> Thanks for giving me the chance to clarify this misinterpreation
> of my message that I had not foreseen. I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT
> NOR MEANT TO SUGGEST that Foucault's life was fucked up.
> On the contrtary, I have always found it somewhat fascinating,=20
> My reaction to an attempt to establish a one-to-one correspondance
> between his life and his work was probably fueled by my reaction
> to those who emphasize certain facts of his life which may be=20
> interpreted as 'immoral', 'pervert', 'fucked up' by conservative
> minds and then suggest a causal relationship betwen these and
> the ideas to be found in the work. My original example was
> James Miller's "The Passion of Michel Foucault" where one finds
> painstakingly detailed descriptions of some episodes of F.'s life
> insinuating incestuous desires, death insticts, madness, etc. and=20
> suggestions that these episodes are directly related to the geneses
> oh his books. Now to those who would think that incest, death=20
> desire, madness, etc. are abnormal behavior that justify "dividing
> practices" it would follow that the work ought to be dismissed
> as the product of a 'sick' mind. That's why I said that interpreting
> the work in such close relationship to the life would be
> dangerous. =20
> Now, I believe that sickness, mental ilness, delinquency, sexuality
> (and therefore sexual perversity), etc. are dispositifs of power
> used for the manipulation and subjection of the individual. But
> I know that many who might read F. do not think so. Hence,
> for prctical purposes, I think it would be tactically correct to
> focus on the work and its content rather than the life.
> Yet, I still believe in a theoretical context that F.'s work is not
> an application of his life. For many reasons: for example,
> to make such a strong claim we would have to have a nearly=20
> complete description of the life. But many of us simply
> rely on the biographies some of which may be one-sided,
> manipulated, with a "mauvaise foi", etc. (why should we
> otherwise have three biographies written witin the ten=20
> years following F.'s life -not to mention Jeanette Colombel's
> semi-biographical "Michel Foucault: La Clart=E9 de la Mort" ?)
> Further, I think F. was creative enough to work out a=20
> synthesis of the enormous stuff he read in his formal=20
> education as well as later (just think of the curriculum of
> "Ecole Normale") to come out with original ideas not=20
> directly related to the facts of his life. I can amplify=20
> this list of reasons, but I don't want to keep you busy.
>
> As a last point, I also think that F.'s life draws an=20
> enourmously complex picture with many admirable details.
> The broad brush that you mention is not mine. I was=20
> just trying to take the canvas back.
>
> Ferda=20
Ferda,
I appreciate your clarifications, and on many of these points I agree
with you. I have some different thoughts, too, though, and if you are
interested in discussing this a bit further, I hope you'll feel free to
respond. If you are sick of this thread, though, feel free also to pass.
I am interested in your thoughts, though....
I have a general and a more specific point. The general point is about
the role of F's own life within his writings, or perhaps the
interpretation of his writings. The specific point is about the Miller
biography.
The general point: You write that
> My reaction to an attempt to establish a one-to-one correspondence
> between his life and his work was probably fueled by my reaction
> to those who emphasize certain facts of his life which may be
> interpreted as 'immoral', 'pervert', 'fucked up' by conservative
> minds and then suggest a causal relationship betwen these and
> the ideas to be found in the work.
First, I agree that one ought not to "establish a one-to-one
correspondence between" the life and work of an author. Otherwise, the
work would be nothing more than a journal of the occurences of one's
life. Clearly, Foucault is offering theory here, not only descriptions
of his own life.
But that's not to say that that there is no "causal relationship"
between the "facts of his life" and "the ideas to be found in his work."
At the very basic extreme of it all, it seems to make sense that the
fact that F found himself drawn to or already located within the
lesser-regarded of the many normalizing dichotomies he spoke about would
seem to tell us that there was a rcausal elationship at work here, and
not mere coincidence. Granted, it is not obvious which way the causal
effects ran all the time...I think it is safest to say that certain
aspects of his life were the causes of certain of his writings, and that
certain aspects of his writings were the causes of certain aspects of
his life. I just can't see how it could be otherwise (though I will
concede that my failure to grasp this doesn't itelf make it so!)
Now suppose we can both agree on that point (though I understand that
you do not agree with me on this), then, the question becomes what is
the relevance of that to our assessment of Foucault's work. Well, I
think that your concern is that people - mainly the conservative types
you mentioned, but certainly there are enough homophobic 'liberals' and
even 'radicals' out there - may tend to dismiss F's work as worthy
because they would dismiss his life as worthy. And that would be wrong.
We definitely agree about that. But, that only means that people are
wrong to move from dismissing his life directly to dismissing his work.
And that is different from your claim that there really is no
relationship between his life and his work. So I think we need to make
that clarification. (Similarly, as a gay man, I ought not to move
directly from my acceptance of F's life to my acceptance of his work, no
matter how admirable I may assess his life. That is just bad reasoning.)
My point is that we need to recognize the difference between description
and evaluation. To say that F's life and his work are related from a
descriptive perspective is different than saying that they ought to be
related from an evaluative perspective. We may well have more
descriptive insight into F's work by recognizing some of its sources;
that is not to say we ought to evaluate his work, good or bad, on that
basis.
The specific point: I'm interested in what you have to say about
Miller's biography of Foucault. I have heard from a couple of people who
found Miller's book offensive and objectionable. And yet, I never got
this sense of it when I was reading it...at least I didn't get the sense
that it was any more objectionable or offensive than biography usually
is to the extent that it tries to capture something as complex as a life
and describe it, define it, etc. The part that people have told me they
find offensive is, they say, Miller's suggestion that perhaps Foucault
knowingly spread HIV in his sexual encounters. And yet, if I'm not
mistaken, Miller does at one point state that he (Miller) does not
believe this to have been the case. Surely we ought not to find the mere
possibility of this to be so wild and out of bounds that no author
should be allowed to consider it?
Or perhaps your concern is not that one specifically, but rather the
whole reading of F's work as deriving from or at least being related to
his sexuality as an S/Mer and gay man? Again, I see the worry if one is
suggesting that everything F did in his writings was at its very base
related to his sexuality and that it must be understood through that
lens. Clearly there is much in his work that seems to have nothing
whatever to do with sex or sexuality, let alone being whipped or
spanked. But if Miller makes much of F's sexuality, I didn't read him as
saying that *everything* in F's work is reducible to that sexuality.
And, I guess, I'm one that also reads F's work as being largely informed
by his sexuality. And I think Miller made a plausible case for that.
Perhaps he didn't describe the limits of that reading very well...I'd
agree with that assessment, though I wouldn't dismiss Miller's work for
it. I must say that I'm intrigued by the vagueness of people's
dismissals of Miller's book. That may be due to people's worries about
the general theme of the book rather than the individual arguments or
lines of thought he pursues, and I understand that. But it also suggests
to me at least that critics have a more emotional reaction to Miller's
book than a well-reasoned reaction. And while I wouldn't myself dismiss
their concerns on that basis alone, I would use other means to assess
those concerns.
Well, that's about it. Sorry for the length of this posting. These two
strains of thought have come up before on this list a number of times,
and I guess I've been saving up. :)
Peace,
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
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