OK then,
> I wrote an article on this that appears in _Philosophy and Social
> Criticism_. I see your addresses below and will send you an off-print.
Thanks very much John. I look forward to reading it.
I'm still thinking about this power/not-power and normativity thing.
John writes:
> Where by normative framework we mean the ability to distinguish good from
> bad forms of power?
Well, not necesarily. Perhaps, rather, the ability to distinguish the good
and bad effects of power.
This leads me to my general question re Foucault's desire to have his cake
(to suspend judgements about legitimacy/power), whilst eating it (still
wanting to say something about goodness/badness).
So, THIS IS MY MAIN QUESTION, is there - does anyone know of attempts - a
way of developing a normative framework that doesn't depend upon a
hypothetical situation in which social relations aren't characterized by
(asymmetries of) power?
IS NORMATIVITY ALWAYS ABOUT POWER/NOT-POWER?
More generally, do normative frameworks necessarily work with hypothetical
utopias (ideal speech situations for example)?
(Would anyone view Rawls (1972) and/or Brian Barry's "Justice as
impartiality" in this light?)
(Oh, my question to John re what he meant by "bad" hasn't receieved an
answer - I'd quite like one!)
> Let's say everything is power and nothing is not power. What does that
> keep us from doing? We can still oppose forms and exercises of power
> whenever we want! It's just that we can't appeal to or strive for some
> sort of mythically powerless utopia. Let's say -- and this happens all the
> time -- that a teacher uses his or her power position to torture students
> with arbitrary demands instead of using it to actually teach them
> something. (I do this on alternate semesters: one semester I teach, next
> semester I torture. Keeps 'em on their toes and makes the job more
> interesting.) Power is being exercised in *both* semesters. "Everything"
> is power and nothing is not power. But it's not the case that that makes
> us incapable of making distinctions!
BUT, doesn't it then make it more difficult for the relatively powerless
to produce persuasive arguments for change? The making of distinctions is
a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for making arguments for
change, isn't it?
> What we give up is Habermas's ideal speech community. That's a place
> that's supposed to be powerless, a place where only the best and most
> rational argument prevails. And it is by virtue of this exclusive reliance
> on rational argumentation that the ideal speech situation is deemed
> powerless -- a questionable assumption as many have pointed out.
Yeh, sure. I'm more interested in the general ideas than doing a Foucault
vs. Habermas. (That said, I would, after Brian Barry, suggest that justice
as impartiality is a pretty good framework which can be sensitive to
difference as the impartiality is at a higher level of abstraction (scale,
with my geographer's head on maybe?)).
> In the real world, things are rarely as clear-cut as the professor who
> uses his "power" (hah!) to teach one semester and to torture the second
> semester. Instead, exercises of power are ambiguous in their effects,
> especially when considered from the point of view of the different
> rationalities, the different means-ends relationships that make up a
> complicated power situation. Thus when capitalists train a workforce to be
> obedient, punctual, and productive, they're not doing something immoral or
> anything, they're just following out the rationality of the power-grid
> they happen to occupy. And when workers resist efforts to dumb them down
> they for their part are not anticipating a utopic community of Renaissance
> humans who write poetry in the morning and transform nature in the
> afternoon, but simply responding to the dynamics of the situation they
> find themselves in.
OK, so society's messy. What then is the role of social studies/science?
(I know there's a reasonably decent answer to this, but could someone
remind me of it?)
cheers,
alan
PS: Labelled as a "geographer" I'm happy to endorse Foucault's emphasis on
empirical work. This is one of the ways in which he's been (rather
simplistically) appropriated by some geographers.
*****************************************************************************
Dr. Alan C. Hudson
University Assistant Lecturer
and
IB Director of Studies at Fitzwilliam College
Department of Geography, and Fitzwilliam College,
University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
CB2 3EN, CB3 0DG,
United Kingdom. United Kingdom.
Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 333364 (Department - Direct line)
Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 333399 (Department - General Office)
Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 358354 (Home + Answerphone)
Fax: + 44 (0) 1223 333392 (Department)
E-Mail: ach1005@xxxxxxxxx
Website: http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/achhome.htm
(Currently, a dull (lack of time), slow (not my fault!), but functional
(mainly luck), website!)
*****************************************************************************
> I wrote an article on this that appears in _Philosophy and Social
> Criticism_. I see your addresses below and will send you an off-print.
Thanks very much John. I look forward to reading it.
I'm still thinking about this power/not-power and normativity thing.
John writes:
> Where by normative framework we mean the ability to distinguish good from
> bad forms of power?
Well, not necesarily. Perhaps, rather, the ability to distinguish the good
and bad effects of power.
This leads me to my general question re Foucault's desire to have his cake
(to suspend judgements about legitimacy/power), whilst eating it (still
wanting to say something about goodness/badness).
So, THIS IS MY MAIN QUESTION, is there - does anyone know of attempts - a
way of developing a normative framework that doesn't depend upon a
hypothetical situation in which social relations aren't characterized by
(asymmetries of) power?
IS NORMATIVITY ALWAYS ABOUT POWER/NOT-POWER?
More generally, do normative frameworks necessarily work with hypothetical
utopias (ideal speech situations for example)?
(Would anyone view Rawls (1972) and/or Brian Barry's "Justice as
impartiality" in this light?)
(Oh, my question to John re what he meant by "bad" hasn't receieved an
answer - I'd quite like one!)
> Let's say everything is power and nothing is not power. What does that
> keep us from doing? We can still oppose forms and exercises of power
> whenever we want! It's just that we can't appeal to or strive for some
> sort of mythically powerless utopia. Let's say -- and this happens all the
> time -- that a teacher uses his or her power position to torture students
> with arbitrary demands instead of using it to actually teach them
> something. (I do this on alternate semesters: one semester I teach, next
> semester I torture. Keeps 'em on their toes and makes the job more
> interesting.) Power is being exercised in *both* semesters. "Everything"
> is power and nothing is not power. But it's not the case that that makes
> us incapable of making distinctions!
BUT, doesn't it then make it more difficult for the relatively powerless
to produce persuasive arguments for change? The making of distinctions is
a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for making arguments for
change, isn't it?
> What we give up is Habermas's ideal speech community. That's a place
> that's supposed to be powerless, a place where only the best and most
> rational argument prevails. And it is by virtue of this exclusive reliance
> on rational argumentation that the ideal speech situation is deemed
> powerless -- a questionable assumption as many have pointed out.
Yeh, sure. I'm more interested in the general ideas than doing a Foucault
vs. Habermas. (That said, I would, after Brian Barry, suggest that justice
as impartiality is a pretty good framework which can be sensitive to
difference as the impartiality is at a higher level of abstraction (scale,
with my geographer's head on maybe?)).
> In the real world, things are rarely as clear-cut as the professor who
> uses his "power" (hah!) to teach one semester and to torture the second
> semester. Instead, exercises of power are ambiguous in their effects,
> especially when considered from the point of view of the different
> rationalities, the different means-ends relationships that make up a
> complicated power situation. Thus when capitalists train a workforce to be
> obedient, punctual, and productive, they're not doing something immoral or
> anything, they're just following out the rationality of the power-grid
> they happen to occupy. And when workers resist efforts to dumb them down
> they for their part are not anticipating a utopic community of Renaissance
> humans who write poetry in the morning and transform nature in the
> afternoon, but simply responding to the dynamics of the situation they
> find themselves in.
OK, so society's messy. What then is the role of social studies/science?
(I know there's a reasonably decent answer to this, but could someone
remind me of it?)
cheers,
alan
PS: Labelled as a "geographer" I'm happy to endorse Foucault's emphasis on
empirical work. This is one of the ways in which he's been (rather
simplistically) appropriated by some geographers.
*****************************************************************************
Dr. Alan C. Hudson
University Assistant Lecturer
and
IB Director of Studies at Fitzwilliam College
Department of Geography, and Fitzwilliam College,
University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
CB2 3EN, CB3 0DG,
United Kingdom. United Kingdom.
Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 333364 (Department - Direct line)
Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 333399 (Department - General Office)
Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 358354 (Home + Answerphone)
Fax: + 44 (0) 1223 333392 (Department)
E-Mail: ach1005@xxxxxxxxx
Website: http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/achhome.htm
(Currently, a dull (lack of time), slow (not my fault!), but functional
(mainly luck), website!)
*****************************************************************************