(Sorry about the bit of e-gibberish in my last post, btw.)
On Sun, 17 May 1998, Larry Chappell wrote:
> "Cultivation" is subjugation. I make the garden, the Bonsai tree, or
> whatever an object of power; though there is within these gardens
> resistances that are not cultivated by me. Since the original post was
> about the illusion and possibility of freedom; perhaps I need to vary my
> metaphor. Within a garden, I can leave room for all sorts of unplanned
> growths -- or I can manage the garden to be as surprise free as
> possible. I do not know which garden is "best" to at least recognize
> that they are different.
Hmm, yes ... but maybe not different in quite the way you say. I think
there is at least this point of agreement between Foucault and the
neocons: you can't manage things to be as surprise-free as possible;
managing produces surprises. "What we don't know is what what we do
does." More importantly, what is this freedom that exists in the
"uncultivated" spaces? (And is leaving a space uncultivated not also a
kind of cultivation? In some parks in Toronto, there are "naturalized
areas" where they don't cut the grass anymore ... probably because of
budget cuts, but never mind: the aim, however determined, is a kind of
cultivation of uncultivation). Is it freedom in the sense of being free
from the exercise of Foucauldian power? It can't be that. No human
activity is free from the exercise of Foucauldian power. As Foucault
defines things, power doesn't exist without freedom, nor freedom without
power. So I don't see how one could say that there is more freedom--or
less power--in the uncultivated spaces. There may be more freedom in the
good old-fashioned liberal sense--which is perfectly fine for a lot of
things--but not in Foucault's sense.
> There is another organic metaphor that may work better than
> "cultivation" when trying to talk about freedom. Wilderness is precisely
> uncultivated, and it is left (relatively) free from our interference.
> Allowing subjugated knowledges and practices freedom involves finding
> ways to leave them alone. I also think William Connolly's attempt to
> exploit Deleuze and Guattari's distinction between "arboreal" and
> "rhizomatic" growth is promising. The "best" gardener may just let the
> stuff spread randomly.
Which, as I say, is another kind of cultivation. I started when I saw you
mention Connolly, because it was exactly he--along with Todd May--whom
your first paragraph brought to mind: their idea that Foucault's work
implies a prescription for some kind of "agonistic" democracy, one in
which spaces of freedom for "agonistic" clashes of difference are
cultivated. I think they commit a kind of naturalistic fallacy, though;
for Foucault, any society which is not based on relations of total
slavery--which is to say, any really possible society--is already
thoroughly agonistic. Difference can't be cultivated, because any act of
cultivation is an act of normalization (which implies its own differences,
though not the ones you might have set out to achieve). Freedom can't be
cultivated, because any act of cultivation involves the exercise of power
(which implies certain freedoms in relation to it, but again, not the ones
you set out to achieve).
> The original post asked if we can analyze the illusory character of
> market freedom. The answer is: Not if it is the midnight in which all
> cows are black. We need (without necessarily being able to produce) some
> way to distinguish more or less free situations.
Right. But you can't do it on Foucault's terms. Foucault can't give you
an excuse for condemning capitalism. What he can give you are the
conceptual tools to make sense of the fact that, as Doug Henwood said,
the freedom of Henry Ford's workers involves an enormous exercise of
power. Are they more free after they form a union? Well, they have
freedoms of a different sort. Maybe freedoms of a better sort--but
Foucault is not going to provide you with any justification for thinking
that they are better. I don't know why he should have to. That's not his
project. (It always puzzles me when people say that this sort of thing is
a failure or a deficiency in Foucault's work--seems to me like saying,
"This may be a great cherry pie, but it fails to taste like a good apple
strudel.")
> If ALL we can say is
> power produces resistance, and resistance produces new subordinations --
> we might as well have a drink and stop worrying about the critique of
> economic regimes and comparative political economy. Of course we can
> resist -- but that does not sound like much fun.
Hmm, yes, Fraser and Habermas. :) Well, if you want a reason to think that
the kind of capitalist liberal democracy we presently have is worse than
some other kind of political-economic arrangement, I think that Marx will
do just fine, in a pinch. I think Foucault thought Marx would do just
fine in a pinch, too, as his reactions to Tunisia and even his remarks to
Dreyfus and Rabinow about the three different forms of power attest. I
think that Habermas's grand theory will do even better, though I don't
think it's anything like the mighty fortress he makes it out to be.
With Marx, though, there is the problem of the lumpenproletariat; with
Habermas, there is the problem of those who cannot fit the terms of
discursive rationality: it is for people like that--people who suffer for
who they are, who they have been made to be--for whom no theory of
right is any help, that work like Foucault's has its particular
usefulness.
> Foucault, in the later stages of his writing, was desperately trying to
> make a positive contribution to ethical and political discourse. Maybe
> that was a dead end, but thinking about what we might want to mean by
> freedom is a good place to begin.
You know, I think that Ian Hacking is right when he says that for Foucault
as for Kant, freedom is a mystery--something that can be neither grasped
nor explained, but only experienced. (I don't know enough Kant to say
whether this is an accurate portrayal of Kant on freedom, but I think it's
true of Foucault). To think about what we *might* want to mean by freedom
is fine, I guess ... but it's not something that we ought to *theorize*
about, with the intention of arriving at what we *do* mean by freedom:
freedom, as Foucault says, is in the exercise; when you achieve it, it
vanishes.
----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster University----
"The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit
suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness."
-----------------------------(Michel Foucault)--------------------------------
On Sun, 17 May 1998, Larry Chappell wrote:
> "Cultivation" is subjugation. I make the garden, the Bonsai tree, or
> whatever an object of power; though there is within these gardens
> resistances that are not cultivated by me. Since the original post was
> about the illusion and possibility of freedom; perhaps I need to vary my
> metaphor. Within a garden, I can leave room for all sorts of unplanned
> growths -- or I can manage the garden to be as surprise free as
> possible. I do not know which garden is "best" to at least recognize
> that they are different.
Hmm, yes ... but maybe not different in quite the way you say. I think
there is at least this point of agreement between Foucault and the
neocons: you can't manage things to be as surprise-free as possible;
managing produces surprises. "What we don't know is what what we do
does." More importantly, what is this freedom that exists in the
"uncultivated" spaces? (And is leaving a space uncultivated not also a
kind of cultivation? In some parks in Toronto, there are "naturalized
areas" where they don't cut the grass anymore ... probably because of
budget cuts, but never mind: the aim, however determined, is a kind of
cultivation of uncultivation). Is it freedom in the sense of being free
from the exercise of Foucauldian power? It can't be that. No human
activity is free from the exercise of Foucauldian power. As Foucault
defines things, power doesn't exist without freedom, nor freedom without
power. So I don't see how one could say that there is more freedom--or
less power--in the uncultivated spaces. There may be more freedom in the
good old-fashioned liberal sense--which is perfectly fine for a lot of
things--but not in Foucault's sense.
> There is another organic metaphor that may work better than
> "cultivation" when trying to talk about freedom. Wilderness is precisely
> uncultivated, and it is left (relatively) free from our interference.
> Allowing subjugated knowledges and practices freedom involves finding
> ways to leave them alone. I also think William Connolly's attempt to
> exploit Deleuze and Guattari's distinction between "arboreal" and
> "rhizomatic" growth is promising. The "best" gardener may just let the
> stuff spread randomly.
Which, as I say, is another kind of cultivation. I started when I saw you
mention Connolly, because it was exactly he--along with Todd May--whom
your first paragraph brought to mind: their idea that Foucault's work
implies a prescription for some kind of "agonistic" democracy, one in
which spaces of freedom for "agonistic" clashes of difference are
cultivated. I think they commit a kind of naturalistic fallacy, though;
for Foucault, any society which is not based on relations of total
slavery--which is to say, any really possible society--is already
thoroughly agonistic. Difference can't be cultivated, because any act of
cultivation is an act of normalization (which implies its own differences,
though not the ones you might have set out to achieve). Freedom can't be
cultivated, because any act of cultivation involves the exercise of power
(which implies certain freedoms in relation to it, but again, not the ones
you set out to achieve).
> The original post asked if we can analyze the illusory character of
> market freedom. The answer is: Not if it is the midnight in which all
> cows are black. We need (without necessarily being able to produce) some
> way to distinguish more or less free situations.
Right. But you can't do it on Foucault's terms. Foucault can't give you
an excuse for condemning capitalism. What he can give you are the
conceptual tools to make sense of the fact that, as Doug Henwood said,
the freedom of Henry Ford's workers involves an enormous exercise of
power. Are they more free after they form a union? Well, they have
freedoms of a different sort. Maybe freedoms of a better sort--but
Foucault is not going to provide you with any justification for thinking
that they are better. I don't know why he should have to. That's not his
project. (It always puzzles me when people say that this sort of thing is
a failure or a deficiency in Foucault's work--seems to me like saying,
"This may be a great cherry pie, but it fails to taste like a good apple
strudel.")
> If ALL we can say is
> power produces resistance, and resistance produces new subordinations --
> we might as well have a drink and stop worrying about the critique of
> economic regimes and comparative political economy. Of course we can
> resist -- but that does not sound like much fun.
Hmm, yes, Fraser and Habermas. :) Well, if you want a reason to think that
the kind of capitalist liberal democracy we presently have is worse than
some other kind of political-economic arrangement, I think that Marx will
do just fine, in a pinch. I think Foucault thought Marx would do just
fine in a pinch, too, as his reactions to Tunisia and even his remarks to
Dreyfus and Rabinow about the three different forms of power attest. I
think that Habermas's grand theory will do even better, though I don't
think it's anything like the mighty fortress he makes it out to be.
With Marx, though, there is the problem of the lumpenproletariat; with
Habermas, there is the problem of those who cannot fit the terms of
discursive rationality: it is for people like that--people who suffer for
who they are, who they have been made to be--for whom no theory of
right is any help, that work like Foucault's has its particular
usefulness.
> Foucault, in the later stages of his writing, was desperately trying to
> make a positive contribution to ethical and political discourse. Maybe
> that was a dead end, but thinking about what we might want to mean by
> freedom is a good place to begin.
You know, I think that Ian Hacking is right when he says that for Foucault
as for Kant, freedom is a mystery--something that can be neither grasped
nor explained, but only experienced. (I don't know enough Kant to say
whether this is an accurate portrayal of Kant on freedom, but I think it's
true of Foucault). To think about what we *might* want to mean by freedom
is fine, I guess ... but it's not something that we ought to *theorize*
about, with the intention of arriving at what we *do* mean by freedom:
freedom, as Foucault says, is in the exercise; when you achieve it, it
vanishes.
----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster University----
"The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit
suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness."
-----------------------------(Michel Foucault)--------------------------------