At 06:35 PM 11/15/98 -0600, you wrote:
>I understand "politically" and I think I undertstand
>Nietzschean purist, but how does "insipid" fit in here? It's a word
>that usually means lacking in character, color, or savor--lacking a
>distinctive taste or odor. I am not sure how a very sharp satirical
>statement about people who ignore the claims of those who would
>bring Pinochet to justice (in some sense) could be said to represent
>an "insipid" point of view. Am I missing yet another ironic complex?
>Tom Dillingham
I don't think you are missing any irony here, and in retrospect I confess
that "vacuous" would have been a better word choice, but moreover my point
was that the chaste or "flavorless" Purist position was the wrong one -- in
other words, I was pledging allegiance to the social justice camp. I now
further pledge to just use one of Trotsky's favorite pejoratives: "stupid."
As for Matthew's recent response: a "pledge" is not at all what I was
interested in hearing, so if you'd like, do feel free to express your
reservations about the recent Pinochet-event. But, honestly, on the basis
of your original post/query, I still do not know what these might be. In
re. the demands on F. to pledge to revolution, to anti-relativism, etc.:
Clearly, some of the reactions to *Order of Things* were stupid, as if F.
were some type of misanthropic nihilist b/c he pronounced the death of
"Man." (Deleuze discusses some of this in *Negotiations*, btw.) And I
savor Foucault's response (somewhere) to an old Sartre's comment that OofT
(or was it Madness?) was "the last gasp of the bourgeoisie": "Poor
bourgeoisie if they are down to using me" (paraphrasing here).
But, nonetheless, there is a difference b/w asking for pledges to some
unthought-out ideal, and asking someone to situate themselves within
certain problematics, or within certain issues. The politics of
intellectuals has much to do with the latter. And given Foucault's
occasional, dismissive polemics about marxism-in-general, then I think the
grilling he took from the Italian comrade in *Remarks on Marx* was fitting.
Moreover, it gave him the "opportunity" to say some substantial and
illuminating things about his relation to Marx/marxism -- which is to say,
it gave us an important, albeit minor, addition to the F. archive.
My two cents in re. Leo's posts, and the responses to them: I agree with
Nesta. As something of a "revolting post-structuralist," I like John
Ransom want no truck with either universalism or ignorant dismissals of
postmodernism/NewFrenchTheory. But I don't see how Leo's posts can be
fairly described as representing all that. And if I had to choose between
the political vacuousness of my "satire" and the old time religion of
humanism, I would enlist with the latter. The point, of course, is that
the opposition here is itself false, and not the only game. I should think
most of the people on this Foucault list agreee, so perhaps that is
something we can break bytes over?
Best,
Dan
Daniel Vukovich
English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
>I understand "politically" and I think I undertstand
>Nietzschean purist, but how does "insipid" fit in here? It's a word
>that usually means lacking in character, color, or savor--lacking a
>distinctive taste or odor. I am not sure how a very sharp satirical
>statement about people who ignore the claims of those who would
>bring Pinochet to justice (in some sense) could be said to represent
>an "insipid" point of view. Am I missing yet another ironic complex?
>Tom Dillingham
I don't think you are missing any irony here, and in retrospect I confess
that "vacuous" would have been a better word choice, but moreover my point
was that the chaste or "flavorless" Purist position was the wrong one -- in
other words, I was pledging allegiance to the social justice camp. I now
further pledge to just use one of Trotsky's favorite pejoratives: "stupid."
As for Matthew's recent response: a "pledge" is not at all what I was
interested in hearing, so if you'd like, do feel free to express your
reservations about the recent Pinochet-event. But, honestly, on the basis
of your original post/query, I still do not know what these might be. In
re. the demands on F. to pledge to revolution, to anti-relativism, etc.:
Clearly, some of the reactions to *Order of Things* were stupid, as if F.
were some type of misanthropic nihilist b/c he pronounced the death of
"Man." (Deleuze discusses some of this in *Negotiations*, btw.) And I
savor Foucault's response (somewhere) to an old Sartre's comment that OofT
(or was it Madness?) was "the last gasp of the bourgeoisie": "Poor
bourgeoisie if they are down to using me" (paraphrasing here).
But, nonetheless, there is a difference b/w asking for pledges to some
unthought-out ideal, and asking someone to situate themselves within
certain problematics, or within certain issues. The politics of
intellectuals has much to do with the latter. And given Foucault's
occasional, dismissive polemics about marxism-in-general, then I think the
grilling he took from the Italian comrade in *Remarks on Marx* was fitting.
Moreover, it gave him the "opportunity" to say some substantial and
illuminating things about his relation to Marx/marxism -- which is to say,
it gave us an important, albeit minor, addition to the F. archive.
My two cents in re. Leo's posts, and the responses to them: I agree with
Nesta. As something of a "revolting post-structuralist," I like John
Ransom want no truck with either universalism or ignorant dismissals of
postmodernism/NewFrenchTheory. But I don't see how Leo's posts can be
fairly described as representing all that. And if I had to choose between
the political vacuousness of my "satire" and the old time religion of
humanism, I would enlist with the latter. The point, of course, is that
the opposition here is itself false, and not the only game. I should think
most of the people on this Foucault list agreee, so perhaps that is
something we can break bytes over?
Best,
Dan
Daniel Vukovich
English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign