On Thu, 15 May 1997, COLIN WIGHT wrote:
[a bit snipped]
> But the threat is real and those demanding a voice intend to silence other
> voices. How to silence such a voice ethically and with sensitivity? I don't
> know, but what I do know is that Foucault provides me with no intellectual
> resources to help make my decision.
>
--But this is neither the point of Foucault's work nor what Foucault sees
as the role of the intellectual in society. Foucault is not a moral
philosopher; at best, he can help us to understand why specific social
and discursive regimes are linked to certain moral positions. But this
is descriptive, not prescriptive. This reminds me of the geographers
who started picking on Foucault for not applying his concepts to their
field of research. Foucault's reaction was more or less "Do it
yourself". Foucault didn't write about everything, but there are a
number of interesting ways his type of analysis can be extended (e.g.,
discursive dissemination of class/gender/race stereotypes). It's silly
to fault him because somewhere along the line he decided not to be an
ethicist.
Moreover, Foucault consistently refused to play the role of the public
intellectual who provides grand moral or philosophical decrees that
allow us to solve political or ethical issues. This style of intellectual
arrogance did not appeal to him. Time and again he emphasized that
political and ethical decisions needed to be made at the local level,
not solved by fiat by some neo-Platonic philosopher king. In an
interview, he described his work as potential tools that could be used
in political struggles of various sorts. I like this metaphor; if the
intellectual tools provided by a Foucauldian analysis are irrelevant,
leave them aside, use other strategies.
So yes, Foucault refuses to provide directions for how to solve moral
and political problems in our society. He refuses to play the role of
the ethical talking head who gives us his unassailable answers to
problems like the cybernazis & freedom of speech. Instead, he
encourages us to think critically and use a variety of intellectual
tools to create social conditions that have not yet been tried. I see
this as a strength, not a weakness, of Foucault's work.
Miles Jackson
mjackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx