Christian paroikias and the negation of the polis: biopolitics and the christian pastorate

Abstract

The objective of our work is to expose the final topic of Foucault’s argumentation concerning the Christian self-care (epimeleia ton allon), showing that the Christian epimeleia ton allon is closely connected to the government modality of the souls and bodies that Foucault names Christian pastorate. We want to show how Foucault’s refusal in accepting an authentic Christian epimeleia heautou gave place to the inevitable bond between it and the birth of modern biopolitics. Our argumentation aims at showing that it was inevitable, for Foucault, to make such considerations and reach this conclusion putting together, in a causal chain, Christian epimeleia ton allon, pastoral government and modern biopolitics. For such purpose, we will use Agamben’s arguments, exposed mostly in his work El reino y la Gloria, in which he discusses the intercrossing of two paradigms: political theology and political economy. The final topic of our argumentation is that the rejection of the oikos as locus for the practice of epimeleia heautou would inevitably cause the intensification of Christian epimeleia ton allon through the paradigms of oikonomia, resulting that Christianity would not have otherwise contributed to the practice of the self-care, if not by intensifying and re-signifying practices with the objective of operating a true hermeneutic of the desires, once from such hermeneutic it would be possible to go through with the total command of the lives of the individuals.