On Tue, 05 Nov 1996 Barberi Alessandro wrote:
>I never understood exactly why Baudrillard wanted to forget Foucault,
>because his argumentations in "L'echange symbolique et la mort"
>(symbolic change and death?) from 1976 refer very often to "Les mots et
>le choses" (The order of things) ..
That's certainly right. David Macey's _Lives of Michel Foucault_ also
questions Baudrillard's motivations. It certainly seems more complex
than it would at first seem. Baudrillard is clearly not interested in
assigning Foucault to oblivion, he simply turns the whole issue on its
head asking how one intellectual could possibly describe 'power' so
perfectly. He is clearly suspicious that Foucault himself is would up
within a practice of power/knowledge to which even he is unaware. In
this I think that Baudrillard misunderstands the distinction Foucault
made betweeen power and force. Many of the points that he goes on to
make (and makes elsewhere, in particular in _The Shadow of the Silent
Majorities_), are no so radically far from what Foucault might himself
agree with. In any case, Macey quite rightly returns to _Cool Memories_
for further clues as to what Baudrillard was up to, which again - as
Alessandro points out - includes the obvious debt that Baudrillard owes
to Foucault. Baudrillard describes:
Paradoxically, Foucault lived his life as though he were ill-loved
and persecuted. He was certainly persecuted by the thousands of
disciples and industrious sycophants he certainly secretly despised
(or at least one hopes he did), who took away from him in
caricatural form all sense of what he was doing. To forget him was
to do him a service, to adulate him was to do him a disservice.
(p.198)
One is indeed reminded of Foucault's own comments on Nietzsche in the
interview 'Prison Talk' ("The only valid tribute to thought such as
Nietzsche's is precisely to use it, to deform it, to make it groan and
protest. And if commentators then say that I am being faithful or
unfaithful to Nietzsche, that is of absolutely no interest.") Why then
was Foucault reportedly so 'hurt' by Baudrillard's piece? Possibly
because
Baudrillard seemed to miss (as many have) the nature of Foucault's
contribution to the imagination of power. Anyone else got a clue?
ian.r.d.
"I shut my eyes in order to see." - Paul Gaugin
_______________________________________________________________________
Ian Robert Douglas,
Department of Politics, "Modern demolition is truly wonderful. As
University of Bristol, a spectacle it is the opposite of a rocket
Bristol, BS8 1TU, UK. launch. The twenty-storey block remains
perfectly vertical as it slides toward the
I.R.Douglas@xxxxxxxxxx centre of the earth." (Jean Baudrillard)
Tel: (0117) 928 7898
Fax: (0117) 973 2133
http://mail.bris.ac.uk/%7Eportls/JPP
_______________________________________________________________________
>I never understood exactly why Baudrillard wanted to forget Foucault,
>because his argumentations in "L'echange symbolique et la mort"
>(symbolic change and death?) from 1976 refer very often to "Les mots et
>le choses" (The order of things) ..
That's certainly right. David Macey's _Lives of Michel Foucault_ also
questions Baudrillard's motivations. It certainly seems more complex
than it would at first seem. Baudrillard is clearly not interested in
assigning Foucault to oblivion, he simply turns the whole issue on its
head asking how one intellectual could possibly describe 'power' so
perfectly. He is clearly suspicious that Foucault himself is would up
within a practice of power/knowledge to which even he is unaware. In
this I think that Baudrillard misunderstands the distinction Foucault
made betweeen power and force. Many of the points that he goes on to
make (and makes elsewhere, in particular in _The Shadow of the Silent
Majorities_), are no so radically far from what Foucault might himself
agree with. In any case, Macey quite rightly returns to _Cool Memories_
for further clues as to what Baudrillard was up to, which again - as
Alessandro points out - includes the obvious debt that Baudrillard owes
to Foucault. Baudrillard describes:
Paradoxically, Foucault lived his life as though he were ill-loved
and persecuted. He was certainly persecuted by the thousands of
disciples and industrious sycophants he certainly secretly despised
(or at least one hopes he did), who took away from him in
caricatural form all sense of what he was doing. To forget him was
to do him a service, to adulate him was to do him a disservice.
(p.198)
One is indeed reminded of Foucault's own comments on Nietzsche in the
interview 'Prison Talk' ("The only valid tribute to thought such as
Nietzsche's is precisely to use it, to deform it, to make it groan and
protest. And if commentators then say that I am being faithful or
unfaithful to Nietzsche, that is of absolutely no interest.") Why then
was Foucault reportedly so 'hurt' by Baudrillard's piece? Possibly
because
Baudrillard seemed to miss (as many have) the nature of Foucault's
contribution to the imagination of power. Anyone else got a clue?
ian.r.d.
"I shut my eyes in order to see." - Paul Gaugin
_______________________________________________________________________
Ian Robert Douglas,
Department of Politics, "Modern demolition is truly wonderful. As
University of Bristol, a spectacle it is the opposite of a rocket
Bristol, BS8 1TU, UK. launch. The twenty-storey block remains
perfectly vertical as it slides toward the
I.R.Douglas@xxxxxxxxxx centre of the earth." (Jean Baudrillard)
Tel: (0117) 928 7898
Fax: (0117) 973 2133
http://mail.bris.ac.uk/%7Eportls/JPP
_______________________________________________________________________