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From: "Rafael A. Acuna" <ralph@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 10:53:49 +48000
On Wed, 14 Sep 1994, Landis Duffett wrote:
> I would be interested in hearing your (or anyone else's) ideas on how _The
> Communist Manifesto_ can be seen as an influence on Foucault. I think this
> would lead to an interesting thread of discussion.
I am not very sure, but in one of the essays, Foucault mentioned that he
was wary of using footnotes, especially when quoting from Marx, since he
believed everyone was Marxist and as implied in his essay "What is an
Author?," Marxian thought is already part of every discourse, even though
we still attribute it to one man.
There's also the essay "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," but I can't find a
copy. You see, I live in the Philippines. However, I believe these
three individuals played significant roles in the intellectual background
of French thinkers, particularly Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and
Guattari. And since _The Communist Manifesto_ is considered one of the
basic works of Marx, I saw it proper to include it with Nietzsche's _A
Genealogy of Morals_ and one of Freud's essay on play.
Finally, I notice that one can see various influences of Marx's class
struggle (or struggle itself between dominant and marginalized groups),
Freud's views on repression, and Nietzsche's "becoming" and "will to
power" in Foucault's challenge to panopticism, nuances of simulacra, and
the "lion's cry" amidst a world of domination. Perhaps a culminating
analogy of all these would be Deleuze and Guattari's wonderful "rhizome."
Rafael Acuna
Ateneo de Manila University
ralph@xxxxxxxxxxx
