Michel Foucault anyone?

[dark desire]

I read this graphic guide on Michel Foucault today and felt deeply inspired. His approach is Nietzschean and deeply pessimistic. There is an unusual energy present in what I read about him. Next I am going to read History of Madness by Foucault.

Has anybody read this book? What are your views? How was your experience? Would somebody like to read this book with me?

[JBI]

I've read most of Foucault at one point or another. It is mostly nonsense, and so dated by now. The worst form of theoretical masturbation, that if you choose to believe it, offers a path straight toward nihilism.

Generally the only people enforcing him as a text right now are mediocre professors who still cling to the nonsense that they were forced to read to pad their dissertations.

His general ideas are all found in The Archaeology of Knowledge, but when he applied them, in cases like The History of Sexuality, he was an utter failure. He had a few good points, but they were masked by the pages and pages of nonsense and crappy theoretical history.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I've read most of Foucault at one point or another. It is mostly nonsense, and so dated by now. The worst form of theoretical masturbation, that if you choose to believe it, offers a path straight toward nihilism.

Generally the only people enforcing him as a text right now are mediocre professors who still cling to the nonsense that they were forced to read to pad their dissertations.

His general ideas are all found in The Archaeology of Knowledge, but when he applied them, in cases like The History of Sexuality, he was an utter failure. He had a few good points, but they were masked by the pages and pages of nonsense and crappy theoretical history.

Yeah, but you dislike pretty much any theorist, right?

[OrphanPip]

There's some merit to what JBI says though, I think most people who even work with Foucault only take a handful of points from his work and acknowledge the fact that a lot of his historical research was flawed and that much of his conclusions are not meaningful. But all in all that's a reasonably successful contribution for a theorist.

[JBI]

Yeah, but you dislike pretty much any theorist, right?

To an extent. I like Derrida as an author, but not as a theorist. I like some of Butler, but not all (and it has got boring lately). I dislike almost all post-colonial theorists, though strangely I think Homi Bhabha is right some times, if you can understand him (Spivak is still just an annoyance).

I also am totally a student of Frye, and would say I love his work - he was a theorist, but didn't let that become all he was.

I also like a lot of historical theorists, and specific theorists, but nobody pays them any heed anymore.

Still, the days where you needed to flaunt your knowledge of theoretical trends are over, and now close reading is back in fashion.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I wasn't saying that JBI's views were invalid because he doesn't like theorists, I was just sort of pointing it out to the OP that his overall view of theorists in general isn't flattering--that it's not just Foucault.

I don't like theory much, either, no matter how much of it I'm forced to read in class. I like some of it--I do find disability studies pretty interesting, but mostly because of my personal connection to it--but most seems to be over-written, contrived, complicated for complciation's sake smoke blowing that could often be said in a page rather than the ten pages it takes the theorist to say it. I found Foucault to be like most theorists I've read: interesting ideas, but mostly BS.

[JCamilo]

Foucault is better as some short of evil anthagonist who will use any weapons to destroy a stabilished system, but often he is just confuse of what to do afterwards. But he was quite intelligent, quite a thorn.

[dark desire]

I've read most of Foucault at one point or another. It is mostly nonsense, and so dated by now. The worst form of theoretical masturbation, that if you choose to believe it, offers a path straight toward nihilism.

Generally the only people enforcing him as a text right now are mediocre professors who still cling to the nonsense that they were forced to read to pad their dissertations.

His general ideas are all found in The Archaeology of Knowledge, but when he applied them, in cases like The History of Sexuality, he was an utter failure. He had a few good points, but they were masked by the pages and pages of nonsense and crappy theoretical history.

I'd like to come back to you after finishing the book.

You found him this repulsive and you have read almost all his works! :eek2: That is a little difficult to digest. I feel you found him interesting once and then were disappointed later on. If it is so, what did you like/enjoy? If not then are you saying you can read things that do not interest you or that repel you? I am assuming that you did not study him as a part of some curriculum.

Another thing - what is your opinion about Nietzsche's works?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

He probably did read him as assigned reading, at least I'm assuming so. He's been required reading in any class I've taken that involves theory.

[JCamilo]

Nah, he read him to try to impress the chicks.

[Alexander III]

To be honest I think Foucault was essentially the Swedenbourg of the 20th century. A huge fad, which turned out to posses the superficiality of fashion and none of the substance of style.

I am not saying it is all bad, people still read Swedenbourg after all, but they approach it more with a sense of historical curiosity than anything else and I suppose that shall be Focaults place in history, a historical curiosity to further elucidate upon the zeitgeist of the times.

[dark desire]

Nah, he read him to try to impress the chicks.

Impressing chicks with a gay philosopher's work? Won't work if he does that. :P

I am in total agreement with you on Foucault. My interest is to see the adoption of Nietzschean thought in his work - the chaos, the Dionysiac in action - the peak of the evil antagonist that you talk of. I have an intuitive feeling that the essence of Foucault works is not in their wholeness - of individual works or his oeuvre. It is somewhere else.

I read another thread http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36051 interesting, to me.


To be honest I think Foucault was essentially the Swedenbourg of the 20th century. A huge fad, which turned out to posses the superficiality of fashion and none of the substance of style.

I am not saying it is all bad, people still read Swedenbourg after all, but they approach it more with a sense of historical curiosity than anything else and I suppose that shall be Focaults place in history, a historical curiosity to further elucidate upon the zeitgeist of the times.

I have a feeling that your opinion is not based on study of Foucault's works. It is rather based on the public persona that Michel Foucault was.

[JCamilo]

Impressing chicks with a gay philosopher's work? Won't work if he does that. :P

You have no idea. It is like telling you are sensible to listen to a gay and macho to listen to a gay everyone hated. Better than this only random quoting of Baudelaire.


I am in total agreement with you on Foucault. My interest is to see the adoption of Nietzschean thought in his work - the chaos, the Dionysiac in action - the peak of the evil antagonist that you talk of. I have an intuitive feeling that the essence of Foucault works is not in their wholeness - of individual works or his oeuvre. It is somewhere else.

Well, some of his study hold more water than others. He do make people think of the concept of freedom. Some guys did better than him, but it was him the annoying prick that went all over it and this is probally where he got more famous in America, as the counter-culture. Somehow he is also good against lefties, he is a kind of marxist, but he is so anti-marxism that he seems to go nowhere. I like his book about madness, as much I do not consider as truth or anything, but he do write well.

(I find hard to believe Foucault have fans, because he does no effort ot be pleasant while writting. I guess more than one cheered Chomksy over him and Derrida was indeed a better writer...)

[JBI]

Nah, he read him to try to impress the chicks.

Not quite. I did a lot of work on literary theory, half as general background, half as assigned reading. I have, I would argue, read most of the major players, and am familiar with almost all of the big guns of criticism.

Anyway, when you deal with academics, they tend to try to groom you to fit their opinion. They seem to like the conversation, yet at the same time want you to see the world through their lens. They instinctively seem to have a desire to teach, and in the academic world, teaching is turned into quoting very easily.

So much so, I would argue, in the 90s everyone had basically read Foucault and others and they were required. Every chapter of a book needed to begin with a long post-modern epigraph. Theoretical lenses and gendered language (meaning, expressing the world in terms of phallus and vagina) became a must.

So, when I got my big starting kicks, I guess I was groomed to fit into that groove, especially by some of the Japanologists I studied under. The scholars of English I generally studied under tended to be historians for the most part not concerned with theoretical nonsense - a Spenser specialist, and Chaucerian, an Eliot authority, and a Canadianist. I had one professor from Berkley (a specialist on Joyce) lecture about nonsense, mixing in theoretical crap, and then ranting how she was not being rehired for the next term and that we should petition. The majority of my theoretical background actually came from professors in their late 30s, who seemed so preoccupied with their theoretical perspectives that they lost track of their own work - it became reading Foucault in Salman Rushdie, or Edward Said reads Jamaica Kincaid.

I think my big break seems to have come from the Eliot specialist, who really groomed me, I guess, and a historian I did research under specializing in modern Korean History, and researching domesticity. He I think was the first person to tell me not everyone is a post-modernist, and not everybody subscribes to this theoretical stuff.


As for the chicks, well, for the theory girls, they all seemed groomed and ready to drop names whenever they could. They always seemed to smoke, pretend to be political, have dark senses of irony, and, ironically, have boat loads of money from their parents. It is a form of snobbery in the worst sense, these girls who would sit their ranting about the world and gender issues, meanwhile exploiting the system that their parents worked so hard to ruin. Who really cares if someone can understand Zizeck - he is not actually relevant outside of a very small community of a certain type of reader.

The historian girls are more fun anyway, they are far more down to earth, and they don't smoke. I am more interested in talking, or going out with women who I can talk to about something other than education-related, or theory-related material. In the end, the people one likes best are those they can get along with outside of a fixed environment. Theory people always seem to have something to prove, and offer the most bland form of conversation that makes you wonder if you are arguing with them, or their reading list.

[PoeticPassions]

I had to read him in college and it was quite the intellectual and almost physical challenge... I usually had to read everything two or three times to really understand what his point was, and so I find Foucault generally tedious. However, I do think he has contributed greatly to political, philosophical and social discourse and his ideas, even if many find them invalid or irrelevant to today, fueled a lot of debate, discussion and intellectual evolution, so to speak.

But generally I found him to be a bit of an intellectual snob who purposefully convoluted his language and ideas so that he would come across as ultra profound and brilliant... but that's my opinion. Still, I do think some of what he has written really was/is brilliant. He surely was a smart guy...

But I haven't read History of Madness, though I wouldn't mind embarking on it, if I can find a copy...

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Not quite. I did a lot of work on literary theory, half as general background, half as assigned reading. I have, I would argue, read most of the major players, and am familiar with almost all of the big guns of criticism.

Anyway, when you deal with academics, they tend to try to groom you to fit their opinion. They seem to like the conversation, yet at the same time want you to see the world through their lens. They instinctively seem to have a desire to teach, and in the academic world, teaching is turned into quoting very easily.

So much so, I would argue, in the 90s everyone had basically read Foucault and others and they were required. Every chapter of a book needed to begin with a long post-modern epigraph. Theoretical lenses and gendered language (meaning, expressing the world in terms of phallus and vagina) became a must.

So, when I got my big starting kicks, I guess I was groomed to fit into that groove, especially by some of the Japanologists I studied under. The scholars of English I generally studied under tended to be historians for the most part not concerned with theoretical nonsense - a Spenser specialist, and Chaucerian, an Eliot authority, and a Canadianist. I had one professor from Berkley (a specialist on Joyce) lecture about nonsense, mixing in theoretical crap, and then ranting how she was not being rehired for the next term and that we should petition. The majority of my theoretical background actually came from professors in their late 30s, who seemed so preoccupied with their theoretical perspectives that they lost track of their own work - it became reading Foucault in Salman Rushdie, or Edward Said reads Jamaica Kincaid.

I think my big break seems to have come from the Eliot specialist, who really groomed me, I guess, and a historian I did research under specializing in modern Korean History, and researching domesticity. He I think was the first person to tell me not everyone is a post-modernist, and not everybody subscribes to this theoretical stuff.


As for the chicks, well, for the theory girls, they all seemed groomed and ready to drop names whenever they could. They always seemed to smoke, pretend to be political, have dark senses of irony, and, ironically, have boat loads of money from their parents. It is a form of snobbery in the worst sense, these girls who would sit their ranting about the world and gender issues, meanwhile exploiting the system that their parents worked so hard to ruin. Who really cares if someone can understand Zizeck - he is not actually relevant outside of a very small community of a certain type of reader.

The historian girls are more fun anyway, they are far more down to earth, and they don't smoke. I am more interested in talking, or going out with women who I can talk to about something other than education-related, or theory-related material. In the end, the people one likes best are those they can get along with outside of a fixed environment. Theory people always seem to have something to prove, and offer the most bland form of conversation that makes you wonder if you are arguing with them, or their reading list.

Man, I know exactly the kind of people you're talking about, but I haven't encountered many. Maybe it's because I go to a smaller, cheaper school, but there really aren't many theory advocates among my fellow students. A lot of classes I've had turn into discussions on why the theory we read was BS, and that includes the professor's perspectives. It's not that we write off the theory, just that we're allowed to see it from both sides.

Maybe that's a good thing about cheap state schools; the English professors don't have to suck up to some sort of establishment. Most professors I've had care more about the text than the theory.

[dark desire]

JBI

That was ... something. I had been feeling much too pressurized mentally about assimilating theory. Trying to adapt too much to it. I was not realizing that it was exhausting and the effort was not a pleasurable experience. Because I had been going quite passionately (due to personal reasons) about increasing my scant knowledge about the field, I got too entangled in things that I did not enjoy much and did not realize that I was not enjoying this.

Your post did something that often books are not able to do. I feel relieved from a lot pf pressure that I was exerting on myself. Art is art, a form of deception to reveal some truth. I remember the end of Dorian Gray's preface - All art is quite useless. I don't know much about what theorists do. As I am new to the field I like the newer perspectives they bring to my thinking. Even though I have not encountered the kind of people you mentioned I can imagine the frustration.

I want to flatter you with more words but I do not really have much to say (uneducated as I am :-D). To your possible annoyance I'd still like to come back to you after reading Foucault - either frustrated or impressed. I have read people praising you across different threads. Now I have an idea why.

[Drkshadow03]

I think a good approach to Critical Theory is to treat it like more traditional philosophy, but a philosophy that is particularly interested in language, discourse, power, and politics, especially as these phenomena intersect. I think Plato for example is worth reading, but that doesn't mean I need to buy into everything he says or necessarily agree with him. I would suggest treating Foucault, Derrida, and their ilk the same way.

I took an entire course on Foucault in Grad School. I'm actually glad I took the course, even though, I'm not a huge Foucault fan. As others have already stated a lot of his work is smoke and mirrors with dubious methodology.

His basic points can be summarized:

1) All discourse reflects certain dominant themes that preoccupy a time period. History shouldn't be seen as a linear story moving forward where one event leads to the next, but as a series of vertical breaks defined by their unique discourses (epistemes). A person from one era thinks of prison/sexuality/whatever in radically different way than someone from another era to the point where they wouldn't be able to truly understand each other's conception of the topic even when speaking the same language.

2) Every time you speak or think or write you're using discourse. Knowledge and power are intimately intertwined. Any thought you have is a discourse, any idea you can articulate is a discourse, and any thought or idea you're capable of having in the first place is limited through your episteme (the dominant ideas of your historical period). Therefore since discourse is such a defining a feature it is a type of power. Power circulates through discourse.
As discourse changes with one episteme to the next so do power relationships associated with those discourses. Discourses have the power to shape a person's personality and thoughts. Knowledge about a person or type of people set down in books, newspaper articles, etc. literally defines the person or type of people (hence it exerts power over them by defining them). It also means power is everywhere. It isn't just something from the top down like traditional theories of power, but flows from the bottom up too since power is associated with speech, thoughts, ideas, and books. After all, everyone uses discourse the moment they open their mouths to speak.

3) Knowledge through power shapes our subjectivity by defining us and limiting what we can and cannot think in the first place. Instead of being a unique little snowflake, my personality and thoughts are a product of various discourses that exist during my episteme. My identity has been shaped by various cultural discourses and the power structures associated with them. Therefore, any idea you have, any word you speak, is really just a mechanism for continuing the flow of power through discourse, which then circulates to define and shape other people via the discourse. Every thought and idea from the most fundamental parts of your worldview to the type of clothes you wear to your deepest sexual desires is literally a product of power as it infiltrates us via knowledge.

4) In his final phase, Foucault looks back at the Ancient Greeks and the Care of the Self and Parrhesia (truth-speaking) as a method of developing some personal space to create our own subjectivity like a work of art by drawing on the margins of society (things that are part of the power structures, but small part) and being self-reflective and letting others who are less powerful speak hard truths to us.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I think a good approach to Critical Theory is to treat it like more traditional philosophy, but a philosophy that is particularly interested in language, discourse, power, and politics, especially as these phenomena intersect. I think Plato for example is worth reading, but that doesn't mean I need to buy into everything he says or necessarily agree with him. I would suggest treating Foucault, Derrida, and their ilk the same way.

This is probably the best suggestion made when it comes to reading theory. Before knowing otherwise, I always put theory and criticism in the same category, but now know how completely different the two are. Theory really is often more like philosophy--it's just the thoughts of someone, usually ambiguous and dubious, and one can't help but notice when reading theory nothing is ever cited. When you read criticism it's completely different. Citations abound, the thoughts and points are often direct, or at least more direct, and criticism will actually deal with literature--there's plenty of "literary" theory that barely mentions any literature at all, and sometimes none.

I can't help but also notice that what Drk says above is pretty easy to understand, unlike actually reading Foucault.

[cafolini]

I think that when the Freemasons won in 1945, the Fabians like Foucault and Bernard Shaw became obsolete, although the ulterior Masons encouraged Fabianism more than vaguely since the times of the defeat of the Spanish armada, when the important bankers moved from Spain to England and never went back.

[OrphanPip]

Foucault isn't always as dense as people make him out to be. His main problem is that you have to read 20 pages of rambling before he gets to 1-2 pages where he lays out his actual point.

[Kafka's Crow]

Great to see that theory is still alive and kicking up controversies left right and centre, a sure sign of vitality. I re-returned to University in 2000 after a hiatus of almost a decade. This was all the rage then. I thought it would not last and would be superseded by something else in near future. The Fashionable Nonsense had dealt the death-blow to theory only recently and people believed that it was game over. You folks are still studying all that. Amazing! I was 'groomed' by theorists who were still wringing their hands after the infamous 'Sokal affair'. Well, nothing is changed since then, eh?

As far as Foucalt is concerned, take what makes sense to you and leave what doesn't. I picked his ideas on Power and dominant discourse and it made sense to me. The rest is verbosity in my humble opinion. I would not say he was not important. He provided this crowbar to pry open and deconstruct the discourse which will always come handy. The story behind every story, the real story.

[OrphanPip]

I'm not sure the Sokal Affair is all that relevant, it is more evidence of poor editorial practice in the humanities than evidence of the weakness of theory. There is an unfortunate tendency for certain people working in the humanities to overreach and try to speak to disparate fields of knowledge which they have no expertise in, which should be a no-no for any serious academic. There have been more than a few cases of bad or nonsensical science getting past editorial boards in science journals as well though.

Edit: It is difficult in general for anyone trying to assure the quality of academic work in the humanities because of the lack of an agreed upon universal methodology. In the sciences there are strict procedures that have to be followed, and conditions which have to be met, for an article to be published. This means that usually when something gets past the editors of a science journal it is because they fudged some numbers, the worst cases are when shoddy methodology is used but the editors still let it through. There's no easy answer to quality control in the humanities, ultimately the measure of worth comes down to citation and influence.

[Shevek]

I took a sociology course called "Work, Industry and Occupations" that I thought would intersect with my interest in labour history. Unsurprisingly (at least in hindsight), it was basically a theory course. The obligatory Marx, Weber and Foucault were there, but rather than study the lives of workers the professor wanted the class to read chapters from neo-Marxist theory books. I found the only interesting applications of theory were from authors who actually used evidence to outline why they arrived at their theory. Most of them, however, seemed more concerned with disentangling (and in many cases, further entangling) theoretical webs spun by their fellow academics.

My experience in the course suggested to me that theory itself is not nonsense, but most theoreticians insist on being nonsensical. The professor barely questioned the over-saturation of theory in his field -- the exams and papers prompted students to "compare" various theories in a few paragraphs. No actual research was required to get a good grade. I am still longing for an interesting labour history course at my university, but for now I'll wade through journals for the odd article on Canadian working-class culture that does not use Marx as a lens to see everything.

[Anton Hermes]

Foucault isn't always as dense as people make him out to be. His main problem is that you have to read 20 pages of rambling before he gets to 1-2 pages where he lays out his actual point.
I agree. I read The Order of Things and found it pretty clear, although at times he belabored points I didn't feel warranted so much attention. But he's a much more interesting writer than Derrida, whose writing I find insufferable.


I'm not sure the Sokal Affair is all that relevant, it is more evidence of poor editorial practice in the humanities than evidence of the weakness of theory.
True. Sokal was opposed only to theory trespassing into scientific territory, which has its own protocols. Literary theorists have no business discussing scientific matters they can't understand, and Sokal exposed their presumption.

[Kafka's Crow]

I agree. I read The Order of Things and found it pretty clear, although at times he belabored points I didn't feel warranted so much attention. But he's a much more interesting writer than Derrida, whose writing I find insufferable.


If you think Derrida is difficult, try Deleuze and Guattari. Derrida is one theorist I can't get enough of. I have read many, many books by him yet there is so much more to be read. I, usually, don't read whole books by theorists, I rather pick and choose what I can make sense of (as in case of Foucalt). Alain Badiou is another theorist I don't find unreadable.

[Anton Hermes]

If you think Derrida is difficult, try Deleuze and Guattari. Derrida is one theorist I can't get enough of.
I don't necessarily find him difficult. I just don't get a lot out of his word salads.

I guess I have a low threshold for frogwash.

[dark desire]

If you think Derrida is difficult, try Deleuze and Guattari. Derrida is one theorist I can't get enough of. I have read many, many books by him yet there is so much more to be read. I, usually, don't read whole books by theorists, I rather pick and choose what I can make sense of (as in case of Foucalt). Alain Badiou is another theorist I don't find unreadable.


I don't necessarily find him difficult. I just don't get a lot out of his word salads.

I guess I have a low threshold for frogwash.

Derrida tries to tell that words don't mean what they mean and he is trying to say this through words. This is what I have understood of him. While starting Derrida was fascinating, I guess I am not that interested in this theory. I don't want to chase the elusive ghost that language cannot catch. I am happy with the ghost's ghostly presence.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Isn't Derrida the guy all about how words are just signals to our minds that tell us to think of a certain thing and the words themselves are just meaningless? I don't know, I was probably dozing during that class.

[Calidore]

Isn't Derrida the guy all about how words are just signals to our minds that tell us to think of a certain thing and the words themselves are just meaningless? I don't know, I was probably dozing during that class.

Did you tell the professor that you were simply preventing his meaningless words from influencing your mind?

[Anton Hermes]

Did you tell the professor that you were simply preventing his meaningless words from influencing your mind?

"Final exams are part of the outmoded Enlightenment meta-narrative, and the philosophical biases inherent in this hegemonic othering exercise reduce it to a pornographic homage to heteronormative power structures."

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Did you tell the professor that you were simply preventing his meaningless words from influencing your mind?

Haha, no. But I made it clear I found most theory to be bull****.


"Final exams are part of the outmoded Enlightenment meta-narrative, and the philosophical biases inherent in this hegemonic othering exercise reduce it to a pornographic homage to heteronormative power structures."

:lol: I'm going to have to use that.

[JBI]

If you think Derrida is difficult, try Deleuze and Guattari. Derrida is one theorist I can't get enough of. I have read many, many books by him yet there is so much more to be read. I, usually, don't read whole books by theorists, I rather pick and choose what I can make sense of (as in case of Foucalt). Alain Badiou is another theorist I don't find unreadable.

Derrida also has the most simple theoretical approach, and mainly focused on good close readings of texts. It is his weird incomprehensible attempts that just gain the most notoriety.

[Anton Hermes]

Admittedly, the more you take these post-structuralists with a grain of salt, the more enjoyment you can derive from their work. The jargon, the irrelevant distinctions, the dramatic pronouncements, and the overreliance on analogy and metaphor are just never not entertaining. I can't imagine anyone at this late date asserting that we're supposed to take it really seriously.

[dark desire]

Admittedly, the more you take these post-structuralists with a grain of salt, the more enjoyment you can derive from their work. The jargon, the irrelevant distinctions, the dramatic pronouncements, and the overreliance on analogy and metaphor are just never not entertaining. I can't imagine anyone at this late date asserting that we're supposed to take it really seriously.

Loved your comment.

[gaiety]

I'm just starting my undergraduate degree and I feel like I am unable to complete a degree in literature. Having said that, I find Derrida extremely useful in terms of post-colionialist aims. He releases you from the notion that meaning and connotation are authoritative descriptions of our current concepts, which I think is the corner stone in the theory behind Critical Whiteness.

I don't know, maybe I'm talking **** but I find both Derrida and his influence on Critical Whiteness to be invaluable to minority issues with in literature.

[Anton Hermes]

I find Derrida extremely useful in terms of post-colionialist aims.

Everyone knows that minorities can't make progress in society if we don't destabilize texts.

[Kafka's Crow]

If you want complexity, have a look at Lacan. What a pile of cr@p and people like Zizek built their reputation on Lacanian mumbo jumbo. Early Zizek is all about Lacan. I have a copy of Ecrits somewhere that I never opened after finishing the university. Still theory is invaluable in interpreting our complicated world. I wonder how much the translators are responsible for the obscure language. Gyatari Spivak's translation of Of Gramatologyis not very inaccessible but we can't say the same for most other theoretical writings.

[JBI]

If you want complexity, have a look at Lacan. What a pile of cr@p and people like Zizek built their reputation on Lacanian mumbo jumbo. Early Zizek is all about Lacan. I have a copy of Ecrits somewhere that I never opened after finishing the university. Still theory is invaluable in interpreting our complicated world. I wonder how much the translators are responsible for the obscure language. Gyatari Spivak's translation of Of Gramatologyis not very inaccessible but we can't say the same for most other theoretical writings.

It isn't as useful for interpreting our world as you pretend. The main points maybe, but the mumbo jumbo is a waste of time, and most of the good points can be summed up in a few sentences.

[gaiety]

Everyone knows that minorities can't make progress in society if we don't destabilize texts.

In the context of critical whiteness, yeah, that's completely right. Minorities can't make progress if we don't destabilise conventional "racial" language.

[Anton Hermes]

Minorities can't make progress if we don't destabilise conventional "racial" language.

Except all the progress they've actually made.

But feel free to describe any of the progress that's been made by women and minorities in terms of voting, hiring and advancement, housing, education, lending, representation in government, and anti-discrimination which is attributable to close reading or deconstruction.

[gaiety]

Except all the progress they've actually made.

But feel free to describe any of the progress that's been made by women and minorities in terms of voting, hiring and advancement, housing, education, lending, representation in government, and anti-discrimination which is attributable to close reading or deconstruction.

Feel free to describe how minority issues are static.

We're not facing out-right violence anymore, at least not in the country I currently live. What we face is a more subtle and allusive beast. As the issues change, so do the tools. By all means, continue to be as condescending as possible but don't expect me to reply.

A group of people (like Toni Morrison) are currently theorising that "whiteness" has become the human default or social norm and propose that while that distinction exists, in all facets of society, then equality is a dream. It linguistically reinforces colonial power structures in which the normative other (I.E minorities) are seen as a separate class.

I think in this context, deconstruction is very useful.

[Anton Hermes]

What we face is a more subtle and allusive beast.

Is there such a thing as a Lacanian slip?

[OrphanPip]

There is a problem with that, in that deconstruction often works at cross-purposes with the sort of identity politics that organize and motivate political activism which have improved the conditions of minority groups, at least their material conditions.

When we get into these political academic discourses, which are participated in primarily by an educated middle class, rather than the kind of activism that produces tangible, and relevant, results for those effected by oppression, I don't really see the point.

[gaiety]

I can see your point. I'm not personally from an educated middle-class background though and perhaps that's the distinction between our levels of optimism in such discourses. It's all very new and exciting from my vantage point.

I feel as social mobility improves, we will see a new thinker from the Lumpenproletariat as more and more get accepted into higher education...or at least, that is my hope. Anyway, this is a bit off topic now.

I still have no problem with Derrida. Everyone should read more Derrida.

[Theunderground]

What really makes me laugh with all these post structuralists is that they try to destabilise all discourse as meaningless but in doing so imply either that they themselves are meaningless,or that they have the 'key' to the truth. In other words they have shifted the power discourse from the dominant accepted meanings to themselves!
Most great philosphers are excellent at critique and deconstruction but almost always create a system just as opressive or marginally less so as an alternative. The truest thing any philosopher ever said was Kierkeegard: 'Subjectivity is truth'. But then he went and mucked up all his good work by saying true subjectivity was in fact his version of christian theology.

[OrphanPip]

What really makes me laugh with all these post structuralists is that they try to destabilise all discourse as meaningless but in doing so imply either that they themselves are meaningless,or that they have the 'key' to the truth. In other words they have shifted the power discourse from the dominant accepted meanings to themselves!
Most great philosphers are excellent at critique and deconstruction but almost always create a system just as opressive or marginally less so as an alternative. The truest thing any philosopher ever said was Kierkeegard: 'Subjectivity is truth'. But then he went and mucked up all his good work by saying true subjectivity was in fact his version of christian theology.

I'm not sure many of them claim they have the "truth" though. For many in the Foucault frame, the point is only to destabilize authority, or understanding where authority comes from, rather than presenting any truth of your own. It's one of the reasons they are often accused of tending towards nihilism, because their chosen methodology can't effectively argue for any given truth.

[Kafka's Crow]

What really makes me laugh with all these post structuralists is that they try to destabilise all discourse as meaningless but in doing so imply either that they themselves are meaningless,or that they have the 'key' to the truth. In other words they have shifted the power discourse from the dominant accepted meanings to themselves!

Deconstruction is not destruction. It is re-arrangement of a discourse to make visible the cracks and lacunae in it. It does not prove anything, it does not refute anything. It just shows what is there and relies on critical judgement of individuals to repair the cracks (reformation) or dismantle the dominant discourse and build a new one (revolution). There are no nutshells. Everything is open to discussion as there is no God-given meaning (logos). From faith to language, from language to discourse, everything is open to questioning. Simply put, deconstruction is critical thinking and continuous (re)evaluation of situations. All philosophies of the past ossified in due course of time and became oppressive. Deconstruction has a self-regulating mechanism at its heart to safeguard against this eventuality.

[JBI]

Deconstruction is not destruction. It is re-arrangement of a discourse to make visible the cracks and lacunae in it. It does not prove anything, it does not refute anything. It just shows what is there and relies on critical judgement of individuals to repair the cracks (reformation) or dismantle the dominant discourse and build a new one (revolution). There are no nutshells. Everything is open to discussion as there is no God-given meaning (logos). From faith to language, from language to discourse, everything is open to questioning. Simply put, deconstruction is critical thinking and continuous (re)evaluation of situations. All philosophies of the past ossified in due course of time and became oppressive. Deconstruction has a self-regulating mechanism at its heart to safeguard against this eventuality.

My quibble is that I assume we are doing that automatically when we read anyway, without the neologisms. I mean, this is a thought pattern, but any historian, or critic is going to do the same thing regardless of what political or cultural standpoint they intend to work in, or believe they are working in.

In essence Derrida is giving a name for close reading, or for investigative research - critical thinking - as you say.

[Anton Hermes]

Let's not forget that the ever-astute Foucault lavished praise on the Ayatollah Khomeni and described the Iranian Revolution as the first sign that militant Islam was poised to become a cure for Western oppression in the Third World.

And even today, Iran remains a beacon of rational governance, human rights, and gender equality.

Yep.

[Theunderground]

JBI hit the nail on the head. These guys are telling us to read carefully and be critical? I thought that was the whole point of science and philosophy anyway. Also,they dont offer any foundations and mostly dont think human nature has any 'fixed essense'. To me this is just an excuse to say i want to reserve the right to justify anything i want. Nietzsche said all this more honestly,constructively and with far more panache a century ago.

[Heteronym]

Foucault is better as some short of evil anthagonist who will use any weapons to destroy a stabilished system, but often he is just confuse of what to do afterwards. But he was quite intelligent, quite a thorn.

The timeless quandary of the left-wing intellectual: wants to demolish everything and rebuild on the rubles and ashes, but then doesn't know what to build in its stead.

Never had much patience for his warped thinking and twisted vocabulary and sentences, always a sign to me of a muddled mind. A thinker who knows what he wants to say, knows how to express himself in clear prose. I don't get into this problem with thinkers like Erich Fromm, Bertrand Russell, Isaiah Berlin, and Mary Midgley, to just name a few.

Also, I recently discovered he was a fan of Ayatollah Khomeini and considered him the saviour of Iran :frown2: Hardly surprising, but as someone who aligns himself in the left most of the time, it's of course sad to see another left-wing thinker displaying total political stupidity.

[OrphanPip]

Also, I recently discovered he was a fan of Ayatollah Khomeini and considered him the saviour of Iran :frown2: Hardly surprising, but as someone who aligns himself in the left most of the time, it's of course sad to see another left-wing thinker displaying total political stupidity.

Well its hard to say who was worse for Iran, the Shah or the Ayatollah. After all, when Foucault was writing in support of Khomeini the alternative was not any better. Also, he was writing about the Ayatollah primarily during the revolution. A lot of people were fascinated by the ability of the Ayatollah to lead an essentially non-violent revolution, and despite the theocratic principles it involved a move towards more democratization despite also moving towards perhaps a de-liberalization in the social sphere. Most of the moves towards de-democratization occurred after Foucault's writings on Iran, so perhaps Foucault was too optimistic about the aims of the Islamist movement in Iran but there is nothing really outlandish about the positions he took.

Also, it's hard to describe his support of Khomeini as an endorsement of their politics, but it was more his fascination with the ability of the Islamist discourses to displace Capitalism or Marxism that drove him to write about the revolution.

[Heteronym]

It becomes difficult for me to find attenuating circumstances for Foucault - not that I'm looking too hard for them - when it seems left thinkers and artists have the uncanny gift to always support dictators: Sarte and Stalin; García Márquez and Castro; Chomsky and Pol Pot; Foucault and Khomeini. It's like you can accurately predict where terror will spring if you simply study which leader the left is supporting this week...


Also, it's hard to describe his support of Khomeini as an endorsement of their politics, but it was more his fascination with the ability of the Islamist discourses to displace Capitalism or Marxism that drove him to write about the revolution.

Oh yes, of course, it's what I wrote above: wanting to destroy what's known without knowing with that to replace it with, or replacing it with something even worse. Foucault belonged to a small cadre of Western thinkers who had an incredible hatred for the West, although he disguised it in meaningless babble, and another moral relativist, going so far as accusing Islamic feminists of being too westernized when they pointed out the sexual descrimination in Khomeini's Iran. Pity he didn't live to see that his Islamic spiritual renewal quickly turned into a totalitarian ideology. He had many opportunities to denounce what Iran became after 1979, but he never did, and that speaks volumes about where his loyalty was.

[JCamilo]

Yes, simple because the western capitalism is easily as ppressive and hipocrite. After all, we just saw those muslins (ignorants) teaching the american democracy they can take down dictadors with less violence, without millions and with a ideology beyond profit... just again. (Iran is considerable better than Saudi Arabia, which is a bit of western model for nice arabic-muslins countries).

[Scheherazade]

Discussion of current politics is not allowed.