Thanks to all those replies, unfortunately I still think the nettle is
simply not being grasped, so I will try and make the point clearer.
One of the most often cited charges against Foucault is that his work (not
the man, but the implications of his theoretical framework, so please no ad
hominem defences of the form: 'but Foucault loved animals') is
neo-conservative. (Good old Jurgen H is probably the ref everyone knows
vis-a-vis this.)
Now the point is does the debate on this list about fascism lend any support
to this view? There have been numerous approaches to my post (sorry if I get
any of the names wrong). One I think I would want to dismiss, respectfully,
out of hand, the:
>But this
>>is descriptive, not prescriptive.
This is simply hopelessly naive. A paradigmatic statement of the fact/value
divide. However, that the point is made does lend support to my often
stressed, though never rebutted charge that Foucault is a proto-positivist.
(I do accept that folks simply don't think my charge is worth debating, but
that's another matter).
John ransom replies to Doug's posting vis-a-vis this with:
> Montesquieu's thought was deeply political but he
>>doesn't have an answer for everything.
And nor am I asking Foucault too. That is not the point John. The point is
rather than Foucault's work may lend unintended support to neo-conservative
views, through at least: the denial of the concept human nature (I actually
prefer the old Marxist notion of "species being"); his attack on truth; his
discursive idealism (which is linked to the former); and so on...
This becomes clear on just this issue because some on this list have said
they would censor the Nazi's, but have elaborated no reason why this group
rather than any other. Why pick on the Nazi's? What criteria are being
applied? What do they do that we don't like and why? Because they kill Jews?
So what! Jew after all is only a nominal term that refers to no real
referent but simply a disursive construct of various incommensuarble
discourses. Hence their discursive construct Jew is not our discursive
construct Jew, and moreover, since they created their own discursive
construct I suppose they can do what they want with it.
Yes I am being absurd, but I think the absurdity is not mine but Foucualt's.
John goes on:
>
>>And so it's not just Foucault who fails to provide specific (even
>>implicatory) guidance for responding to today's particular headline. To
>>think otherwise is simply to misconstrue not just Foucault, but political
>>thought in general.
>>
Well, if Foucault was presented in the more narrow sense of a thinker who
dealt with only specific historical conjunctures (which i accept is what he
did indeed claim) then you may well have a point. But since the Foucault
industry has taken it upon itself to use Foucaultian categories to criticise
all manner of positions, I think it only fair that it be held to account. I
mean I don't know anywhere that Foucault wrote about International Relations
(which hasn't stopped many importing his ideas and making grossly inflated
claims on his behalf), but equally he did indeed write about ethics, so he
is indeed liable to be held to account on tye implications of a Foucautian
stand about the ethics of fascism. Anyway, what about the role of the author?
John goes on:
>
>>One thing Foucault does think, however, is that the usual ways of
>>recouperating specific events into moral schemes (Kantian universalism
>>etc.) are quite faulty for reasons many on this list have discussed. But
>>for some reason we never see a defense of those outdated and themselves
>>often disastrous tools from the anti-whimpish thinking corner.
Well if the only options you seem to grasp John are a Kantian universalism
or a rampant Foucaultian silence, then we are indeed in deep trouble. I,
fortunately, try not to think in such dichotomous terms. But equally, there
are many defences of the Kantian tradition (Nussbaum, for example), the
Marxist (Geras) which do make morality possible, something, I think,
Foucault fails to do. Still, from my experience attempts to introduce such
approaches to this list are met with a deafening silence or the roar of
'what has this got to do with Foucault'. Equally, of course, when such
approaches are introduced we get the standard Foucault responses, which, of
course, are intellectually stimulating but leave us devoid of an ethical
starting point for a critique of things we find unacceptable (by the way, I
am not asking for an ethical manual, as someone seemed to suggest, an A to Z
of how to do ethics, my point is that Foucault makes all ethical choices
merely arbitrary).
Some one else asked:
>colin asks, how does one ethically silence a voice? critically
>examining what it means to silence and what one means by ethically.
>who are those we silence? why do we silence them? what modes of
>thought to we legitimise when we silence? what sources/regimes of
>silencing to we condone? and even, why do we 'resist' silencing?
>does our position in the white tower implicate our choice?
The key point here is the 'why do we silence _them_'? Foucaultian answers on
a post card please!
Someone else wrote:
but given my place in the bubble, i still have to judge
>that i don't want to censor them (and this "voting down" business is still
>censorship - i won't go into it).
But this only restates the liberalist atomistic ontology. Yes, I accept
_you_ have to make a choice but do you have to do it only self-regarding.
>my reason for this judgement is that fear based on good reasons is
>not enough to justify censorship.
Good, then what would?
if you go to one of these web-sites
>and read the letters they get, you realize that for the most part
>these folks don't sound like hitler - they sound sincerely afraid and
>angry.
I just don't buy this at all. 'Those poor old Nazi's they have good reason
to be afraid of blacks, etc!' This is apologetics. But i do accept your
point that there are probably reasons (causes) of their behaviour. But i'm
not sure Foucault would have liked this spin on it.
yet the national
>review is more influential than any nazi newsgroup could ever be. and
>i really gotta go back to my original point - just as i am sincerely and
>legitimately afraid of the nazis, so somebody else might be sincerely and
>"legitimately" afraid of the nation of islam, the socialists, "gangsta
>rap", operation rescue, the ANC, the PLO, the republican party - by
>the time you're done censoring every group that could be argued is
>"dangerous" foucault is gonna be all you're gonna have left to read.
Exactly, and there's the rub. How do we sift out those groups that are not
ethically acceptable, or do we not even bother to try. On a Foucaultian
reading I think the latter answer is the only one you can extract. However,
the story aboout the Nazi' coming for group A, and noone doing anything,
then for group B and noone doing anything, and then them coming for you, and
there was noone left to do anything seems pertinent here. After all, you are
absolutely right, at the end of the day there will be noone left but the
Nazis and people reading Foucault, and then who do you think they are going
to come for?
>in the end you gotta be willing to sit down with people who might want
>to kill you.
Good idea, if they will let you sit down before killing you that is (leaving
aside the minor problem of the many who were killed prior to your little
chat). Didn't rousseau say once that to be sane in a world of madmen is
itself a form of madness?
i was reading about some gay, vietnamese-american filmmaker
>who interviewed a series of convicted murderers of gay men for a
>documentary. he found the process deeply humanizing, whatever that
>means. granted, they were locked up and he was free, but the point
>is the conversations were good.
And why? Perhaps because they were locked up and not free to go about their
grisly business.
>
>you don't silence it, not directly - you bring it out so you can
>work with it, so you can negotiate.
same as above. I just think this is totally naive. It presupposes that they
want to talk. If only that were so.
>"we would never wage war on a non-white
>nation for political reasons. if we needed land or food for survival,
>then we would negotiate with non-whites to get those things, or we
>would acquire them by honorable conquest."
Oh how nice of them! And you actually believe this do you? What the hell is
honorable conquest?
I give up. Sorry, I do. I give up.
Thanks,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------
simply not being grasped, so I will try and make the point clearer.
One of the most often cited charges against Foucault is that his work (not
the man, but the implications of his theoretical framework, so please no ad
hominem defences of the form: 'but Foucault loved animals') is
neo-conservative. (Good old Jurgen H is probably the ref everyone knows
vis-a-vis this.)
Now the point is does the debate on this list about fascism lend any support
to this view? There have been numerous approaches to my post (sorry if I get
any of the names wrong). One I think I would want to dismiss, respectfully,
out of hand, the:
>But this
>>is descriptive, not prescriptive.
This is simply hopelessly naive. A paradigmatic statement of the fact/value
divide. However, that the point is made does lend support to my often
stressed, though never rebutted charge that Foucault is a proto-positivist.
(I do accept that folks simply don't think my charge is worth debating, but
that's another matter).
John ransom replies to Doug's posting vis-a-vis this with:
> Montesquieu's thought was deeply political but he
>>doesn't have an answer for everything.
And nor am I asking Foucault too. That is not the point John. The point is
rather than Foucault's work may lend unintended support to neo-conservative
views, through at least: the denial of the concept human nature (I actually
prefer the old Marxist notion of "species being"); his attack on truth; his
discursive idealism (which is linked to the former); and so on...
This becomes clear on just this issue because some on this list have said
they would censor the Nazi's, but have elaborated no reason why this group
rather than any other. Why pick on the Nazi's? What criteria are being
applied? What do they do that we don't like and why? Because they kill Jews?
So what! Jew after all is only a nominal term that refers to no real
referent but simply a disursive construct of various incommensuarble
discourses. Hence their discursive construct Jew is not our discursive
construct Jew, and moreover, since they created their own discursive
construct I suppose they can do what they want with it.
Yes I am being absurd, but I think the absurdity is not mine but Foucualt's.
John goes on:
>
>>And so it's not just Foucault who fails to provide specific (even
>>implicatory) guidance for responding to today's particular headline. To
>>think otherwise is simply to misconstrue not just Foucault, but political
>>thought in general.
>>
Well, if Foucault was presented in the more narrow sense of a thinker who
dealt with only specific historical conjunctures (which i accept is what he
did indeed claim) then you may well have a point. But since the Foucault
industry has taken it upon itself to use Foucaultian categories to criticise
all manner of positions, I think it only fair that it be held to account. I
mean I don't know anywhere that Foucault wrote about International Relations
(which hasn't stopped many importing his ideas and making grossly inflated
claims on his behalf), but equally he did indeed write about ethics, so he
is indeed liable to be held to account on tye implications of a Foucautian
stand about the ethics of fascism. Anyway, what about the role of the author?
John goes on:
>
>>One thing Foucault does think, however, is that the usual ways of
>>recouperating specific events into moral schemes (Kantian universalism
>>etc.) are quite faulty for reasons many on this list have discussed. But
>>for some reason we never see a defense of those outdated and themselves
>>often disastrous tools from the anti-whimpish thinking corner.
Well if the only options you seem to grasp John are a Kantian universalism
or a rampant Foucaultian silence, then we are indeed in deep trouble. I,
fortunately, try not to think in such dichotomous terms. But equally, there
are many defences of the Kantian tradition (Nussbaum, for example), the
Marxist (Geras) which do make morality possible, something, I think,
Foucault fails to do. Still, from my experience attempts to introduce such
approaches to this list are met with a deafening silence or the roar of
'what has this got to do with Foucault'. Equally, of course, when such
approaches are introduced we get the standard Foucault responses, which, of
course, are intellectually stimulating but leave us devoid of an ethical
starting point for a critique of things we find unacceptable (by the way, I
am not asking for an ethical manual, as someone seemed to suggest, an A to Z
of how to do ethics, my point is that Foucault makes all ethical choices
merely arbitrary).
Some one else asked:
>colin asks, how does one ethically silence a voice? critically
>examining what it means to silence and what one means by ethically.
>who are those we silence? why do we silence them? what modes of
>thought to we legitimise when we silence? what sources/regimes of
>silencing to we condone? and even, why do we 'resist' silencing?
>does our position in the white tower implicate our choice?
The key point here is the 'why do we silence _them_'? Foucaultian answers on
a post card please!
Someone else wrote:
but given my place in the bubble, i still have to judge
>that i don't want to censor them (and this "voting down" business is still
>censorship - i won't go into it).
But this only restates the liberalist atomistic ontology. Yes, I accept
_you_ have to make a choice but do you have to do it only self-regarding.
>my reason for this judgement is that fear based on good reasons is
>not enough to justify censorship.
Good, then what would?
if you go to one of these web-sites
>and read the letters they get, you realize that for the most part
>these folks don't sound like hitler - they sound sincerely afraid and
>angry.
I just don't buy this at all. 'Those poor old Nazi's they have good reason
to be afraid of blacks, etc!' This is apologetics. But i do accept your
point that there are probably reasons (causes) of their behaviour. But i'm
not sure Foucault would have liked this spin on it.
yet the national
>review is more influential than any nazi newsgroup could ever be. and
>i really gotta go back to my original point - just as i am sincerely and
>legitimately afraid of the nazis, so somebody else might be sincerely and
>"legitimately" afraid of the nation of islam, the socialists, "gangsta
>rap", operation rescue, the ANC, the PLO, the republican party - by
>the time you're done censoring every group that could be argued is
>"dangerous" foucault is gonna be all you're gonna have left to read.
Exactly, and there's the rub. How do we sift out those groups that are not
ethically acceptable, or do we not even bother to try. On a Foucaultian
reading I think the latter answer is the only one you can extract. However,
the story aboout the Nazi' coming for group A, and noone doing anything,
then for group B and noone doing anything, and then them coming for you, and
there was noone left to do anything seems pertinent here. After all, you are
absolutely right, at the end of the day there will be noone left but the
Nazis and people reading Foucault, and then who do you think they are going
to come for?
>in the end you gotta be willing to sit down with people who might want
>to kill you.
Good idea, if they will let you sit down before killing you that is (leaving
aside the minor problem of the many who were killed prior to your little
chat). Didn't rousseau say once that to be sane in a world of madmen is
itself a form of madness?
i was reading about some gay, vietnamese-american filmmaker
>who interviewed a series of convicted murderers of gay men for a
>documentary. he found the process deeply humanizing, whatever that
>means. granted, they were locked up and he was free, but the point
>is the conversations were good.
And why? Perhaps because they were locked up and not free to go about their
grisly business.
>
>you don't silence it, not directly - you bring it out so you can
>work with it, so you can negotiate.
same as above. I just think this is totally naive. It presupposes that they
want to talk. If only that were so.
>"we would never wage war on a non-white
>nation for political reasons. if we needed land or food for survival,
>then we would negotiate with non-whites to get those things, or we
>would acquire them by honorable conquest."
Oh how nice of them! And you actually believe this do you? What the hell is
honorable conquest?
I give up. Sorry, I do. I give up.
Thanks,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------