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In The Well-Tempered Self , Toby Miller argues that the modern capitalist state musters a variety of cultural forces to send deliberately mixed messages about the nature of citizenship and the self. The process creates ideal citizens: "cultural subjects" trained to meet the conflicting needs of the political and economic systems. Miller contents that capitalism's democratic politics requires selfless, community-minded citizens, white its economics depends on selfish, utilitarian consumers. To fulfill these conflicting needs for political order and economic prosperity, powerful cultural forces are employed to instill a sense of "ethical incompleteness." Citizens are then offered political, cultural, and economic opportunities to become better, happier, and more fulfilled--opportunities that, in turn, encourage loyalty to both the political and economic systems. In a series of case studies that demonstrate this process, Miller examines mass enternationment, political discourse, and methods of resistance to these powerful cultural forces.

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CHOICE Review

This Foucauldian analysis of political identity-formation, social ethics, and cultural policy in advanced capitalist societies is a timely addition to democratic theory. Miller contrasts the ethic of "incompleteness" which produces acculturated and self-policing citizens to the "autoinvention" exemplified by (some) new social movements and hinted at in Foucault's later works. The middle, substantive chapters are the strongest; Miller marshalls a wealth of original data on the deep schism between selfless citizen and self-serving consumer underlying much Australian and British public policy; the politics of incivility (again, in Australia); and the issue of "cultural imperialism" under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. These imaginative discussions denaturalize such classic concepts as national identity, state sovereignty, individual autonomy, self-discovery, and civic virtue. Less strong are the first two theoretical chapters, in particular the second on "textual theory," which is especially difficult, frequently impenetrable, and badly organized. In general the ratio of theoretical bricolage to new argument seems unusually high, which--regrettably--obscures Miller's own contribution to studies in the production of civil subjects undertaken by Foucault, William Connolly, Iris Marion Young, and others. Advanced undergraduate and up.

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Toby Miller is assistant professor in the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University. He has taught at Murdoch and Griffith universities in Australia and has worked as a research officer with the Australian Senate and as an announcer and cultural commentator for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.