On Fri, 23 May 1997, Flannon Jackson wrote:
> It seems that there is a question about the relationship between foucault
> and silence, or more appropriately a question, which is in some way
> necessary, about the relationship between silence and the pratice of
> archaeology that has yet to be asked. In most of the examples given so
> far silence has functioned as merely the trailing off of speech. It is
> the point at which the subject loses power as the voice trails off, or
> the point at which the subject gains power by retreating into a silence
> which speaks with a timber that the voice alone could not muster. In
> either case the opposition of words and silence form a tertiary effect of
> the subjects being or true nature. That is, the expressiveness of
> language, the modulations of the voice in either instance of presence or
> abscence, form an index which ceaselessly refers back to the
> imutable substance, the essential nature, the true being, which encapsulates
> the subject in its totality. This, however, is a type of analysis that
> seems to be at odds with foucault's approach.
A caveat: F's discussion of "pahressia" in those taped Berkeley lectures
mentioned earlier. There I think he does talk about the relationship
between voice, expressiveness of language, and so on, in terms of a kind
of truth about the being in question. Or am I just misunderstanding what
you're saying?
>
> There are several instance in foucault where silence is invoked as a
> constituative element of the object which archaeology sets out to
> examine. Unfortunatly I am in the midst of moving right now and my books
> are in disarray so for now I can only offer a single instance but
> once I get organized I can come up with some more if its of interest.
> So, in the preface to _Madness and Civilization_ it says:
>
> "In the serene world of mental illness, modern man no longer communicates
> with the madman; on one hand, the man of reason delegates the physician to
> madness, thereby authorizing a relation only through the abstract
> universal of disease; on the other, the man of madness communicates with
> society only by the intermediary of an equally abstract reason which is
> order, physical and moral constraint, the anonymous pressure of the group,
> the requirements of conformity. As for a common language, there is no
> such thing; or rather, there is no such thing any longer; the constitution
> of madness as mental illness, at the end of the eghteenth century, affords
> the evidence of a broken dialogue, posits the seperation as already
> effected, and thrusts into oblivion all those stammered, imperfect words
> without fixed syntax in which the exchange between madness and reason was
> made. The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue of reason about
> madness, has been established only on the basis of such a silence.
> I have not tried to write the history of that language, but rather
> the archaeology of that silence."
>
> Here it would be a mistake to say that Foucault is trying to speak for
> the mad, trying to redress an historical greivance by articualting the
> other half of the broken dialogue.
Not sure why it would be a mistake. Please elaborate if so inclined. Don't
you think there's a sometimes-Romantic valorization of the mad in _MC_?
> Here the silence does speak in a
> certain form but not in the manner that the monolgue of psychiatry
> speaks. The psychiatric monolugue constitutes its object (the mad)
> according to a set of rules for speaking which, through their
> articulation, invoke the proper form of the subject (the sane). What we
> don't have here is a simple exclusion of the form: The mad are excluded from
> society, relegated to silence, _because_ they are not sane. Rather, the
> silence of madness forms the limit condition by which the the monologue
> of psychiatry is drawn into itself as a cohesive rule set.
The condition of psychiatry's existence is the impenetrable silence of
madness?
>
> Rather than being a void, a trailing off of speech, or an abscence whose
> very presence constitutes a weightyness, silence forms the line between
> speech and bable, chaos and form, thought and the unthinkable. The
> existence of this line is not in doubt, after all the implication of the
> monologue is that psychiatry has relied on it as a ground of enunciation
> throughout its history, but rather than being an condition attributable to
> a specific subject foucault approaches it which is in some way
> determinative of subjectivity.
>
> Flannon
>
The psychoanalytic movement gives a great deal of emphasis, does it not,
to the value of pauses and silences. Often when an analysand stumbles over
a term or pauses in its expression of sentiments, the analyst knows that
resistance by forces in the psyche interested in the suppression of
certain verities is being encountered.
--John
> It seems that there is a question about the relationship between foucault
> and silence, or more appropriately a question, which is in some way
> necessary, about the relationship between silence and the pratice of
> archaeology that has yet to be asked. In most of the examples given so
> far silence has functioned as merely the trailing off of speech. It is
> the point at which the subject loses power as the voice trails off, or
> the point at which the subject gains power by retreating into a silence
> which speaks with a timber that the voice alone could not muster. In
> either case the opposition of words and silence form a tertiary effect of
> the subjects being or true nature. That is, the expressiveness of
> language, the modulations of the voice in either instance of presence or
> abscence, form an index which ceaselessly refers back to the
> imutable substance, the essential nature, the true being, which encapsulates
> the subject in its totality. This, however, is a type of analysis that
> seems to be at odds with foucault's approach.
A caveat: F's discussion of "pahressia" in those taped Berkeley lectures
mentioned earlier. There I think he does talk about the relationship
between voice, expressiveness of language, and so on, in terms of a kind
of truth about the being in question. Or am I just misunderstanding what
you're saying?
>
> There are several instance in foucault where silence is invoked as a
> constituative element of the object which archaeology sets out to
> examine. Unfortunatly I am in the midst of moving right now and my books
> are in disarray so for now I can only offer a single instance but
> once I get organized I can come up with some more if its of interest.
> So, in the preface to _Madness and Civilization_ it says:
>
> "In the serene world of mental illness, modern man no longer communicates
> with the madman; on one hand, the man of reason delegates the physician to
> madness, thereby authorizing a relation only through the abstract
> universal of disease; on the other, the man of madness communicates with
> society only by the intermediary of an equally abstract reason which is
> order, physical and moral constraint, the anonymous pressure of the group,
> the requirements of conformity. As for a common language, there is no
> such thing; or rather, there is no such thing any longer; the constitution
> of madness as mental illness, at the end of the eghteenth century, affords
> the evidence of a broken dialogue, posits the seperation as already
> effected, and thrusts into oblivion all those stammered, imperfect words
> without fixed syntax in which the exchange between madness and reason was
> made. The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue of reason about
> madness, has been established only on the basis of such a silence.
> I have not tried to write the history of that language, but rather
> the archaeology of that silence."
>
> Here it would be a mistake to say that Foucault is trying to speak for
> the mad, trying to redress an historical greivance by articualting the
> other half of the broken dialogue.
Not sure why it would be a mistake. Please elaborate if so inclined. Don't
you think there's a sometimes-Romantic valorization of the mad in _MC_?
> Here the silence does speak in a
> certain form but not in the manner that the monolgue of psychiatry
> speaks. The psychiatric monolugue constitutes its object (the mad)
> according to a set of rules for speaking which, through their
> articulation, invoke the proper form of the subject (the sane). What we
> don't have here is a simple exclusion of the form: The mad are excluded from
> society, relegated to silence, _because_ they are not sane. Rather, the
> silence of madness forms the limit condition by which the the monologue
> of psychiatry is drawn into itself as a cohesive rule set.
The condition of psychiatry's existence is the impenetrable silence of
madness?
>
> Rather than being a void, a trailing off of speech, or an abscence whose
> very presence constitutes a weightyness, silence forms the line between
> speech and bable, chaos and form, thought and the unthinkable. The
> existence of this line is not in doubt, after all the implication of the
> monologue is that psychiatry has relied on it as a ground of enunciation
> throughout its history, but rather than being an condition attributable to
> a specific subject foucault approaches it which is in some way
> determinative of subjectivity.
>
> Flannon
>
The psychoanalytic movement gives a great deal of emphasis, does it not,
to the value of pauses and silences. Often when an analysand stumbles over
a term or pauses in its expression of sentiments, the analyst knows that
resistance by forces in the psyche interested in the suppression of
certain verities is being encountered.
--John