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PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA
MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
University of Mohamed Seddik Ben Yahia. Jijel
Dissertation Submitted to the Department of English in Partial fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Master’s Degree
Candidate:
Mohamed Elhadi BENCHAREF
Islam ZERAOULIA Board of Examiners:
Dr. Izzeddine FANIT
University of Jijel
Chairperson
Dr. Fateh BOUNAR
University of Jijel
Supervisor
Ms. Hiba Tiouane
University of Jijel
Examiner
Racial Identity and the State of Tutelage
in Our Missing Hearts
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF LETTERS AND ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
DOMAIN: FOREIGN LANGUAGES
STREAM: ENGLISH LANGUAGE
OPTION: LITERATURE & CIVILIZATION
Supervised by:
Dr. Fateh BOUNAR
i
Declaration
We, Islam ZERAOULIA and Mohamed Elhadi BENCHAREF, do hereby
declare that this dissertation titled "Racial Identity and the State of Tutelage in Our Missing
Heart" is our own original research and work, except for what may otherwise be quoted. All
the information sources, quotations, and ideas borrowed from other writers have been
appropriately credited. We have a clear understanding of the plagiarism policy and academic
integrity of the university. This research was conducted under the supervision of Mr.
BOUNAR Fateh, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master 2 degree in
Literature and Civilization at Université Mohamed Seddik Ben Yahia - Jijel.
ii
Acknowledgements
To all individuals who in one way or another assisted with this dissertation, we are
extremely thankful.
Above all, we would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our supervisor,
Dr. Bounar Fateh, for his ongoing encouragement during the course of this dissertation. His
critical feedback and academic guidance were instrumental in determining the path and
outcome of our work. We also express our sincere thanks to all the faculty members and
professors of Université Mohamed Seddik Ben Yahia - Jijel's English Department, whose
experience and commitment have significantly contributed to our academic life. We extend
our sincere thanks to our families for their unremitting patience, love, and support. Lastly, we
would like to appreciate our friends and colleagues who helped, contributed ideas, and
encouraged us throughout the writing.
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Dedication
“People learn to love their chains”
To those who love to learn their chains
iv
Abstract
Examining notions of governmentality and the psychology of the governed, this
dissertation looks into how America passes policies concerning racial
minorities, with a special focus on how minorities come to identify themselves
in Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts. The aim then is to understand how the US
government attempts to manufacture a new meaning to being Chinese or Asian,
and to shed light on how its apartheid policies. PACT, which is an institute for
preserving tradition. Using the theory of Racial Formation by Michael Omi and
Howard Winant, supplemented with the writings of Michel Foucault and
Immanuel Kant on the Government of the Self and Other, this dissertation uses
the theories to observe how enforcement of racial hierarchies is systematically
constructed within the structural and psychological spheres. The analysis
reveals how the novel’s characters experience and resist governmentality, and
how they struggle with internalized mechanisms of control embedded in the
non-violent stratagems used by PACT to maintain authority through controlling
the internal faculties of the masses. This study contributes to the existing
literature by expanding on the subject of identity, power, and race by depicting
minorities as products of political construction rather than a natural
phenomenon. It also offers insights into how individuals respond to systematic
oppression and control, negotiating their identity by resisting or abiding, a
v
dynamic that remains pertinent in the history of the US, which is still rife with
racial conflict.
Key Words: Racial Formation, Government of the Self and Others, Racialization, State of
Tutelage, Political Despotism, Identity and Power, Social Construction of Race, Racist
Project
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Table of Content
Declaration................................................................................................................................. i
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. ii
Dedication ............................................................................................................................... iii
Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iv
Table of Content ...................................................................................................................... vi
General Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1
Background of the Study ......................................................................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem ........................................................................................................ 2
Research Questions .................................................................................................................. 3
Aims of the Research ............................................................................................................... 3
Theoretical Framework and Methodology ............................................................................ 4
Structure of the Dissertation ................................................................................................... 4
Chapter One: The social and the Individual ......................................................................... 6
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 6
1.1. Race as a Concept ................................................................................................ 7
2. Racial Formation Theory ............................................................................................ 8
2.1. Race as a Master Category in USA .................................................................... 8
2.1.1. Racialization Process ................................................................................... 9
2.1.2. Racial Projects ............................................................................................ 11
2.1.3. Racial Depotism and Power Relations ..................................................... 13
2.2. Summary ............................................................................................................. 16
3. On the Government of Self and Others ................................................................... 16
3.1. The Platonic Legacy ........................................................................................... 17
3.2. The State of Tutelage ......................................................................................... 18
3.3. Ausgang and the Emancipation of the Self ...................................................... 22
3.4. The Agent ............................................................................................................ 27
3.5. The State of Aufklärung: An Analysis of Present Reality .............................. 28
3.6. Summary ............................................................................................................. 32
Chapter Two: The Minority and their Conditions .............................................................. 33
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 33
1.1. About the author ................................................................................................ 33
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1.2. Synopsis ............................................................................................................... 35
2. The Asian Scare .......................................................................................................... 36
2.1. Impoverished Minority ...................................................................................... 36
2.2. PACT to Maintain the Status Quo .................................................................... 40
2.2.1. Creating the Asian Minority ..................................................................... 42
2.3. Repressive Status quo and Political Despotism ............................................... 46
2.4. Summary ............................................................................................................. 48
3. Missing Hearts: A Deprivation of the Self ............................................................... 50
3.1. PACT: A Promise for the Other ........................................................................ 50
3.2. Missing Hearts: Disruption of the Substance .................................................. 54
3.3. Ausgang and the Revolutionary Project .......................................................... 56
3.4. Bird and Noah: Emancipation of the Self and Segregation of the Other ..... 61
3.5. Summary ............................................................................................................. 62
GENERAL CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 63
Works Cited ............................................................................................................................ 67
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General Introduction
Background of the Study
The author, Celeste Ng, is a prominent writer in contemporary literature. Her
novels Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts explore
themes varying from social justice, minority experiences, and discourse on race. Her
narratives invite both critical acclaim and social appeal by providing various ideas that can
translate through many critical theories such as Marxism, Feminism, and comparative literary
perspectives. This research examines Ng’s contribution to the studies on race and minorities
by analyzing her major dystopian work Our Missing Hearts in a critical lens as a commentary
on racial oppression.
Ng’s novels provide many scopes on the spectrum of racial differences. Her debut
novel, Everything I Never Told You (2014), depicts grief and racial disintegration during the
anti-Asian racism in 1970’s America. The Guardian proclaimed it “an acute portrait of family
psychopathology” (Lawson). Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere (2017), expands on
racial identity and white privilege and adoption. Ng’s most recent work Our Missing Hearts
(2022), presents a dystopian vision of a near future America where Asian Americans undergo
racial persecutions on both a political and social sphere. Stephen King praised her work
spotlighting how important it is in representing the social injustice and systematic oppression
in the USA (King). Celeste Ng’s most significant mark throughout her novels is the focus on
identity, race, and privilege within a political system.
Many academics analyzed Ng’s work using multiple theoretical frameworks. Dwi
Mayang Sagita and Delvi Wahyuni (2017) use Marxist literary theory to Little Fires
Everywhere to show the extent to which surgery and adoption can function as a
commodification to social alienation. This research expands on how economic and social
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structures take advantage of minority women and cause them trauma. Li Huina (2021) use of
Feminism on Ng’s narratives explores the themes of motherhood and representation in light
of patriarchal ideals. The study concludes that mothers are not just child bearers. They have
their own identities and dreams.In addition to that, Junhe Liu (2022) compares Everything I
Never Told You with Maxine Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, arguing that N’s presentation of
Trauma is different than western stereotypes. It attempts to present an authentic
representation of Asian American struggle. It concludes that Ng’s writing offers an authentic
representation to Asian American trauma devoid of western perception on the race. These
studies demonstrate Ng’s work as a prime critical scope by which contemporary racial
discourse can be analyzed. it
Our Missing Hearts develops an argument concerning the dangers of authoritarianism
and racial oppression. The novel depicts future vision of America where Asian Americans are
subdued to strict racial discrimination within a nationalist government. Ng provides a lens on
how legalized oppression emerges through witness accounts. The dystopian frame of the
novel helps by conveying a new height that racial oppression can reach. Ng’s narrative
structure delves into the fragility of civil rights and the systems installed to maintain civil
liberties which societies use to justify discrimination.
Celeste Ng’s work contributes to the academic discussions about race and oppression.
Her novels achieved commercial success and inspired academic discussion and analysis. Ng
uses the themes of power dynamics, family and race to discuss politics and institutions of
oppression; therefore, her academic prowess remains afloat.
Statement of the Problem
When it comes to Ng’s work, there is yet no research done in order to bring insight
into how a democratic nation is able to implement a racist discriminatory policy for the
purpose of creating a minority, nor there is yet any study examining the mental process that a
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minority group undergoes during a repressive regime. More importantly, there is no study that
uses the framework of Racial Formation Theory which uses the concept of Racial Projects.
Racial Projects are the institutions that creates race. The concept is used explore, analyze and
dissect the government’s shift to legalized discrimination toward Asian minorities. On the
other hand, Government of the Self and Others that work with concepts such as State of
Tutelage and Ausgang. The first is the inability to think and decide without guidance, and the
second is the freedom of self-government. These concepts are used in order to delve into the
individual and personal psychological aspects of being an Asian minority. Therefore, this
dissertation attempts to provide an analysis using the aforementioned theoretical frameworks
to find answers to the following questions:
Research Questions
1. Which Racial Projects occur within Our Missing Hearts, and how do these projects
demonstrate Omi and Winant’s concept of racialization as a process of creating and
maintaining racial hierarchies in the USA?
2. How does PACT depict a State of Tutelage in Our Missing Hearts?
3. How do the characters undergo the liberation of Ausgang to break free of a socio-
psychological authoritarian regime in light of Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault’s analysis
in The Government of Self and Others.
Aims of the Research
This research aims at analyzing Our Missing Heart’s view of an imagined version of
the United State in light of discrimination and subjugation of the Asian minorities. The scope
of this analysis is tackled from a community view and individual experiences. Within the
community view, the government of the United States manufactures a new meaning to being
Chinese or Asian using tactics that radicalize the majority against the minority. The second
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view observes individual experiences and how the discriminatory polices effects the persons
within the minority group itself.
Theoretical Framework and Methodology
To achieve the aim of this research, Omi’s theory of Racial Formation is used because
it documents the process on how a concept of race is created and used to achieve interest of a
majority at the cost of the discriminated upon minority. Using Foucault’s lectures on the
Government of the Self and Others, the research tackles the personal and psychological
implications within the individuals in a social group that results in their participation in
discrimination against their own identity as well as others. The ideas in lectures are suitable
for exploring the individual participation in totalitarianism within a broader analysis.
Structure of the Dissertation
The first part of this dissertation delves briefly into the two theoretical frameworks.
First, the commonly known and misunderstood concepts of race then treat how race is
significant with roots that shapes conditions of the United States’ inhabitants. The chapter
will explore Critical Race theory as articulated in the notable work of Michael Omi and
Howard Winant, Racial formation theory, which entails how a race is formed and constructed
in political projects to serve a significant purpose such as when a majority group exercises
and maintains domination over a minority. Secondly, it will show how inequality leads to
inability to manifest or contain equality through a counter historic-ideological analysis of
varying types of governments and societies throughout history: mainly the Greek, Christian,
Nazi, and Soviet social structures in relation to inequality. And with a theoretical framework
supported by the works of Plato, Emmanuel Kant, and Michel Foucault, this fluctuating
subject matter might be rediscovered and resituated.
In the second part of this dissertation, the two theoretical frameworks that are applied
for the analysis of the novel Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng aim to cover two distinct
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sides. First, we see how minorities are formed and maintained in light of the governmental,
political, and the state. This dissertation analyses the process that led to policy shifting in the
government and how the new status quo that positioned the white majority as oppressors to
the Asian minority sustains the said conditions as the norm. This involves imbedding
meaning into physical observable features and creating narratives and beliefs that appears
common sense that exist to serve a purpose and a specific interest which is harmful the
Asians. Then The Government of Self and Others provides an analysis of the internal
properties that render the individuals recipients of social and racial inequality. These
properties are shared by the authoritarian regime in aim of conducting the psychological state
of the characters in Our Missing Hearts. Such conduct and influence of the internal properties
resulted in the complete surrender of the masses and their dismissal of reason in favor of
obedience. This section also endeavors to spotlight the social practices of the individuals
stemmed from the lack of reasoning to support the agenda of the authority. These social
practices vary depending on the psychological agency of the individual from complete
surrender to the shared system of belief, to a conduct of a revolutionary practice in order to
attain liberty.
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Chapter One: The social and the Individual
1. Introduction
This chapter contains the detailed theoretical tools of both theories starting from
Racial Formation theory to The Government of Self and Others. Critical Race Theory
surfaced in the mid-1970 after lawyers and legal scholars argued that the impact of the Civil
Rights Movements had lost momentum and were more likely in need of an adaptation to the
new more implicit forms of systematic oppression and racism. The theory is the study of a
collection of scholars with the aim to study race and racism and the powers that influence it.
The studies, that these lawyers and scholars initiated, analyzed laws and legal procedures
before they evolved to treating and questioning the foundations of cultural, governmental and
judicial orders. The studies also include an activist side that precisely aims to change certain
upheld principles such as hierarchies and racial lines for the better (Delgado and Stefancic 3-
9). With a recent development that concerns different ways of racialization and the effects it
has on minority groups, Michael Omi and Howard Winant introduced their theory, Racial
Formation Theory, for the sake of expanding on the subject.
The second part of the theoretical part endeavors within a philosophical lens to
investigate the social structures of the Greek, Christian, Nazi, and Soviet governments in
relation to inequality and subjugation. Emphasis is placed on the Christian government due to
its thematic relevance to Immanuel Kant’s document An Answer to the Question: What is
Enlightenment?, whilst Michel Foucault’s The Government of Self and Others delves into
other governments and authoritarian structures to provide an adequate analysis of Kant’s
theory “The State of Tutelage”. Throughout such philosophical and historical investigation of
governmentality, this research aims at prescribing the socio-psychological variables within
the individuals that render them subjects to foreign direction.
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1.1. Race as a Concept
The concept of race more often than not defies its common definition. Race itself is
portrayed as embedded within common sense, which is thought of as an unquestioned social
fact that helps shape identity. People assume expertise in the subject with no multiplicity or
tolerance for foreign interpretation that could challenge the common view (Omi and Winant
4). Meriem Webster provides the following definition: “race is any one of the groups that
humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of
shared ancestry.” This simplification obscures the wide reach of the said concept. In fields
such as medicine, social science, humanities, and so on, the concept has different shades of
meaning; thus, rather than attaching a fixed definition to it, race transcends traditional
definitions within which it is usually viewed; the wider the scope of the definition becomes,
the more daunting it is to venture into unfamiliar territory.
It is now commonplace that the concept is merely a construct, a fabricated social
reality, that is ever-changing, never fixed, and, depending on the time and place, carries
distinct connotations. In the study Racial Formation in the United States, Omi and Winant
define Race as a construct, an abstract idea with no objectivity in categorizing differences
between people. They describe race as a process with multiple variables. Furthermore,
historians such as Edgar T. Thompson and Peter Kolchin allude to said variables by linking
them to society, history, or ideology. The anthropologist Edgar T. Thompson provides a
testimony stating, “races are made in culture, not found in nature (qtd. In Peter Kolchin
158).” This definition is reminiscent of Ian Hacking’s definition, who, from the perspective
of a sociologist, claims that race refers to the process of making up other people (qtd. In Omi
and Winant 105). Peter Kolchin, on his own part, concludes that now race is seen as human
fabrication, with its the conventions and structures changing depending on time and place
(158).
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2. Racial Formation Theory
2.1. Race as a Master Category in USA
Race holds a significant position in the United State in that it has always been linked
to the social sphere like social stratification and the question of racism. Race is crucial due to
the fact that racial discrimination is administered by any dominant group to maintain their
hegemony and status quo. For example, white supremacists exploit the social aspects of race
and difference to justify and assert their superiority and the marginalization of subaltern
groups. According to David R. Roediger's The Wages of Whiteness, the white working class
that had existed during the days of the slave holding republic celebrated their whiteness and
rejected any affinity with blacks or slaves to assert their distance from them (qtd. in Kolchin
155). Race defined the class stratification and defined the individual’s conditions in light of
work and worker as well as labor and employment (Omi and Winant 108).
Some important 19th century figures in the United States such as Stephen A. Douglas,
Abraham Lincoln, and Benjamin F. Wade insist on the importance of race in the political and
social order. Douglas envisaged a government built exclusively for white men, and Lincoln,
while opposed to slavery, still persisted in upholding white superiority. Even Wade, a
Republican, expressed his dissatisfaction with other races. These examples illustrate how race
was not only a social construct but also an important factor in deciding policies which often
manifest in the economic and environmental conditions of races in the United States (Peter
Kolchin 165). Beginning from the exploration of the new world and the subjugation and
massacre of the indigenous population to the exploitation of the African slaves, these policies
have shaped the American policies towards subordinated groups (Omi and Winant 107).
Ultimately, race is a medium fit for enforcing oppression to achieve subordination. As a
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result, American Critical Race Theorists examine Race and study it consistently for the sake
of dissecting it and inspiring theoretical frameworks.
The Theory of Racial Formation is a theoretical framework that can define and
analyze how a race is created, established, and maintained. To understand how a race is
manufactured, Omi and Winant established certain characteristics to the phenomena of
classifying the other. Creating a race is universal and the attributes assigned to any race
change constantly. These characteristics are enforced on a social level not only from the
dominant group but also from below, the dominated group (105). In other words, race is
specifically created as a tool to serve specific interests within the United States’s social
sphere. Accordingly, the theory of Racial Formation is defined as a socio-historical process
where racial identities are either created, lived out, transformed, or even destroyed (109). The
theory consists of three concepts that reflect race and its effectiveness. First, Racialization is
the act of giving corporal features meaning in real life. Second, Racial Projects are translated
into social structures. Last, Racial Politics consists of political democracy and racial
hegemony as a racial frame and resistance.
2.1.1. Racialization Process
Racialization is a phenomenon often justified by science for its observable features
and inclusion of biological differences, and it is therefore assumed to provide an objective
analysis of the question of race. Omi and Winant explain that it consists of utilizing
observable features to assign differences to distinct races. The major categories for
differentiating race are mostly skin color, hair texture, and eye shape. In the past, three
derogatory terms for classification were used: negroid, caucasoid, and mongoloid.
However, despite the quasi-scientific slant associated with racialization, the concept
operates in the ideological sphere more often than it does in the scientific sphere. Race is
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produced from false consciousness, an illusion of sorts (109). Omi and Winant cite two
sources of evidence, the American Sociological Association and Thomas dictum. The first is
a report which concludes that racial status is unrepresentative of biological differences (qtd.
in Omi and Winant 110). The second is a sociologist’s perspective which notes that if
someone identifies a certain situation as real, the consequences become real (qtd. in Omi and
Winant 110). Thus, Race is concluded to be a construct rather than a biological difference.
Kolchin backs the former statement by leaning on multiple scholars and their
agreement of categorizing race as a construct in light of the social, the ideological, or the
historical. According to Matthew Frye Jacobson in Whiteness of a Different Color, the
Caucasian race was previously perceived as impure, for it originated from slaves and Celts
before it was embraced as white post 1920s, further proving the ideological nature of the
construct rather than its connection to biology (qtd. in Kolchin 155-156). The Anthropologist
Edgar T. Thompson agrees that race is constructed in culture rather than manifested in nature.
This view is seconded by Stephen Jay Gould, a biologist, who critiques biological
determinism and rejects the notion of hereditary behaviors. Thus, nowadays, it seems, there is
a general consensus that Race is a human-made method of classification with shifting criteria
over time and across space (qtd. in Kolchin 156-157).
Now, given that race is a social construct, it does not exist without serving a hidden
purpose in general. Omi and Winant state that the construct of race is not random or innocent,
but strategic and performs ideological work through its visual dimension. Rationalization
includes the process of stamping social and symbolic meaning to perceived physical
differences. This racial meaning is extended to the observable markers within rituals and
other significant racial practices. Previously, it was mentioned that Omi and Winant agree
that race is produced from false consciousness, an illusion of sorts. Since this illusion serves
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an agenda, the conclusion aligns with Ronald Barthes findings in Mythologies. In
contemporary times, Barthes defines a myth as a type of speech backed by discourse that is
endowed with meaning yet seems natural (107-108). This also corresponds with the aspect of
race in light of the realm of common sense.
Barthes insists that signs such as speech, gestures, or any observable feature is linked
with meaning for unavoidable purposeful agendas (124). Despite the manufactured aspect of
a myth, it is consumed as an obvious fact because it undergoes a process of appropriation
which enables it to be integrated into the social order with less resistance (118); in other
words, despite obvious distortion, a myth is experienced as innocent speech with hidden
intentions because the source of such intentions is naturalized (128-129). Following this line
of argument, race is a myth that has been appropriated and distorted through linking meaning
with signs such as observable aspects like the body or rituals. Yet, it is still consumed as
common sense, mistakenly devoid of agendas. The embedded meaning to the constructed
myth is to become what Omi and Winant define as a Racial Project.
2.1.2. Racial Projects
Omi and Winant insist that race is an artificial construct devoid of arbitrarily natural
inception and that it is made through Racial Projects which ensure certain goals. In another
words, being a mythical construct, Race is a set of signifiers that accumulate with the passage
of time. These signifiers help shape institutions, organizations, as well as organize and
distribute resources. When new conceptions of race emerge or change over time so do social
structures and cultural representation. For instance, a hitherto marginalized group may gain
the upper hand in the wake of shifting signifiers, and the oppressed may become the
oppressor (the Caucasian race for example). Racial Projects manufacture both the ideological
and the practical work for the purpose of maintaining the social structure. They provide a
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meaning, an interpretation, and a simplification to racial identities through careful
representation. Omi and Winant stress that a Racial Project is contrived to establish the
identity parameters of a selected group. On the other hand, a Racist Project is only contrived
to create a subclass where an oppressor group dominates and subjugates another oppressed
group (125). To maintain its superiority, the dominant group employs and propagates a
discourse of power, a subtle yet powerful way of talking about race and identity.
Racial Projects use various methods such as discursive practices which are
ideologically driven to maintain the status quo. Racial Projects attempt to use signification in
order to form political influence, so as to obtain the ability to reshape common sense. Ronald
Barth introduces the concept of Mythical Speech, which is a communicative process by
which myth transforms and naturalizes cultural or ideological meanings (114), so a
benevolent project aims to combat a myth with another less repressive myth. Another method
is Interpellation, which, according to Althusser, is a form of conditioning that produces
submissiveness in the subconscious of a subject. Interpellation is used to reinforce and
reproduce conditions that make exploitation and subjugation possible. He provides the
example from a mundane police interaction where an officer’s holler is enough to command
response thus confirming the actor’s authority (175-176).
Society is full of Racial Projects in many sizes with varying ideological agendas and
as well as the breadth of their scopes. These projects are performed by taking public action,
participating in street and state activities, and publishing in the academic sector and
journalism. These practices are not necessarily specific only to conscious action, for they are
also supported by an individual’s unconscious behavior and experiences. These practices can
attempt to reproduce, extend, subvert, or challenge the status quo, entailing that a Racial
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Project can be dominant while others are either subjugated by it or oppositional to it (Omi
and Winant 125-127).
2.1.3. Racial Depotism and Power Relations
The United States exercised policies of Racial Despotism with Racial Democracy in
its political system, often marrying the conflictual two policies despite their contradictory
nature. Contrary to Racial Democracy, Racial Despotism is a practice aimed at limiting
freedoms through deprivation of life and properties as well as inflicting violence. This is
done, to put it in the words of Althusser, through the Repressive State Apparatus, which
allows for a plethora of ways for enforcing violence (145). A State Apparatus is any
institution, allied to the ruling class, that maintains submission of subjects and reproduces
class struggle (137). The Repressive State Apparatus involves organized units of commands
that belong to the governmental sectors such as police or the army. The repressive use of
power does not only manifest through direct physical altercations or incarcerations; it occurs
through non-physical forms such as administrative repressions and the deprivation of
privileges (Althusser 142-145). This form of state oppression is in line with Omi’s and
Winant’s concept of Racial Body Politics, which states that the a racially othered human
body, both male and female, is an instrument of politics.
The state passes legislation and laws to control individuals through surveillance,
profiling, policing, and confinement. Racial Despotism includes asserting a Color line that
establishes a clear coherent division between the races, a division which demands a constant
institutionalization of ongoing Racial Projects. This rationalization of the Color Line is
embedded in the psyche of the citizen becoming a natural myth (Omi and Winant 131). The
assertion of the Color Line is present also within the Ideological State Apparatus, which
according to Althusser, includes the private institutions such as schools and churches where
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thinking can be manipulated and shaped either through mythical speech or small repressive
practices (145).
The Color Line policy, however, results in an oppositional force through Racial
Resistance. In the course of American history, Racial unification produced revolutions from
the native Americans or even the African slaves (Omi and Winant 131). As a result of Racial
Resistance, the phenomena of Politicization of the Social became mainstream which included
the private life in the political sphere despite the fact that it was deemed private and
depoliticized before World War II. This change allowed policing and assessment of the
everyday mundane interactions, which then resulted in rising awareness of the embedded
racist practices (151).
On the other hand, Racial Democracy provides a platform for opposing Racial
Projects to exist in the political system to achieve a Decay of Capacities within oppressive
governments. This decay allows for certain subclasses or rather certain racial Despotism
projects to influence the repressive institution or even the legislation (Omi and Winant 149).
Antonio Gramsci provides a similar perspective through his use of war as a metaphor to
explore the two types of resistance, War of Position and War of Maneuver. The War of
Maneuver reflects the state of an authoritarian regime that does not allow any discourse
oppositional to the ideology of the status quo. The resistance then uses indirect means such as
underground schools or guerilla warfare to act in opposition. These aspects render The War
of Maneuver unfit for Racial Democracy; on the other hand, War of Position can operate in
Racial Democracy. According to Gramsci, it entails that fully developed societies do not
tolerate direct assault to achieve political change, but rather accept a slower pacifist process
which attempts to create new classes that wear and tear down dominant classes with time
through collective self-organization (Egan 32–34).
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Both Racial Despotism with Racial Democracy are glued together on the political and
social level allowing contradictory practices to exist such as equality and inequality which
enforce race as a master category in the United States (Omi and Winant 137-139). Omi and
Winant borrow Gramsci's approach of Unstable Equilibrium, which states that the system
stays in a constant state of instability due to the contradicting interests, systems and racial
meanings (148). However, for much of American history, they conclude that no political or
democratic legitimacy was achieved, and much of the absence of democratic rights and
material resources was linked to race (143).
According to Omi and Winant. The United States has moved from Racial Despotism
to Racial democracy, but the transition is not complete. They insist that racial coercion and
violence are still common in the 21st century. Thus, the hegemonic state of politics and
Racial despotism prevails despite the aspect of racial democracy within the state. The United
States’s social structure ensures a hegemonic system which is organized according to race.
The state represents the core racial regime which means no state can represent all of its civil
society. According to Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, people consent to the ideologies and
beliefs of the ruling class and by default surrender their will to them. In other words, people
are not subjugated only by force, but rather by beliefs and ideas (Thomas 351-352). The
ruling class, which often is composed of what Gramsci calls organic intellectuals, invoke
subjugation rather than leadership by ensuring that their interests dominate without their
direct involvement (Thomas 353). In the racial context of the US, for instance, Omi and
Winant insist that white supremacy is enforced as a master category of racial hegemony.
Even though insignificant Racial Projects exist, the state represents the tenants of the core
white racial regime (137). After all, Omi and Winant argue, the North American system is
linked to political and racial classification, with all government institutions and sectors
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subscribing to this system despite the existence of both policies of Racial Despotism with
Racial Democracy (140).
2.2. Summary
To sum all up, Racial Hegemony is achieved through maintaining the Ideology of
white supremacy. This ideology is enforced through Racial Despotism and Racial
Democracy. For Racial Despotism, the state establishes a definite Color Line and uses its
Repressive State Apparatuses to deprive people of their human rights for the sake of
stabilizing the ideological regime through practices such as Racial Body Politics. However,
Repressive State Apparatuses generate Racial Resistance in the long run, leading to a Decay
of Capacities inside the state institutions, but if the state is authoritarian, the resistance can
only be active through the War of Maneuver. For Racial Democracy, the state utilizes the
democratic aspect in the War of Position by means of the Ideological State Apparatus in
order to push Racial Projects. These Racial Projects commit acts of Racialization. These acts
imbued meaning into physical features through discursive actions such as Mythical Speech,
and Interpellation. Both Racial Democracy and Racial Despotism are embedded in the
political system for the interest of manufacturing a myth that prevails and assumes the status
of common sense. As long as the aspects of the ideology are mythologized and appear
natural, the Racial Hegemony is maintained and dominates the economic conditions and
social class of the American population. The theory, however, does not describe the
individual since the scope is cultural, systematic, and on a population level. To cover race
from an individualistic aspect, we rely on Michel Foucault’s lectures, The Government of Self
and Others. He provides a view from within an individual experiencing the confines of being
a minority by expanding on the concepts of The State of Tutelage by Emmanuel Kant.
3. On the Government of Self and Others
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3.1. The Platonic Legacy
Plato claimes in The Republic that Justice is a principal concept for the governance of
any social structure. And whilst a simple concept such as Justice does not require much
clarification, Plato argues that the complexity is found in the application of Justice within
social regimes of contrasting ideologies and racial identities. Before relating Justice to the
system of governance, Plato characterized its components to be derived primarily from the
individual himself as an originator and as a conductor of his own rationale, “Justice is the
excellence of the soul,” he argues, “and injustice is the defeat of the soul” (Plato and Jowett
83). And in order to connect Justice to governance he stresses the necessity that it has to be
inscribed in all members of society. He further singles this individual Justice as a Justice of
one’s self recognition and determination that leads to social unity (Plato and Jowett;
bk.1). Justice, the philosopher proclaimes, is a direct consequence of the individual’s internal
intellectual, emotional, and rational faculties. On the opposite side, Injustice is created
through three different concepts: “he only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or
some weakness, has not the power to be unjust.” (Plato and Jowett 99).
Plato aimes at clarifying the function of Justice in a social regime by drafting a
spectrum that relates it to the governing body. He argues that Justice is the Utopic state of
society when originated from the people’s sense of reason and emotion. Then he categorizes
unpunished Injustice as the Dystopian state in which the application of Justice is not linked to
the individual but only ascribed to the body of legislation in the form of law maintenance (a
Justice for the other omitting one’s self). Lastly, suffering Injustice without retaliation is
claimed to be the worst vision of any given human state or social structure (Plato and Jowett;
bk.6).
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The function of Justice within governance lacked application in most societies even
ancient Greece (Durant). Such lack of application came as a result of the fall of Plato’s
philosophy against new concepts foreign to Justice such as Divine Providence and
Supremacy that are advocated by the Christian kingdoms (which are explored in The State of
Aufklärung: An Analysis of Present Reality). That is the case until the last years of the
kingdom of Prussia (1701-1918) where Emanuel Kant writes about his own utopic state on
basis of the Platonic philosophy of individual justice, combined with the aforementioned
Christian theology (Plato and Jowett).
3.2. The State of Tutelage
Due to the primary texts’ use of German words in the absence of a specific
translation, this research, consequently, does not intervene with the wording of the sources
and the terms are kept as the original writers sought appropriate. The terms are presented in
German accompanied with synonymous clarification when required. The German
word Unmündigkeit, translated to French as Minorité, is rendered to English as “Tutelage” by
Lewis White Beck (“What is Enlightenment” in Kant, On History, p.3) while other
translators give the German word a meaning spamming between immaturity and minority.
The material this section dissects follows Lewis White Beck’s translation (Tutelage) due to
Kant’s use of Ummündigkeit to evoke both a legal sense of minority (the condition of being
minor) and the developmental physical and psychological sense of immaturity (lack of
ability). Graham Burchell’s translation of The Government of Self and Others from French to
English delimites the use of Tutelage as well to cover the German meaning in the
word Ummündigkeit: “I have opted for tutelage as capturing better than either of these the
sense of the condition of being under instruction, guidance, and guardianship.” Other German
words are kept in their native language by both Graham Burchell and Michel Foucault in
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treating Emmanuel Kant’s original text An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment!
1782 as this research follows and respects.
Emmanuel Kant’s text replaces the concept formerly discussed (Justice) and places its
elemental components in a newfangled concept of his own (Tutelage). Whilst Plato’s Justice
holds origins in the absence of three elements (Age - Cowardice - Weakness), Kant linkes his
Tutelage to three principles as well leading to the same circumstances to Plato’s: Laziness -
Cowardice – Fear. The absence of these elements leads to the individual’s self-awakening
and their presence constitutes a Tutelage State.
Tutelage, thereafter, is better defined through the function of its three components.
Laziness, cowardice, and fear, says Emmanuel Kant: “are the reasons why so great a
proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance, nonetheless
gladly remain in lifetime immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves
as their guardians.” (Kant, par.2). The Foucault directs the function of the three components
to an overwhelming sense of individual deprivation, “it’s so easy to be immature,” he argues,
“I need not exert myself at all, I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily
undertake that irksome work for me” (Kant, par.2). The abandonment of one’s internal
faculties even in the simplest daily activities renders the human incapable of directing his
own self. Yet this direction is not left unattended, varying “others” are to intervene and
resume conduct of the individual’s affairs which he surrenders. The action of surrendering is
not a consequence of a lack of understanding, but rather due to the interference of the three
elements that stabilizes any action that could have been raised by one’s understanding:
“immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another, not the
lack of understanding, but the lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance.” (Kant,
par.1).
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Before there can be a pragmatic definition of The State of Tutelage, the process by
which an individual is placed under its dominion ought to be situated. Kant offeres three
criteria that such process demands to work steadily. These criteria are “Verstand” (one’s
understanding), “Artz” (physicist), and “Seelsorger” (spiritual director). The criteria are
dissected in Michel Foucault’s The Government of Self and Others, and this section is to
conduct its study on Foucault’s analysis of Kant’s theory.
Foucault recognizes Kant’s three elements of individuality and the criteria under
which they function and deemes them of unequivocal importance to form the state of
Tutelage. He spottes the interrelation between the three criteria and their fabrication of
obedience. An example is offered to showcase the interrelation. He exemplifies that if a
certain individual has a book or a teacher, they would “take the place of understanding
(Verstand)” (Foucault, et al. 49). And if he has a spiritual director (Seelsorger), being a priest
or religious adviser, that would replace his “moral consciousness.” (Foucault, et al.
49). “And if I have a doctor (Artz) who decides my diet for me”, he says, “I do not need to
take trouble myself.” (Foucault, et al. 49). This exemplifies the origin of the condition of
Tutelage for both Kant and Foucault. Correspondingly, the complete submission of one’s
internal faculties leads to substitution. Having the individual’s primary functions between his
physical and mental being taken by an outside influence creates a substitution. His Verstand is
substituted with Laziness to seek understanding within the authority of a book or a teacher.
His moral consciousness with a Seelsorger that assumes spiritual guidance over the individual
and hence a sense of Fear originates in relation to the dictated spirituality. And Artz takes
over the principles that govern the individual’s physical health and proclaims him Cowardice
that prevents him from regulating the simplest portions of his physical care (Foucault, et al.
50).
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Through the collaboration of the three components (Laziness - Fear - Cowardice) with
the criteria presented (Verstand - Seelsurger - Artz), Tutelage is consequently defined as the
individual’s “inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another”
(Foucault, et al. 45). Foucault proclaimed that this idea contrasts with the motto of the
Enlightenment that Kant takes to heart while drafting his piece: “Supere Aude (Have the
courage to use your own understanding)” (Foucault, et al. 47). The individual adheres to
foreign affluence keenly; henceforth, The State of Tutelage is not a forceful dominion over a
society, “it is not even a form of authority that Kant deems illegitimate” (Foucault, et al. 49).
Foucault contends, it is rather due to the individual not wanting to take charge of himself:
“man is responsible himself for this Tutelage” (Foucault, et al. 45). Tutelage is a mode of
behavior and an attitude toward one’s self, a dismissal of individual uniqueness. It is not a
matter of the deprivation of rights but the surrender of rights by the individual. And through
abandoning resolve and courage to direct his living, the individual finds himself surrounded
by others who have succeeded to denounce their Tutelage and desire to form authority over
him: “The guardians who have benevolently taken over the supervision of men, have
carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard
taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention having made their entire
livestock dumb…”. These Others further their actions, as Kant writes: “... having carefully
made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the gocart to which
they are harnessed.” (Kant, par.1). These guardians then show the individual the danger that
threatens him if he ever applies the use of his understanding and attempts to walk alone
(Foucault, et al. 48).
Whilst the condition of obedience originates internally through the aforementioned
elements (Laziness - Fear - Cowardice) and their integration with the criteria presented by
Foucault (Verstand - Seelsurger - Artz), The State of Tutelage perpetuates its dominance over
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the individual through specific mental stratagems. These stratagems aim at maintaining the
masses within absolute dependency and at rendering them incapable of questioning the
surrounding circumstances (Foucault, et al. 44-58). While Kant deems these stratagems that
form the process of Tutelage unbreakable, Foucault regards theme as a mastery over the
individual sense of being, albeit they can be breakable (Foucault, et al. 53). The State of
Tutelage requires so little surveillance throughout the routines of the masses, due to its
regulation and reconstruction of the Self (the individual’s mind and spirit) within the
prejudice of the Other (the head of authority).
3.3. Ausgang and the Emancipation of the Self
Michel Foucault, and while attributing much momentum to the process of
Tutelage, depictes Kant’s unbreakable process to be limited to the Ausgang. A Tutelage
manifestation of a social regime can only be diminished through the four constituents
of Ausgang which lead to the liberation of one’s mental and external entity from the influence
and direction of another (Foucault, et al. 45-58).
Ausgang, though briefly tackled by the originator (Immanuel Kant), is prioritized in
the phenomenon of Tutelage by Michel Foucault in The Government of Self and Others. He
links the German word to a French equivalent “sortie”. Foucault defines Ausgang within the
phenomenon of Tutelage as: “a way out, exit, a movement by which one extricates oneself
from something without saying anything about what one is moving towards” (Foucault, et al.
46). This section focuses on Ausgang and its four constituents by which both an individual
and a social entity can break from the regime of the State of Tutelage.
The four constituents of Ausgang function to emancipate the individual from another's
authority on both a mental and social stage as a reaction to the Tutelage process that stabilizes
both the individual’s mind and the social functions.
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First of these liberating constituents is “Wahlspruch”. The French scholar defines it as
“...a maxim, precept, or order given to others and to oneself” (Foucault, et al.
47). Wahlspruch, henceforth, is both a mental announcement and an external declaration that,
as Foucault writes, “identifies oneself and enables one to distinguish oneself from others.”
(Foucault, et al. 47). This first stage is both an order to decipher the individual’s identity
outside the influence of another, and also a distinctive mark that separates him from that
other. It is a creation of one’s self.
Foucault proceeds to link the emergence of Wahlspruch to the three criteria discussed
above (Verstand - Seelsurger - Artz). And while these three criteria can birth a state of
Tutelage, the paradox is situated in their ability to break it as well. This new function of the
criteria, he writes, “is found in the way in which the individual makes these three authorities-
the books, the spiritual director, and the doctor-work in relation to himself.” (Foucault, et al.
49). It is the adoption of the criteria that imprison. And it is the reutilization of their function
that leads to the emancipation of the self from the authority of the Other. As Foucault
describes, it is a reutilization of a weapon used against one’s freedom to gain that freedom.
The individual has to reutilize the three criteria and substitute the book/teacher with his own
understanding. The spiritual direction with his own moral consciousness. And he uses his
own knowledge to substitute the physicist’s orders in regard to his own physical
being. By doing so, the first step to liberation is achieved (Foucault, et al.).
The second phase of Foucault’s path to emancipating the self out of foreign
authoritarianism is named “Beruf”. The German word communicates a sense of discovery of
one’s worth accompanied with that of others. It emerges when another who can think for
himself escapes the imprisonment of laziness, cowardice, and fear, and assumes authority
over others, an authority which “these others request.” (Foucault, et al. 52). And by taking the
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direction of the other, few of these individuals start experiencing a vocation. Within this
vocation, a sense of rights is created, one that is empowered by the recognition of self-worth.
This awareness of the Self spreads and turns into an acknowledgment of “the will of every
man to do the same, that is to say, think for himself” (Foucault et al. 53).
While the first stage provides a sort of individual authority by applicating the
strategies used against one’s self to break free. Beruf takes a further step and creates a void
within the individual where he can associate himself with this newfangled perception of
worth, not just a personal worth, but that of the society as well. Beruf is the mental void
where liberators are self-constructed (Foucault, et al. 53).
Following the creation of a mental void, comes its fulfillment with a specific tool
Foucault named “Rasonnieren” (Reasoning). The condition of Tutelage, asserts Foucault, is
characterized by the constitution of two unjustified and illegitimate couples: a couple formed
by obedience and the absence of reasoning, and a couple formed by the private and public use
of the reasoning (Foucault, et al. 35). The first couple of reason is found in most governments
where the head of the state (in most cases governor) would have the governed believe that
there can only be obedience where there is the absence of reasoning. Tutelage is further
argued in this light, as the “affiliation of obedience and the absence of Rasonnieren”
(Foucault et al. 54). It is the negation of using one’s faculties of reason. The use of the second
couple (public and private use of reason) directs the methods that the liberators use to connect
their own reasoning with social circumstances. The public use of reason represents the
cosmic existence of the individual. It is the fulfilling instrument that satisfies the void
of Beruf and allows one to connect with social life. It is also the personal understanding
reached when an individual places himself in his Universal Elements (living circumstances)
in which he can figure a Universal Subject (such as purpose, will, destiny, etc.). Foucault
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remarks that no political activity, administrative function, or form of economic practice
places an individual in a Universal Subject, because one can only function as a Universal
Subject when as a rational being can address all other rational beings. And such spaces do not
require or desire rationale; they rather demand a private use of reasoning. Henceforth, the
private use of one’s reasoning is only associated with workplace and institutional duty
required by the state (Foucault, et al. 54). When belonging to a society, institution, or political
body, Immanuel Kant argues that “we are parts of a machine, placed in a given spot, with a
precise role to play, with other parts of the machine having to play different roles. To that
extent we do not function as a Universal Subject but as an individual” (Kant, par.7).
Foucault comments that “we have to make a precise use of our faculties within a system
which is charged with an overall and collective function. That is private use” (Foucault et al.
55). It is then, a civic duty to one’s state which denounces the application of universal
(public) reasoning.
After recognizing the uses of Reason, the way out from Tutelage is in the Substance
between the private and public use (Foucault, et al. 55). In a State of Tutelage, one obeys the
authority no matter the case, both in public and private spheres. But in the process
of Ausgang, Kant argues that reasoning and obedience should be disconnected. Obedience
ought to be emphasized in private use, and the total and absolute freedom of reasoning should
be emphasized in the public use (this is Kant’s first condition for the State of Aufklärung as
will be addressed). With the right substantiation between the public and private use of
reasoning, the individuals become capable of inspecting the regime of the state on basis of
their universal understanding while assuming their civic duty to the state without which they
would be excommunicated (Kant, par.8). yet if the Substance is surpassed by the private side
of reasoning and universal understanding is overcome by unquestioning obedience, the
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individual has the right to break from his civic duty to the state and proceed to the last
constituent of Ausgang (Kant, par.8).
A Tutelage State which performs restrictions not just on the physical being of the
individual but also on his ability to reason and make sense of his circumstances must break
the Substance. When the state uplifts the private use with obedience over the public use with
freedom, the individual finds himself in a position requiring to denounce the private use and
accommodate the public use completely while demolishing all aspects of obedience,
henceforth, a state of Revolution (Foucault et al. 53).
The Revolution is the final stage of Ausgang to liberate the people from the
government of the other into the government of the self. It revolts against all the necessary
illusions demonstrated by the Other. It also maneuvers (to a certain level) the autonomic
disabilities used by the government (such as fear-cowardice-and laziness) in order to
discharge the mass into a state of liberal conformity where obedience is applicable through
the process of public reasoning as it becomes rational and just. Foucault’s Revolution is by no
means a strategic or armed uprising; it is rather a reawakening of the consciousness of the
Self. The uprising is empowered by the companionship of the individuals aiming
at restricting the government of the Other control of their internal faculties that rendered them
docile. Thus, the Revolution stage can take many dimensions (political, economic, cultural,
etc.) (Foucault et al. 56-58).
Within the revolutionary stage, the revolting mass gets divided into two
categories, first of which is named “Ganglewagen” (the wheeled cart which guides children).
Foucault claims that if “they are released in an authoritarian way from their Ganglewagen,
they will be afraid of falling, unable to walk or cross the narrowest ditch, and they will fall”
(Foucault et al. 51). He further exemplifies the condition of Ganglewagon as the “reverse
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image of the flight of reason”; that while going beyond its limits, “…does not even know
there is no atmosphere to support it” (Foucault et al. 51). This condition is created due to the
inability of the masses to design a path after liberation. Here we raise a former point
discussed in the first stages of Ausgang, where it was defined as: “a way out, exit, a
movement by which one extricates oneself from something without saying anything about
what one is moving towards.” (Foucault et al. 46). The identifiable direction by the end of
the Ausgang is manifested in the condition of Gangelwagen which concludes its process.
After liberating oneself from the State of Tutelage, the masses lose the social contract with
the government of the Other that conducted their lives. Thereafter, they are placed in an
interregnum and a vacancy of authority characterized by a lack of survival skills. That is the
direct consequence of the years an individual spends under the rule of the Other and the
dismissal of their autonomic faculties due to fear-cowardice-laziness that keep them from
attaining any living experience (Foucault et al. 48-51).
The mental fragility that is depicted in the social masses during the Revolution
communicates their lack of autonomic sufficiency as surviving victims of a Tutelage State. As
a consequence, they desire and demand for a new Other to hold conduct of their living affairs.
As a response, the second category of the Revolution which forms its conclusion emerges:
The Agent of Aufklärung (Foucault et al. 46).
3.4. The Agent
After the Revolution, Immanuel Kant remarks the removal of certain obstacles which
previously opposed the individual making use of his reason. Yet years spent in laziness-fear-
cowardice demolish any aspiration for a truthful liberation, “The after effect of abandoning
one self’s conduct is stout and scarcely removable” (Kant, par.11-12).
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Michel Foucault furthers Kant’s idea of individual fragility and reiterates that the
individual is unable to get out from the condition of Tutelage by himself. “Why are they
unable to get out of the condition of Tutelage?” the French philosopher inquires, “it is
precisely for the same reason given for them being in the condition of Tutelage and for their
responsibility for their own condition of Tutelage. It is because they are cowards, because
they are lazy, because of their fear” (Foucault et al. 52). When they are released from their
binds to authority, the masses “would not take the decision to walk on their own two feet and
would fall.” (Foucault et al. 52). With a connection to their former binds, the masses fear
conduct of themselves. They were in the condition of Tutelage owing to cowardice, laziness,
and fear, and they can not get out of this condition precisely because they are cowards, lazy,
and fearful (Foucault et al. 52).
The Government of Self and Others recognizes the slow process by which reasoning
functions within the abandoned autonomic faculties. It also clarifies the inability of most
individuals to fulfill the liberation process at least in the public use of their own reasoning. As
a reaction, it presents them with the ideal subjugator. The Agent of Aufklärung succeedes in
the process of Ausgang to emancipate himself from the totalitarian regime. Owing to his
superior autonomy and a precise Substance between public and private reasoning, the Agent
emerges as a sole survivor and an ideal dominator (Foucault et al. 56).
Whilst Ausgang liberates the autonomy of the individuals on minimal grounds which their
own faculties can comprehend, it works optimally on one individual. The Agent develops an
advanced sense of reasoning and moves to direct the “docile creatures” (Kant, par.2). He
represents their most desired ruler after an authoritarian liberation (Foucault et al.57).
3.5. The State of Aufklärung: An Analysis of Present Reality
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This final portion of the research drives the aforementioned theological sphere to a
study on governance and social structures of A Present Reality (Foucault et al).
A State of Aufklärung is the opposite social structure to A State of Tutelage.
“Was ist Aufklärung! What is Enlightenment!” was Immanuel Kant’s question in the first
portion of his text. He proceedes to design an answer: “a man’s way out from his self-
incurred tutelage” (Kant, par.1). It is the “Supere Aude!” out of tyranny: having the courage
to use your own understanding that emancipates the Self from foreign conduct as Foucault
responds to the question (Foucault et al. 45). It is also the exact opposition of Tolerance.
Michel Foucault illustrates Tolerance as “precisely what excludes reasoning, discussion, and
freedom of thought in its public form, and only accepts it-tolerates it- in a personal, private
and hidden use” (Foucault et al. 56). Thus, Aufklärung is defined as the counter opposite of
Tutelage that gives freedom to the dimension of the public and universal reasoning. And it
maintains obedience in the private role within the social body (Foucault et al.56). A State of
Aufklärung is the perfect state which Plato discussed long before Immanuel Kant and Michel
Foucault.
Michel Foucault relates Kant’s theory of Tutelage to present realities and social
structures and further critiques it. The German Philosopher writes that nothing is more
imperative than that we should not, like cattle, follow the herd of those who have gone before
us. He elevates the human understanding over all other sciences, hierarchies, or social
structures. Yet, Foucault critiques Kant’s approach to human understanding. An Answer to the
Question: 'What Is Enlightenment?' by Immanuel Kant devotes a great section of its finale to
the praise of Frederick II, monarch of Prussia (1740-1786) under whose rule the philosopher
thrived. Foucault argues that the admiration is clear when he entitled the monarch an Agent of
Aufklärung heading a divine Christendom where religious legislation is left outside the
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affluence of the government while it conducts all other living matters. The Kingdom of
Prussia is a government of unparalleled Substance, argues Kant: “it is a government
embodying Aufklärung that redistributes the relationship between the government of the
other and the government of the self where the ruler says: “argue as much as you want, but
obey” (Kant, par.6). By way of alternative, Foucault dedicates his last portion of text to
resituate Kant’s critique of governance and recenter it within the scope of a Present Reality.
Through the analysis of the history of modern philosophy (the mapping of historical and
philosophical events in regards to real world consequences) Foucault analyzes the limits of
Kant’s theory of Tutelage (Foucault et al. 39). He revoltes over the notion of Frederick II
being named an Agent of Aufklärung. He further spotts the historical paradox with this Agent
facing a revolution that disintegrated his authority: “In the 1798 text, revolutionary
enthusiasm replaces or succeeds the king of Prussia in the role he was given in the 1784 text
as Agent of Aufklärung” (Foucault et al.58).
Foucault moves further to attain a connection between Kant’s theory and other
governments. Other social structures are inspired by Kant’s authoritarian philosophy in the
late 20th century. Michel Foucault markes the ideologico-mythical landscape to which Kant’s
State of Tutelage got reincarnated in the Nazi state. Wherein the Agent of Aufklärung (Adolf
Hitler) deconstructes the mission of an Agent after taking authority and turnes the
revolutionary state into a Tutelage regime. His aim at authority was accompanied with a
mythical inspiration to control the masses by spreading the reawakening of the spirit of their
greatest German king: Frederick II. This reawakening couples with a systematic
dehumanization of the Other (all but the Arian race). This dehumanization helpes to capture
the complete obedience of the individual by reconstructing him as the human spacemen, as
Johannes Steizinge put it in The Dehumanization Strategies in Nazi Society (Kronfeldner,
sec.6).
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Another social structure that is analyzed by Foucault is the Soviet Union that
constructes a similar social system to Tutelage. Foucault assertes that the Soviet inscription of
The State of Tutelage within a “silent mechanism” (Foucault, ch.4) promotes an alternative
body of consciousness for the masses. Such consciousness, argues Foucault, leads to a
fulfillment of the condition of obedience against all others that it claimes to be class enemies
to society. This threatening Other becomes even a biological threat to the individual in light
of complete obedience. The Soviet inscription focuses more on the enemy that should be
eliminated, and not the individual that should reason, which leads to the hardship of creating
an Agent (Foucault, ch.4).
With the Nazi Agent turning against the mission of liberating, and the Soviet
abandonment of an Agent in order to have excessive authority, the role of the Agent after
liberation is unclear. Whilst a dystopian State of Tutelage demands unfazed obedience, the
utopian State of Aufklärung claims obedience within the private use of reason and gives
liberty to the public use. The Agent on the other hand, can be demonstrated as the most
crucial part of the revolution and of the creation of a State of Aufklärung. His autonomic
faculties that attained him freedom are given power and social authority as he pronounces
himself the new head of the government. Foucault claimes that such faculties under which the
lives of so many are detained, could deprive the Agent of his reasoning with the first glimpse
of power. As an expert on the intricate relation between power and human nature, Foucault
states that the Agent can easily be turned against his mission into a dictator when given power
(Foucault et al.).
Thus, the social structure when freed from the authority of the Other, becomes bound
to the latitudes by which power appeals to the Agent. And given that there are no strategies
for any individual to detain such affluence and proceed to the promise of Aufklärung, the
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Agent will most certainly install his own prejudices in replacement of the old. Henceforth, the
Agent installs himself as the new Other, and The State of Aufklärung is led towards its
cyclical metamorphosis into creating a new Tutelage state serving under the prejudices of the
Agent. That is until the process of time brings forth a new age of revolution and a new Agent
that is all but new (Foucault et al.).
3.6. Summary
Throughout the analysis of social structures, emphasis has always been paid on the
authoritarian surveillance and enforcement of the other. Nonetheless, the vacancy of an
autonomic faculty within the masses to accept such conduct took Plato, Immanuel Kant, and
Michel Foucault’s full registration owing to its importance. The spectrum of human docility
translated into thought and language by the three philosophers claimed the victim of
authoritarianism one of his own victimizing due to his acceptance of authority. And through
the process of Ausgang that designs an exit from a Tutelage State, it falls back into another
Tutelage due to the excess of power and its effect on the human nature of the Agent.
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Chapter Two: The Minority and their Conditions
1. Introduction
In this chapter, the application of the previously mentioned concepts is to be applied
on the novel Our Missing Hearts. The use Government of Self and Other in addition to Racial
Formation Theory on the novel is done for the purpose of discovering whether the Chinese
minority race is formed by a project and the individuals are subjects of stages of Ausgang.
The first part of the Chapter two uses the concepts of Racial formation which are
Racialization, Racial Projects, and Racial Despotism to study the policies and the realities
determining the lives of the Asian minority in the novel. After determining whether there is
any myth of racialization, the section aims to spot whether there is any type of Racial Project
Spreading the myths and what interest does it serve. It then uses the concepts of Racial
Despotism to conclude the type of Racial Despotism and whether each of the Wars, of
Maneuver and Position, are in effect in the novel.
The second practical section of this research endeavors to spot the strategic
governmental practices in Our Missing Hearts. This section links between Celeste Ng’s novel
and the theories of Michel Foucault as well as Immanuel Kant aiming to analyze the aspects
of authoritarianism inflicted by PACK. It also showcases the latitudes to which the characters
in the novel experience dependency and revolution.
1.1. About the author
Celeste Ng's biography is nothing but grand accomplishments and valor in academic
and artistic endeavors. She grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Shaker Heights, Ohio.
She graduated from Harvard University then earned a Masters in Fine Arts from the Helen
Zell Writers’ program in the University of Michigan. She has published many works of
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fiction and essays in major publications such as the Guardian and the New York Times, and
has earned major accolades such as receiving a Pushcart prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and
a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship (“About Celeste”).
Celeste Ng has published three novels so far, each a major success. Her debut novel
Everything I Never Told You in 2014 is a New York Times Best seller, a winner of
Massachusetts Book Award, Asian Pacific American Award for Literature, and Alex Award.
It has been translated to more than 30 languages with a screen adaptation in progress. Her
second novel Little Fires Everywhere in 2017 took the first spot in New York Times
Bestseller list followed by major awards like winner of Ohioana Award and Goodreads
Readers’ Choice Award 2017 in Fiction with an adaptation as a Hulu TV series. Her third
novel, the subject of this dissertation, Our Missing Hearts (2022), became an instant hit upon
publication (“About Celeste”).
She was prompted by both historical and current real-world events, namely the
centuries-long record in the U.S. of using child removal as a means of political domination.
For example, the recent surge of anti-Asian prejudice during the 2020 pandemic. The
internment of Japanese Americans during World War II inspired her as well. One of the side
characters in the novel Ethan revises his etymologies, which were based on her father's
scholarly work on Chinese history and were inspired by guerrilla art and Gene Sharp, who is
an American political scientist, especially his writings on nonviolent resistance. The
Common, which is a residence where the protagonist Bird live, has a yarn knitted net as a
symbol of protest which is inspired by the pacifist yarn bombing protests in both the United
Kingdom and America, while the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement resisting China's
imposed security laws also inspired her artwork. The title is a nod to the Facebook group Our
Missing Hearts, which brings awareness to missing people. Last, she examined how
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institutions like PACT justify discrimination and suppress expression in the name of safety
and security (Ng “Author’s Note”).
1.2. Synopsis
The novel is set in a dystopian American setting with a national security program
called PACT (Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act) that is aimed at preserving
and maintaining American ideology and its hegemony. Noah Gardner, nicknamed Bird, is a
12-year-old boy who has Asian features and lives with his father in a university dorm. His
father, Ethan, is a disgraced linguistics professor turned into a librarian. Bird is friends with a
girl named Sadie, and through their friendship, Bird learns about PACT and how it is
imposing authoritarian systems on the American people. PACT achieves its goal through
surveillance and censorship and through removing children from their parents. Sadie
confesses that she is one of the children removed from their parents before she disappears a
week after. Bird finds a mysterious letter that opens a trail of clues for him to follow. After
causing trouble for his father and nearly opening an investigation on them, the clues take Bird
to New York. He leaves his father a note before running away implying he is in New York
looking for his mother. Bird finds the daughter of a successful businessman, Domi Duchess,
and she takes him to his mother who has been living in an abandoned building.
Bird connects with his mother, Margaret, once more as she tells him all about how she
grew up. As a kid, her parents urge her to avoid being perceived different than the majority
whites in American culture for her safety then she talks about growing into adulthood where
various politicians and radio influencers blame the current American economic crisis on
China. The blame evolves later on to tremendous hatred toward any citizen with Asian
features. Her parents die as a cause of the occurring fear mongering while she survives on
scraps with four other people in a small one-room apartment. She meets Ethan by accident,
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then they grow fond of each other, and later on, through Ethan’s connections, they build a
comfortable life with all life’s necessities for a family.
During their comfortable lives and while Margret is pregnant with Bird, the hatred
toward Asians goes out of control, which leads to congress passing PACT. Margret writes a
poetry book and publishes it years after Bird is born. It grows to fame very quickly. The book
fumes the fires of the already existing protests, causing PACT agents to investigate her and
Ethan with attempts at taking Bird away. She packs her bags and leaves her family leaving
Bird with Ethan hoping because Ethan is white the whole investigation would stop.
Margaret goes to her rich friend Domi and asks for help. She travels the United States
from one state to another looking for stories that fuel anti-PACT sentiments and years later
she meets with her son when he finds her by following the clues she has left him. She enjoys
her days with her son then leaves him with Domi, who takes him to a cabin where he finds
Sadie, for Margaret has to finish her last project. She has been spreading small speakers
hidden into bottle caps all over New York. She opens confessions of the people she has met
during her travels and reads them for New Yorkers to hear. She keeps reading until PACT
agents track her and stop her. Domi, who was her getaway driver, leaves after Margret is
caught and gets Ethan to reunite him with his son. The book ends on a hopeful note that Bird
is to see his mother again.
2. The Asian Scare
2.1. Impoverished Minority
In the novel Our Missing Hearts, race plays a pivotal role in the United State.
Depending on which race citizens are, their lives can either be oppressed or dignified. Race
dominates, restrains, and oppresses the two aspects of American life which are that both the
social and the economic conditions.
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The concept of race controls the social conditions in the novel. Asian groups in the
novel suffer from an unwelcome and an arbitrary harassment for the sole reason of being of
Asian origin. The two protagonists, Bird and Margret, are established to have Asian features.
Margaret Miu is the daughter of two Chinese immigrants, “Miu, who is the child of Chinese
immigrants and has a young son (Ng pt.1).” In addition, her son, the text implies, looks
different than his white father, “You could see it in Bird’s face, if you looked: all the parts of
him that weren’t quite his father, hints in the tilt of his cheekbones, the shape of his eyes (Ng
pt.1).” These aspects which causes the two protagonists to look distinctively apart from the
white majority of the united states’ citizens. Looking apart from the majority invites
harassment and abuse in a racially hierarchical society like the United States’ and the novel
exemplifies it.
Margret’s parents immigrated to the states in search for better living conditions. “Her
parents’ aspirations carried them across the sea, so for her, an aspirational name: Margaret.
(Ng pt.2).” The author omits the reason on to why her parents left their home country and
only focuses on their residency in the states. The parents name the protagonist Margret so she
can assimilate easily with the American culture. After building a sustainable life in the
America, they find a bomb in their mailbox, and because they are Asian. Their racial origine
which is visible causes them consonant adversity. “The bomb in their mailbox two months
before she was born (Ng pt.2).”, Her parents feel like they have to compensate for not being
American enough because they do not look white. They rationalize the discrimination that is
enforced upon them to be caused by their being different than what is perceived to be the
norm and not systematically from a determined racial hierarchy, so they attempt to assimilate
with the culture further, “Blending in, they decided, was their best option. So, after she was
born, [...] Her father’s saying: The stick hits the bird that holds its head the highest. Her
mother’s: The nail that sticks up gets hammered down (Ng pt.2).” Margret’s parents are first-
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generation immigrants, and thus, this puts pressure on them to avoid discrimination even
before the said discrimination is legalized and institutionalized as PACT, a government act
that battles anti-American sentiment, “PACT was decades away, but her parents felt it
already (Ng pt.2).”
Margaret has her share of discrimination. She is often treated badly by random
bystanders. During that time, the states are under an economic depression which means that
poverty is dominant. While working on her deliveries, she gets blamed for the occurring
depression, “sometimes on her deliveries, people spat in her face, told her this was China’s
fault (Ng pt.2).” During PACT, her son, nicknamed Bird, inherited the same hardship making
it a pattern and a generational experience. For example, the boy has been called slurs and
bullied at school, “Kung-PAOs, some kids called them. This was not news. You could see it
in Bird’s face (Ng pt.1).” The author emphasized that the slurs are not uncommon which
reinforce the idea that discrimination on minority group is either unpunished or legal. In this
case, the Asian minorities are placed under the white majority when it came to manners and
protection rights.
Race decides the economic conditions as well. Throughout the novel, there is no
single Asian person who has a dignified life with all examples experiencing a certain form of
economic struggle even after the economic crisis. In New York city, there is a clear
difference between the central community and the marginalized Chinatown community. In
central New York, it is evident that it harbors flowing investments and projects. It has been
described in the novel as a colorful place close to a fairy tale yet devoid of Asian
representation other than one Asian woman who has been assaulted:
Only when he’s left Chinatown, and the faces around him become Black and
white instead of Asian […] The people who pass carry heavy plastic bags, roll
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shopping carts, avoid each other’s eyes. They do not linger […] The way
things used to be, that golden pre-Crisis world he’s only heard about. More
taxis, nicer ones, newer. Cleaner, as if they’ve just been washed. The
streetlights are shiny black here, taller, sleeker, as if here there is more space
to hold their heads high […] an East Asian woman with long black hair,
carelessly pulled back in a knot. […] The man towering over her, kick, kick,
kick, soft sickening thumps like a mallet on meat: her belly, her chest (Ng
pt.1).
The author describes heads being held high which is caused by economic security and
the inclusion of shopping carts determines the citizen’s ability to afford consumed goods. The
clean streets reflect government projects such as constant street maintenance workers.
Clearly, this side of New York which dominated by the white majority and African
Americans is unaffected by the economic crisis and instead is under a rising commerce and
business.
On the other hand, Chinatown is described as less dignified land with shops hanging
patriotic signs to prevent any assumptions of disloyalty to the American regime even if they
have to pretend that the Chinese language does not exist, for pre-crisis, all signs used to have
both languages. The shopkeepers in Chinatown streets do not have enough resources to
renovate their businesses, so they use impoverished means such as paint and duct tape to
brand their shops:
All the signs here in Chinatown, something has been painted out or taped over
or, in some cases, pried away. He can still see the perforations where
something was once nailed on, still make out shapes embossed beneath
silvery-gray duct tape. He notices that the street signs have been painted over,
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too [...] Only when he spots one where the paint has begun to wear away,
revealing a thicket of characters beneath, does he understand [...] once, all
these signs bore two languages. Someone—everyone—has tried to make the
Chinese disappear (Ng pt.1).
Comparing both streets, unlike central New York, in China town, there are no heads
held high, no clean shops and signs of wealth. It reflects all aspects of an economic crisis and
a population that erases its culture out of fear of the country’s oppressive state apparatus. The
impoverish China town harbors neither growing investments and nor commerce of consumed
goods. These conditions which effect the Asian minority are devoid of arbitrariness but are a
direct result of an occurring Racial Project which enforces these conditions of poverty and
discrimination in addition to maintaining them. The Racial Project proves to be successful,
for it results in generation discrimination and determination of economic conditions of the
Asian minorities.
2.2. PACT to Maintain the Status Quo
PACT is a Racial Project which has been created to establish a new hegemony
transforming Chinese people or any aspect related to that race such as language or traditional
practices to be placed in a subclass social category. PACT has been established under specific
conditions which coincided with specific events and acts that are mentioned throughout the
progression of the novel; in addition, it utilized both State Apparatuses, the Repressive and
the Ideological, to ensure the continuity of the status quo.
PACT as an act is established after certain circumstances that have prepared the
United States’ population for its arrival; in other words, it starts on a micro civilian level then
it becomes plausible for it to be ratified on a macro governmental level. It is established that
harassment of Asian minorities is accepted yet not clearly acknowledged and legalized by
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law. During Margaret's parents’ time, discrimination has already been a common aspect of
their lives. The civilians causing their continuous distress are left unpunished and
anonymous; moreover, these conditions are not random and are possibly linked to the
Chinese growing economy that rivals that of the United States. There are consecutive events
that hastened signing PACT which consist of various cases of public participation in
Mythical Speech, and some by the States’ own State Apparatus. Congressman uses his
influence to spread Mythical Speech in the form of various claims. For example, he stresses
that China is the perpetrator of the acclaimed collapsed economy in the United States. He
appeals to the American exceptionalism sentiment and insists that American hegemony
should be the norm and the logical status quo and this norm is either threatened or subverted:
know who caused all this […] Ask yourself: who’s doing well because we’re
on the decline? Fingers pointed firmly east. Look how China’s GDP was
rising, their standard of living climbing. Over there you got Chinese rice
farmers with smartphones, one congressman ranted on the House floor. Over
here in the U.S. of A. you got Americans using bucket toilets because their
water’s shut off for nonpayment. Tell me how that’s not backwards. Just you
tell me (Ng pt.2).
One specific event and the most important is the shooting of a Texas senator. The
senator coins the term the Chinese crisis. He attains support by preforming Mythical Speech
while expanding on the American exceptionalism and offers solutions by combating the
Chinese nation itself. He alludes that the crisis is an attack from a foreign nation. An
assassination attempt occurs during one of his speeches. Despite it not martyring the senator,
it turns him into a symbol that radicalized the American citizens against the clearly defined
Asian enemy. The police participated in spreading the myth of the Asian enemy. They
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identified the shooter to be Asian then the news acted as well by spreading photos of more
than thirty suspects which are all Asians and different looking. This assumes no distinct
difference between the Asian population’s physical features which links it with the myth of
an Asian attack. The detail that all Asian faces are different is essential for it establishes that
“every Asian face would always remain a suspect (Ng pt.2).” The shooting itself is presumed
to be an attempt to take down the United States’ global power; thus, congress voted to pass
PACT, preserving American culture and traditions:
The dark-suited figure, news reports explained as they ran the clip on a loop,
was a senator from Texas, one of the most hawkish on what he called the
Chinese Crisis. He’d made a name for himself with fiery calls for sanctions,
polemics on the creeping menace of Chinese industry, thinly veiled
insinuations about loyalty. But with the assassination attempt, public opinion
made a swift U-turn: though the face of the man in the hoodie was too blurry
to identify him, it was clear enough to show that he was East Asian—based on
the context, analysts concluded, likely Chinese (Ng pt.2).
The novel concludes that these specific events established through constant Mythical
Speech from the government that a firm Color Line has been established that politicized the
Asian body. This new found Racial Body Politics places the Asian minorities under legal and
constitutional discrimination.
2.2.1. Creating the Asian Minority
PACT continuous to racialize citizens of Asian origin and justifies discrimination as a
political endeavor against Chinese economic development; thus, to ensure the consistency
and the permanence of PACT and the status quo, the government utilizes both sectors of state
apparatus, ideological and repressive.
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The state uses the Ideological State Apparatus to maintain its place and power in the
American hegemonic society. The government places radical teachers in its educational
system. The protagonist Bird encounters Mythical Speech occasionally from his teachers,
specifically his social studies teacher. The teacher, on one occasion, emotionally establishes
his opposing position against anti-PACT protests. He repeatedly advises the students to report
on anyone with any anti-PACT sentiment while describing the protests as disturbance,
“Absolutely unacceptable behavior, his social studies teacher had sniffed. If any of you ever
get wind of someone planning disruptions like these, it’s your civic duty under PACT to
report it to the authorities (Ng pt.1).” The teacher pushes for pro PACT assignments to
naturalize the discriminatory PACT policy to the impressionable minds of primary school
children, “They’d gotten an impromptu lecture and an extra assignment: Write a five-
paragraph essay explaining how recent disturbances to the peace have endangered public
safety for all (Ng pt.1).” The repetition of this Mythical Speech shapes the school pupil’s
point of view early, and by the time they reach adulthood, the racial status quo would appear
natural and common sense to them. This specific Apparatus acts in Interpellation especially
when the teacher forces submission to the pro-PACT view at Bird by eyeing him directly
every time PACT is mentioned. The narrative compares this social studies teacher with
another who has a laxer environment inside the class, “Unlike his social studies teacher, she
never stares at him when PACT comes up (Ng pt.1).” Another incident, a radio host criticizes
Margret’s book and concludes that it causes political disruption in the country, “Then a talk-
radio show did an investigation into the sign, the poem. Margaret. Who’s inspiring these
lunatic protesters (Ng pt.2)?”
The radio host scans her photo and shares it on screen to enforce Racial Body Politics
and maintain the Color Line further by linking trouble to her observable Asian facial features.
“And—surprise surprise—she’s a kung-PAO [...] He scanned the photo from the back of
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Margaret’s book and flashed it on-screen (Ng pt.2).” The news, which is another ideological
state apparatus, represented every protest as a criminal act. Every hate crime on Asian people
is treated as a separate incident with a dead-end investigation while omitting its connection to
PACT. This is well presented during the staircase incident in the novel. Margaret's father gets
pushed down the stairs and the news doesn’t link it with the ongoing hateful conduct that is
present against the Asian minorities, “someone had pushed Margaret’s father down the stairs
at the park (Ng pt.2).”
The news omits any reports about Asian discrimination to keep showing the Asian
minorities in a certain image, a mythical American enemy, and for reasons to not diverge
from it. It justifies PACT’s existence, for later on PACT undergoes Mythical Speech for the
purpose of crediting it to be the sole reason the United State passed the economic crisis.
Bird’s sociology teacher states his opinion on a pre–PACT America, “It was impossible […]
to lead a productive life (Ng pt.1).”
PACT also operates from within the Repressive State Apparatus. The police force
performs exaggerated investigations that result in violent consequences to any suspect of
resisting the myth of American culture and tradition. Peaceful protests often result in violent
responses from the police which explains the shift to peaceful guerilla activism. In this
example, the police rush while equipped for violence to respond to a report of an anti-PACT
writing in public, “the officers circle the trunks, pistols dangling at their hips [...] They are
equipped for violence, but not for this (Ng pt.1).” These violent police responses caused the
population to be fearful and submissive to the status quo. Policemen visit Bird’s father one
day since Bird is involved in drawing symbols on propaganda posters with a girl named
Sadie, “Mr. Gardner, the officer said, we’ve looked into your file, and given your wife’s
history—His father cut them off. That woman is no longer part of this family, he said
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brusquely. We have nothing to do with her (Ng pt.1).” Ethan, the father, seeks to defend
himself and Bird from being associated with outlaw Margret. Ethan gets effected by the
interpellation and submit the situations by denouncing his wife and acknowledging the
officers’ authority. Ethan even attempts to bribe the policemen though he calculates that his
money is not enough to convince the policemen to leave him alone. He succeeds in
convincing them that his son is innocent by blaming all the crimes on Bird’s school mate,
Sadie. “It’s the influence of that girl, his father said. The re-placed one. Sadie Greenstein. I
understand she’s a tough case (Ng pt.1).”
The investigations, occurring to maintain the American tradition, cause the accused
permanent and costly consequences. This is well established with Sadie’s parents who were
journalists speaking against PACT. Their reputation has been assassinated and their
whereabouts are unknown hinting that they are either arrested or worse, “everyone knew that
Sadie’s parents had been deemed unfit to raise her […] they were Chinese sympathizers
selling out America (Ng pt.1).”
Margret writes a sentimental poem about missing children.
All our missing hearts
scattered, to sprout elsewhere (Ng pt.1).
The Repressive Apparatus attempts to track her and arrests her for manufactured
connections to a protester who has read her book. Margret leaves her family and constantly
travels while avoiding anyone who can report her. She is deprived of a future and a family.
Her husband is deprived of a wife while her child is deprived of a mother. She lacks direct
involvement with any resistance; however, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the book later on
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becomes a symbol for the struggle and resistance, “My mother is one of the leaders, he says,
[…] She used to come here? […] Before she became the voice of the revolution (Ng pt.1).”
The Repressive Apparatus exercises its authority selectively; it doesn’t punish the
hate crime actors against anyone of Asian origins. An Asian woman is pushed into the traffic
yet there is no mention of any punishment for the act of manslaughter if it is done to the
Asian minority, “Hmong woman was pushed into traffic […] The perpetrators were seldom
caught and even more rarely charged (Ng pt.2).” On the other hand, anyone who is Asian or
any upper-class citizen who might sympathize with them suffer excessive consequences by
the Repressive Apparatus while again letting its agents roam free of consequences, “for the
officer, paid leave; for the protester, a full investigation into the family (Ng pt.2).”
The Act also removes children from their home, implicitly as a way of punishment.
This fact is the presented when the narrative provides reasons on why Sadie is separated from
her parents, “Everyone knew that Sadie’s parents had been deemed unfit to raise her and
that’s how she’d ended up with her foster family (Ng pt.1),” and it is also the reason why
Margret leaves her family, which is so her child, Bird, is to grow up with his father. Even if
he becomes motherless, Margret prefers Bird under the care of family which guarantees
safety, not under the care of the Repressive Apparatus as in foster care, or strangers as in
adoptive parents, “so they would cut her, the traitorous PAO mother, out of their lives. They
would give not even the slightest pretext to take Bird away. Whatever it takes (Ng pt.2).”
Thus, it is concluded that PACT is an established Racist project that maintained the
cultural and social hegemony through both apparatuses. These Asian discriminatory laws are
achieved under Racial Despotism devoid of democracy.
2.3. Repressive Status quo and Political Despotism
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What Antonio Gramsci calls the Unstable Equilibrium is not present in the novel’s
United States. The states have no tolerance to the idea of Racial Democracy, yet it obfuscates
its dystopian systems under the guise of progress or democracy. This policy forces the
resistance to act in a War of Maneuver instead of War of Position.
The state presents censorship and restriction as free speech and safety. The state
censors all anti-PACT discourse to justify its crime against freedom and privacy. For
example, at the beginning of the novel, Bird receives a letter which arrives opened and
resealed with the instruction, “the letter arrives on a Friday. Slit and resealed with a sticker,
of course, as all their letters are: Inspected for your safety—PACT (Ng pt.1).” PACT allows
for the Repressive State Apparatus to surveil the population and allows the arrest of any anti-
PACT sentiment. Another example is how all books are banned and yet coexist with the first
amendment. Throughout the story, Bird’s teacher sarcastically tells his class that getting rid
of the book is a choice which all libraries took, because in the United States, they have the
first amendment, “Everyone has storage limitations, she said. So we’ve culled the books that
we felt were unnecessary or unsuitable or out of date (Ng pt.1).” The teacher denies banning
the books and confirms that the bill of rights exists, “so you banned all those books, […] No
one bans anything. Haven’t you ever heard of the Bill of Rights (Ng pt.1)?” The Ideological
State Apparatus enforces the narrative of a democratic country and justifies censorship by
claiming it to be progress. Another teacher presents why the removal of books is important,
other than the casual reason of safeguarding American tradition, there is the excuse of
favoring digital media rather than ordinary solid paper for electronic texts that can be
modified and regulated, “Did you know [...]that paper books are out of date the instant
they’re printed? [...] We want to make sure you have the most current information. (Ng
pt.1).”
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The Racial Despotism does not allow Racial Resistance to thrive or for opposing
discourse to co-exist which makes the War on Position strategy impossible. Every attempt at
opening an anti-PACT dialogue has resulted in a violent reaction; thus, no Decay of
Capacities can be achieved in the government’s institutions. However, in a democratically
underdeveloped country, the only option is War of Maneuver, and that is why Yarn
Bombings, where protestors cover public streets with yarn as a way to reject a regime, and
other forms of guerrilla protests are dominant in the United State For example, Bird glimpses
a yarn covered tree as he walks back home from school with the armed police on scene,
“Clear out, folks, one of the policemen booms [...] stenciled on the pavement in white: how
many more missing hearts will they take? Beside it a red blotch—no, a heart (Ng pt.1).
2.4. Summary
The State Apparatuses garners the majority acceptance of the status quo from majority
and the maintenance of the hegemonic system through a racial project, PACT. It racializes
the body of the Asian minority and associates Asian physical features and observable
phenomena with meaning to serve a specific ideology.
The novel concludes that the states highlighted a specific Color Line that presented
all Asians of origin as a separate entity through multiple apparatuses. These apparatuses use
Racial Body Politics to politicize the Asian body. For example, it has been insisted upon that
the crisis which the United States is under has been caused by China and so on by presenting
Asian faces in bad light multiple times in the Repressive State Apparatus such as the police
department, which has reported that an unnamed shooter who has attempted to kill the
senator of Texas to be Asian and instead of linking one suspect, the Apparatus presented
suspects with different faces and ages to reinforce the idea that all Asian faces are suspects.
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The message is Asians are dangerous to American tradition and sovereignty. The goal is to
attach criminality to Asian aspects like their tradition, language and bodies.
Furthermore, the radio host shows Margret’s face and called her a PAO which is a
derogatory expression stated in a negative connotation. The agenda behind this racialization
process is to link the pandemonium of the protests to Margaret’s body. Coining the
expression PAO, the host labels the Asian minority as whole to represent disturbance and
trouble. This expression shapes the culture around Asian people. Bird is called by the same
expression by his classmates for no other reason than resembling Asian features; thus, it
reinforces the generational discrimination further. These observable features are filled with
meaning that is linked with the word economic crisis. The states’ news agents use Mythical
Speech to associate the suffering of the American citizens with “the yellow menace.” This
fabricated meaning ensures that the discriminations against the Asian race is not natural but
manufactured through a careful Racial Project. This myth becomes common sense that even
its victims subscribe to through the everlasting indoctrination.
Every action from the states supports the label assigned to the Asian faces. Every
criminal act against all Asians has been left unpunished. However, any action done by the
Asian subgroup or their sympathizers is deemed unlawful occasionally, even if it is not the
case. These acts are severely punished though the Repressive State Apparatus, either through
jail, defunding, or even child removal. The act legalizes discrimination against the minority
and labels them to be a legalized subgroup. Moreover, the absence of tolerance to racial
resistance forces the opposition to act in War of Maneuver for the War of Position achieves
no effect such as Decay of Capacities.
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Since PACT created a subgroup with a politicized body and racial despotism, it is,
therefore, labeled as a Racist Project with the goal of sustaining the ideology of American
nationalism and exceptionalism.
3. Missing Hearts: A Deprivation of the Self
Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts depicts a totalitarian regime that seeks control of the
individual mindset as a Tutelage State. An authoritarian regime directs the lives of the
masses. It denounces their rights for liberty and mobility through systematic surveillance and
law enforcement (Foucault et al.). A State of Tutelage furthers this control over the masses on
levels unprecedented. It holds more than the bodily liberty and mobility. It conducts the
psychological and intellectual being of its subjects making them hostages unaware of their
own imprisonment (Foucault et al.). Celeste Ng depicts in Our Missing Hearts the stratagems
by which an authoritarian system rules and directs the mind of the civilians. With a mix of
Michel Foucault’s theoretical analysis of The Government of Self and Others and Immanuel
Kant and Plato’s philosophical frameworks on governance and the psychology of the subject,
this section investigates the psychological state of the characters and their maneuvering of
Ausgang in Our Missing Hearts within PACT’s authoritarianism.
3.1. PACT: A Promise for the Other
PACT represents a Tutelage State embodying the characteristics discussed by
Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault to capture the social and psychic being of the
individual. It demonstrates a varying number of the check-points that administer a totalitarian
regime (surveillance, patrol, regulation, and so on). Yet PACT’s true power resides beneath
the surface of forceful management, and rather within the social and mental norms it invokes
and seeks to regulate.
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PACT, as a government of the Other, emerged to save society from a former Tutelage
State (Chinese dominance) before it became a Tutelage State of its own. As Bird’s English
teacher often assigns: “In a paragraph, explain what PACT stands for and why it is crucial for
our national security” (Ng pt.1). The protagonist inquires: “they called it a promise: We
promise to protect American values. We promise to watch over each other.” (Ng pt.1). Within
this promise of protection arose the promise of Aufklärung, and lingered in the cyclical nature
of any revolutionary project as to bring forth liberation then fall in totalitarianism. PACT, a
former Aufklärung that held within its constitution the liberation of the people, was altered
into a State of Tutelage. It emerged as a counter reaction to the crisis and disruption the U.S.A
had suffered: “disruptions happened all the time” (Ng pt.1). Then it enforced law on all civil
constructs justified by the saving duty it had proceeded from a deteriorating former social
structure: “you are fortunate to be living in an age where PACT made disruptive protests a
thing of the past” (Ng 25). PACT is the clear intersection between Foucault’s Tutelage State
and Celeste Ng’s vision of authority.
With relevance to the theory of the State of Tutelage dissected in the theoretical
section of this research, resemblance lends itself readily for analysis. The first sign of a
Tutelage regime is therefore shown through the elevation of the private use of reason over the
public use to create complete obedience. As Kant and Foucault contort, the Tutelage
stratagem dominates not by appeal of the weapon, but rather by control of the mind and spirit.
This control is carried through directing and manipulating the individual’s public and private
lives. PACT demolishes the individual’s mental agency and assumes management of his/her
internal “safety” (Ng pt.1). It even regulates the letters and words an individual could read,
and therefore, binds him/her to a mental imprisonment. The author initiates the first chapter
with a coded single sentence: “The letter arrives on a Friday. Slit and resealed with a sticker,
of course, as all their letters are: Inspected for your safety—PACT.” (Ng pt.1). With the first
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word of the work being “letter”, the author provokes a sense of intimacy to a specific piece of
paper. The emotional intimacy collapses at the end of the sentence with a contrasting word
“Inspected”. As the last word is written on a sticker on the letter, a sense of deprivation is
communicated to the reader as the first sign of PACT’s authority over the self.
The systematic racism installed by PACT when reaching social dominance seeks to
regulate the private and sentimental levels of one’s living as it aligns with Michel Foucault’s
power relation. PACT uses a play of force to demolish any possible sign of disobedience and
thus ensures obedience. The new state provokes segregation within families on the basis of
identity and ethnicity under a program named: “PACT-related re-Placement” (Ng pt.1). The
program aims at dislocating Asian-born children from their families on offence of “espousing,
promoting, or endorsing unpatriotic activity in private or in public” as Sadie’s mother
reported days before she underwent the procedure (Ng pt.1). Other reporters got “fined for
saying that PACT encouraged discrimination against those of Asian descent” (Ng pt.1). The
children are placed within the care of “government-selected as fit parents, certified as people
of good moral character who could teach good patriotic values” (Ng pt.1). PACT’s
ideological dominance is also identified through its conduct of the children’s education and
raising as a means of ensuring their future obedience even if it became a necessity to negate
them from their families. Depriving a child of his mother is tolerated and further justified by
the population, exclaims one of Sadie’s foster mothers: “What kind of parents she must have
had, to make her so cold and unfeeling” (Ng pt.1). Through the former exemplification,
PACT is noted to replace both the reasoning and moral faculties to form itself a State of
Tutelage and guide civilians who completely submitted their agency.
Despite the strategies PACT adopts in regards to enforcing its civic control (both soft
control in regulating privacy and hard control in re-placements), its main strategy resides in
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conducting the mental being of the individual. Immanuel Kant argues that a State of Tutelage
is by no means an authoritarian takeover; it is rather the compliance of the masses to provide
a sphere where others can conduct their lives with ease as a result of their minor internal
function (Kant). Our Missing Hearts presents various sides to Kant’s idea concerning the
individual’s lack of agency that require from PACT little intervention to control. One of the
things Bird remarked as his awareness is heightened was the change in public attitude and
sudden toughness that was spread through the society: “Bird understands: it is PACT, of
course, that changed everything” (Ng pt.1). Yet such change is furthered by more than
PACT’s control; the novel delves into the heights of patriotism which the masses are willing
to reach by direction of authority. For instance, public-safety-posters invade the city by order
of PACT which are held with pride in most shops and homes: “Posters were starting to appear
all around town then, all over the city. All over the country. United neighborhoods are
peaceful neighborhoods. We watch out for each other” (Ng pt.2). Alongside the posters,
mottos of racial segregation are flagged all over the city by consent of the public: “A red-
white-and-blue dam over a huge yellow-brown river […] At the bottom of each, four bold
capitals: PACT” (Ng pt.1). Even further, PACT receives donations from the commoners as a
sign of the mental dependency of the masses, as Bird’s father reveals: “I’ve made steady
donations to security and unity groups for the past two and a half years” (Ng pt.1). Thus, the
conduct of the other which PACT exercises is marked by the population’s willingness and
acceptance to be conducted and regulated.
The former discussed psychic domination over the self is the essence of a Tutelage
State. Michel Foucault centered the strength of a State of Tutelage within the mind of the
civilian, and as a result, it requires minor surveillance from the authority to maintain power
over the public (Foucault et al.). PACT’s use of the three elements within the masses (Fear of
the other-Cowardice to make action-and Laziness to seek truth) in relation to the Asian
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population, renders its propaganda unquestioned and its false beliefs authentic while it
controls both the social and psychic spheres.
3.2. Missing Hearts: Disruption of the Substance
Characters in Our Missing Hearts exist in a state of mental subjugation to the values
communicated and justified by PACT. Bird as a protagonist is always surrounded by
individuals who exhibit absolute obedience in both public and private use of their reasoning.
His teachers represent one of Immanuel Kant’s three criteria that render an individual a
subject in a State of Tutelage. The teacher represents a “book” in Kant’s theory and is
replaced by the individual’s own understanding (Verstand). For instance, when Bird is faced
by his English teacher’s repetitive assignment concerning the importance of PACT to national
security, the narrative remarked how they study the same matter in school every year and
further pointed out that Bird “knows exactly what he should say” (Ng pt.1). The school
assignments denounced the application of the student’s understanding and directed its
mission towards implementing specific information in the minds of the young. Such a process
is so often conducted that Bird knows what answer the teacher demands and desires. Another
side of the control over the Verstand is the emptied book shelves in the school for the danger
of enriching the student’s perspective in a way contrasting to PACT’s values and orders.
Examples are numerous in the novel regarding the substitution of the mental faculty and all
that could enrich it. When Bird asks her help, “The librarian sighs. How can you know, she
says, if no one teaches you, and no one ever talks about it, and all the books about it are
gone?” (Ng pt.2). As Bird walks in the library the notion of the absence of books is further
aroused: “Behind them empty bookshelves. Bird has never seen books on them, but there
they stand, fossils of a long-gone era” (Ng pt.1). Even when Bird’s best friend (Sadie) asked
the teacher concerning the books she received the following response: “we want to make sure
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you have the most current information. This way we can be sure nothing is outdated or
inaccurate”. The emphasis in the teacher’s response lies in the word “inaccurate” wherein
accuracy is decided by PACT and the school’s mission is to infiltrate the mind of the student
to inscribe specific ideologies. As the conversation gets to an end, Sadie deducts: “So you
banned all those books, Sadie said, and the teacher had blinked twice at her over her glasses
[…]no one bans anything” (Ng pt.2). The banning of books begins the subjugation of the
individuals in their most crucial period, and with the teachers replacing the students’
Verstand, PACT ensures the complete obedience of the children in their adulthood.
Unquestioning obedience is apparent throughout the novel and mastered by not only
the children, but the adult characters as well. The Tutelage mindset where the individual is
dominated by the three criteria denies him rationale and access to the Wahlspruch stage. In an
encapsulation of this idea, the librarian said: “Most people won’t even do that. They’d rather
just close their eyes” (Ng pt.2). Varying others exempt this practice of subordination
alongside the teachers, Mr. Gardener for example demonstrates the latter state as he says:
“Noah and I both know PACT protects our country” (Ng pt.1). The campus’ residents present
no signs of awareness even when provided with circumstances that could evoke agency. One
circumstance is the protest that was held outside the cafeteria, and when action escalated
PACT declared safety and control all the population proceeded without a question: “hurrying
off to their dorm rooms, complaining about the delay” (Ng pt.1). Further examples are found
when Sadie disappeared, she was unnoticed and no thought was raised: “his classmates and
even his teachers simply went on as if she’d never existed” (Ng pt.1). Extreme examples on
the matter are provided with the Pizza Guy as he discriminates an old Asian man on basis of
patriotic beliefs (Ng, pt.1). Even Mr. Gardner stands emotionless through the action of a
bursting man that hit Bird and called him “Chink” (Ng, pt.1). The father claims no action of
protest. Such insights are provided to comment on the lack of substance between the two uses
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of reason. The characters abandon the application of reason on both the private and public
sphere in relation to PACT’s patriotism and their belief of its fair conduct of their lives. Even
further, when Characters pose questions or exhibit a contrasting attitude or mode of behavior,
it is noted that PACT does not intervene due to the complete surrender of the masses who
took the mission of surveillance on their shoulders. as Bird typed his mother’s name “Margret
Mui” in the school’s online library to be discovered by Mrs. Pollard. She conversed with Bird
about the state of PACT: “Noah, she says. This country is founded on the belief that every
person gets to decide how to live his own life.” The contrast is striking when Bird is allowed
to pursue whichever life he desires, yet he is not allowed to search for the where-abouts of his
mother (Ng pt.1). The single sided conversation proceeded to a coded closure: “if you decide
on a cat, be sure to find a good breeder, she says as he heads into the hall” regarding Birds
wishes to purchase a cat, then Mrs. Pollard adds “Adopting a stray-who knows what you will
get.” (Ng pt.1). This statement summarizes the collective belief transmitted by PACT to the
civilians who lack any autonomic faculty to place it rationally. With Bird being Mothered by
an Asian and Fathered by a Caucasian, the statement alludes to the mixing of races “Adopting
a stray” into one’s community and house, and “who knows what you will get” from coupling
with a foreigner; in present narrative the outcome is Bird.
Ng provides an important line that encapsulates the discussed level of mental
dependency. She wrote: “Bring back our missing hearts” as the motto for the revolutionary
practice against PACT. This motto shows the disruption of the Substance that Immanuel Kant
defines as the greatest collaboration between private obedience and public freedom. The
disruption of the Substance drove the civilians to only perpetuate the private use of reason
and translate it into complete obedience over all their internal and external practices.
3.3. Ausgang and the Revolutionary Project
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This portion of the research focuses on the individuals’ adoption of a revolutionary
project within the constitutions of an Ausgang formerly tackled. Emphasis is paid on Bird’s
father as a specimen of a “self-incurred minority” (Kant par.1), alongside Bird’s mother as the
Agent of Aufklärung.
Before tackling the two main characters this part is dealing with, it is important to
mention that few characters in Our Missing Hearts exercise the Ausgang emancipation
process aligning with Foucault’s estimation that such a sophisticated mental liberation
happens slowly, if ever. Examples of characters in the process of demolishing their private
use of reasoning and replacing it with public use is a firm sign of any revolution (Foucault et
al.). That is apparent throughout the narrative in different manners. For instance, as Michel
was advising Erika to abandon her pursuit of reporting on discrimination of PACT against
Asian civilians, Sadie’s mother responded: “What makes you think, she said finally, that any
of us will be safe if I don’t?” (Ng pt.1). Reasoning is seen to be placed outside the boundaries
posed by authorities. Sadie, her daughter, is spotted defying PACT’s agenda, an open display
of a revolting spirit against the existing social system, when she suggested to Bird that they
should run away to find their parents (Ng pt.1). Both mother and daughter seem to have
reached an advanced level of public/private use of reason as both turn the use of the public
section of reasoning into a first sign of a revolutionary project. Another character that limited
the control of the three criteria (Fear-Cowardice-Laziness) is Domi. As she said: “I was a
coward” as she apologizes to Bird for her former unreasoning self (Ng pt.3). And as a second
hand to Margret’s revolutionary aspiration, Domi is well placed in the high levels of
Ausgang. With some revolutionary attitude, the librarian Bird meets in chapter three joins the
few who substantiated the private obedience with public freedom: “Oh no, we don’t burn
books here. This—this is America. Right? She raises an eyebrow at him. Serious, or ironic?
He can’t quite tell. We pulp them. Much more civilized, right? Mash them up, recycle them
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into toilet paper” (Ng pt.1). The librarian is residing in the Ganglewagen stage of the Ausgang
process in demand of an Agent to proceed the liberation process alongside Sadie and Erika
and Domi. Alternatively, multitudes of characters are unable to reach even the early
Wahlspruch stage of Ausgang and are bound to PACT’s mental control as discussed in the
previous segment.
Mr. Gardner resembles a minority in the philosophy of The Government of Self and
Others as the perfect citizen in a State of Tutelage that Immanuel Kant referred to as a
“domestic live-stock” (Kant, Par.2). He is residing willingly in the accumulation of the three
criteria that form Tutelage (Fear-Cowardice-Laziness). Such attitude is apparent as Bird
noticed in his father’s shouting: “It’s fear. The same loud blustering fear that he had heard
that day” (Ng pt.2). In the same chapter Bird is blooded on the floor by an angry individual
when the narrative presents a hint of his father’s cowardice to help his child even though
capable of such:
His father, he realizes, is a big man, too, though he doesn’t seem it: soft
voiced, bashfully stooped, he seems smaller than he is, but in college he ran
track, he’s broad and tall and sturdy. Fast enough to race back to a son in
danger. Strong enough to punch someone threatening his child. Let’s go home,
his father says (Ng pt.2).
Laziness in accordance with Kant’s spectrum is spotted in the father’s abandonment
of personal academic entitlement and his pursuit of mediocrity due to an underwhelming
placement of his own self. This placement is recognized by Bird: “He had just transferred
over—linguistics professor to book shelver” (Ng pt.1). As Mr. Gardner is depicted as an
individual under conduct of the other, the narrative proceeds to provide a sentiment of
parenthood to his character in which his docility is a method of protecting his son in the midst
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of a dangerous authority. Thereafter, the father’s placement in Kant’s spectrum is unattainable
due to the overlap of his social duty and his parenthood wherein his public reasoning to free
one’s self from the direction of PACT conflicts with his autonomic faculty to protect his
child.
Mrs. Gardner captures Foucault’s principles of an Agent for the Aufklärung through
her exercise of public reasoning unconditioned with private obedience to become the “voice
of the revolution” (Ng pt.3). Margert Miu demolished the control of the government of the
other (PACT) by manifestation of her superior mental faculties that guided her through all the
aforementioned stages of Ausgang (Wahlspruch-Beruf-Reasoning-Revolution) to become the
Agent of Aufklärung. All other characters reside either on the level of Tutelage (Social
Masses + Mr. Gardner), or on the level of Ganglewagen (Bird-Sadie-Erica-Librarian). The
mental faculties that helped emancipate Margret are marked by her husband while he decoded
the linguistic cyphers to her name in Chinese which accurately describe her character as well
as her mission as an Agent in Foucault’s theory:
Miu, his father says slowly. Her surname. He writes the character […]
苗
It means seedling, or sometimes crops. Something just beginning to grow […]
if you put this, which means beast, in front of it—He adds a few more strokes,
a pared-down suggestion of an animal sitting at attention:
貓
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[…] you could think of it as the beast that protects the crops. this in him […]
She liked that idea; he says after a moment. That the only thing separating her
from a beast was a few little strokes. (Ng pt.2)
Later on, as Bird is astonished by the heart paintings on the wall: “Hadn’t they been
afraid? He tries to imagine what it had felt like, to be that painter.” (Ng pt.2). And while the
word “fear” and “afraid” is used a collective of 34 times in the novel to describe most
characters: “this whole town is afraid” (Ng pt.2) They described Margret only in its negative
form: “Hadn’t they been afraid?” (Ng pt.2). The Agent, thus, is freed from the first criteria of
Tutelage (Fear). Cowardice is abandoned through her leading a revolutionary project. And
Laziness through pursuing truth outside her marriage and institution and outside PACT’s
constitution. Through following the stages of Ausgang, Margret emerges as the sole Agent
Michel Foucault promised in his analysis.
The novel is rich with signs of Margret’s agency for the Aufklärung in light of the
theoretical framework. One of which resides in chapter five where Bird describes his
mother’s gaming strategies as “directing you to treasure”; a psychological method used by the
Agent to harness the multitudes of the individuals who lack mental efficiency to lead,
conduct, and direct their own lives (Foucault et al.). She is also keen on “Prying open cracks
for magic to seep in, making the world a place of possibility” (Ng pt.2) such is the promise of
Aufklärung amidst a discriminating social authority. Moreover, An Agent furthers his/her
mission of change by leading the masses toward revolution, characteristics of which are
found in Margret as her son describes: “like they were puppets and the strings holding them
up had gone slack” in desperation over Margret’s influence that was extinguished when she
took hiding (Ng pt.2).
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Margret, as the Agent of Aufklärung, aimed at sharing the stories of the discriminated
families through Domi’s tech company to cover the city in an audible retelling of the stories
PACT has hidden. She aimed at reawakening the spirits of the population and directing them
out of the binds imposed by the three criteria. Her mission meets a slight success as the novel
concludes with monologues from various individuals remarking the shift and weight that
Margret’s revolutionary project has left in them: “and she would suddenly remember that
evening, as the light dimmed, the voice speaking to all of them, that feeling of being
surrounded by strangers who were somehow experiencing the same thing” (Ng pt.3). Yet the
masses are not keen on any revolutionary reaction or reason replacement by the end. This
aligns with Foucault’s theory that conducting a social mass towards self-reasoning works
slowly if ever. Thus, Margret’s mission to bring forth a State of Aufklärung only succeeded
on the level of breaking the masses of their Tutelage dependency and directing them towards
the further stages of Ausgang. To further a state of reasoning, the masses need to reach the
stage Wahlspruch to situate PACT’s conduct rationally. Such a stage she herself had
navigated and wishes Bird the same in directing his own living: “I wanted you to be not only
the grown, but the grower. To have power over your own life” (Ng pt.3). The novel end
promiscuously when Bird takes the promise of his Mother’s Aufklärung not only to “grow”
and emancipate himself, but to be “the grower” who leads others to a state of self-
governance. Thus, the mission of the Agent has been inherited by Bird alongside the social
influence Margret had achieved.
3.4. Bird and Noah: Emancipation of the Self and Segregation of the Other
This final segment entitles Bird’s entanglement in the latitudes of a State of Tutelage a
main focus. The protagonist’s duality of name presents a clear foundation to Michel
Foucault’s Government of Self and Other. His name “Bird” stands for the name the character
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sees worthy and representative of his being and is furthered without retaliation amongst
everyone. While “Noah” being the name enforced by the other on basis of social conformity
and represents a refusal of identifying oneself from PACT (the other). Naming is further
depicted of high importance in the novel when PACT replacement services try to change
Sadie’s name in the process of erasing identity and shadowing her sense of self. As Sadie
fights back in application of her public use of reasoning and advanced stage of Ausgang she
reached (Ganglewagen), the protagonist choses “Bird” and ascribes his being into the four
letters in a notion of emancipating himself from the identity imposed by the other “Noah”.
Identifying his true self was the first step to inherit his mother’s promise of the Aufklärung.
This promise directs its aim at spreading Bird’s public reasoning to the population which
Margret has succeeded to transfer to the stage of Wahlspruch, and at formulating the Ausgang
revolution which Margret has seeded deep within the masses as an Agent of her own.
3.5. Summary
Through the application of Michel Foucault and Immanuel Kant’s theories on Our
Missing Hearts, characters are observed to undergo the process of Ausgang, which is an
emancipation of self from the government or the State of Tutelage. Many characters in the
novel exhibit various stages of the process of Ausgang in order to gain liberty from PACT.
Bird’s mother serves the role of an Agent of the Aufklarung, a guiding revolutionary, by
spreading public reasoning to her son as well as all the population she could reach for the
purpose of attaining liberty. Her mission of Aufklarung fails in accordance with Foucault's
theory concerning the hardship of replacing public reasoning with the private sector. As the
novel ends, the mission of Aufklarung is passed to Bird by his mother in a sign of the
continuation of the Ausgang process.
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GENERAL CONCLUSION
This dissertation treats the authoritarian systems which rendered the Asian minorities
subjugated to the USA’s hierarchal discrimination within the setting in Celeste Ng’s novel,
Our Missing Hearts. This research defines the racial project and the authoritarian regime in
the novel through fusing the theories of Omi and Winant with Foucault and Kant to conclude
the degree of minority discrimination alongside the systematic social and psychological
exertion of authority.
The research seeks conclusion on the state of minorities from a mass populace
perspective, complimented by a closer individualist perspective. The novel contains a number
of Racial Projects; therefore, the research aims at defining them and analyzing them fully. In
addition, the research puts into account all the aspects which contribute to the act of
racializing the minorities in a process that requires maintains and enforcement through
ideological and repressive means. In light of this racial project, this research proceeds to spot
the systematic authoritarian regimes. These strategies are used by the Tutelage State to
control the social and psychological being of the individuals in means of forming a new
identity easier to conduct by the government. Thus, the project oversees both the
governmental and social aspect with the individual and internal faculties for refining the
understanding of minorities within a hostile state.
In order to reach the research goal, the literature review relies on the theories of both
Michael Omi and Howard Winant and supplemented with the writings of Michel Foucault
and Immanuel Kant on The Government of the Self and Others. The theory of Racial
Formation by Michael Omi and Howard Winant insist on the analysis of the existing Racial
Projects within a state which enforces and maintain racial hegemony. The theory marks
certain indicators such as the defined color line in addition exploring the concept of racial
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body politic and its execution on the minorities. The theory explores Althusser’s concepts of
the state apparatuses to clarify the governmental institutions’ involvement in the maintenance
of status quo. The theory of Michel Foucault and Immanuel Kant serve to distinguish the
dominant psychological and social control from the identity of the masses by integrating an
individualistic approach. The Government of Self and Othesr focuses on the internal
manifestation of governmental authority over the individual’s authentic identity. The theory
demonstrates the acmes by which an authority leaps to power, as well as the process of
Ausgang and its varying stages that missions to bring forth a total emancipation both on the
external and internal being of the social masses. The accumulations of the aforementioned
theories facilitate the aim of this research in deciphering the interrelations between the
authoritarian government and the governed minorities.
Through the lenses of Racial Formation, the novel contains a governmental branch
called PACT which acts in the interest of the white majority. PACT uses Mythical Speech and
a repressive force to ensure and maintain the status quo which is white superiority. PACT is
thus classified as a Racist Project according to the theory for its clear defining of the Color
Line. The said Color Line places the Asian minorities in the lowest social class. To reinforce
the hegemony, PACT uses public events and arrests to project this defined Color Line through
media and arrests. The theory borrows Gramsci’s concept of the two wars, War of Position
and War of Maneuver. Since the United States according to the novel abandons any
democratic policy and enforces its vision of the exceptionalism of white America, the only
method for resisting the status quo is the War of Maneuver. Following Michel Foucault’s
Guidelines and characteristics to identify a Tutelage State, this research is able to detain an
analysis concerning the function of PACT as a tutelage state in light of the complete
surrender of the masses to its psychological control. PACT conducts authority over the
minorities in methods that align with the phenomenon of authoritarianism through the control
BENCHAREF & ZERAOULIA
65
of both the social and psychological functions of the individuals by coordinating specific
behavior to be followed in relation to the Asian minority. The characters in the novel further
exempt the varying stages of the process of Ausgang that aims at liberation from the public
sense of reasoning, examples are numerous as every secondary character provides an insight
to the four stages of liberation. Throughout the narrative, many other characters struggle to
detain the psychological control of PACT and are hostages of its mental control and stay
unable to reach the Reasoning stage as a primary stage towards liberty. Such depiction
concerning the hardship of emancipating reasoning from subjugating ideas corresponds with
Foucault’s theory that concluded by representing the impossibility and improbability of fore-
bringing total liberation. The novel summarizes an intensive critique of racialized minorities
under a struggle for an unattainable emancipation.
In conclusion, by exploring the structures of racial hegemony and psychological
oppression, the novel projects the profound necessity of the application of Critical Race
Theory. This application of Critical Race Theory aids in understanding and resisting
contemporary forms of governmental oppression. The novel also shows how government
oppression of manufactured minority groups evolves and changes over time. Unlike the use
of traditional propaganda, the novel’s version of the United States either enforced or used an
economic crisis to create the Chinese enemy for the purpose establishing classes where the
white majority is well off than the Asian minority.
Future studies may further explore the intricate relationship between government and
the governed using Whiteness studies by scholars such as Richard Dyer’s White is beneficial
for its inquiries about racial identity and social power, or Peggy McIntosh concept of White
Privilege can provide further scope by including how the fabrication of races provides
benefits to the white race within the United States. Lastly, the concept of Intersectionality by
Kimberlé Crenshaw is very beneficial to shed light on the social experiences and how
BENCHAREF & ZERAOULIA
66
systems of power determine the individual’s social class and income. Due to time limitations,
these concepts are either skipped or referenced without deep exploration.
BENCHAREF & ZERAOULIA
67
Works Cited
“About Celeste.” Celeste NG, www.celesteng.com/about.
Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster,
Monthly Review Press New York and London, 1971, pp. 175–76.
American Sociological Association. “The Importance of Collecting Data and Doing Social
Scientific Research on Race.” Https://Www.asanet.org, American Sociological
Association, 2003, p. 5, www.asanet.org/wp-content/uploads/race_statement.pdf.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. 1957. Translated by Jonathan Cape Ltd, The Noonday Press –
New York Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012, soundenvironments.wordpress.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/11/roland-barthes-mythologies.pdf.
Bates, Thomas R. “Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony.” Journal of the History of Ideas,
vol. 36, no. 2, Apr. 1975, pp. 351–66, https://doi.org/10.2307/2708933.
Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory an Introduction. NYU Press,
2012.
Dubey, Anna. “Celeste Ng.” www.britannica.com, 2019,
www.britannica.com/biography/Celeste-Ng.
Egan, Daniel. The Dialectic of Position and Maneuver. Brill Publishers, 2016, pp. 32–34.
Foucault, Michel, et al. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de
France 1982-1983. Palgrave Macmillan Uk, 2010.
Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man. Norton, 1981.
Jacobson, Matthew F. Whiteness of a Different Color. Harvard University Press, 1999.
Kant, Immanuel. An Answer to the Question, “What Is Enlightenment?” 1784. London,
Penguin, 2013.
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King, Stephen. “Celeste Ng’s Dystopia Is Uncomfortably Close to Reality.” The New York
Times, 22 Sept. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/books/review/celeste-ng-our-
missing-hearts.html.
Kolchin, Peter. “Whiteness Studies: The New History of Race in America.” The Journal of
American History, vol. 89, no. 1, June 2002, pp. 154–73,
https://doi.org/10.2307/2700788.
Kronfeldner, Maria. The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization. Routledge, 24 Feb. 2021.
Lawson, Mark. “Everything I Never Told You Review – Amazon’s Best Book of the Year by
Celeste Ng.” The Guardian, 20 Nov. 2014,
www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/20/everything-i-never-told-you-celeste-ng-
review-amazon-best-book-year.
“Little Fires Everywhere.” CELESTE NG, www.celesteng.com/little-fires-everywhere.
Miles, Robert, and Malcolm Brown. Racism. 1989. 2nd ed., Routledge, 1AD, p. 58,
www.routledge.com/Racism/Miles/p/book/9780415296779?srsltid=AfmBOooT6rGx
u_sJ5B-sUlJrFY7p4VZ6M2GEGnrrb9B3RkSK8-Qtb69Q. Accessed 10 Mar. 2025.
Ng, Celeste. Our Missing Hearts. Penguin Canada, 2022.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. 1986. 3rd ed.,
Routledge, 2015, pp. 105–36.
Plato, and Benjamin Jowett. Plato’s Republic : Translated into English by Benjamin Jowett.
New York, Modern Library, 1982.
Roediger, David R. The Wages of Whiteness : Race and the Making of the American Working
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Thompson, Edgar Tristram. Plantation Societies, Race Relations, and the South. Durham,
N.C. : Duke University Press, 1975.
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Programs. Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, pp. 571–72,
ia801409.us.archive.org/17/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.155699/2015.155699.The-Child-
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Résumé
En examinant les notions de gouvernementalité et la psychologie des gouvernés, cette
dissertation analyse comment l’Amérique discrimine les minorités raciales, en mettant
particulièrement l’accent sur la manière dont ces dernières en viennent à se définir elles-
mêmes dans Our Missing Hearts de Celeste Ng. L’objectif est alors de comprendre comment
le gouvernement américain parvient à fabriquer une nouvelle signification du fait d’être
Chinois ou Asiatique, et de mettre en lumière comment ses politiques d’apartheid, notamment
le PACT, produisent finalement soit un Autre soumis, soit une voix dissidente. En s’appuyant
sur la théorie de la formation raciale de Michael Omi et Howard Winant, complétée par les
écrits de Michel Foucault et d’Immanuel Kant sur le gouvernement de soi et des autres, cette
dissertation démontre comment l’imposition des hiérarchies raciales est systématiquement
construite à la fois dans les sphères structurelles et psychologiques. L’analyse révèle
comment les personnages du roman expérimentent et résistent à la gouvernementalité, et
comment ils luttent contre les mécanismes de contrôle intériorisés que le PACT emploie à
travers des stratagèmes non violents pour maintenir son autorité en contrôlant les facultés
internes des masses. Cette étude contribue à la littérature existante en approfondissant les
questions d’identité, de pouvoir et de race, en présentant les minorités comme des
constructions politiques plutôt que comme des phénomènes naturels. Elle offre également des
perspectives sur les réactions des individus face à l’oppression et au contrôle systématiques,
en négociant leur identité entre résistance et soumission, une dynamique qui reste toujours
d’actualité dans l’histoire des États-Unis, encore marquée par les conflits raciaux.
Mots-clés : Formation raciale, Gouvernement de soi et des autres, Racialisation, État de
tutelle, Despotisme politique, Identité et pouvoir, Construction sociale de la race, Projet
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raciste.
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ﺺ ّ ﺨ ﻠ ُ ﻣ
تﺎﯿﻠﻗﻷا ﺪﺿ ﺎﻜﯾﺮﻣأ ﺰﯿﯿﻤﺗ ﺔﯿﻔﯿﻛ ﻲﻓ ﺔﺣوﺮطﻷا هﺬھ ﺚﺤﺒﺗ ،ﻦﯿﻣﻮﻜﺤﻤﻠﻟ ﻲﺴﻔﻨﻟا ﺐﻧﺎﺠﻟاو ﻢﻜُﺤﻟا ﻢﯿھﺎﻔﻣ ﺔﺳارد لﻼﺧ ﻦﻣ
ﺔﯾاور ﻲﻓ ﺮﮭﻈﯾ ﺎﻤﻛ تﺎﯿﻠﻗﻷا هﺬھ ﺔﯾﻮھ ﻞّﻜﺸﺗ ﺔﯿﻔﯿﻛ ﻰﻠﻋ صﺎﺧ ﺰﯿﻛﺮﺗ ﻊﻣ ،ﺔﯿﻗﺮﻌﻟاOur Missing Hearts ﺔﺒﺗﺎﻜﻠﻟ
،يﻮﯿﺳﻵا وأ ﻲﻨﯿﺼﻟا ءﺎﻤﺘﻧﻼﻟ ﺪﯾﺪﺟ ﻰﻨﻌﻣ جﺎﺘﻧإ ﻲﻓ ﻲﻜﯾﺮﻣﻷا مﺎﻈﻨﻟا ﺢﺠﻨﯾ ﻒﯿﻛ ﻢﮭﻓ ﻰﻟإ ﺔﺳارﺪﻟا فﺪﮭﺗو .ﻎﻧإ ﺖﺴﯿﻠﯿﺳ
ﺔﺳﺎﯿﺳ ﺔﺻﺎﺧو ،يﺮﺼﻨﻌﻟا ﻞﺼﻔﻟا ﻰﻠﻋ ﺔﻤﺋﺎﻘﻟا ﮫﺗﺎﺳﺎﯿﺳ جﺎﺘﻧإ ﺔﯿﻔﯿﻛ ﻰﻠﻋ ءﻮﻀﻟا ﻂﯿﻠﺴﺗوPACT ﺔﯾﺮﻈﻧ ﻰﻠﻋ دﺎﻤﺘﻋﻻﺎﺑ .
تاﺬﻟا ﺔﻣﻮﻜﺣ لﻮﺣ ﻂﻧﺎﻛ ﻞﯾﻮﻧﺎﻤﯾإو ﻮﻛﻮﻓ ﻞﯿﺸﯿﻣ تﺎﺑﺎﺘﻜﺑ ﺔﻣﻮﻋﺪﻣ ،ﺖﻧﺎﻨﯾِو دراﻮھو ﻲﻣوأ ﻞﻜﯾﺎﻤﻟ ﻲﻗﺮﻌﻟا ﻦﯾﻮﻜﺘﻟا
ﺦﯿﺳﺮﺗو ءﺎﻨﺑ ﻢﺘﯾ ﻒﯿﻛ ﺔﺣوﺮطﻷا هﺬھ ﻒﺸﻜﺗ ،ﻦﯾﺮﺧﻵاو ﺲﺳﻷاﻟا ﺎﻤﻛ .ﺔﯿﺴﻔﻨﻟاو ﺔﯾﻮﯿﻨﺒﻟا ﺮطﻷا ﻦﻤﺿ ﻲﺠﮭﻨﻣ ﻞﻜﺸﺑ ﺔﯿﻗﺮﻌ
ةﺮﻄﯿﺴﻠﻟ ﺔﯿﻠﺧاﺪﻟا تﺎﯿﻟﻵا نﻮﻋرﺎﺼﯾ ﻒﯿﻛو ،ﮫﻧﻮﻣوﺎﻘﯾو ﻢﻜُﺤﻟا تاﺮﯿﺛﺄﺗ ﺔﯾاوﺮﻟا تﺎﯿﺼﺨﺷ ﺮﺒﺘﺨﯾ ﻒﯿﻛ تﻼﯿﻠﺤﺘﻟا ﺢﺿﻮﺗ
مﺎﻈﻧ ﺎﮭﺨّﺳﺮﯾ ﻲﺘﻟا PACT ﺔﯿﻠﺧاﺪﻟا تارﺪﻘﻟا ﻲﻓ ﻢﻜﺤﺘﻟا لﻼﺧ ﻦﻣ ﺔﻄﻠﺴﻟا ضﺮﻓ ﻰﻟإ فﺪﮭﺗ ﺔﻔﯿﻨﻋ ﺮﯿﻏ تﺎﯿﺠﯿﺗاﺮﺘﺳا ﺮﺒﻋ
،قﺮﻌﻟاو ﺔﻄﻠﺴﻟاو ﺔﯾﻮﮭﻟا ﺎﯾﺎﻀﻗ لﻮﺣ شﺎﻘﻨﻟا ﻊﯿﺳﻮﺗ لﻼﺧ ﻦﻣ ﺔﯿﻟﺎﺤﻟا تﺎﯿﺑدﻷا ءاﺮﺛإ ﻲﻓ ﺔﺳارﺪﻟا هﺬھ ﻢھﺎﺴﺗ .ﺮﯿھﺎﻤﺠﻠﻟ
ا ﺔﺑﺎﺠﺘﺳا ﺔﯿﻔﯿﻛ لﻮﺣ ىؤر مﺪﻘﺗ ﺎﻤﻛ .ﺔﯿﻌﯿﺒط ةﺮھﺎﻈﻛ ﺲﯿﻟو ﻲﺳﺎﯿﺳ ءﺎﻨﺒﻟ جﺎﺘﻨﻛ تﺎﯿﻠﻗﻷا ر ّ
ﻮﺼﺗ ﺚﯿﺣ ةﺮﻄﯿﺴﻟاو ﻊﻤﻘﻠﻟ داﺮﻓﻷ
ﻦﯿﯿﺠﮭﻨﻤﻟا ﺦﯾرﺎﺗ ﻲﻓ ةﻮﻘﺑ ةﺮﺿﺎﺣ لاﺰﺗ ﻻ ﺔﯿﻜﯿﻣﺎﻨﯾد ﻲھو ،عﻮﻀﺨﻟاو ﺔﻣوﺎﻘﻤﻟا ﻦﯿﺑ ﻢﮭﺘﯾﻮھ لﻮﺣ ضوﺎﻔﺘﻟا لﻼﺧ ﻦﻣ
ﺔﯿﻗﺮﻌﻟا تﺎﻋاﺰﻨﻟا ﻦﻣ ﻲﻧﺎﻌﯾ لاﺰﯾ ﻻ يﺬﻟا ،ةﺪﺤﺘﻤﻟا تﺎﯾﻻﻮﻟا .
:ﺔﯿﺣﺎﺘﻔﻤﻟا تﺎﻤﻠﻜﻟا ،ﺔﻄﻠﺴﻟاو ﺔﯾﻮﮭﻟا ،ﻲﺳﺎﯿﺴﻟا داﺪﺒﺘﺳﻻا ،ﺔﯾﺎﺻﻮﻟا ﺔﻟﺎﺣ ،ةﺮﺼﻨﻌﻟا ،ﺮﯿﻐﻟاو ﺎﻧﻻا ﺔﻣﻮﻜﺣ ،ﻲﻗﺮﻌﻟا ﻦﯾﻮﻜﺘﻟا
يﺮﺼﻨﻌﻟا عوﺮﺸﻤﻟا ،قﺮﻌﻠﻟ ﻲﻋﺎﻤﺘﺟﻻا ءﺎﻨﺒﻟا.
