viously been excluded, who were deemed “not part” because they would compromise the health of the body. Poovey concludes: “the phrase social body therefore promised full membership in a whole (and held out the image of that whole) to a part identified as needing both discipline and care” (8, emphases in original). To be a part is to be the one who receives a promise: the promise of membership.
If to be a part is to be the recipient of a promise, then to become part is to acquire a duty, what I call in the book “a will duty.” A willing part would be for what it is assumed as for. To become part is to inherit this prescription; it is to acquire a function. The feet must be willing to walk. The arms must be willing to carry.
Willfulness as a diagnosis could be a historical record of moments in which some parts fail their duty to carry and support to the whole body. Arguably all parts of the whole would be diagnosed as willful if they are not willing to provide this support. But we learn that some parts who are willing “the good” of the whole body escape the diagnosis. Remember Pascal: “they accomplish their own good.” This is how some parts in accomplishing their own good might be diagnosed as not only willful but also selfish (as willing away from others); whilst others who are also accomplishing their own good might be diagnosed not only as not willful or selfish, but even as will-less or self-less (as willing for others). The point of this difference is how the general in expressing the will of some parts allows the will of those parts to appear as general rather than particular.
If the will of some parts is accomplished by the general will, then those parts acquire a freedom not to be supportive. This is how the distinction between willing and willful parts – between those whose will is accomplished by the general and those whose will is not – functions as a moral as well as discursive frame.
Let’s take two contrasting examples. In the current landscape of cuts to public spending or austerity a much repeated speech act is that we must all “tighten our belts.” Of course the ones who make the command are probably not themselves tightening their belts. But those who resist the command, who call into question the right of or in the command, are deemed as self-willed, or even as selfish, as putting themselves (or perhaps even their own stomachs) over and above the general interest, as compromising the very capacity of the nation to survive, or flourish. We might assume that in the current financial climate, the bankers would be judged as willful, as putting themselves (and their own stomachs) before the general interest. But even if this judgment is made (by some, certainly not by all) that judgment is rarely expressed in action: after all, the bankers have kept their bonuses. Why can ask why even if we know why. Capitalism is understood as “the whole body,” as what parts must be willing to reproduce. And capital is identified as the life-blood of this body: as what must be kept in circulation no matter what (or who), as if without capital or blood being pumped through, the whole body would not flourish. The function of the banks as willing parts (as accomplishing in their “own good” the good of the whole body) is what stops any judgment of willfulness from being followed through. Perhaps the judgment is the follow through.
The part/whole distinction thus becomes a willing distinction: not simply a distinction between the part and whole, but between parts, between those who are willing and those who are not. This is why we cannot have a general logic of the part.
Understanding the part/whole distinction allows us to recognise not only how the will becomes duty, but how the duty becomes a particular as well as general duty. Given the social is imagined as a body with parts, some bodies more than others will be thought of as the limbs of the social body. To become a limb of the social body is to acquire a duty to provide it with support.
Henri Bergson in “Frenzy, Mechanism and Mysticism” reflects on the relationship between bo