Nesta wrote:
> I can see the disappointment in not being able to track immediate
> results of an apparently new set of ideas.
Thanks for your appreciation.
> I guess the questions to be asking are along the lines of what would
> count as a demonstration of effect?
> I don't think that we should be looking for an immediate political
> causal impact: Foucault says x so various govts or persons immediately
> jump to it and put this into action: that would seem to me to be quite
> contrary to what the purpose of Foucault's analysis is: he disclaims the
> role of advisory intellectual. Nor would he want to take responsibility
> for establishing the accepted truths of a new governmentality.
> On the other hand, if the claim is that Foucalt's writing has had no
> impact whatsoever, then that is a serious challenge to the notion of the
> imbrication of discourse and power, to power/knowledge. Then we would be
> back in the position of accepting a simple relation between power and
> control of the populace - the repressive hypothesis.
I'd like to read your comments against a particular interview which is to me
of utmost importance, here: M.F.'s reply to the last question in "Turth and
Power" (for the unread, this interview appears in the _Power/Knowledge_
interviews (pp. 125-33) as well as in the Rabinow reader). Here, the
question is asked, flat out, "Finally, a question you have been asked
before: the work that you do, these preoccupations of yours, the results you
arrive at, what use can one finally make of all this in everyday political
struggles?" (p.125). To answer your first question, Nesta, and to paraphrase
closely, it would be the use of these works, these preoccupations, these
results, in everyday political struggles, that would count for me as
demonstration of effect.
As for your question on government (I thought you were going to hold off on
the sarcasm!), I think it is obvious that Foucault is proposing radical
measures for the disposessed and not a reform program for the maintenence of
existent power. In that sense, you are right that his disclaims an advisory
role, and that he would want no part in the establishment of new truths. On
the other hand, as I think his response to the final question (above) in the
interview shows, he is very interested in those people who are in fact
advisors. They, the specific intellectuals, "a nuclear scientist, computer
expert, pharmacologist, etc." (p. 131) are "a political threat" (p. 128) in
the new regime of truth, and not the writer, not the jurist or notable, not
the 'bearer of universal values' (p. 132). He says, no doubt I think
referring to Derrida and perhaps even Blanchot (much as I envy both of them,
and much as I am aware of his appreciation of the latter), "The whole
relentless theorization of writing which we saw in the 1960's was doubtless
only a swansong" (p. 127). A swansong. In other words: Irrelevant. Folly.
As for establishing the new truths, he says the following: "The essential
political problem for the intellectual is . . . that of ascertaining the
possibility of constituting a new politics of truth. . . . of detaching the
power of truth from the forms of hegemony . . . " (p.133) I'm not saying he
refutes your thesis, but I don't think he confirms it, either. He does in
fact say that "All this must seem very confused and uncertain," (p. 132),
and refers to those remarks as "not firm assertions, but simply suggestions
to be further tested and evaluated" (p. 133). I am much more interested in
this further testing and evaluation than "Foucault studies" as a new
scholasticism, especially where that means reading a specific meaning into
his work for the sake of forming a "body of knowledge" which can then be
stated and consumed. Even though I am devoting this note almost entirely to
quotes, it is only so that we may get beyond them to the work Foucault left
undone.
There are some real gems in here, but I think the heart is in this one: "The
important thing here, I believe is that . . .truth isn't the reward of free
spirits [note the implicit reference to Nietzsche], the child of protracted
solitude [DesCartes? Blanchot?], nor the privilege of those who have
succeeded in liberating themselves [indictment of the liberal arts in
general]. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of
multiple forms of constraint." These "multiple forms of constraint", this
worldliness, this hardness, is the hardness of the sciences, if I may be so
bold.
And more: "The figure in which the functions of the new intellectual [the
biologist or physicist as specific intellectual] are concentrated is no
longer that of the 'writer of genius', but that of the 'absolute savant', no
longer he who bears the values of all, opposes the unjust sovereign or his
ministers and makes his cry resound even beyond the grave. . . . " (p. 129).
Lastly, he makes clear, that it is not enough just to be a scientist. By no
means whatsoever. The entire first paragraph on page 130 is devoted to a
scathing rebuke of those specific intellectuals who loose the power to tie
their work to a more global critique (i.e. ". . . this campaign with its
monotonous, lyrical little chant, heard only among a few small groups . .
."). And this is my complaint about scientists, no less severe (just to be
fair): political naivete, ignorance of the consequences of their actions,
and thoughtlessness. As Baudrillard, Proust, and Derrida all verify, this
particular form of form of ignorance -- the ignorance of the suffering one
causes -- is the most virulent evil.
The complaint I am making is that that this form of political struggle, this
form of use made of Foucault's work, this struggle over truth itself, is not
occurring.
> There is too the time element: Aristotle is still present in science,
> Kant in politics - over what sort of timespan shoulld we look for the
> evidence of effect? If Hubert Dreyfus is correct in viewing Foucault as
> the interpreter of Nietzsche, then we are only a hundred years into what
> might be a very long story.
Indeed. But also, there are mitigating historical circumstances. The two
which most concern me are: 1) in Kant's day, there was considerably more
cross-pollination, for lack of a servicable word, between the sciences and
philosophy. Part of the purpose of Kant's critique was to resolve
epistemological problems in the sciences. Can you imagine something of the
sort happening today? I can't. Especially with the "culture wars" going
on, science and the humanities are like two armed camps which shower each
other with derision or utter incomprehension at best. At least, such has
been my experience. 2) Telecommunications and intellectual life are much
more highly developed now than in Kant's time. One would expect the
dissemination of ideas between science and the humanities to be
correspondingly more rapid. To the contrary, increasing specialization has
left the two with less and less to say to one another.
> I can see the disappointment in not being able to track immediate
> results of an apparently new set of ideas.
Thanks for your appreciation.
> I guess the questions to be asking are along the lines of what would
> count as a demonstration of effect?
> I don't think that we should be looking for an immediate political
> causal impact: Foucault says x so various govts or persons immediately
> jump to it and put this into action: that would seem to me to be quite
> contrary to what the purpose of Foucault's analysis is: he disclaims the
> role of advisory intellectual. Nor would he want to take responsibility
> for establishing the accepted truths of a new governmentality.
> On the other hand, if the claim is that Foucalt's writing has had no
> impact whatsoever, then that is a serious challenge to the notion of the
> imbrication of discourse and power, to power/knowledge. Then we would be
> back in the position of accepting a simple relation between power and
> control of the populace - the repressive hypothesis.
I'd like to read your comments against a particular interview which is to me
of utmost importance, here: M.F.'s reply to the last question in "Turth and
Power" (for the unread, this interview appears in the _Power/Knowledge_
interviews (pp. 125-33) as well as in the Rabinow reader). Here, the
question is asked, flat out, "Finally, a question you have been asked
before: the work that you do, these preoccupations of yours, the results you
arrive at, what use can one finally make of all this in everyday political
struggles?" (p.125). To answer your first question, Nesta, and to paraphrase
closely, it would be the use of these works, these preoccupations, these
results, in everyday political struggles, that would count for me as
demonstration of effect.
As for your question on government (I thought you were going to hold off on
the sarcasm!), I think it is obvious that Foucault is proposing radical
measures for the disposessed and not a reform program for the maintenence of
existent power. In that sense, you are right that his disclaims an advisory
role, and that he would want no part in the establishment of new truths. On
the other hand, as I think his response to the final question (above) in the
interview shows, he is very interested in those people who are in fact
advisors. They, the specific intellectuals, "a nuclear scientist, computer
expert, pharmacologist, etc." (p. 131) are "a political threat" (p. 128) in
the new regime of truth, and not the writer, not the jurist or notable, not
the 'bearer of universal values' (p. 132). He says, no doubt I think
referring to Derrida and perhaps even Blanchot (much as I envy both of them,
and much as I am aware of his appreciation of the latter), "The whole
relentless theorization of writing which we saw in the 1960's was doubtless
only a swansong" (p. 127). A swansong. In other words: Irrelevant. Folly.
As for establishing the new truths, he says the following: "The essential
political problem for the intellectual is . . . that of ascertaining the
possibility of constituting a new politics of truth. . . . of detaching the
power of truth from the forms of hegemony . . . " (p.133) I'm not saying he
refutes your thesis, but I don't think he confirms it, either. He does in
fact say that "All this must seem very confused and uncertain," (p. 132),
and refers to those remarks as "not firm assertions, but simply suggestions
to be further tested and evaluated" (p. 133). I am much more interested in
this further testing and evaluation than "Foucault studies" as a new
scholasticism, especially where that means reading a specific meaning into
his work for the sake of forming a "body of knowledge" which can then be
stated and consumed. Even though I am devoting this note almost entirely to
quotes, it is only so that we may get beyond them to the work Foucault left
undone.
There are some real gems in here, but I think the heart is in this one: "The
important thing here, I believe is that . . .truth isn't the reward of free
spirits [note the implicit reference to Nietzsche], the child of protracted
solitude [DesCartes? Blanchot?], nor the privilege of those who have
succeeded in liberating themselves [indictment of the liberal arts in
general]. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of
multiple forms of constraint." These "multiple forms of constraint", this
worldliness, this hardness, is the hardness of the sciences, if I may be so
bold.
And more: "The figure in which the functions of the new intellectual [the
biologist or physicist as specific intellectual] are concentrated is no
longer that of the 'writer of genius', but that of the 'absolute savant', no
longer he who bears the values of all, opposes the unjust sovereign or his
ministers and makes his cry resound even beyond the grave. . . . " (p. 129).
Lastly, he makes clear, that it is not enough just to be a scientist. By no
means whatsoever. The entire first paragraph on page 130 is devoted to a
scathing rebuke of those specific intellectuals who loose the power to tie
their work to a more global critique (i.e. ". . . this campaign with its
monotonous, lyrical little chant, heard only among a few small groups . .
."). And this is my complaint about scientists, no less severe (just to be
fair): political naivete, ignorance of the consequences of their actions,
and thoughtlessness. As Baudrillard, Proust, and Derrida all verify, this
particular form of form of ignorance -- the ignorance of the suffering one
causes -- is the most virulent evil.
The complaint I am making is that that this form of political struggle, this
form of use made of Foucault's work, this struggle over truth itself, is not
occurring.
> There is too the time element: Aristotle is still present in science,
> Kant in politics - over what sort of timespan shoulld we look for the
> evidence of effect? If Hubert Dreyfus is correct in viewing Foucault as
> the interpreter of Nietzsche, then we are only a hundred years into what
> might be a very long story.
Indeed. But also, there are mitigating historical circumstances. The two
which most concern me are: 1) in Kant's day, there was considerably more
cross-pollination, for lack of a servicable word, between the sciences and
philosophy. Part of the purpose of Kant's critique was to resolve
epistemological problems in the sciences. Can you imagine something of the
sort happening today? I can't. Especially with the "culture wars" going
on, science and the humanities are like two armed camps which shower each
other with derision or utter incomprehension at best. At least, such has
been my experience. 2) Telecommunications and intellectual life are much
more highly developed now than in Kant's time. One would expect the
dissemination of ideas between science and the humanities to be
correspondingly more rapid. To the contrary, increasing specialization has
left the two with less and less to say to one another.