their current
place in the political, both in terms of how they see themselves and equally how the
government sees them.
Snowden’s actions appear to reflect philosophical roles of Ancient Greco-Roman
culture through his engagement in three types of parrhesiastic activity; (1) an epistemic role,
insofar as he had to teach certain truths about modern society (2) a political role, by taking a
stand towards the state, its laws and its political institutions and (3) a spiritual role, as he
endeavoured to elaborate on the relationship between the truth and one’s style of life or, truth
and the ‘aesthetics of the self’.271 This refers to the harmonic accord of words and deeds,
revealing how practices of truth-telling and a virtuous, ‘beautiful’ life can coalesce through
an ethics of care for the self.272 Thus, the extensive work of the self on the self will have
taken shape as an ethos that is ‘good, beautiful, honourable, estimable, memorable and
exemplary’.273 Respectfully, Greenwald recounts Snowden’s estimable demeanour during the
time he spent with him in Hong Kong;
I have never seen him display an iota of regret or fear or anxiety. He
explained unblinkingly that he had made his choice, understood the possible
267
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 391
Greenwald (n5) 46 (Snowden)
269
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 114
270
Greenwald (n5) 248
271
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 106
272
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 163
273
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 286
268
45
consequences, and was prepared to accept them…. He exuded an
extraordinary equanimity when talking about what the US government might
do to him. The sight of this twenty-nine-year-old young man responding this
way to the threat of decades, or life, in a super-max prison—a prospect that,
by design, would scare almost anyone into paralysis—was deeply inspiring.274
Greenwald continuously reveals a sincere sense of awe for Snowden, often remarking on his
‘stoic’ and ‘inconceivably calm’ tone, when he himself had fearful, sleepless nights.275 In
fact, he appears struck by Snowden’s capacity for ‘sound sleep’ who explained that he felt
profoundly at peace and so, ‘the nights were easy’.276 Correspondingly, Seneca reasoned that
such a sleep signifies a cared for and purified soul; ‘how delightful the sleep that follows this
self-examination – how tranquil it is, how deep and untroubled’.277
Snowden’s manner of living conspicuously goes beyond his exemplary ethos and
evokes reflection on his ‘beautiful life’ as the ‘true life’, thereby also encapsulating Cynic
parrhesia Foucault clarifies that the Cynics approached truth-telling through life, as they had
little interest with theoretical philosophy and instead focussed on the actual form or shape it
takes.278 Cynics ‘thought their teachings had to consist in a very public, visible, spectacular,
provocative and sometimes scandalous way’, thus teaching by way of example.279 Part of
this, was the renunciation of all material possessions because the Cynic does not depend on
anything or anyone; he is the absolute sovereign of his own life.280 Foucault comments
further, ‘[h]e is also the man who roams, who is not integrated into society, has no household,
family, hearth, or country’.281 Snowden embodies all such characteristics and effectively
expresses this in an interview with Barton Gellman, referring to himself as ‘an ascetic’ and
although he ‘doesn’t have a lot of needs… [his life’s] really got to be goal orientated’.282
274
Greenwald (n5) 51
ibid 69, 83
276
ibid 83
277
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 145
278
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 166: see also, Fearless Speech (n8) 117
279
ibid
280
Larsen, ‘An Apology for Philosophy’ (n257)
281
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 170 (emphasis added)
282
Barton Gellman, ‘Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s
accomplished’ The Washington Post (Washington, 23 December 2013) (Edward Snowden)
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowden-after-months-of-nsarevelations-says-his-missions-accomplished/2013/12/23/49fc36de-6c1c-11e3-a523fe73f0ff6b8d_story.html> (accessed 10 August 2015)
275
46
What this means for him, is to not be constrained by fear but to act in accordance with his
own principles, even if that means letting go of his ‘attachment to things that don’t ultimately
matter – money, career, physical safety – [in order to] overcome that fear’.283 To this end,
Snowden has transformed his truth-telling to ‘truth-living’; his existence, like the Cynics, is a
manifestation of truth itself.284
Snowden depicts the importance of being the master or ‘sovereign’ of oneself, before
being able to influence or guide the government of others.285 Though not strictly about this
personal constitution, it appears quite fitting that he identifies ‘a duty to first police one’s
own government before seeking to correct others’.286 By tracing the philosophical practices
involved in truth-telling, it becomes clear that Snowden’s aim was not to direct or control
outcomes. Rather, through this game of truth-telling (telling the truth to others and to oneself,
about oneself and about others) he seems to have established a search, so to speak, to make
others reflect on their own place in the present and in light of these truths.287 He fearlessly
asserted, ‘I would rather be without a state than be without a voice’ and through his changed
mode of life, this is certainly affirmed.288 For now, in exile, he has dedicated his life to his
task by acting as an exemplar of self-mastery and an influential guide for the principle of
caring for oneself in the ‘digital era’. Greenwald cogently surmised that Snowden has
effectively ‘created a model to inspire others’.289 From this analysis it is discerned as ‘a
model of ethical self-governance’; though one that is open, flexible and adaptable to
circumstances as ‘no single model of ethical self-governance exists’.290 Therefore, where
disciplinary techniques mould and ‘produce’ subjects, the principles of truth-telling and
practices of self-governance then educate and inspire. Luxon summarises; ‘From parrhesia
emerges a subject able to undertake the hard work of judgment aided by guides not yet
supplanted by rules’; the expressive subject.291 Ultimately, with the development of these
new, expressive and autonomous subjectivities we can see how truth, parrhesia, philosophy
283
Greenwald (n5) 46 (Snowden)
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 172
285
Ghislain Deslandes, ‘The care-of-self ethic with continual reference to Socrates: towards ethical
self-management’ (2012) 21:4 Business Ethics: A European Review 325-338, 327
286
Greenwald (n5) 31 (Snowden)
287
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 163, 89
288
Edward Snowden, ‘Edward Snowden’s ‘open letter to the Brazilian people’' The Guardian (17
December 2013) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/edward-snowden-letter-brazilianpeople (accessed 26 August 2015)
289
Greenwald (n5) 252
290
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 388 (emphasis added)
291
ibid
284
47
and moral value can relate to modern democratic regimes by offering a different way into
politics.292
In contrast to the haphazard rhetoric of Snowden’s revelations, this discussion seeks
to redefine the underlying philosophical and ethical relations cultivated by (and giving rise
to) Snowden’s act of truth-telling. Extrapolating from political and philosophical practices of
parrhesia, it is possible to explore how philosophical techniques of selfhood can influence the
political realm.293 A critical problem identified in chapter 3 was the ability of political
rhetoric to flatter the US government and unify those with likeminded fears that Snowden
posed a “grave threat” to American society.294 In light of this, the following section
scrutinises the philosophical-ethical value of self-governance that Snowden represents, to
concede his democratic utility in modernity. As Foucault advised,
It is in the city’s interest to protect the true discourse, the courageous
veridiction [truth-telling] which encourages citizens to take care of
themselves…maintaining an essential relation with the city’s utility [which]
will be deployed throughout what could be called the great chain of cares and
concerns.295
4.2 Postmodern Parrhesia and a new Politics of Reformation
Insofar as this analysis has demonstrated Snowden’s use of parrhesia, it now more closely
examines the reworking of these parrhesiastic practices through the nuance and contemporary
relations integrated by ‘the digital era’. As elucidated, Snowden acted in defence of the
principles he obtained by virtue of the free internet, and stimulated by the ‘worry that [his
generation] was the last […] to enjoy that freedom’.296 Though not a definitive objective, he
contemplates the eradication of state oversight through civil society’s imposition of a
‘universal standard’ of encryption. Thus, within the internet Snowden recognises the capacity
to maintain an openness in which to explore (and perhaps enhance) practices of self292
ibid 399: see also, Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 104: this line is a reconstruction of Foucault’s
contemplation; ‘How can philosophical truth and moral value relate to the city through the nomos
[law]?’
293
Howe (n209) 226
294
ibid
295
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 90 (emphasis added)
296
Greenwald (n5) 46 (Snowden)
48
government, but equally sees the potential for ‘bottom-up’ political reform; ‘a politics of
reformation rather than a revolutionary politics’.297 These aspects of his truth-telling will be
expanded upon by looking closely at ‘the great chain of cares and concerns’ wherein society
begins take care of itself. Ultimately it is contended that Snowden’s truth-telling presents a
‘uniquely postmodern breed’ of parrhesia, where philosophical practices have potential to
vitalise political engagement.298
Frey recently stated that Snowden’s act of truth-telling ‘offers a prime example of
how parrhesia might look or be enacted within digital culture’ both in terms of execution and
effect.299 Indeed, at every stage of his parrhesiastic activity he utilised computerised
technology; collecting a digital archive of NSA materials, contacting Greenwald and Poitras
through encrypted communications, and effectively distributing his message through online
media. Moreover, he has been able to maintain an international presence in digital forms, not
simply by virtue of the unregulated web-space and persistent media reporting, but he is able
to give interviews through live-link video technology. This reinstates his affinity with the
Socratic notion of safeguarding and preserving his task, in a manner that additionally enables
him to physically deliver his message, in his own words, and from his own body.300 The
significance of this is that the world is given a real, visible manifestation of Snowden, as he is
manifesting truths about his relations within present reality. This is indispensable to the
formation of his ethos, established by his appearance, tone, expressions, body language and
the way in which he responds; an influence that ancient parrhesiastic figures do not have in
modernity, we only read about what was experienced. Although, there is still some stylistic
congruency between Snowden and classical parrhesiastēs’, both primarily communicate their
discourse by way of open dialogue (Snowden chiefly does videoed interviews, but has also
coordinated live ‘Q&A’ forums).301 According to Foucault this is the ‘best vehicle’ for frank
speaking and truth-telling, enabling the interlocutor to bring the obscure to light.302
297
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 393
Bamford (n13); ‘[Snowden] is a uniquely postmodern breed of whistle-blower.’
299
Renea Carol Frey, ‘Speaking Truth to Power: Recovering the Rhetorical Theory of Parrhesia’
Doctoral Thesis, Miami University, Oxford: Ohio (2015) 160
300
ibid 169
301
Edward Snowden, ‘We are Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald from the Oscarwinning documentary Citizenfour AUAA’ (Reddit, 23 February 2015)
<https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_snowden_laura_poitras_and_g
lenn> (accessed 20 August 2015)
302
Foucault, Fearless Speech (n8) 21
298
49
Snowden advantageously used the unique dissemination and circulation capabilities
provided by the digital realm. After his identity had been revealed, according to Greenwald,
‘[s]everal hundred thousand people posted the link to their Facebook accounts in the first
several days alone. Almost three million people watched the interview on YouTube’.303 It
was a worldwide event that extended the initial parrhesiastic act across all boundaries and
throughout every medium. Perhaps more cogent was the establishment of Snowden’s ethos,
his ‘almost always stoic, calm, matter-of-fact’ manner of being was broadcasted to
millions.304 The potency of which Frey identifies as the portrayal of Snowden ‘not as a
superhuman’305 but as an ‘ordinary American… just trying to do the best that [he] can’, and
to show others they can do the same.306 Not in the sense they ascetically renounce themselves
and their countries’ political norms, but in the sense they uphold their own principles by
becoming the sovereign of their own conduct.307 Foucault asserts; ‘A city in which everybody
took proper care of himself would be a city that functioned well and found in this the ethical
principle of its permanence’.308 Snowden seemingly articulated the imperative of autonomous
reasoning, saying; ‘I don’t ask anybody to believe me. I don’t want anybody to believe me. I
want you to look around and decide for yourself what you believe’.309 He does not campaign
for belief in his political principles, or indeed any, he is evidently concerned for the
‘dependent subject’ who does not think for himself, and who may not know he does not think
for himself, as he does not take proper care of himself. It suggests a recognition of the
practicality of first developing oneself ethically (caring for the self) before taking up a
particular place in regard to political issues (concern for others).310
As aforementioned, this does not reflect a promotion of self-interest, seeking how to
govern oneself is usually done in relation to or for others. Accordingly, such techniques
generally involve the role of a listener (‘a guide, a counsellor, a friend’)311, but Snowden went
further by involving multiple actors in the construction of his parrhesiastic act.312 By
collaborating with the free press he established the active and engaged role of civil society.
303
Greenwald (n5) 84: see also Frey (n299) 171-72
Greenwald (n5) 47
305
Frey (n299) 171
306
Perry and Taylor (n230) (Snowden)
307
Howe (n209) 226
308
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 287
309
Snowden (Reddit) (n301)
310
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 392
311
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 287
312
Frey (n299) 168
304
50
He even specifically chose Barton Gellman from The Washington Post as he saw value in
having ‘the DC institution, the heart of [the US] government’ demonstrate a working
partnership in this.313 So although Snowden avoided a ‘mortal engagement with politics’ –
that is, through the institutional structures – he has demonstrated the power of civil society to
manifest political engagement in the social. Thereby, revealing the capacity of the modern
digital era to create open spaces for marginalised individuals to vitalise democratic politics.314
Nayar patently acknowledges these power relations within digital communications and marks
the creation of a ‘new communications culture which generates a new community’.315 Thus,
Snowden’s mode of truth-telling may not only draw strength from the distribution powers of
the internet, but it may advantageously speak to the cares and concerns of an online culture of
likeminded people. Those who robustly value their privacy, their free speech, the free press,
freedom of information, freedom to associate, and so on.
Maxwell suggests that truth-telling ‘does not become politically meaningful on its
own, but only when the public acknowledges it as such through public debate’.316 Through
recalling the perspective of counter-conduct, ‘politically meaningful’ does not have to entail a
revolutionary act of the collective. It could be that one singular act relates to ‘the great chain
of cares and concerns’, and thereby aligns with the values central to this online community.317
This might be the adoption of encryption measures, signing an online petition against state
surveillance or even sharing links of media reports on Snowden through social media sites.
These individual acts could then be understood as counter-conducts, inasmuch as they
present a refusal of governmental interference in the realm where individuals enjoyed
autonomous self-mastery. Thereby declaring, ‘[w]e do not want to be held in this system of
observation and endless examination that continually judges us’.318 This would seemingly
stabilises Snowden’s truth-telling within ‘a networked model of parrhesia that ripples through
fields of power in ways that seek to continue initial acts of disruption’.319 To an extent,
Snowden articulated this effect and likened it to an ‘internet’ variant of ‘the Hydra’ (a
313
Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
Maxwell (n164)
315
Pramod K. Nayar, ‘WikiLeaks, the New Information Cultures, and Digital Parrhesia’ (2011) 2:2
Journal of Technology, Theology, and Religion 1-15, 10
316
Maxwell (n164)
317
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 391
318
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (n34) 267
319
Frey (n299) 151
314
51
mythological creature with many heads and each time one was severed, it duplicated); ‘you
can stop one person but there’s going to be seven more’.320
However it should be noted that Snowden does not appeal to forms of ‘revolutionary’
resistance, the above statement is more a recognition of the continual processes of selfgovernment happening within, and as a result of, this communications culture. He
emphatically advises, ‘the idea here isn't to fling ourselves into anarchy and do away with
government, but to remind the government that there must always be a balance of power
between the governing and the governed…’.321 This sentiment align with Carl Death’s
concept of ‘an ethos of continual criticism’ which illuminates the ‘destabilising and creative
potential’ of disperse counter-conducts that do not necessitate comprehensive social
movement or “pure” resistance.322 Each disparate refusal of arbitrary state interference will
serve as the type of persistent ‘reminder’ Snowden envisages, ‘emphasizing the conflictual
and contestable dimensions of modern government’.323 The consequential effect of his
parrhesia is, therefore, the allowance of civil society’s productive engagement in the political,
without always pointedly ‘doing politics’.324 For politics often relies on, and in some respects,
foregrounds contestation (such as aggressive election campaigning or policy debates) but
Snowden arguably helped to reinstate…
[T]he necessary role not just of agitators, but also of spectators: spectators
who hesitate, who observe, who gauge the possibilities for political
responsiveness… these spectators determine the political narratives to be told
and the cultural values to be internalised.325
Thus, influencing facilitative political engagement beyond collective ‘movements’, by
vitalising the underlying practices that are individually initiated but collectively maintained;
‘a politics of re-formation’.326
320
ibid
Snowden (Reddit) (n301)
322
Death (n56) 248
323
ibid
324
Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Counter-conduct or Resistance?’ (n68) 3
325
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 397-98
326
ibid 391-93
321
52
This is a type of political engagement not converging on the content of a collective
objective, but one that correlates to the practices individuals autonomously undertake to
achieve a certain mode of being. That is ‘the concrete forms, prescriptions, and techniques
taken by the care of self in its ethopoetic role’,327 representing Luxon’s ‘expressive subject’,
who has been educated and inspired to care for the self by a guide, but is not yet restrained by
rules. Such individuals have the discretionary capability to observe, critique and internalise
the values best for oneself, and one’s relation to others (therefore, society).328 Thus,
establishing an ethos of continual critique, imperative for assessing one’s position in a
particular situation at a particular time, and adopting an appropriate response. The
assemblage of individual practices might then be collectively maintained, to the extent that
each one is ‘rooted in a fundamental attitude which is concern about oneself’.329 Apparently,
for Snowden, this politics of reformation is precisely what he envisaged. He speaks of lowlevel enforcement ‘through systems and standards rather than policies and procedures’330 and
notes that,
We have the means and we have the technology to end mass surveillance
without any legislative action at all, without any policy changes… By
basically adopting changes like making encryption a universal standard.331
He therefore aimed at reforming the mechanisms through which citizens have their privacy
violated, but from a ‘bottom-up’ approach. By deploying an ethics of care for personal
autonomy and guiding how this can be achieved without legal implementation, he vitalised
the space for political engagement in the digital era, not political revolution.
As a result, Snowden instigated ‘the first global debate about privacy in the digital
age’, resulting in masses of online petitioning for the eradication of mass surveillance and
even influenced discrete changes to the privacy behaviours of American citizens (e.g.,
changing privacy settings, uninstalling certain apps, using landlines instead of mobiles or
avoiding certain companies).332 Moreover, two years on from his initial parrhesiastic act, the
327
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 338: ‘ethopoetic’ meaning expressing character
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 338
329
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 338
330
Snowden (Reddit) (n301)
331
Bamford (n13) Snowden
332
Sören Preibusch, ‘Privacy Behaviours After Snowden’ (2015) 58:5 Communications of AGM 4855: see also, Lee Raine and Mary Madden, ‘Americans’ Privacy Strategies Post-Snowden’ (Pew
328
53
subject of state surveillance has not dropped out of public debate. Greenwald contends that
‘interest in the surveillance discussion only intensified, not just domestically but
internationally’.333 This was effectively reaffirmed in a recent letter to President Obama,
signed by a coalition of over 140 tech firms, civil society organisations and security experts,
urging the White House to ‘focus on developing policies that will promote rather than
undermine the wide adoption of strong encryption technology’.334 Meanwhile, many of the
individual tech companies who are signatory have begun to prioritise their own privacy by
developing personalised means of in-built encryption, such as Yahoo, Apple, Google and
Microsoft.335
To conclude, Snowden’s truth-telling has radically reinstated the role of civil society, and the
individual, in nuanced political action. He achieved this, not by pushing a political agenda or
aiming for definitive outcomes, but by guiding and educating others with the principle of
self-care and self-government. The movements across civil society send a message to the US
government and the NSA conferring ‘the will not to be governed thusly, like that, by these
people, at this price’.336 But more than that, they represent a consequent recognition of the
capacity for self-constitution as ‘free people in a free society’,337 and thereby a desire to
preserve this personal autonomy and maximise the space for self-exploration. Analyses on
the ethics of truth-telling has therefore enabled a reconceptualization of its previously
problematized place in democratic politics. Evidently, Snowden’s practice of parrhesia has
instigated broad, multi-modal political action that draws from and reinforces the new
pragmatic spaces of civic engagement in the digital age. The final chapter concludes with
how this nurturing of expressive political subjects may effectively radicalise modern
democracy.
Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 16 March 2015)
<http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/03/16/americans-privacy-strategies-post-snowden/> (accessed 27
August 2015)
333
Greenwald (n5) 249
334
Letter to President Barrack Obama (19 May 2015)
<https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/3138-113/Encryption_Letter_to_Obama_final_051915.pdf> (accessed 27 August 2015)
335
Ronald Goldfarb (ed.) After Snowden: Privacy, Secrecy and Security in the Information Age (St
Martin’s Press 2015) 22
336
Foucault, ‘What is Critique?’ (n55) 75
337
Lessig (n6) (Snowden)
54
Concluding Remarks
The practices of parrhesia offer a moment of observation key for those extraordinary
moments of politics where the challenge is not always to challenge, protest, and revolutionize
(although it is often that), but also to consider what might be an effective and appropriate
response to such challenges – to consider how and to what extent political norms and values
ought to be revised for a particular community at a particular historical juncture.
-
Nancy Luxon 2008 ≤
Parrhesia in modern democratic politics is both troubled and ambiguous, but it is not
unworkable. Though it is ‘structurally condemned’ in an institutional sense, by grace of
modern technologies and the creation of new spaces for public involvement, the activity of
truth-telling can gain considerable political momentum in the social. Influenced by Foucault,
this thesis has reconsidered dominant narratives by prompting the adoption of a more critical
attitude. It is through this ethos of critique that individuals become able to redefine their
relationship with the self and determine their own values, before then being able to articulate
and preserve these through instability. It is therefore the practice of ethics (as an activity),
that ‘reflects a turn to the relations that constitute politics… [individuals] develop themselves
ethically and act politically’.338 Foucault once asserted that, ‘[t]he will of individuals must
make a place for itself in a reality of which governments have attempted to reserve a reality
for themselves’.339 By way of conclusion, it is now deliberated how this may be effectively
gaining force through the nuance spaces for political engagement provided by modern
technology and guided by Snowden’s practice of postmodern parrhesia.
Whilst Snowden’s truth-telling was ostensibly a political act, narrow interpretations of
what this means, can obfuscate its utility for democracy and impede others from having the
≤ Nancy Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity: Practices of Self-Governance in the Late Lectures of Michel
Foucault’ (2008) 38:3 Political Theory 377-402, 398
338
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 392
339
Foucault, ‘Confronting Governments: Human Rights’ in Power (n33) 475
55
courage to listen.340 This is fundamental to the game of truth-telling, as it is not simply an act
of proclaiming, it requires listening and acceptance of the speaker’s criticism. In politics there
is a tendency to dramatize the former over the latter, where “who can shout the loudest” is not
simply a tactic, but a skill.341 In the political arena Snowden’s truth-telling became distorted
through competing polemical rhetoric and demonizing campaigns, which influenced
denunciations of him as a ‘traitor’ or a ‘betrayer of his country’. Similarly, this raised
concerns about precarious conceptions of ‘political resistance’ and a general distrust of
dissent, clearly manipulated by the Obama and Bush administrations (evoking fear by
inferring baseless threats of ‘terrorist attacks’). The counter-conduct perspective critically
guided a reconceptualization of Snowden’s ‘resistance’, to acknowledge the ethics behind his
action. This appreciates his struggle as one against the arbitrary processes used for
conducting individuals rather than as direct opposition to government, or state surveillance.
Such a perspective works towards its ‘general horizon’ in order to improve it, as Snowden
asserted, ‘I am still working for the NSA right now. They are the only ones who don't realise
it’.342
Analysing Snowden’s truth-telling as an activity, rather than looking within his
discourse for empirical truths, enables elaboration of the specific technical processes he
underwent to constitute himself as an ethical, truth-telling subject. It is within these games of
truth and relational ethical transformations that ‘practical truths’ appear, i.e., ‘what it is
appropriate to do in such and such circumstances’.343 This reveals the importance of looking
beyond the content of the disclosure (the fundamental truths about present reality), and more
to how Snowden manifested the truth (by aid of philosophical understanding). In this sense,
‘the truth’ does not infer an absolute and universal fact, but discloses the relations he has to
the self and others. Examining his truth-telling in this way precludes excessive preoccupation
with Snowden’s motives, often surmised from the political content of what is disclosed
(‘traitor’ or ‘enemy of the state’). Alternatively, the study of philosophical practices of the
self examines the courage of truth; ‘the courage to manifest the truth about oneself, to show
340
Thomas J. Catlaw, Kelly Campbell Rawlings and Jeffrey C. Callen, ‘The Courage to Listen:
Government, Truth-telling and Care of the Self’ (2014) 36:2 Administrative Theory & Praxis 197–
218, 197
341
ibid
342
Gellman (n282) (Snowden)
343
Foucault, The Courage of the Truth (n4) 339
56
oneself as one is, in the face of all opposition’,344 highlighting Snowden’s fearless personal
conviction to being entirely present to himself and his own ethical values.
Snowden freed himself of all dependencies ‘that don’t ultimately matter – money,
career, physical safety’, and constituted himself as the subject of his own existence.345 He not
only risked but dedicated his life to the duty he perceived, wanting to avoid incarceration
until ‘it served the right purpose’.346 He therefore recognised an exemplary function of his
self-governance and didn’t want to be part of a ‘deal’ that would discourage others to defend
their values. In this sense, Snowden serves as a ‘model for ethical self-governance’347 by
inspiring individuals to become the master of the self, but not by way of rules or by ordering
them to do so. He leads by example; guiding individuals by his words and deeds, educating
them to care for their own way of conducting oneself in light of the new truths about their
present reality. Thereby, manifesting how the ethics of truth-telling can give nuances to
political engagement, because ‘to manage […] oneself (absent of dependence on authoritative
others), is already to enter differently into politics’.348
Thus, his parrhesiastic practice was three-fold; (1) he disclosed fundamental truths
about the subversion of democratic processes, (2) he concomitantly manifested the truth
about himself, and (3) he fostered a relation like that of a doctor ‘who will heal and bring
[others] an education, an education thanks to which they will be able to assure their own
healing and happiness’.349 Though he advocates for the adoption of encrypted programming
and software to protect privacy, he has no underlying political agenda to do so. What he sees
within his parrhesiastic activity is the direct act of informing the public about what they
should know or need to know in order to decide for themselves how they want to respond.
This draws strong parallels to Foucault’s methodological ‘tool-box’, whereby students are
exposed to all the ‘tools’ but it is for them to decide on which one would appertain to their
own values.350 To recall Snowden’s bold statement, ‘I don’t want anyone to believe me. I
344
ibid
Deslandes (n285) 327: see also, Gellman (n282) (Snowden)
346
Bamford (n13) (Snowden)
347
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 384
348
ibid 399
349
Michel Foucault, Le Courage de la vérité, 21 mars 1984, CD10A in Luxon, ‘Ethics and
Subjectivity’ (n221) 393
350
Bal Sokhi-Bulley, ‘Alternative Methodologies: Learning Critique as a Skill’ (2013) 3(2) ReM 623, 17
345
57
want you to look around and decide for yourself what you believe’.351 It suggests a concern
for citizens’ complacency and the conventional practices or assumptions that rerun
unchallenged. Essentially, he is urging for the development of a more critical attitude, so
individuals can consider the most appropriate response that accords with their own beliefs,
their relations to others and society. Consequently, this educative ethics of truth-telling does
not metamorphose into political action, but individuals ‘may have a richer set of ethical
resources upon which to draw and potentially enter politics’.352 Foucault was careful to
specify that philosophy does not dictate the course of conduct taken in politics. Rather, it
exists ‘in a permanent and restive exteriority with regard to politics, and it is in this that it is
real’.353
Two years on, mass surveillance is still a global debate, inferring a resonant critical
attitude on behalf of the public who now question the previously silent behaviours and
practices of government. Moreover, the active responses filtrating through civil society
(changing privacy behaviours, petitioning, sharing the information articulated by Snowden)
are an encouraging attempt at instigating change. Incontrovertibly, this is not done as one
revolutionary movement or a ‘great’ rebellion, it is a gradual ‘politics of reformation’ that
simply happens. These reactions can then be considered as part of the ‘immense family’ of
disperse and accumulate, individual and collective, spontaneous and organised acts of
counter-conduct which may, nonetheless, have a cumulative effect insofar as they are
founded in a legitimate concern with the self and care of the self. Though such values will
differ from person to person, perhaps this is ‘the right conduct and the proper practice of
freedom’ in response to this particular historical juncture.354 That is, the identification of the
‘political norms and values [which] ought to be revised’ and deployed throughout ‘the great
chain of cares and concerns’ of this online community.355 However, such an effect may
indicate that inherent governmentalities of the ‘communications culture’ are influencing and
effectively regulating these counter-conducts (the conduct of ‘counter-conduct’ conduct).
This aspect of the counter-conduct framework requires future analysis.
351
Snowden (Reddit) (n301)
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 396
353
Michel Foucault, The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France, 19821983. (Picador 2010) 354: in Signe Larsen, ‘An Apology for Philosophy’ (n257)
354
Foucault, ‘The Ethics of Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom’ in Ethics (n1) 285
355
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 398
352
58
At any rate, it appears that Snowden’s challenge for civil society has been broadly
vindicated and is not losing momentum. The fact major ‘tech giants’, such as Apple, Google
and Microsoft, are individually and collectively pursuing a customary standard of encryption
is a consequential progression. Further, though the US government have refrained from
directly vindicating Snowden’s use of parrhesia, recent legislative reforms, internal reviews
and new investigations suggest that they may have the courage to listen to the public.
Incremental developments over the last year have seen bulk surveillance ruled
unconstitutional in US courts,356 the passing of the USA Freedom Act (reforming many
sections of the Patriot Act),357 the House of Representatives cutting all funding of two NSA
programmes,358 and an independent federal privacy watchdog consulting with President
Obama over the illegality of various surveillance practices.359 In fact, Obama has since
reiterated his support for transparency and the pursuit of reform, even ordering the
establishment of a new website for various declassified documents.360 So, despite avoiding
forthright cooperation with Snowden and even aggressively attempting to discredit him, the
US government have effectively, albeit indirectly, vindicated the utility of these disclosures
and acknowledged the values which ought to be reformed.
These occurrences are a testament to the ability of democratic civil society (when
practicing freedom in a certain way) to defend and protect their collective place in ‘a reality
of which governments have attempted to reserve a reality for themselves’.361 Moreover, it
356
James Ball, ‘Of Snowden and the NSA, only one has acted unlawfully – and it’s not Snowden’
(The Guardian, 7 May 2015) <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/07/edward-snowdenwhistleblower-nsa-bulk-surveillance-illegal> (accessed 1 September 2015)
357
USA Freedom Act, Public Law No: 114-23 (06/02/2015) <https://www.congress.gov/bill/114thcongress/house-bill/2048/text> (accessed 1 September 2015)
358
Andy Greenberg, ‘House Votes to Cut Key Pursestrings for NSA Surveillance’ (Wired, 20 June
2014) <http://www.wired.com/2014/06/house-votes-to-cut-key-pursestrings-for-nsa-surveillance/>
(accessed 1 September 2015)
359
Charlie Savage, ‘Watchdog Report says NSA Program is Illegal and Should End’ (The New York
Times, 23 January 2014) <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/politics/watchdog-report-says-nsaprogram-is-illegal-and-should-end.html?_r=0> (accessed 1 September 2015) see also: David E.
Sanger, ‘President Tweaks the Rules on Data Collection’ (The New York Times, 3 February 2015)
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/world/president-tweaks-the-rules-on-data-collection.html
(accessed 1 September 2015)
360
President Barrack Obama, ‘TRANSCRIPT: President Obama’s August 9, 2013, news conference
at the White House’ (The Washington Post, 9 August 2013)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-august-9-2013-newsconference-at-the-white-house/2013/08/09/5a6c21e8-011c-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story.html>
(accessed 1 September 2015) see also; Office of the Director of National Intelligence (IC on the
Record 2015) <http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/> (accessed 1 September 2015)
361
Foucault, ‘Confronting Governments: Human Rights’ in Power (n33) 475
59
evokes the notion of care and ‘a sharpened sense of reality’, whereby individuals have
observed the propitious spaces of the digital age, and revealed ‘a passion for seizing what is
happening now’.362 It reflects a turn away from the ‘dependent subject’ who unquestioningly
complies with conventionality, towards a more expressive, autonomous and critical subject
who gauges the possibilities for political responsiveness despite conditions of structured
uncertainty.363 In this sense, Snowden’s truth-telling has mobilised a new ethics of political
engagement by reinstating the role of the citizenry in a more robust democratization.
362
363
Foucault, ‘The Masked Philosopher’ in Ethics (n1) 325
Luxon, ‘Ethics and Subjectivity’ (n221) 395
60
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