>
> Colin Wight wrote:
>
> I still don't see how you think this gets him over the fact/value thingy.
> Insofar, as he claims not be be for or against any particualr position but
> merely telling us the ways things are then he is still working under the
> delusion that his values do not intrude into his work. I mean, 'he's not for
> or against any particular form of medicine', give me a break.
>
Murray Simpson wrote:
> Of course Foucault is 'against' certain practices, such as those of
> clinical medicine or psychiatry. What Foucault is refraining from is
> the assumption that any alternative programme which he might advance
> (even if it were to be realised) would very quickly become the basis of
> new relations of power which would need to be resisted. And yes of
>
*******
If we agree to distinguish descriptions, evaluations and
prescriptions, then maybe we can all agree with the following points:
(1) Foucault, in his histories, sometimes offers descriptions.
(2) He sometimes offers evaluations (in his histories). For example,
he says: "A form of justice which tends to be applied to what one is,
this is what is so outrageous when one thinks of the penal law of
which the eighteenth-century reformers had dreamed...."
(3) He sometimes offers descriptions that are only plausible in light
of some unstated evaluations, as when one says that a certain
institution is "like a prison," for example.
(4) FOUCAULT NEVER, or very rarely and thus uncharacteristically,
OFFERS PRESCRIPTIONS (in his histories). By "prescriptions" I mean
proposals for action (perhaps motivated by a combination of
descriptions and evaluations).
I think that all of these remarks are probably uncontroversial. Am I
wrong?
As Murray suggests (I take it), this is because of the nature of
power, which is understood by Foucault in "strategical" terms. One
can no more say (acc. Foucault), "Always form workers' councils to
establish dual power, and so to create the basis for a workers state"
then one can say, "Always attack an enemy from the rear, and thereby
weaken that enemy's capacity to resist." The problem is that, if you
always attack from the rear, the enemy will notice this and take it
into account, thus rendering the very reason for doing it (catching
the enemy offguard) inoperative. One is left with strategic maxims
that are so abstract as to be vacuous: "Try to catch the enemy off
guard." The moral/political equivalent would be: "Try and do the
right thing," or "Always act for the best."
This, in a nutshell, is Foucault's objection to "programs" of
emancipation. It is not that emancipation is a bad thing, but that
saying (with erstwhile syndicalists in the 1920's, say) that
industrial unionism would liberate us from capitalism assumes,
falsely, that other forces cannot be expected to react to the actions
of workers. Obviously, industrial unionism could be (and has been, to
a considerable extent) tamed and integrated into the strategies of
capitalists (judo-style) to work AGAINST the very project of
liberating us from capitalism.
(I note in passing that Lenin, in his article on "Guerrilla Warfare"
of 1906, makes a similar point in arguing against "dogmatic" accounts of
what "the" socialist strategy is or must be, which is dinstinct from
the question of whose side one is on, what one values, etc.).
So, when F. says that proposing alternatives to the present order only
extends one's participation in that order, he is not saying that he
has no values, or that he does not care what happens, or that he has
no reasons for acting in one way rather than another. He is only
saying, rather clumsily perhaps, that PROGRAMS are not the sort of
thing that lead to emancipation. As he says somewhere, the only
guarantee of freedom is the actual exercise of freedom. Unfreedom is
compatible with absolutely ANY set of institutional arrangements,
because power is relational in such a way that any institution (like
freedom of the press or elections or worker's councils) admits of the
possibility of being integrated into a strategy of domination. That
doesn't mean that there is no such thing as freedom, but only that
freedom cannot be programmed. It also doesn't mean that F. wouldn't
participate in forming or defending workers' councils (say), but only
that he wouldn't write a book saying, "Let's form workers' councils."
Steve
Toronto
> Colin Wight wrote:
>
> I still don't see how you think this gets him over the fact/value thingy.
> Insofar, as he claims not be be for or against any particualr position but
> merely telling us the ways things are then he is still working under the
> delusion that his values do not intrude into his work. I mean, 'he's not for
> or against any particular form of medicine', give me a break.
>
Murray Simpson wrote:
> Of course Foucault is 'against' certain practices, such as those of
> clinical medicine or psychiatry. What Foucault is refraining from is
> the assumption that any alternative programme which he might advance
> (even if it were to be realised) would very quickly become the basis of
> new relations of power which would need to be resisted. And yes of
>
*******
If we agree to distinguish descriptions, evaluations and
prescriptions, then maybe we can all agree with the following points:
(1) Foucault, in his histories, sometimes offers descriptions.
(2) He sometimes offers evaluations (in his histories). For example,
he says: "A form of justice which tends to be applied to what one is,
this is what is so outrageous when one thinks of the penal law of
which the eighteenth-century reformers had dreamed...."
(3) He sometimes offers descriptions that are only plausible in light
of some unstated evaluations, as when one says that a certain
institution is "like a prison," for example.
(4) FOUCAULT NEVER, or very rarely and thus uncharacteristically,
OFFERS PRESCRIPTIONS (in his histories). By "prescriptions" I mean
proposals for action (perhaps motivated by a combination of
descriptions and evaluations).
I think that all of these remarks are probably uncontroversial. Am I
wrong?
As Murray suggests (I take it), this is because of the nature of
power, which is understood by Foucault in "strategical" terms. One
can no more say (acc. Foucault), "Always form workers' councils to
establish dual power, and so to create the basis for a workers state"
then one can say, "Always attack an enemy from the rear, and thereby
weaken that enemy's capacity to resist." The problem is that, if you
always attack from the rear, the enemy will notice this and take it
into account, thus rendering the very reason for doing it (catching
the enemy offguard) inoperative. One is left with strategic maxims
that are so abstract as to be vacuous: "Try to catch the enemy off
guard." The moral/political equivalent would be: "Try and do the
right thing," or "Always act for the best."
This, in a nutshell, is Foucault's objection to "programs" of
emancipation. It is not that emancipation is a bad thing, but that
saying (with erstwhile syndicalists in the 1920's, say) that
industrial unionism would liberate us from capitalism assumes,
falsely, that other forces cannot be expected to react to the actions
of workers. Obviously, industrial unionism could be (and has been, to
a considerable extent) tamed and integrated into the strategies of
capitalists (judo-style) to work AGAINST the very project of
liberating us from capitalism.
(I note in passing that Lenin, in his article on "Guerrilla Warfare"
of 1906, makes a similar point in arguing against "dogmatic" accounts of
what "the" socialist strategy is or must be, which is dinstinct from
the question of whose side one is on, what one values, etc.).
So, when F. says that proposing alternatives to the present order only
extends one's participation in that order, he is not saying that he
has no values, or that he does not care what happens, or that he has
no reasons for acting in one way rather than another. He is only
saying, rather clumsily perhaps, that PROGRAMS are not the sort of
thing that lead to emancipation. As he says somewhere, the only
guarantee of freedom is the actual exercise of freedom. Unfreedom is
compatible with absolutely ANY set of institutional arrangements,
because power is relational in such a way that any institution (like
freedom of the press or elections or worker's councils) admits of the
possibility of being integrated into a strategy of domination. That
doesn't mean that there is no such thing as freedom, but only that
freedom cannot be programmed. It also doesn't mean that F. wouldn't
participate in forming or defending workers' councils (say), but only
that he wouldn't write a book saying, "Let's form workers' councils."
Steve
Toronto