Subject: Re: Foucault and fascism
There was one other cite from Foucault on his own arguments
concerning power and knowledge that I wanted to throw your way,
just FYI. On p. 43 of _Politics, Philosophy, Culture_, Foucault
says in response to a question on just this topic:
FOUCAULT: ... You must understand that this is part of
the destiny common to all problems once they are posed: they
degenerate into slogans. Nobody has said "Reason is power." I do
not think anyone has said knowledge is a kind of power.
G.R. It has been said.
FOUCAULT: It has been said but you have to understand
that when I read -- and I know it has been attributed to me --
the thesis, "Knowledge is power," or "Power is knowledge," I
begin to laugh, since studying their *relation* is precisely my
problem. If they were identical, I would not have to study them
and I would be spared a lot of fatigue as a result. The very fact
that I pose the question of their relation proves clearly that I
do not *identify* them.
There was one other cite from Foucault on his own arguments
concerning power and knowledge that I wanted to throw your way,
just FYI. On p. 43 of _Politics, Philosophy, Culture_, Foucault
says in response to a question on just this topic:
FOUCAULT: ... You must understand that this is part of
the destiny common to all problems once they are posed: they
degenerate into slogans. Nobody has said "Reason is power." I do
not think anyone has said knowledge is a kind of power.
G.R. It has been said.
FOUCAULT: It has been said but you have to understand
that when I read -- and I know it has been attributed to me --
the thesis, "Knowledge is power," or "Power is knowledge," I
begin to laugh, since studying their *relation* is precisely my
problem. If they were identical, I would not have to study them
and I would be spared a lot of fatigue as a result. The very fact
that I pose the question of their relation proves clearly that I
do not *identify* them.