I have always read Foucault as eminently practical. His ideas about the
distribution and flows of power have thrown into sharp relief the
practices of power in schools, hospitals, prisons, places of work, etc.
--Bryan N. Alexander a/k/a Bryan Case a/k/a godwin@xxxxxxxxx--
"He wasn't the real thing, but he sure was a good imitation of it,
which is frequently better than the real thing, for the real thing can
relax but the imitation can't afford to and has to spend all the time
being just one more cut better than the real thing, with money no object."
-Robert Penn Warren
On Wed, 19 Oct 1994, KENNETH MCPHAIL wrote:
> In the conclusion of Allan Megills excellent book, 'Prophets of
> Extreminty,' he says,
> 'The most comprehensive charge that can be leveled against them
> (Foucault Derrida, Hiedegger & Nietzsche) is that they totaly
> overlook or misconstrue the truly pressing realities of human life.
> In their idealism, they try to come to grips not with gravity but but
> with the spirit of gravity. It can be argued that the point about
> such apparent banalities as, 'what about the workers' or 'what about
> the starving millions' is that they refer to an underlying social
> reality with problems far weightier than the issues that interest
> crisis thinkers'
>
> I had been thinking about this for some time before I read Megills
> book. I have some friends who are currently working in Rawanda and
> the experiances which they have related to me seem to ironise and
> trivialise Foucaults and Derrias fictions. It is very difficult to
> tell someone who has witnessed the 'reality' of genocide that 'world
> itself is nothing other than art', and that 'there is no true world.'
> Is Foucault really working at such a superficial level? What is the
> scope and context of Foucaults work?
>
>
> Ken
>
distribution and flows of power have thrown into sharp relief the
practices of power in schools, hospitals, prisons, places of work, etc.
--Bryan N. Alexander a/k/a Bryan Case a/k/a godwin@xxxxxxxxx--
"He wasn't the real thing, but he sure was a good imitation of it,
which is frequently better than the real thing, for the real thing can
relax but the imitation can't afford to and has to spend all the time
being just one more cut better than the real thing, with money no object."
-Robert Penn Warren
On Wed, 19 Oct 1994, KENNETH MCPHAIL wrote:
> In the conclusion of Allan Megills excellent book, 'Prophets of
> Extreminty,' he says,
> 'The most comprehensive charge that can be leveled against them
> (Foucault Derrida, Hiedegger & Nietzsche) is that they totaly
> overlook or misconstrue the truly pressing realities of human life.
> In their idealism, they try to come to grips not with gravity but but
> with the spirit of gravity. It can be argued that the point about
> such apparent banalities as, 'what about the workers' or 'what about
> the starving millions' is that they refer to an underlying social
> reality with problems far weightier than the issues that interest
> crisis thinkers'
>
> I had been thinking about this for some time before I read Megills
> book. I have some friends who are currently working in Rawanda and
> the experiances which they have related to me seem to ironise and
> trivialise Foucaults and Derrias fictions. It is very difficult to
> tell someone who has witnessed the 'reality' of genocide that 'world
> itself is nothing other than art', and that 'there is no true world.'
> Is Foucault really working at such a superficial level? What is the
> scope and context of Foucaults work?
>
>
> Ken
>