The Care of the Self and the Care of the Other: From Spiritual Exercises to Political Transformation

The Care of the Self and the Care of the Other: From Spiritual Exercises to Political Transformation

What is the relationship between the ethical transformation of the self and the political transformation of the world? This book explores the ways several twentieth-century thinkers can help us relate the “care of the self” to the “care of the other,” tracing their accounts of how and why practices intended to change an individual can help spur social and political change, just as collective political action can produce a transformation of the self. Daniel Louis Wyche examines the political implications of what he calls practices of ethical self-change. These include Pierre Hadot’s notion of “spiritual exercises”; what the French sociologist of labor Georges Friedmann calls the “interior effort”; Michel Foucault’s ethics of the “care of the self”; what Martin Luther King Jr. refers to as the work of “self-purification” integral to direct action; and Audre Lorde’s claim that caring for herself constitutes a form of “political warfare.” Wyche argues that these concepts can collectively provide an understanding that effaces distinctions between the care of the self, the other, and the community in a way that avoids reducing the political to the ethical. Ambitious and nuanced, The Care of the Self and the Care of the Other offers a framework for unifying individual moral action and collective political life. Daniel Wyche’s book is an exquisite treatment of different forms of ethical self-transformation and political spirituality. Transporting the reader from the school of Epictetus to the Montgomery bus boycott, Wyche harmonizes personal experience with political praxis. His book enlightens, but even more it elevates, guiding the reader toward a sense of responsibility, urgency, and the possibility of collective justice and freedom. It is a tour de force. -- Bernard E. Harcourt, author of Critique and Praxis From Pierre Hadot to Audre Lorde, Daniel Wyche untangles the knotted relations that constitute an ethics of care. At the heart of this book lies a robust materialism that forges a path between the care of the self and the care of others, between self-transformation and the messy realities of political practice. I am so grateful for this brilliant book. -- Lynne Huffer, author of Foucault’s Strange Eros The Buddha, Buddhaghosa tells us, taught philosophy as though constellating the multitude of stars in the sky. In this stunning constellation―bringing together the analytic labor of a classicist, philosophers, a sociologist, a civil rights activist, and a poet―Wyche convincingly shows us how to make sense of the variegate concepts and practices variously entailed by increasingly popular (but often misunderstood) talk of self-transformation and spiritual exercise. This book is invaluable: whether used to navigate a complex intellectual environment or to orient oneself to the possibilities of one’s own intellectual form of life. -- Sonam Kachru, author of Other Lives: Mind and World in Indian Buddhism A brilliant and much-needed defense of the philosophical value of practices of self-transformation, and of their ethico-political relevance. In this book, Wyche combines an extraordinary mastery in interpreting the works of figures as (apparently) disparate as Pierre Hadot, Michel Foucault, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Audre Lorde with a unique philosophical sensitivity to the issues and tensions of our present. -- Daniele Lorenzini, author of The Force of Truth: Critique, Genealogy, and Truth-Telling in Michel Foucault Daniel Louis Wyche is a senior fellow at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought.