The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture, and the Postmodern Subject

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.