>Its late, and so perhaps I am just missing something here, but what is your
>point -- i.e., what is it that's debatable about Pinochet or Spain's attempt
>to bring him to legal justice?
the first point seems to me to be the struggle between free thought and
practical action. Foucault courageously suggests that the concept of
'justice' is suspect. Anyone who's read Nietzsche's _Genealogy_ will
recognise the real argument playing in the background here (an argument
applicable to much more than simply the project of Christianity and the
Last Judgement). Yet here (and now) we are faced with an immediate and
pressing situation. The High Court rules that Augusto Pinochet--as a
former head of state--is immune to prosecution for any action taken (even
if "criminal") in the "exercise of public functions". These are the actual
words of Lord Chief Justice Thomas Bingham: that, "A former head of state
is clearly entitled to immunity for criminal acts committed in the course
of exercising public functions." Foucault would never have let this pass
without comment. We do not have to identify ourselves with a universal
subject, a universal court, in order to see this statement as intolerable.
The nuance of the case is of course in the interplay--or interzone--between
national and international law; which is a grey area, as none of us would
be surprized to learn. Yet it is an issue that links directly with
many--at least to my eyes--of the questions traversing Foucault's work and
his actual political life: questions concerning the limits to thinking; the
inertia that one finds in events, in violence, in certain forms of power
relations (here, torture, punishment, killing, terror). I cannot imagine
how you could miss the point.
Apart from anything else--and this issue came up for me back in 1994
when I first joined the list, and posted a similar opening on the situation
in Chiapas--has Foucault become so institutionalised that we cannot talk,
even in general terms, about common day issues? We might remember the
suggestion of Gilles Deleuze--to which I'm sure Foucault would also have
aligned--that "philosophy's sole aim is to be worthy of the event."
best wishes/sincerely,
____________________________________________
Ian Robert Douglas,
Watson Institute of International Studies,
Brown University, Box 1831,
130 Hope Street,
Providence, RI 02912
tel: 401 863-2420
fax: 401 863-2192
"Above all, we must keep firmly in mind what
it means to be a human being." - Kierkegaard
>point -- i.e., what is it that's debatable about Pinochet or Spain's attempt
>to bring him to legal justice?
the first point seems to me to be the struggle between free thought and
practical action. Foucault courageously suggests that the concept of
'justice' is suspect. Anyone who's read Nietzsche's _Genealogy_ will
recognise the real argument playing in the background here (an argument
applicable to much more than simply the project of Christianity and the
Last Judgement). Yet here (and now) we are faced with an immediate and
pressing situation. The High Court rules that Augusto Pinochet--as a
former head of state--is immune to prosecution for any action taken (even
if "criminal") in the "exercise of public functions". These are the actual
words of Lord Chief Justice Thomas Bingham: that, "A former head of state
is clearly entitled to immunity for criminal acts committed in the course
of exercising public functions." Foucault would never have let this pass
without comment. We do not have to identify ourselves with a universal
subject, a universal court, in order to see this statement as intolerable.
The nuance of the case is of course in the interplay--or interzone--between
national and international law; which is a grey area, as none of us would
be surprized to learn. Yet it is an issue that links directly with
many--at least to my eyes--of the questions traversing Foucault's work and
his actual political life: questions concerning the limits to thinking; the
inertia that one finds in events, in violence, in certain forms of power
relations (here, torture, punishment, killing, terror). I cannot imagine
how you could miss the point.
Apart from anything else--and this issue came up for me back in 1994
when I first joined the list, and posted a similar opening on the situation
in Chiapas--has Foucault become so institutionalised that we cannot talk,
even in general terms, about common day issues? We might remember the
suggestion of Gilles Deleuze--to which I'm sure Foucault would also have
aligned--that "philosophy's sole aim is to be worthy of the event."
best wishes/sincerely,
____________________________________________
Ian Robert Douglas,
Watson Institute of International Studies,
Brown University, Box 1831,
130 Hope Street,
Providence, RI 02912
tel: 401 863-2420
fax: 401 863-2192
"Above all, we must keep firmly in mind what
it means to be a human being." - Kierkegaard