Revaluating Foucauldian critique: a Nietzschean perspective on the limits of the care of the self

In recent decades, with the worldwide spread of neoliberalism, numerous educational researchers have inquired into how individuals are constituted as subjects within this process and responded by providing solutions, many of which have adopted Foucauldian care for the self as both an analytical framework and a suggestion. This research problematises the care of the self as a goodness pursuit oriented Hellenistic philosophy and complements it with Nietzsche’s Dionysian essence of ancient Greek tragedy. After analysing how neoliberalism formulates the egoist knowing-self, the paper criticises the view that the care of the self leads to an artistic subjectivity not separated from strong individuality and egoism. Both knowing-self and caring-self are anti-Dionysian. By identifying a tone of complaint and resentment in contemporary interpretations of the care of the self, the paper argues that such approaches fail to equip students to embrace adversities as gifts from Dionysus. As advice for administrators and policymakers in higher education, the paper advocates for an education that embraces amor fati (the love of fate), acknowledges the formative role of crisis. As implication for teaching crisis, the study believes film watching may provide students with contemplative catharsis and release them from their mundane lives as a chance of schole.