subject as subject and object – Foucault

The trouble is, how does this ideology continually interpellate individuals as subjects?  Don’t they have a say in this interpellation process? Can all individuals be brought under the sway of ideology? And doesn’t the Althussarian conception of the subject have the whiff of absolutism about it? Althusser is unclear on these points. Foucault, however, picks up on some of these points in his writings that are concerned with the relations and forces which constitute the subject, distinct from a conception of an autonomous subject whose reason and agency constitutes knowledge (and learning) and endows the world with meaning. We, as subjects, have to search the realm of knowledge looking for meaning and self-understanding: and I don’t think Foucault is meaning to be existential here. We are both the subject and object of knowledge and this seems especially true of this thing called executive education – the educational philosophy of which is the theme of this blog. Leadership, management, executive education; the development and accrual of human capital; the investment in this particular and peculiar managerial asset class; all of these placeholders for what it is that goes on in business schools (one site among many) seem to regard the subject (the manager, leader, executive, etc.) of these endeavors as the object of its study, whilst at the same time this object is being worked through and produced.