The question about Foucault and Revolution is another one which leads me
to see a conneciton between Kant and Foucault. With respect to Foucault,
consider for instance the exchange that is published in Power/Knowledge:
Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77_, ed. C. Gordon. In his
debate with Maoists on the topic of popular justice, he is asking them to
consider the ways inwhich the power dynamic embodied by the holding of a
trial is not altered simply by the fact that it's our team in charge. The
topography and theatre, as it were of a trial are not only reflections of
the power dynamic in our society, they are part of it, they produce it,
and reproduce it. The staging of trials is the result of material
conditions, which include symbolic interaction. Foucault was not
challenging the claim thatthe owners of the factories were oppressing the
workers in ways which required a response; nor was he, it seems to me,
pointing out the problem with their desire to hold the trial as an
existential version of the turn the other cheek view of political
action. What I think does follow from Foucault's views is that the
appropriate form of response to oppression emerges out of the specific
condiitons of oppression. It may be that I'm making him out to be Rosa
Luxembourg.
Antoine Goulem, goua@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------
to see a conneciton between Kant and Foucault. With respect to Foucault,
consider for instance the exchange that is published in Power/Knowledge:
Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77_, ed. C. Gordon. In his
debate with Maoists on the topic of popular justice, he is asking them to
consider the ways inwhich the power dynamic embodied by the holding of a
trial is not altered simply by the fact that it's our team in charge. The
topography and theatre, as it were of a trial are not only reflections of
the power dynamic in our society, they are part of it, they produce it,
and reproduce it. The staging of trials is the result of material
conditions, which include symbolic interaction. Foucault was not
challenging the claim thatthe owners of the factories were oppressing the
workers in ways which required a response; nor was he, it seems to me,
pointing out the problem with their desire to hold the trial as an
existential version of the turn the other cheek view of political
action. What I think does follow from Foucault's views is that the
appropriate form of response to oppression emerges out of the specific
condiitons of oppression. It may be that I'm making him out to be Rosa
Luxembourg.
Antoine Goulem, goua@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------