>You undoubtedly have your own answer to the question of borders. We each do.
But this is exactly the problem. Explain why your borders apply and what
justifies them and we can debate them. Without this the relativism and
nihilism that you claim is a straw position is, on the contrary, a reality.
For if I have my answer and you have yours, but mine involves the
destruction of large ammounts of people how are you going to persuade me or
anyone else that my practice is wrong?
Also, really, if anyone is to blame for the overblown reading of Foucault
as an anti-humanist, relativist, nihilist then it is the Foucault industry
itself. This reading, I agree, is not really consistently elaborated in
Foucault's own work (it is possible to read him this way on occassions) but
surfaces as an Anglo-Saxon construct. I mean I still come across Profs
teaching undergraduates that postmoderns (and Foucault is generally dragged
out here as an example) think that there is no such thing as truth. Nothing
could be further from the truth in F's case. Still, the undergrads, who
after all are only here to regurgitate what they are told, take this at face
value. So Foucault the academic construct now appears as an ant-humanist,
relativist, nihilist. And hey, why should you worry, you are not going to
suggest that Foucault meant otherwise are you? (Wouldn't this imply an author?)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------