On Mon, 3 Jun 1996 12:30:26 -0600, jln wrote:
>it's interesting that you say repression here, because repression is
>clearly what Foucault denies (194). I think that he can't really deny it.
>What jhe wants to deny overall is that we have real selves. If we don't
>have real selves, then we cannot be repressed. QED. But then why make any
>critique of power relations. There is no real interest in the name of which
>to make that critique. This is what bothers me, and I think where Foucault
>goes wrong. Yes, I think we have real interests. It's how they have been
>specified throughout history that's the problem.
I would say that all that Foucault denied was the notion that the essence of
power is repression, that power is that which says no. (see the chapter on method
in the history of sexuality vol. 1) I don't think that it follows from this that repression
as such doesn't exist. The number of times F. speaks about repression in his
interviews is actually quite large . I can't look in the page that you refer to
because I have only the French edition at home, so if you think I miss something there
please give a quote.
About selfs and repression. Why is it that true self is what power represses?
is it perhaps possible to say that F.'s critique of the repressive hypothesis
is actually anticipated by Marx himself, when he is critical of the fact that
the regime of alienated labour brings the worker to search for his or her freedom in
what is common to men and animals, i.e. food, sex etc. and not in what is distinct
to humans, i.e. creative transformation of nature? Taking the lead from Marx, one
could say that what appears to be the repressed true self, i.e. the desire to idle in the sun,
eat and have sex, is the effect of a certain repression, which would mean precisely
that power is productive, since it has produced a kind of individual with certain desires
and certain interests whereas what actually has been repressed was quite different from
these desires and interests; a poteniality which became unrecognisable.
a form of possible answer to your critique of Foucault "ungrounded" criticism might be that
he is criticising from the perspective of that excluded poteniality. i.e. that his critique is not
based on a real interest but on a potential interest, or on the interset to remain open to other
possibilities.
e.g "what frightens me in humanism, is that it presents a certain form of our
ethics as a universal model for all types of liberty. I think that our future has more secrets, more
possible liberties and inventions than what humanism allows us to imagine"
Dits et Ecrits v. 5, p. 782.
-------------
Gabriel Ash
Notre-Dame
-------------
>it's interesting that you say repression here, because repression is
>clearly what Foucault denies (194). I think that he can't really deny it.
>What jhe wants to deny overall is that we have real selves. If we don't
>have real selves, then we cannot be repressed. QED. But then why make any
>critique of power relations. There is no real interest in the name of which
>to make that critique. This is what bothers me, and I think where Foucault
>goes wrong. Yes, I think we have real interests. It's how they have been
>specified throughout history that's the problem.
I would say that all that Foucault denied was the notion that the essence of
power is repression, that power is that which says no. (see the chapter on method
in the history of sexuality vol. 1) I don't think that it follows from this that repression
as such doesn't exist. The number of times F. speaks about repression in his
interviews is actually quite large . I can't look in the page that you refer to
because I have only the French edition at home, so if you think I miss something there
please give a quote.
About selfs and repression. Why is it that true self is what power represses?
is it perhaps possible to say that F.'s critique of the repressive hypothesis
is actually anticipated by Marx himself, when he is critical of the fact that
the regime of alienated labour brings the worker to search for his or her freedom in
what is common to men and animals, i.e. food, sex etc. and not in what is distinct
to humans, i.e. creative transformation of nature? Taking the lead from Marx, one
could say that what appears to be the repressed true self, i.e. the desire to idle in the sun,
eat and have sex, is the effect of a certain repression, which would mean precisely
that power is productive, since it has produced a kind of individual with certain desires
and certain interests whereas what actually has been repressed was quite different from
these desires and interests; a poteniality which became unrecognisable.
a form of possible answer to your critique of Foucault "ungrounded" criticism might be that
he is criticising from the perspective of that excluded poteniality. i.e. that his critique is not
based on a real interest but on a potential interest, or on the interset to remain open to other
possibilities.
e.g "what frightens me in humanism, is that it presents a certain form of our
ethics as a universal model for all types of liberty. I think that our future has more secrets, more
possible liberties and inventions than what humanism allows us to imagine"
Dits et Ecrits v. 5, p. 782.
-------------
Gabriel Ash
Notre-Dame
-------------