Well, maybe there are two ways to respond to this fetishization of "transgression" as a
radical rupturing of the self. the first is on strictly theoretical grounds, the second is
on the empirical/political grounds that come up in a biography on the life of MF. (the
homophobic question comes up under the second category).
Miller bases his understanding of MF and his excesses on a Nietzschean program of ethical
self realization (become what you are) and a sort of Nietzschean bataillian theory of the
limit and its ruptures. In short, Miller gets from all this a wild focus on death, which
he projects onto MF's whole life as the single telos of everything he does. On a
theoretical level, this misses an imprtant aspect of the nature of the limit experience
(bataille): it is meant, in the long run, to affirm life, not destroy it. Nietzsche is not
the philosopher of death but of a great "No" which says "Yes" to life. Wendy Brown wrote a
nasty trashing of Miller's misunderstanding of the nietzschean bataillian themes in an
issue of "differences", which judith butler summarizes in a footnote to "bodies that
matter". Understanding this theoretical misreading exposes miller's constant reiteration
and fetishization of the death theme for the literary ploy that it is.
second, Foucault's life, when viewed through the lens of a nietzschean philosophy for life
(not as an MTV death fetish fantasy), we begin to understand the life of a gay man in the
70's, and the place the leather scene had in that life. According to Halprin, it wasn't
about slinging cliches about death and extremity, it was about a political community of men
loving men, saying yes to life at the margins and instices of power and discourse, al beit
with their fists up eachother's asses. MIller is able to project this attractive gloss of a
morbid attraction to death because is presented to him as already safely stigmatized, which
he is in no way interesting in interrogating, but instead picks up and uses for his own
voyeuristic ends. Moreover, in pursuit of this project Miller drains the politics out of
the leather scene and foucault's involvement with it.
I wouldn't call it homophobic, just heteronormative. and silly, at that.
sb
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> At 11:40 AM +0000 3/15/97, sam binkley wrote:
>
> >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.
>
> Is this untrue? Aren't these concerns all over Foucault's writings? What
> does this have to do with F's sexual preference for men? There are heteros
> equally fixated on similar concerns?
>
> Doug
radical rupturing of the self. the first is on strictly theoretical grounds, the second is
on the empirical/political grounds that come up in a biography on the life of MF. (the
homophobic question comes up under the second category).
Miller bases his understanding of MF and his excesses on a Nietzschean program of ethical
self realization (become what you are) and a sort of Nietzschean bataillian theory of the
limit and its ruptures. In short, Miller gets from all this a wild focus on death, which
he projects onto MF's whole life as the single telos of everything he does. On a
theoretical level, this misses an imprtant aspect of the nature of the limit experience
(bataille): it is meant, in the long run, to affirm life, not destroy it. Nietzsche is not
the philosopher of death but of a great "No" which says "Yes" to life. Wendy Brown wrote a
nasty trashing of Miller's misunderstanding of the nietzschean bataillian themes in an
issue of "differences", which judith butler summarizes in a footnote to "bodies that
matter". Understanding this theoretical misreading exposes miller's constant reiteration
and fetishization of the death theme for the literary ploy that it is.
second, Foucault's life, when viewed through the lens of a nietzschean philosophy for life
(not as an MTV death fetish fantasy), we begin to understand the life of a gay man in the
70's, and the place the leather scene had in that life. According to Halprin, it wasn't
about slinging cliches about death and extremity, it was about a political community of men
loving men, saying yes to life at the margins and instices of power and discourse, al beit
with their fists up eachother's asses. MIller is able to project this attractive gloss of a
morbid attraction to death because is presented to him as already safely stigmatized, which
he is in no way interesting in interrogating, but instead picks up and uses for his own
voyeuristic ends. Moreover, in pursuit of this project Miller drains the politics out of
the leather scene and foucault's involvement with it.
I wouldn't call it homophobic, just heteronormative. and silly, at that.
sb
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> At 11:40 AM +0000 3/15/97, sam binkley wrote:
>
> >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.
>
> Is this untrue? Aren't these concerns all over Foucault's writings? What
> does this have to do with F's sexual preference for men? There are heteros
> equally fixated on similar concerns?
>
> Doug