On Fri, 16 May 1997, COLIN WIGHT wrote:
> 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.)
Though she is also quite critical of Foucault, Nancy Fraser has a partial
defense of him in an article titled "Is F a Young Conservative?"
> 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...
What do you think of the tool metaphor introduced by another member of the
list? I am very suspicious of attempts to force theory to provide us with
politically correct decisions on this or that side of an issue. Sartre
talks about something similar in his little essay on "Existentialism."
Remember a young student visits Sartre with a dilemma: should he stay at
home and take care of his mother, who has no one else to help her and in
short *must* have her son's help, or should he leave her behind and join
the resistance? Existentialism as an account of our beings does not have,
Sartre says, a knock-down answer this way or that on this question. Both
actions (refusing to leave Mom; joining the resistance) could be
expressions of authenticity or of inauthentic flight -- qua theoretical
description of our being existentialism cannot tell the young man what the
"right" answer is. Qua theory, existentialism does not have sufficient
information to decide the matter. Rather, the theory must be applied,
tool-like, to the specific situation faced by the young man.
>
> 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.
No, Colin, the abusrdity is yours, as F *never once* adopted this
deconstructivist Derridean rhetoric or approach. And: it is in the name
of your preferred "species being" type argument that the Nazis did their
killing. In the name of it again that Stalin did his. In the name of it a
third time that Pol Pot did his. Ethics is covered with incredible amounts
of blood and gore, and this makes a reliance on it seem naive to me.
>
> 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).
No, F does not make all ethical choices merely arbitrary. They are
arbitrary in the sense of being rooted in free human beings who make
choices. Arbitrariness is just another word for human freedom, after all.
Just as Hobbes says that the word "tyrant" is the label we give to "kings
we happen not to like," so too "arbitrary" is the sticker we apply to
"exercises of freedom that we happen not to like."
You want "an ethical starting point for a critique of things we find
unacceptable." Notice that you have already found some things
unacceptable. The "ethical starting point" isn't really a starting point,
is it? You want some way to "justify" or "ground" the things found to be
unacceptable. But even in your case, then (or so I respectfully submit),
the "independent" or causal variable producing even the desire for an
ethical stance is the "arbitrary" finding of some things to be
unacceptable.
Silence the Nazis or allow them to speak? Join the resistance or stay home
to help Mom? Isn't it an existentially inauthentic flight from our freedom
to insist that the "ground" of such choices be guaranteed in some
ficticiously *a priori* way by an ethics that at best is an *a posteriori*
rationalization?
--John
> 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.)
Though she is also quite critical of Foucault, Nancy Fraser has a partial
defense of him in an article titled "Is F a Young Conservative?"
> 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...
What do you think of the tool metaphor introduced by another member of the
list? I am very suspicious of attempts to force theory to provide us with
politically correct decisions on this or that side of an issue. Sartre
talks about something similar in his little essay on "Existentialism."
Remember a young student visits Sartre with a dilemma: should he stay at
home and take care of his mother, who has no one else to help her and in
short *must* have her son's help, or should he leave her behind and join
the resistance? Existentialism as an account of our beings does not have,
Sartre says, a knock-down answer this way or that on this question. Both
actions (refusing to leave Mom; joining the resistance) could be
expressions of authenticity or of inauthentic flight -- qua theoretical
description of our being existentialism cannot tell the young man what the
"right" answer is. Qua theory, existentialism does not have sufficient
information to decide the matter. Rather, the theory must be applied,
tool-like, to the specific situation faced by the young man.
>
> 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.
No, Colin, the abusrdity is yours, as F *never once* adopted this
deconstructivist Derridean rhetoric or approach. And: it is in the name
of your preferred "species being" type argument that the Nazis did their
killing. In the name of it again that Stalin did his. In the name of it a
third time that Pol Pot did his. Ethics is covered with incredible amounts
of blood and gore, and this makes a reliance on it seem naive to me.
>
> 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).
No, F does not make all ethical choices merely arbitrary. They are
arbitrary in the sense of being rooted in free human beings who make
choices. Arbitrariness is just another word for human freedom, after all.
Just as Hobbes says that the word "tyrant" is the label we give to "kings
we happen not to like," so too "arbitrary" is the sticker we apply to
"exercises of freedom that we happen not to like."
You want "an ethical starting point for a critique of things we find
unacceptable." Notice that you have already found some things
unacceptable. The "ethical starting point" isn't really a starting point,
is it? You want some way to "justify" or "ground" the things found to be
unacceptable. But even in your case, then (or so I respectfully submit),
the "independent" or causal variable producing even the desire for an
ethical stance is the "arbitrary" finding of some things to be
unacceptable.
Silence the Nazis or allow them to speak? Join the resistance or stay home
to help Mom? Isn't it an existentially inauthentic flight from our freedom
to insist that the "ground" of such choices be guaranteed in some
ficticiously *a priori* way by an ethics that at best is an *a posteriori*
rationalization?
--John