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From: David McInerney <vagabond@xxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:25:14 +1030
On 29/10/2008, at 7:46 AM, Chetan Vemuri wrote:
these same later disillusioning
revelations about the revolution ironically proved him right in the
argument
he made against Noam Chomsky back in 1971 regarding how one group
fighting
for "justice' ultimately becomes a power structure once its over,
regardless
of whether they're better than the previous govt or worse. The power
structure is neither good nor bad.
Of course it is neither "good" nor "bad", considered in this
universalistic, humanist sense ... for Foucault power is always a
relation, and when we speak of power relations embodied in state
apparatuses these are relatively stable asymmetrical relations that
mobilize the capacities of one group so that they might be
appropriated by another group in a manner not entirely reciprocal.
The effects of the reproduction/transformation of such relations can
only be grasped in terms of 'good for whom' rather than 'good for
society (as a whole)'. Foucault was too good a student of Marx's
analyses of the labour process, working day, and so-called primitive
accumulation to think otherwise. The Iranian situation was one that
could have gone in various directions ... I suggest reading Darius
Rejali's book "Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State in
Modern Iran" (1994) for basic information on the measures used to
deal with former "allies" and establish and Islamic state in Iran.
