Re: Poststructuralism & Ethics

Here's a relevant quotation to the discussion:

"The role of an intellectual is not to tell others what they must do. By
what right would he do so? And remember all the prophecies, promises,
injunctions and plans intellectuals have been able to formulate in the
course of the last two centuries and of which we have seen the effects.
The work of an intellectual is not to mold the political will of others;
it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine
evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and
thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules
and institutions and starting from this re-problematization (where he
occupies his specific profession as an intellectual) to participate in
the formation of a political will (where he has his role as a citizen to
play)" (FOUCAULT LIVE 305-6).

Erik D. Lindberg
Dept. of English and Comparative Lit.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, WI 53211
email: edl@xxxxxxxxxxx


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