Chris Owen wrote:
> Yes, Ryan's use of Foucault's work is perhaps flawed but his fundamental
> premise argues what are the *practical* implications of adopting these
> ideas. Reading some of these posts I tend to agree with him. Personally I'm
> not sure how linguistic posturing about what 'minorties' means or how
> someone uses the word helps anybody at all. That is, those with privelege
> (you and I, students, academics etc) talking about this as opposed to
> people in no position to do so. Maybe someone can help me out on this
> point.
When you talk about "adopting these ideas", I am not sure what that means.
It suggests that these are some kind of new-fangled notions that need -- or
don't need -- "adoption". But it would seem to me that Farrakhan, for
example, or ML King, or any leader of any radical movement of a "minority",
are well aware of the nature of truth as something one _produces_ and that
in turn is a productive force. Much of this kind of leadership towards
radicalization is a matter of the production of a "productive" kind of truth,
and a _specifically_ productive one. Does it matter how _we_, the people
you call "privileged" think of these matters? It depends on each person's
own perceived involvement in a political struggle. But I would say that
whether one sees truth as being something outside of ourselves or sees it as
something that is humanly produced and connected to the will to power, does
put one in two different places in one's own struggle. I am not completely
sure where the "privilege" differenciation comes in. We may have the
"privilege" of education or having enough to eat or being on the Internet,
but I would still guess that most of us are workers under capitalism,
produced by and participating in the production of its economic, legal,
medical, scientific, political, cultural -- and so on -- enmeshments.
-m
> Yes, Ryan's use of Foucault's work is perhaps flawed but his fundamental
> premise argues what are the *practical* implications of adopting these
> ideas. Reading some of these posts I tend to agree with him. Personally I'm
> not sure how linguistic posturing about what 'minorties' means or how
> someone uses the word helps anybody at all. That is, those with privelege
> (you and I, students, academics etc) talking about this as opposed to
> people in no position to do so. Maybe someone can help me out on this
> point.
When you talk about "adopting these ideas", I am not sure what that means.
It suggests that these are some kind of new-fangled notions that need -- or
don't need -- "adoption". But it would seem to me that Farrakhan, for
example, or ML King, or any leader of any radical movement of a "minority",
are well aware of the nature of truth as something one _produces_ and that
in turn is a productive force. Much of this kind of leadership towards
radicalization is a matter of the production of a "productive" kind of truth,
and a _specifically_ productive one. Does it matter how _we_, the people
you call "privileged" think of these matters? It depends on each person's
own perceived involvement in a political struggle. But I would say that
whether one sees truth as being something outside of ourselves or sees it as
something that is humanly produced and connected to the will to power, does
put one in two different places in one's own struggle. I am not completely
sure where the "privilege" differenciation comes in. We may have the
"privilege" of education or having enough to eat or being on the Internet,
but I would still guess that most of us are workers under capitalism,
produced by and participating in the production of its economic, legal,
medical, scientific, political, cultural -- and so on -- enmeshments.
-m