Stephen
Good post, I'll have to ponder some of your points awhile. But here are
some initial thoughts.
Stephen D'Arcy wrote:
>Nevertheless, is not M&C political in a manner strikingly different
>from D&P? I think the former is political in the same way that
>Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" is political: it tries to vindicate
>certain experiences and aspirations that are more or less discredited
>or discreditable in the dominant culture at a certain time. Romantic
> culture generally is political, or even (under the right
> circumstances) emancipatory, but it seems to me that it is political
> in the sense of "cultural politics," by which I mean specifically a
> politics that only requires the efforts, initiative and activities of
> people who write books, paint, etc.
>
> Discipline and Punish, on the other hand, is political in a different
> way. Here there is an attempt to connect historical research to
> concrete practical struggles. Foucault writes: "That punishment...and
> the prison...belong to a political technology of the body is a lesson
> that I have learnt...from the present. In recent years, prison
> revolts have occurred throughout the world...." (D&P, p. 30).
Yes, I would accept this interpretation of M&C, but I am still not
completely sure that it is a criticism which is really fundamental to
the archaeological project. Is it not possible, for instance, to use a
discursive analysis in order to achieve a political problematisation of
a field in a way which does not necessarily imply the emancipatory
supremacy of the author? Where I think I might be disagreeing with you
is on the question of whether we see an archaeology as a 'contribution'
to a political struggle, or as its totality.
>
> This is not my understanding of Order of Things. I admit, however,
> thta I read it years ago, only understood parts of it, and forgot most
> of it. But I did not get any sense that he thought "Man" was part of
> an "oppressive project."
>
> Could you specify what might be "oppressive" about "Man", from the
> specific point of view of Foucault at that time. (One can no doubt
> imagine other points of view from which that might be true).
Foucault is never exactly clear about the specific oppressive
consequences of the production of 'Man', though the following extract
comes fairly close. Essentially Foucault sees "Man" as the product of
Enlightenment philosophy and the human sciences. In this respect they
'constitute' more than they reveal. Interestingly in the OT, F. sees
ethnology and psychoanalysis as pointing the way to the undoing of man
because they 'ceaselessly "unmake"' man (p. 379).
"Anthropology constitutes perhaps the fundametnal arrangement that has
governed and controlled the path of philosophical thought from Kant
until our own day. This arrangement is essential, since it forms part
of our history; but it is disintegrating before our eyes, since we are
beginning to recognize and denounce in it, in a critical mode, both a
forgetfulness of the opening that made it possible and a stubborn
obstacle standing obstinately in the way of an imminent new form of
thought. To all those who still wish to talk about man, about his reign
or his liberation, to all those still ask themselves questions about
what man is in his essence, to all those who wish to talk about man,
about his reign or his liberation, to all those who still ask themselves
questions about what man is in his essence, to all those who wish to
take him as thier starting-point in thier attempts to reach the truth,
to all those who, on the other hand, refer all knowledge back to the
truths of man himself, too those who refuse to formalize without
anthropologizing, who refuse to mythologize without demystifying, who
refuse to think without immediately thinking that itis man who is
thinking, to all these warped and twisted forms of reflection we can
answer only with a philosophical laugh - which means, to a certain
extent, a silent one." (OT, pp. 342-343)
*note here for whoever it was looking for comments in F. about laughter
- also on p. 385 he talks about the 'explosion of man's face in
laughter'*
>
> Again, I concede that I stated things in an oversimplified way. But I
> do think that archaeology was a political failure, because it made it
> easy to talk about power _embodied_ in discoursive rules etc., but it
> made it difficult to talk about power _struggles_, either within
> discourse or outside it.
Yep, that's a good point.
Best wishes
Murray
=================================
Murray K. Simpson,
Department of Social Work,
Frankland Building,
The University of Dundee,
Dundee DD1 4HN,
United Kingdom.
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/SocialWork/mainpage.htm
tel. 01382 344948
fax. 01382 221512
e.mail m.k.simpson@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Good post, I'll have to ponder some of your points awhile. But here are
some initial thoughts.
Stephen D'Arcy wrote:
>Nevertheless, is not M&C political in a manner strikingly different
>from D&P? I think the former is political in the same way that
>Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" is political: it tries to vindicate
>certain experiences and aspirations that are more or less discredited
>or discreditable in the dominant culture at a certain time. Romantic
> culture generally is political, or even (under the right
> circumstances) emancipatory, but it seems to me that it is political
> in the sense of "cultural politics," by which I mean specifically a
> politics that only requires the efforts, initiative and activities of
> people who write books, paint, etc.
>
> Discipline and Punish, on the other hand, is political in a different
> way. Here there is an attempt to connect historical research to
> concrete practical struggles. Foucault writes: "That punishment...and
> the prison...belong to a political technology of the body is a lesson
> that I have learnt...from the present. In recent years, prison
> revolts have occurred throughout the world...." (D&P, p. 30).
Yes, I would accept this interpretation of M&C, but I am still not
completely sure that it is a criticism which is really fundamental to
the archaeological project. Is it not possible, for instance, to use a
discursive analysis in order to achieve a political problematisation of
a field in a way which does not necessarily imply the emancipatory
supremacy of the author? Where I think I might be disagreeing with you
is on the question of whether we see an archaeology as a 'contribution'
to a political struggle, or as its totality.
>
> This is not my understanding of Order of Things. I admit, however,
> thta I read it years ago, only understood parts of it, and forgot most
> of it. But I did not get any sense that he thought "Man" was part of
> an "oppressive project."
>
> Could you specify what might be "oppressive" about "Man", from the
> specific point of view of Foucault at that time. (One can no doubt
> imagine other points of view from which that might be true).
Foucault is never exactly clear about the specific oppressive
consequences of the production of 'Man', though the following extract
comes fairly close. Essentially Foucault sees "Man" as the product of
Enlightenment philosophy and the human sciences. In this respect they
'constitute' more than they reveal. Interestingly in the OT, F. sees
ethnology and psychoanalysis as pointing the way to the undoing of man
because they 'ceaselessly "unmake"' man (p. 379).
"Anthropology constitutes perhaps the fundametnal arrangement that has
governed and controlled the path of philosophical thought from Kant
until our own day. This arrangement is essential, since it forms part
of our history; but it is disintegrating before our eyes, since we are
beginning to recognize and denounce in it, in a critical mode, both a
forgetfulness of the opening that made it possible and a stubborn
obstacle standing obstinately in the way of an imminent new form of
thought. To all those who still wish to talk about man, about his reign
or his liberation, to all those still ask themselves questions about
what man is in his essence, to all those who wish to talk about man,
about his reign or his liberation, to all those who still ask themselves
questions about what man is in his essence, to all those who wish to
take him as thier starting-point in thier attempts to reach the truth,
to all those who, on the other hand, refer all knowledge back to the
truths of man himself, too those who refuse to formalize without
anthropologizing, who refuse to mythologize without demystifying, who
refuse to think without immediately thinking that itis man who is
thinking, to all these warped and twisted forms of reflection we can
answer only with a philosophical laugh - which means, to a certain
extent, a silent one." (OT, pp. 342-343)
*note here for whoever it was looking for comments in F. about laughter
- also on p. 385 he talks about the 'explosion of man's face in
laughter'*
>
> Again, I concede that I stated things in an oversimplified way. But I
> do think that archaeology was a political failure, because it made it
> easy to talk about power _embodied_ in discoursive rules etc., but it
> made it difficult to talk about power _struggles_, either within
> discourse or outside it.
Yep, that's a good point.
Best wishes
Murray
=================================
Murray K. Simpson,
Department of Social Work,
Frankland Building,
The University of Dundee,
Dundee DD1 4HN,
United Kingdom.
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/SocialWork/mainpage.htm
tel. 01382 344948
fax. 01382 221512
e.mail m.k.simpson@xxxxxxxxxxxx