Michel Foucault on Writing and the Self in the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and Confessions of St. Augustine

‘What’s on your mind?’ Writing on Facebook as a tool for self-formation

“…Christian self-writing laid the self bare to be judged and absolved by God. Contrary to the Greek self-cultivating function of writing, Christian confessional writing was concerned with self-revelation, self-renunciation and self-effacement (Humphries, 1997: 131, 136). Humphries asserts: ‘not only does the writing of one’s confessions incite an ever increasing and penetrating gaze into the self by the self, it also effects a proliferation of confession among others’ (1997: 134).…”

“…Humphries asserts: ‘not only does the writing of one’s confessions incite an ever increasing and penetrating gaze into the self by the self, it also effects a proliferation of confession among others’ (1997: 134). Thus, ‘writing becomes publicatio sui , a confessional strategy by which the self draws itself out of amnestic solitude and lays itself bare to the public gaze’ (Humphries, 1997: 136). Christian self-writers submitted themselves to the judgement of another (God, a priest or a confidant) to confess sins.…”