MICHEL FOUCAULT, info.

Just reading through some of the "reasons" people have put forth
concerning the lack of activity on this list. 

What I find interesting/annoying is the implication that Foucault's work
is *so* difficult/enigmatic/etc that even to try and discuss it can/will
result in betraying everything he hoped to express. Frankly, I think
that's a load. I don't doubt there is a lot in F that we really need to
work hard to wrap our tiny modern minds around, but come on. Maybe the
reason people are reluctant to write anything of substance on this list
is because of the implication that no one can ever *really* get Foucault
right, that his work is just way too difficult, that any attempt to
understand and - horrors! - actually push beyond his work is doomed to
failure, owing to our biases and naivety.

I have more confidence that Foucault's work has in many diverse and
capillarite ways infused itself into many modern selves. I think to a
large extent some of us (in academia, and elsewhere) have subjectivities
imbued with the "lessons" of Foucault's writings. I'd encourage us not
to think of those lessons as being so much "out there" and intractable
to our puny modern minds, but rather as being part of who we are, and
thus discursible from the inside, as it were. What was Foucault *really*
saying? Well, let's look at ourselves to see what we've become in his wake.
And let's drop the attitude that his work is so intractable. He was
talking about us, after all.


Feeling a little grumpy,

Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
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