Willy writes:
>...how his "epistemology"
>might send Nazi's (or feminists?) into the streets, in his name, I don't quite
>grasp.
OK. First, let me change the word "epistemology" to "work". Foucault's
work. How it could be used to make people think that sex is nothing but
power games is dangerous. I personally have no problem with the fact that
he was into S&M/leather bars, because that's between consenting adults.
However, it is playing with fire to let someone have control over you. They
could hurt you.
Also, note in this book how Foucault has disconnected "sex" from "love".
Again, highly dangerous, in my opinion. That's not what he's talking about,
but it IS largely a way to "tame" the sexual instinct-- by seeing the
"other" to whom you direct your love, be it ever so kinky, as someone you
LOVE and would never want to hurt.
Also, while people are mentioning Deleuze-- I haven't read Anti-Oedipus in
20 years, so I'm on thin ice-- but anyone who thinks that "Capitalism and
Schizophrenia" is anything more than a trope, against a very serious
condition called "schizophrenia", which exists regardless of what society
you live under, might want to privately e-mail me and I may forward you on
to an e-mail friend of mine, a physician who is working on this very
serious disease. It is often a fine line, in someone like Blake's or
Bowie's case (Bowie has admitted he has schizophrenia in his family
history, and I think he's done a GREAT job in *mastering* something which
could have crippled him), between "madness" and "genius". William James
talks about this eloquently in the "Religion and Neurology" chapter of _The
Varieties of Religious Experience_, by the way. I would substitute, roughly
a hundred years after it was written, the word "insane" for the word
"eccentric" to diffuse the matter. It is a very complicated matter, and one
which R.D. Laing, for all his good intentions, did not understand as much
as abuse at times. This does not negate the power of much of Laing's
writings, and again, sometimes, as Blake said, you have to go down a road
of excess to get to the palace of wisdom. But there IS progress, in some
ways.
For example, my e-mail physician friend, although he believes there is
ample evidence that Blake was schizophrenic, ALSO believes that Blake was
*happy* in that condition, that he posed no threat to society, and should
NOT have been either medicated or put away into an asylum, as Foucault
notes was already happening at that time in France, and as Blake was well
aware could happen to him if he didn't do clever disclaimers about the
angels that were flying through his windows.
His WebSite on Blake, by the way, is:
http://worldmall.com/erf/blake/blakemil.txt
I used to give a link to it, from my own core Blake page, until I decided a
few things. One: so what if he was? Van Gogh had some pretty strange things
happening to him. Newton was paranoid megalomaniac/messianic. Jesus seems
schizophrenic to me, at times. I mean, why DID he curse that fig tree?
"Woman, what have I got to do with you?" Uh, how about 1/2 of your "being",
dude, as well as the fact that she bore you forth from her womb.
The more I investigated it, the more I found the case to be mute. Blake's
works speak for themselves, particularly the later prophecies. There is
great beauty in them, despite the fact that I, like my e-mail friend Ed
Friedlander, believe he was... "born with a different face", to use the
title to one of his most immortal poems, in my view.
It was *a combination* of "England" and the constructs of his time, as well
as a very special person named William Blake, that made him his own special
creation (to paraphrase "The Bird Cage").
Take care------
And BE aware---------------
Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
>...how his "epistemology"
>might send Nazi's (or feminists?) into the streets, in his name, I don't quite
>grasp.
OK. First, let me change the word "epistemology" to "work". Foucault's
work. How it could be used to make people think that sex is nothing but
power games is dangerous. I personally have no problem with the fact that
he was into S&M/leather bars, because that's between consenting adults.
However, it is playing with fire to let someone have control over you. They
could hurt you.
Also, note in this book how Foucault has disconnected "sex" from "love".
Again, highly dangerous, in my opinion. That's not what he's talking about,
but it IS largely a way to "tame" the sexual instinct-- by seeing the
"other" to whom you direct your love, be it ever so kinky, as someone you
LOVE and would never want to hurt.
Also, while people are mentioning Deleuze-- I haven't read Anti-Oedipus in
20 years, so I'm on thin ice-- but anyone who thinks that "Capitalism and
Schizophrenia" is anything more than a trope, against a very serious
condition called "schizophrenia", which exists regardless of what society
you live under, might want to privately e-mail me and I may forward you on
to an e-mail friend of mine, a physician who is working on this very
serious disease. It is often a fine line, in someone like Blake's or
Bowie's case (Bowie has admitted he has schizophrenia in his family
history, and I think he's done a GREAT job in *mastering* something which
could have crippled him), between "madness" and "genius". William James
talks about this eloquently in the "Religion and Neurology" chapter of _The
Varieties of Religious Experience_, by the way. I would substitute, roughly
a hundred years after it was written, the word "insane" for the word
"eccentric" to diffuse the matter. It is a very complicated matter, and one
which R.D. Laing, for all his good intentions, did not understand as much
as abuse at times. This does not negate the power of much of Laing's
writings, and again, sometimes, as Blake said, you have to go down a road
of excess to get to the palace of wisdom. But there IS progress, in some
ways.
For example, my e-mail physician friend, although he believes there is
ample evidence that Blake was schizophrenic, ALSO believes that Blake was
*happy* in that condition, that he posed no threat to society, and should
NOT have been either medicated or put away into an asylum, as Foucault
notes was already happening at that time in France, and as Blake was well
aware could happen to him if he didn't do clever disclaimers about the
angels that were flying through his windows.
His WebSite on Blake, by the way, is:
http://worldmall.com/erf/blake/blakemil.txt
I used to give a link to it, from my own core Blake page, until I decided a
few things. One: so what if he was? Van Gogh had some pretty strange things
happening to him. Newton was paranoid megalomaniac/messianic. Jesus seems
schizophrenic to me, at times. I mean, why DID he curse that fig tree?
"Woman, what have I got to do with you?" Uh, how about 1/2 of your "being",
dude, as well as the fact that she bore you forth from her womb.
The more I investigated it, the more I found the case to be mute. Blake's
works speak for themselves, particularly the later prophecies. There is
great beauty in them, despite the fact that I, like my e-mail friend Ed
Friedlander, believe he was... "born with a different face", to use the
title to one of his most immortal poems, in my view.
It was *a combination* of "England" and the constructs of his time, as well
as a very special person named William Blake, that made him his own special
creation (to paraphrase "The Bird Cage").
Take care------
And BE aware---------------
Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/