sb writes:
>
> a few things I think are important for someone trying to think in terms of
> a Marxist Foucauldianism or vice versa:
>
> 1. be very suspicious of the question "is marxism valid/dead", and
> especially avoid any attempt to answer that question with broad reaching
> historical overviews. When the history of 20th century socialism is
> posited as the litmus test for Marx work, we're in trouble.
>
> 2. be very suspicious of attempts to bring the two figures into agreement
> only on the level of polemical reconcilliation. what needs to be addressed
> is the internal workings of their varying historical and ontological views,
> not the conflicting claims and objectives of marxist and foucauldian
> theoretical camps.
>
> 3. avoid any confusion between foucault's analysis of the legacy of marxist
> political thought and his analysis of Marx's historical ontology. (again, I
> think derrida's book on marx is not on marx, its on the spectre of marx.
> big difference).
>
In general, I think #1 and #2 are pretty good guidelines for attempting to think
the relation between Foucault and Marx. However, on this final point,
"derrida's book on marx is not on marx, its on the spectre of marx," I have to
express my disagreement/confusion. Does not one of Derrida's most significant
points in "specters"--indeed in every work he's ever written--consist in arguing
that one can NEVER so easily tell the difference between the real thing and its
ghost?
JD writes: "There has never been a scholar who really, and as scholar, deals
with ghosts. A traditional scholar does not believe in ghostsÑnor in all that
could be called the virtual space of spectrality. There has never been a
scholar who, as such, does not believe in the sharp distinction between the real
and the unreal, the actual and the inactual, the living and the non-living,
being and non-being ('to be or not to be," in the conventional reading) in the
opposition between what is present and what is not" (p. 11). "If we have been
insisting so much since the beginning on the logic of the ghost, it is because
it points toward a thinking of the event that necessarily exceeds a binary or
dialectical logic, the logic that distinguishes or opposes effectivity or
actuality (either present, empirical, livingÑor not) and ideality (regulating or
absolute non-presence)" (p. 63).
It seems to me that Derrida's hauntology would insist that we can never so
easily distinguish between Marx and his ghosts; there is no Marx without this
haunting by his ghosts--or, maybe, "marx *is*, though this 'is' is precisely
what gets called into question, these very ghosts."
Sam Chambers
University of Minnesota
>
> a few things I think are important for someone trying to think in terms of
> a Marxist Foucauldianism or vice versa:
>
> 1. be very suspicious of the question "is marxism valid/dead", and
> especially avoid any attempt to answer that question with broad reaching
> historical overviews. When the history of 20th century socialism is
> posited as the litmus test for Marx work, we're in trouble.
>
> 2. be very suspicious of attempts to bring the two figures into agreement
> only on the level of polemical reconcilliation. what needs to be addressed
> is the internal workings of their varying historical and ontological views,
> not the conflicting claims and objectives of marxist and foucauldian
> theoretical camps.
>
> 3. avoid any confusion between foucault's analysis of the legacy of marxist
> political thought and his analysis of Marx's historical ontology. (again, I
> think derrida's book on marx is not on marx, its on the spectre of marx.
> big difference).
>
In general, I think #1 and #2 are pretty good guidelines for attempting to think
the relation between Foucault and Marx. However, on this final point,
"derrida's book on marx is not on marx, its on the spectre of marx," I have to
express my disagreement/confusion. Does not one of Derrida's most significant
points in "specters"--indeed in every work he's ever written--consist in arguing
that one can NEVER so easily tell the difference between the real thing and its
ghost?
JD writes: "There has never been a scholar who really, and as scholar, deals
with ghosts. A traditional scholar does not believe in ghostsÑnor in all that
could be called the virtual space of spectrality. There has never been a
scholar who, as such, does not believe in the sharp distinction between the real
and the unreal, the actual and the inactual, the living and the non-living,
being and non-being ('to be or not to be," in the conventional reading) in the
opposition between what is present and what is not" (p. 11). "If we have been
insisting so much since the beginning on the logic of the ghost, it is because
it points toward a thinking of the event that necessarily exceeds a binary or
dialectical logic, the logic that distinguishes or opposes effectivity or
actuality (either present, empirical, livingÑor not) and ideality (regulating or
absolute non-presence)" (p. 63).
It seems to me that Derrida's hauntology would insist that we can never so
easily distinguish between Marx and his ghosts; there is no Marx without this
haunting by his ghosts--or, maybe, "marx *is*, though this 'is' is precisely
what gets called into question, these very ghosts."
Sam Chambers
University of Minnesota