Abstract

This paper develops an Augustinian response to political problems diagnosed by Michel Foucault’s analysis of modern power. Foucault argues that power in the modern age is not repressive but creative. Instead of prohibiting acts, political power disciplines and normalizes subjects. Foucault’s alternative consists in practices of aesthetic self-creation not linked to transcendent or natural order. Within Augustine’s account of the purposive nature of love and desire, however, lies an implicit critique of Foucault’s ethic of aesthetic self-creation. Augustine’s eudaimonism allows him to resist the process of normalization. Augustine provides an alternative to both modern political practice and a Foucauldian practice of aesthetic self-creation.