Foucault

September 4, 2006 7:21 PM

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. Foucault's returning to Humanism.
posted by semmi (34 comments total)

The alliance with Kouchner and Glucksmann transformed Foucault into a passionate advocate of humanitarian intervention, or le droit d'ingérance: the moral imperative to intervene in the domestic affairs of a nation where human rights are being systematically violated.

Would Foucault have been for the current Iraq War? Not the lies and deceit that got America there, but for the toppling of Saddam as a despot who systematically violated human rights against his own people.

Also, I predict more "reassessments" of formerly influential poststructuralist thinkers, recasting them as actively political beings engaged in concrete reform. North American Humanities departments will attempt to reinvigorate their relevance by this means.
posted by Falconetti at 7:53 PM on September 4, 2006

Wow! A post on Foucault, another on John Cage, three photo galleries, current events, politics entertainment, and nary a contest in sight.

It's the season premiere of MetaFilter!
posted by Pastabagel at 8:02 PM on September 4, 2006

From the article:
"What strikes me is the fact that in our society art has become something which is related to objects and not to individuals, or to life. ... But couldn't everyone's life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?"

This is interesting, I didn't realize Foucault went this far in his later life. I think the reason we have a problem with life asa work of art is that when you make art, you often discard abortive pieces that never work out, finish others but are disgusted by how they came out etc.

In life, at least in the U.S. the things you do in your life are seen as somehow permanent or defining. If you tried drugs once you are somehow blemished even if you never use them again. This is especially the case with sex. If you experiement in college those things are always with you, they are not just mere things you did for a laugh or to explore your feelings.

But this does fit with Foucault's earlier notion of sexual identity as a means of control, but it is part of the larger scheme of the mechanisms of control classifying and labelling people to pit them against one another. Some one who experimented with homosexuality in college, for example, is somehow not the same as someone who thought about it but never did it. The latter, seeing the social stigma imposed on the former (he may feel he has to hide it, etc) feels rewarded for his repression.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:14 PM on September 4, 2006

North American Humanities departments will attempt to reinvigorate their relevance by this means.

You say that as if its a bad thing.
posted by papakwanz at 8:47 PM on September 4, 2006

You say that as if its a bad thing.

Didn't mean it to be necessarily a bad thing.
posted by Falconetti at 8:58 PM on September 4, 2006

Ok then!

As a grad student in the Humanities, I think we *do* need to reinvigorate our relevance, and not just because of funding issues. The study of humanity can, and in miy mind, should, stand against the increasingly dehumanizing effects of corporatiism and globalization. Will it ever actually do that? Who knows...
posted by papakwanz at 9:12 PM on September 4, 2006

I heart Foucault. I've been looking into his stuff on power structures and anarchistic tendencies as it relates to urban planning (for my thesis). It's applicable in a lot of disciplines. He's the sort of guy who, as your reading, everything starts to make sense. There's an academic reason why your dreams and ambitions were crushed by some asshole who owns a Porsche. It all makes sense!
posted by jimmythefish at 9:14 PM on September 4, 2006

argh...that should be 'as you're reading him'
posted by jimmythefish at 9:15 PM on September 4, 2006

Gag. I love his idea that somehow this evaluation of Foucault's later work will/should radically change all Foucauldian scholarship. As if the later work renders all other work null and void? Give me a break.

ALSO: The idea that Foucault's political engagement somehow demonstrates that he "had clearly become disenchanted with …. the treatment of 'power'" in his work is laughable. Working towards greater political rights for people doesn't automatically mean that you buy into trad. liberalist ideals of "freedom" or "rights."

He did do a good job of keeping his anti-"pomo" bias out of it until then end, though. So, props.
posted by drewbeck at 10:10 PM on September 4, 2006

Justice vs Power

such a perennial favorite:

terrible youtube link of the second, political, part

more complete transcript of Justice vs Power at chomsky.info


The notion of an actually-humanitarian intervention is one that Bernadine Dohrn has spoken about recently. Unfortunately, i have no transcript of her Keynote at the NCOR 2005 at American University.
posted by eustatic at 10:36 PM on September 4, 2006

Executive summary: thirty years ago Foucault changed his mind and decided it was OK to oppose totalitarianism. A new book, Foucault 2.0: Beyond Power and Knowledge, discusses this. Oh, and Americans just don't get it.

Working towards greater political rights for people doesn't automatically mean that you buy into trad. liberalist ideals of "freedom" or "rights."

No, it could mean that you're hypocritical and hopelessly inconsistent. Take your pick.
posted by languagehat at 5:41 AM on September 5, 2006

Last year I read Foucault for the first time, but based purely off the "History of Sexuality" I just wasn't really that impressed. There were some things I agreed with, but overall, I felt that he merely represented one of the apexes of post-modern thought that I felt has been ultimately more damaging than beneficial to academia.
posted by Atreides at 6:18 AM on September 5, 2006

Foucault anticipated a hell of a lot of things.
/On a tangent - Regan was a western statesmen who had quite a bit to say about Poland (and the pope’s absence is glaring) but ok, not the point of the piece.
I don’t know that aesthetic self-realization in practice wouldn’t lead to self-subjectification among some folks (I’m way more enlightened than you, e.g.). And I’m not certain that some brands of humanism aren’t ultimately wedded to aristocratic thinking albeit along a path other than the ‘divine right’ (control a meritocracy by defining what is meritous).
Although I’d say that the question that seems to underlie all that - “What gives you the right to interfere in international politics” - or whatever - can be pointed at any individual really.
(I’m with drewbeck there)
Someone recieving the most votes is not an inherently superior individual as compared to a monarch by birth or someone with the most academic accolades or a self-sacrificing passionate intellectual. But those Greeks executed Socrates - who very much fits that last description and the life aesthetic. I don’t know then whether in power all knowlege rests upon injustice or whether the dispute is in the classification of knowlege, but either way reading this I’m thinking I should read more Foucault.

“Second-wave feminism, which embraced and affirmed women's "difference," emerged to fill the void.”

Huh huh huh...if you know what I mean.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:36 AM on September 5, 2006

*Discipline and Punish* was one of the most mind-expanding books I've ever read. Carp all you want about "pomo" and the sorry state of the humanities disciplines in the US, but Foucault wrote books that profoundly influenced thousands of other intellectuals in many countries and disciplines. His legacy can be disputed, but the brilliance and originality of his work cannot be disputed. If you haven't read him, you should probably also not weigh in with an opinion about his work, though opinions about Foucault are like assholes -- everyone's got one, whether they've read (and understood) his work or not.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:59 AM on September 5, 2006

I'm a little confused by what languagehat wrote - "Americans just don't get it" - could you elaborate more? Do we not get it because we're not educated to see the power structures? OR do we not get Foucault because the power structure has labelled him (correctly or not) as something that americans find unpleasant?
posted by Pastabagel at 8:10 AM on September 5, 2006

languagehat- nevermind. I now realize you were summarizing the article which makes those points.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:14 AM on September 5, 2006

when you find your servant is your master . . . .
posted by fourcheesemac at 8:54 AM on September 5, 2006

I think Wolin is one of the better pulished, least interesting commentators on the so-called posties (his Heidegger "scholarship" also centers on Heidegger's post-humanism). Sorry if I don't find his assessment entirely productive, but I doubt most people concerned about the subjects that animated Foucault think the dividing line between humanist and anti-humanist is either remotely clean or essential to the topics covered.
posted by hank_14 at 9:28 AM on September 5, 2006

How incredibly fucking asinine. The first volume of The Essential Foucault has had all of this stuff collected in one place for years now -- just read that and pay attention to where he starts talking about 'askesis' or the Stoics. This is not new scholarship.
posted by spiderwire at 9:39 AM on September 5, 2006

OK, that was a bit harsh.

Here is a comment I made last year (Oct 05) explaining the late-Foucauldian notion of subjectification and here is a comment in that thread pointing to the literature. This is the book -- first published in 1997 or so judging by the first review -- which is by far the essential primary-source reading on this excellent topic.

Really, Vol 1 of the Essential Foucault can't be recommended highly enough. You just have to love any book that draws on an author's syllabi in order to get at the appropriate material.
posted by spiderwire at 10:05 AM on September 5, 2006

spiderwire: Explanation, analysis, insight, etc., would be so much more appreciated here than links to Amazon.
posted by semmi at 10:45 AM on September 5, 2006

Reception history is always interesting, especially in Foucault's case. I studied with some profs who were coming of age, professionally, in the 1970's, when hardcore crit. theory was the only thing that mattered, at least if you wanted a job. Not to defend every single thing Foucault wrote, but he was a brilliant guy whose North American reception was very much shaped (distorted?) by an increasingly paradoxical notion of what humanities studies are all about (We teach classics? We deconstruct them? We theorize about them? We look at the historical context which allowed given works to happen? We try to make sure that minorities are equally represented in the canon?).

All of which is to say, I enjoyed reading this article but agree with spiderwire that the "aha!" moment is really not that original. Important, sure--some people still think, and always will, that Foucault was a bondage fetishist who died of AIDS and wrote some un-American books. That he came to a position where he didn't totally renounce the possibility of social change and/or engagements with Power that could make people's lives better isn't all that shocking. But I doubt he'd be excited by the prospect of academics patting themselves on the back for thinking they have something to contribute outside of the academy. That moment of humanistic triumph whenever you think you've "won" against Power? That's when you're digging the trench even deeper.
posted by bardic at 2:11 PM on September 5, 2006

But I doubt he'd be excited by the prospect of academics patting themselves on the back for thinking they have something to contribute outside of the academy. That moment of humanistic triumph whenever you think you've "won" against Power? That's when you're digging the trench even deeper.

Isn't it that there is no wall at all for anyone?--all people have something to contribute and that contribution is shaped by power and the structures already in place? He was never negating individuals nor individual achievement or importance, but showing how the structures we inhabit affect all we do and how we do and even how and what we are or identify as/with. He was never non-humanist at all, i don't think.

And identity politics are not as this author believes--this is amazingly and obviously biased: The major difference between the two standpoints may be explained as follows: Whereas human rights stress our formal and inviolable prerogatives as people (equality before the law, freedom of speech, habeas corpus, and so forth), identity politics emphasize the particularity of group belonging. The problem is that the two positions often conflict: Assertions of cultural particularism often view an orientation toward rights as an abstract, formalistic hindrance. Thus identity politics risks regressing to an ideology of "groupthink." Or, as a percipient German friend once observed with reference to the American culture wars, "Identity politics: That's what we had in Germany between 1933 and 1945." He correctly insinuated that unless multiculturalist allegiances are mediated by a fundamental respect for the rule of law and basic constitutional freedoms, the door will have been opened to fratricidal conflict.
Group belonging and Identity Politics is neither in opposition to nor independent of human rights, but simply the way we social and tribal creatures live and organize our lives and memberships/affiliations. It's never been an either/or thing, not for cavemen, nor even for Germans in the 30s. Identity politics do not at all ignore nor subsume human rights but in fact most often fight for the opposite. "United we stand, divided we fall" holds true for all humans throughout all history in every society ever, whether society was aimed at exterminating Jews, or a small group was fighting for independence, or an individual was going to court so his children can go the same school white kids go to, or various individuals fight and bomb because their country is being occupied, etc.... Human rights are always part and parcel of all groups, whether it's ensuring them for your group, fighting for them for all, or fighting to deny them to others. Identity politics is a derided label for something not new--and something never in or out of fashion--whether intellectual or otherwise. For this author to knock Identity Politics by cracking wise about Germany and Nazis, and then in the next sentence speak of "Multiculturalist allegiances" when Germany was all about forcing monoculture is really weird.
posted by amberglow at 3:26 PM on September 5, 2006

No, it could mean that you're hypocritical and hopelessly inconsistent. Take your pick.

Booo. Bad dichotomy. Look, Foucault's critique was that ideas of "rights", "justice", "freedom" etc. can't be viewed as unqualified good — they are always contingent, created and inflected by structures of power. The "freedom" the sexual revolution brought was just another discourse on sex, not the expression of some fundamental sexual characteristics or need. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a good thing, morally, politically or personally. It doesn't mean that a totalitarian government is just as good as a liberal one and it doesn't mean that resistance isn't possible or important.

Did Foucault really ever suggest that it wasn't okay to oppose totalitarianism? Seriously.
posted by drewbeck at 3:30 PM on September 5, 2006

Yeah, I know. I just get a little impatient sometimes at the infinite license that seems to be extended to fashionable philosophers to say whatever they want, have it mean whatever they want, and live however they want, with no attempt by them or their disciples to reconcile it all. That's why I loved the rumpus over de Man's articles for a collaborationist rag—it forced people to actually take him seriously as a person like the rest of us, rather than simply genuflect at the brilliance of his concepts. I'm glad Foucault opposed totalitarianism; I just don't want to see it taken for granted that somehow it all hangs together. He could change his mind like anybody else. (Not saying your points aren't valid; they are.)

For you "This is not new scholarship" people: nobody said it was. It's an article about a new book. Calm down.
posted by languagehat at 3:44 PM on September 5, 2006

semmi: I think that the link to the thread where you and I talked about this last year is a good summary of what I think. It's also a fairly good articulation of the argument of the book being reviewed. The link to the Essential Foucault is just a way of pointing out that this stuff has been around and available for a long time. Also, the reviews on that page offer good summations of the argument in question. I can cut 'n' paste if you like.

languagehat: For you "This is not new scholarship" people: nobody said it was. It's an article about a new book. Calm down.

Dude, come on, you're better than that. FTFA:

If his insights are correct, his study portends a veritable sea change in Foucault scholarship.

This despite that all of this material has been available and well-known in English for a decade now. "Sea change," my poststructuralist ass.
posted by spiderwire at 4:37 PM on September 5, 2006

Well, with the proviso that I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but with decades of reading book reviews and following intellectual trends:

1) If his insights are correct, his study portends a veritable sea change in Foucault scholarship.

This is your basic book-review hype. The point of a book review is to sell the review and/or the book, and for either you need a little hype. Even the Chronicle is not immune.

2) Even granted that factor, and granted that "all of this material has been available and well-known in English for a decade now," it's still possible that the mass mind, as it were, has not assimilated all that material, and that this book will serve as a catalyst for such assimilation. That kind of thing happens all the time. I have no idea if it applies here, because I Am Not A Foucauldian, but just saying that the material is not new does not ipso facto prove that there is no possible sea change.

But again, I don't really know what I'm talking about, and am happy to defer to your greater knowledge.
posted by languagehat at 5:16 PM on September 5, 2006

"...some people still think, and always will, that Foucault was a bondage fetishist ..."

Well now I gotta read more.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:20 PM on September 5, 2006

spiderwire: Thanks for pointing me to that long forgotten discussion of last year. Not to disown anything I said there, but I am blown away seeing the distance I've travelled in a year.
posted by semmi at 5:24 PM on September 5, 2006

languagehat: But again, I don't really know what I'm talking about, and am happy to defer to your greater knowledge.

Oh, don't be so sarcastic. You're generally a smarter cookie than me -- but I think you'll agree that the book review here is hyping something as a revolution in Foucauldian scholarship that's really not. I'm not sure that Foucault has a lot of presence in the 'mass mind,' as it were, so it strikes me as a valid point. More on that in a second.

Regardless, I wasn't trying to be condescending about it. The 'FTFA' was too hasty. In my own defense, I have to keep posting without really turning on my internal censors, 'cause MeFi keeps going down. :)

semmi: Glad to hear it. This speaks to LH's argument about the review, too, I guess, and probably demonstrates why I'm wrong or at least off base: this book review is actually somewhat useful because Foucault's humanism isn't really appreciated as much as it should be. It's certainly not a 'sea change,' but LH is right that it's not really unjustified either. Anyway, good that you feel you're coming along and thanks for the FPP.


With regards to languagehat's earlier point, the reason that this particular element of Foucault's ouevre (look, French!) is so interesting to me is that it really doesn't contradict everything else, which LH correctly points out as a problem with po-mo scholars in general.

Foucault was, I think, smart enough to realize that while his analysis of power was useful and brilliant in many ways, the relativist critique is particularly damning indictment, at least at first glance. The notion of power as omnipresent -- while speaking to its reversibility -- does create problems in that it's hard to talk about one power structure as ethically distinct from another, and it's impossible to articulate a subject that can act outside of a power structure. So a lot of people have pointed out that Foucault's earlier work doesn't allow a lot of wiggle room for ethical judgments nor 'freedom of action.'

The reason that the Foucauldian notion of subjectification is so brilliant is that it demonstrates one way in which a subject can exercise freedom and ethics within this omnipresent power structure without imposing a positivist moral system on it from the outside -- it maintains humanism and freedom of action while still maintaining space for nimble analysis and the ability to 'problematize' entrenched power structures / discourses / whatever.

I recommend that Essential Foucault book because it really articulates these notions better than I'm able (and I'm not really trying to in this comment, for what it's worth, although I did in that old thread, a little bit), and I think that it's unique move in that most of the authors we think of as 'postmodern' really aren't able to move beyond the relativist critique in a way that doesn't trash much of their earlier work -- I think that Foucault was able to do that, which is part of what makes him so special.

I'd certainly be willing to come back and talk about this more, but I'll leave it at that for now. semmi, thanks for the article, and languagehat, I really think that you would love to read both of the books talked about here (Vol 1 of the Essential Foucault, and the book reviewed here) and it'd be wonderful to hear your thoughts on them. Foucault offers a potentially brilliant solution to the problem you posed in the comment I linked above and it'd be interesting to hear your opinions on it.
posted by spiderwire at 7:31 PM on September 5, 2006

It's funny how threads about pomo authors make me write like them.
posted by spiderwire at 7:35 PM on September 5, 2006

Would Foucault have been for the current Iraq War? Not the lies and deceit that got America there, but for the toppling of Saddam as a despot who systematically violated human rights against his own people.

Read Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism . I did a paper on it earlier.

Foucault tackles gender issues as a result of the Iranian revolution. His verdict? Convoluted (of course), but Afray and Anderson somewhat lean towards the fact that the negatives of gender segregation were mitigated by the fact that the Iranians were choosing their own traditionalist superstructure, against the conception of Western modernist ethos, which according to late analytical philosophy failed.

How applicable is this to today's travails with the middle east? Very. A must read, imo.
posted by stratastar at 7:45 PM on September 5, 2006

Oh, don't be so sarcastic.

I assure you, I wasn't being sarcastic in the slightest. You clearly know a hell of a lot more about Foucault, and this stuff in general, than I do, and I'm always happy to defer to those who know more than I do. Doesn't stop me from shooting off my mouth, partially because doing so gets me corrected, and I learn something, which is one of my great joys in life.

Or were you being sarcastic when you accused me of being sarcastic? It's so hard to tell around here...
posted by languagehat at 5:52 AM on September 6, 2006

I was being ironical.


Although this is sort of relevant to my point -- I'm an amateur programmer and a first-year law student, not a Foucault scholar, and I've known about all this for at least 5 or 6 years now. So that's why I find it baffling that the reviewer would call any of this 'new.' But whatever.
posted by spiderwire at 10:43 AM on September 6, 2006