ABSTRACT
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE provides a contemporary site in which to explore discourses of social control and the “postindustrial” moral person. Within a history of pastoral power, the discourse of “emotional intelligence” is an almost predictable evolution: The most alien, unmanageable feature of human behavior-emotions, the most interior and private experience-has now been placed under the scientist’s microscope and dissected for the benefit of mankind. Science, working hand in hand with postindustrial interests, has identified emotions as profitable to global capitalism.2 Emotional intelligence allows a glimpse of power’s arbitrary manifestations. Suddenly identi fied as profitable, emotions are associated
with success and corporate power. Emotional intelligence, as packaged and popularized through Daniel Goleman’s 1995 bestselling book, is in no way associated with weakness or femininity.
