Hey Sebastian,
I enjoyed your analysis (I'm a little behind on my email), but I'm
wondering if you can offer some cites for further reading.
Thanks.
>Yes, this is a good question and one which is difficult to answer briefly
>and conclusively. Nonetheless, I'll have a go...
>
>I would say the main difference between Adorno and Foucault on Enlightenment
>is how best to transgress its dominative dynamic. Both Adorno and Foucault
>analyse our post-Enlightenment modernity as one characterised by a
>proliferating "perversity" of Enlightenment reason. Their respective images
>of this domination are both hyperbolic or exaggerated, much in the way
>Orwell's "1984" presented an extrapolation of currently existing oppressive
>regimes. Taken literally these images are ludicrous, but as images they
>stand as warnings, calls to vigilance to the thin boundary that separates
>them as representations from our present realities. For both, although in
>different ways, Enlightenment reason, which once hoped to liberate, turns
>into a force for domination.
>
>As I said, the main distinction is in the way in which this dominative
>regime of a perverse reason is to be transgressed and in the immediate
>prospects for the success of such transgression. For Adorno this must be
>done by turning Enlightenment rationality on itself to such an extent that
>it begins to unravel itself and reveal its logic of domination - this is
>done as a kind of performance of the conflicts within the very Enlightenment
>reason which would like to be total in its control. For Adorno,
>Enlightenment reason's desire to be total is a betrayal of the utopian wish
>for wholeness or for a state of true reconciliation. In transgressing a
>false totality, Adorno wishes to negate not only the present state of
>society but keep open an indefinitely postponed utopian transformation of
>society. Any image of such reconciliation is premature and likely to become
>itself a tool of the false totality.
>
>Foucault does not believe that the ensemble of dominative power relations
>unleashed by Enlightenment reason any longer (if they ever did) form a
>totality. The utopian hope for reconciliation is therefore as much an
>illusion as the belief that there is a global capitalist order that is
>somehow repsonsible for the current state of things. Power is all-pervasive
>and tends toward dominative formations but because it does not form a
>consistent whole, because it is itself a conflict of relations, it is seen
>as basically anarchic, congealing in certain points but always prone to
>fluctuations and displacements, especially when challenged. The best that
>can be done is small-scale resistance actions that take up the anarchic flux
>of power and channel it for a brief moment in some "critical" or disruptive
>direction, before this deployment itself begins to congeal into a dominative
>formation. Towards the end of his life Foucault partially sublates his
>analysis of power into an aesthetics of existence, lived in his case as a
>critical ethos which aims to preserve the best impulse of the Enlightenment
>- permanent critique as a way of life. Transgression can succeed here and
>now, but always in a perpetual present in which it must constantly be
>renewed. Thats pretty much it though, a prospect which would not have been
>enough for someone like Adorno who persisted with an image of an
>indefinitely postponed utopian reconciliation that can only be glimpsed in
>the present failures to achieve reconciliation.
>
>It is possible, though difficult, to extract (through some vigorous
>extrapolation) a political or social project out of this. Difficult because,
>I believe, Foucault ultimately gives us an image of personal and existential
>salvation that is highly skeptical about the prospects for wider
>transformations and concerns. Foucault becomes so concerned to defend
>particularity and difference that his field of vision ends up focusing only
>on the present self's navigation and transgression of its own limits in
>concrete situations. If a wider transformation is possible, it is best not
>to attempt to chart it, nor even speak of it directly. Other like-minded
>individuals may wish to take Foucault's example, to take up the permanent
>critique of the present as a way of life or ethos. But there it stops. To
>attempt to claim some special status for Foucault's ethos would be in danger
>of turning it into a de facto universal, which as permanent critique it
>could never allow itself to be. Nor should one attempt to manufacture
>something out of it for a wider distribution, lest ethos become a self-help
>commodity. Both these attempts would be foreign to Foucault's ethos, for as
>a way of life it already presumes other ways of life with which it it must
>co-exist, do battle, find friendships, etc.
>
>The attempt to think through the limits that have been imposed on our own
>existence and as to ways of transgressing these limits may be said its image
>of wider reconciliation is something like an "unavowable" or "unworking"
>community (as in Blanchot), a society reconciled to an absence of
>reconciliation in which a "we" (let alone an "I") can never be presumed. As
>a final point of comparison, I am inclined, at the moment, to follow
>Jameson's view here that Adorno never relinquished the critical problematic
>of totality while the movement to which Foucault belonged did (the movement
>formerly known as poststructuralist). In this sense, Foucault's theoretical
>moves having apparently thrown off any sense of a totality become sheer
>unregulated positivities, mirrored in the singularities which would make up
>an unavowable community.
>
>Sebastian
>
>At 15:03 4*5*99 +0200, you wrote:
>>Excellent question. The main difference between Adorno and Foucault's views
>on Enlightenment is that Adorno sees Enlightenment as a dialectic that
>pushes us inexorably in the direction of an administered, anti-human,
>one-dimensional society, while Foucault endorses Enlightenment insofar as it
>promotes a critical analysis of the conditions and forces that make us up.
>The primary feature of Enlightenment for Adorno is *domination* -- of man
>over nature, of man over man. The primary feature of Enlightenment for
>Foucault, on the other hand, involves probing the boundaries of our current
>thrownness both to understand better what we are and to investigate the
>possibilities of becoming something else.
>>
>>-- John
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Eun-joo Cho
>> To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 1999 9:47 AM
>>
>>
>> What's the main difference between Foucault and Adorno's view on
>> Enlightenment?
>>
>> ______________________________________________________
>> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>>
I enjoyed your analysis (I'm a little behind on my email), but I'm
wondering if you can offer some cites for further reading.
Thanks.
>Yes, this is a good question and one which is difficult to answer briefly
>and conclusively. Nonetheless, I'll have a go...
>
>I would say the main difference between Adorno and Foucault on Enlightenment
>is how best to transgress its dominative dynamic. Both Adorno and Foucault
>analyse our post-Enlightenment modernity as one characterised by a
>proliferating "perversity" of Enlightenment reason. Their respective images
>of this domination are both hyperbolic or exaggerated, much in the way
>Orwell's "1984" presented an extrapolation of currently existing oppressive
>regimes. Taken literally these images are ludicrous, but as images they
>stand as warnings, calls to vigilance to the thin boundary that separates
>them as representations from our present realities. For both, although in
>different ways, Enlightenment reason, which once hoped to liberate, turns
>into a force for domination.
>
>As I said, the main distinction is in the way in which this dominative
>regime of a perverse reason is to be transgressed and in the immediate
>prospects for the success of such transgression. For Adorno this must be
>done by turning Enlightenment rationality on itself to such an extent that
>it begins to unravel itself and reveal its logic of domination - this is
>done as a kind of performance of the conflicts within the very Enlightenment
>reason which would like to be total in its control. For Adorno,
>Enlightenment reason's desire to be total is a betrayal of the utopian wish
>for wholeness or for a state of true reconciliation. In transgressing a
>false totality, Adorno wishes to negate not only the present state of
>society but keep open an indefinitely postponed utopian transformation of
>society. Any image of such reconciliation is premature and likely to become
>itself a tool of the false totality.
>
>Foucault does not believe that the ensemble of dominative power relations
>unleashed by Enlightenment reason any longer (if they ever did) form a
>totality. The utopian hope for reconciliation is therefore as much an
>illusion as the belief that there is a global capitalist order that is
>somehow repsonsible for the current state of things. Power is all-pervasive
>and tends toward dominative formations but because it does not form a
>consistent whole, because it is itself a conflict of relations, it is seen
>as basically anarchic, congealing in certain points but always prone to
>fluctuations and displacements, especially when challenged. The best that
>can be done is small-scale resistance actions that take up the anarchic flux
>of power and channel it for a brief moment in some "critical" or disruptive
>direction, before this deployment itself begins to congeal into a dominative
>formation. Towards the end of his life Foucault partially sublates his
>analysis of power into an aesthetics of existence, lived in his case as a
>critical ethos which aims to preserve the best impulse of the Enlightenment
>- permanent critique as a way of life. Transgression can succeed here and
>now, but always in a perpetual present in which it must constantly be
>renewed. Thats pretty much it though, a prospect which would not have been
>enough for someone like Adorno who persisted with an image of an
>indefinitely postponed utopian reconciliation that can only be glimpsed in
>the present failures to achieve reconciliation.
>
>It is possible, though difficult, to extract (through some vigorous
>extrapolation) a political or social project out of this. Difficult because,
>I believe, Foucault ultimately gives us an image of personal and existential
>salvation that is highly skeptical about the prospects for wider
>transformations and concerns. Foucault becomes so concerned to defend
>particularity and difference that his field of vision ends up focusing only
>on the present self's navigation and transgression of its own limits in
>concrete situations. If a wider transformation is possible, it is best not
>to attempt to chart it, nor even speak of it directly. Other like-minded
>individuals may wish to take Foucault's example, to take up the permanent
>critique of the present as a way of life or ethos. But there it stops. To
>attempt to claim some special status for Foucault's ethos would be in danger
>of turning it into a de facto universal, which as permanent critique it
>could never allow itself to be. Nor should one attempt to manufacture
>something out of it for a wider distribution, lest ethos become a self-help
>commodity. Both these attempts would be foreign to Foucault's ethos, for as
>a way of life it already presumes other ways of life with which it it must
>co-exist, do battle, find friendships, etc.
>
>The attempt to think through the limits that have been imposed on our own
>existence and as to ways of transgressing these limits may be said its image
>of wider reconciliation is something like an "unavowable" or "unworking"
>community (as in Blanchot), a society reconciled to an absence of
>reconciliation in which a "we" (let alone an "I") can never be presumed. As
>a final point of comparison, I am inclined, at the moment, to follow
>Jameson's view here that Adorno never relinquished the critical problematic
>of totality while the movement to which Foucault belonged did (the movement
>formerly known as poststructuralist). In this sense, Foucault's theoretical
>moves having apparently thrown off any sense of a totality become sheer
>unregulated positivities, mirrored in the singularities which would make up
>an unavowable community.
>
>Sebastian
>
>At 15:03 4*5*99 +0200, you wrote:
>>Excellent question. The main difference between Adorno and Foucault's views
>on Enlightenment is that Adorno sees Enlightenment as a dialectic that
>pushes us inexorably in the direction of an administered, anti-human,
>one-dimensional society, while Foucault endorses Enlightenment insofar as it
>promotes a critical analysis of the conditions and forces that make us up.
>The primary feature of Enlightenment for Adorno is *domination* -- of man
>over nature, of man over man. The primary feature of Enlightenment for
>Foucault, on the other hand, involves probing the boundaries of our current
>thrownness both to understand better what we are and to investigate the
>possibilities of becoming something else.
>>
>>-- John
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Eun-joo Cho
>> To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 1999 9:47 AM
>>
>>
>> What's the main difference between Foucault and Adorno's view on
>> Enlightenment?
>>
>> ______________________________________________________
>> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>>