On Sun, 9 Mar 1997, Doug Henwood wrote:
> At 8:29 AM -0700 3/9/97, Sean Hill wrote:
>
> >Once again I think you are trying to force a morality into Foucault when
> >instead he's trying, for the sake of analysis, to suspend moral judgements
> >in his examination of these practices.
>
> Like I said, that's fine in art, but when it comes to social practice, that
> kind of stance reduces to either snobbish detachment or a scary nihilism.
> But I've made this point already, and you've made yours, and there's not
> much point in continuing the exchange further.
>
> Doug
>
I disagree that suspending moral judgments for the sake of analysis is
fine only in art.
Karl Marx in _Capital_ suspends moral judgement for the sake of social
analysis. That is, he does not spend his time criticizing the moral
failings of capitalists. He spends his time describing the workings of the
capitalist economic system. With it, he describes the law of capitalist
accumulation.
Max Weber in his _Economy and Society_ and elsewhere suspends moral
judgement in order to discuss the actual workings of bureaucracy and other
institutional forms.
Robert Michels in _Political Parties_ suspends moral judgment in order to
produce a clear-headed analysis of the dynamics of party and
organizational behavior, thus arriving at the "iron law of oligarchy."
I believe we misunderstand Foucault if we read him -- or, for that matter,
Sade -- as jumping around with child-like glee chirping, "Hey everyone!
Let's get together and transgress something! Don't matter what or who!"
Finally, nihilism is scary. But it can't be dismissed. Thinkers like
Foucault, Nietzsche, and Sartre were not running around screaming "Yeah
for nihilism! No more values! Everything is permitted!" They were, on the
contrary, deeply concerned about the moral void the nihilistic stage of
humanity was producing. But they didn't think the problem could be solved
by turning away from it. If God is dead, and not just God but Man, and not
just him, but History and Geist, and along with them the Proletariat, and
not just the Proletariat but Youth, or the Lumpenproletariat, or the
Vietnamese, or the Cubans, and so on, if all of them are dead as
guarantors of value and meaning, then *we*--and not just the thinkers who
point to the corpses--have a real problem on our hands.
John
> At 8:29 AM -0700 3/9/97, Sean Hill wrote:
>
> >Once again I think you are trying to force a morality into Foucault when
> >instead he's trying, for the sake of analysis, to suspend moral judgements
> >in his examination of these practices.
>
> Like I said, that's fine in art, but when it comes to social practice, that
> kind of stance reduces to either snobbish detachment or a scary nihilism.
> But I've made this point already, and you've made yours, and there's not
> much point in continuing the exchange further.
>
> Doug
>
I disagree that suspending moral judgments for the sake of analysis is
fine only in art.
Karl Marx in _Capital_ suspends moral judgement for the sake of social
analysis. That is, he does not spend his time criticizing the moral
failings of capitalists. He spends his time describing the workings of the
capitalist economic system. With it, he describes the law of capitalist
accumulation.
Max Weber in his _Economy and Society_ and elsewhere suspends moral
judgement in order to discuss the actual workings of bureaucracy and other
institutional forms.
Robert Michels in _Political Parties_ suspends moral judgment in order to
produce a clear-headed analysis of the dynamics of party and
organizational behavior, thus arriving at the "iron law of oligarchy."
I believe we misunderstand Foucault if we read him -- or, for that matter,
Sade -- as jumping around with child-like glee chirping, "Hey everyone!
Let's get together and transgress something! Don't matter what or who!"
Finally, nihilism is scary. But it can't be dismissed. Thinkers like
Foucault, Nietzsche, and Sartre were not running around screaming "Yeah
for nihilism! No more values! Everything is permitted!" They were, on the
contrary, deeply concerned about the moral void the nihilistic stage of
humanity was producing. But they didn't think the problem could be solved
by turning away from it. If God is dead, and not just God but Man, and not
just him, but History and Geist, and along with them the Proletariat, and
not just the Proletariat but Youth, or the Lumpenproletariat, or the
Vietnamese, or the Cubans, and so on, if all of them are dead as
guarantors of value and meaning, then *we*--and not just the thinkers who
point to the corpses--have a real problem on our hands.
John