Thanks for Alan's posting: I felt like Jody Foster in _Contact_ -- there
*is* life out there!
The normative (good/bad) debate about power is quite central to
Foucault's work and the criticisms of it.
With due respect, I'd suggest that the debate is a bit more intractable
than it might appear to those of us who defend F would like, sometimes,
to think. Suspecting critics of Foucault of simply not getting the full
picture or understanding the project not only seems a bit dismissive -
there are some mighty powerful thinkers, then, who simply don't "get it"
- but it also allows us to gloss over much of what still requires work.
That being said...I wonder about Fraser's criticism (admittedly I haven't
read it - not that I recall!). It seems to me that Foucault went to some
great pains to hyper-analyze power, rather than supposing it is one
giant indivisible concept. My gosh, the first time I read D&P, my head
was spinning from all the micro-distinctions he was making. The fact
that he labels all those "techniques" (I think Murray's point is well
taken here) of power "disciplinary," is not proof that he has an
unanalyzed/able conception of power. Quite the contrary, I think.
I suspect that - again, contrary to Fraser - at least part of the reason
for avoiding evaluation/prescription/normativity/whatever is precisely
to avoid such gross characterization that the binary good/bad inevitably
produces. If Fraser thinks that an algorithm that separates good from
bad is more precise than one that allows for the fine analyses
Foucault's does, then that is a suspect claim.
So, I guess that my point is that I'm agnostic about Fraser's
conclusion, but I would disagree with her premises - rather, Foucault's
conception of power is finely analyzable rather than gross. And it
attempts to avoid that binary good/bad precisely to retain the many
micro-distinctions it encompasses.
Peace,
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
Toronto, CANADA
--
*is* life out there!
The normative (good/bad) debate about power is quite central to
Foucault's work and the criticisms of it.
With due respect, I'd suggest that the debate is a bit more intractable
than it might appear to those of us who defend F would like, sometimes,
to think. Suspecting critics of Foucault of simply not getting the full
picture or understanding the project not only seems a bit dismissive -
there are some mighty powerful thinkers, then, who simply don't "get it"
- but it also allows us to gloss over much of what still requires work.
That being said...I wonder about Fraser's criticism (admittedly I haven't
read it - not that I recall!). It seems to me that Foucault went to some
great pains to hyper-analyze power, rather than supposing it is one
giant indivisible concept. My gosh, the first time I read D&P, my head
was spinning from all the micro-distinctions he was making. The fact
that he labels all those "techniques" (I think Murray's point is well
taken here) of power "disciplinary," is not proof that he has an
unanalyzed/able conception of power. Quite the contrary, I think.
I suspect that - again, contrary to Fraser - at least part of the reason
for avoiding evaluation/prescription/normativity/whatever is precisely
to avoid such gross characterization that the binary good/bad inevitably
produces. If Fraser thinks that an algorithm that separates good from
bad is more precise than one that allows for the fine analyses
Foucault's does, then that is a suspect claim.
So, I guess that my point is that I'm agnostic about Fraser's
conclusion, but I would disagree with her premises - rather, Foucault's
conception of power is finely analyzable rather than gross. And it
attempts to avoid that binary good/bad precisely to retain the many
micro-distinctions it encompasses.
Peace,
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
Toronto, CANADA
--