Comrades:
on the question of Miller's homophobic biograpy: I think it's worth making the distinction
between homophobic an heteronormative. While homophobic might describe a more manifest reaction
or judgement, heteronormative designates a more subtle regulating effect of discourse. In
miller's eyes, foucault is seen to possess all these wild characteristics: a fetishistic
obsession with death, carnage, physical pain, the ruptured boundaries of his own subjectivity,
etc etc etc.
what in fact is going on here is that miller, by having relegated Foucault to the margins of
normal life and conduct, is able to project onto him all fantasies which operate in the minds of
"normal people". Miller insists that he is actually a quite normal person in the afterword,
claiming (confessing) his innocence in the face of such transgressive behaviors. One
(Foucault's transgressive lifestyle) confirms the other (miller's normalcy).
For an excellent summary of this problem, read david Halprin's "saint foucault". Halprin
clearly and concisely exposes this stigmatization of F's life for the voyeuristic pleasures of a
sixties radical who insists on the importance of LSD (!!!) in Foucault's development. (Halprin
writes: "in miller's book, what promises to be a safari into the nether world of limit
experience and transgression turns out to be an air conditioned bus tour of the castro" (or
something like that.
Miller works the theme of "obsessed character" to a pathetic extreme. every character that
appears displays an "odd intensity, bent on a fascination with violence and the surreal". it
gets tired and silly very quickly.
If you want to really be offended, read the afterword to Millers book, especially the part where
he anticipates the charge of homophobia. In two paragraphs he summarizes all such "PC" charges
as ultimately extending an enlightenment moral critique with its roots in the judeao christian
tradition, something quite distinct from Foucault's political project. Therefore, by some
astonishing logic, Jim Miller is excempted from such critiques.
The book is, however, bold and imaginative, if ultimately fetishistic and silly. It is well
researched and displays a commanding grip on the question of "ethics" within a general
intellectual historical tradition.
sb
> --
on the question of Miller's homophobic biograpy: I think it's worth making the distinction
between homophobic an heteronormative. While homophobic might describe a more manifest reaction
or judgement, heteronormative designates a more subtle regulating effect of discourse. In
miller's eyes, foucault is seen to possess all these wild characteristics: a fetishistic
obsession with death, carnage, physical pain, the ruptured boundaries of his own subjectivity,
etc etc etc.
what in fact is going on here is that miller, by having relegated Foucault to the margins of
normal life and conduct, is able to project onto him all fantasies which operate in the minds of
"normal people". Miller insists that he is actually a quite normal person in the afterword,
claiming (confessing) his innocence in the face of such transgressive behaviors. One
(Foucault's transgressive lifestyle) confirms the other (miller's normalcy).
For an excellent summary of this problem, read david Halprin's "saint foucault". Halprin
clearly and concisely exposes this stigmatization of F's life for the voyeuristic pleasures of a
sixties radical who insists on the importance of LSD (!!!) in Foucault's development. (Halprin
writes: "in miller's book, what promises to be a safari into the nether world of limit
experience and transgression turns out to be an air conditioned bus tour of the castro" (or
something like that.
Miller works the theme of "obsessed character" to a pathetic extreme. every character that
appears displays an "odd intensity, bent on a fascination with violence and the surreal". it
gets tired and silly very quickly.
If you want to really be offended, read the afterword to Millers book, especially the part where
he anticipates the charge of homophobia. In two paragraphs he summarizes all such "PC" charges
as ultimately extending an enlightenment moral critique with its roots in the judeao christian
tradition, something quite distinct from Foucault's political project. Therefore, by some
astonishing logic, Jim Miller is excempted from such critiques.
The book is, however, bold and imaginative, if ultimately fetishistic and silly. It is well
researched and displays a commanding grip on the question of "ethics" within a general
intellectual historical tradition.
sb
> --