On Tue, 18 May 1999 aoliai@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> what was to be admired about Khomeyni?
I don't know. You have the text, I don't; what else does he say? But
perhaps a certain steadfastness against "the tide of history", a
willingness to make a "rupture in history", as Foucault says in "Is it
Useless to Revolt?" Not, for the most part, a good one, as it turns
out--hence not to be *supported*, but perhaps still to be *admired*.
> Beside it is not just Khomeyni, he believed that Islam will establish
> democratic institution in the society!
Really? Does he say that? For that matter, was there never a moment when
the Islamic revolutionaries *could have* established democratic
institutions? Did Puritan revolutionaries not help to establish
democratic institutions in the UK? (And if those institutions had failed
to take root, would we not now scoff at the idea that they ever could
have?)
> And what is that SPIRITUALITY he supported in the revolution?
Well, this, to me, is the really interesting question, though Foucault
does not seem to have left us enough--that has been translated into
English, anyway--to answer it. But certainly, one can find echoes of
Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger, Camus and Sartre here--of a longing for a
life with meaning, with purpose, with soul; a life that is not simply
mechanical and instrumental.
> and waht do you mean by: Ah, "the French Foucault" rears his ugly
> head ;).
Some--Vincent Descombes, Richard Rorty--find that there is a Nietzschean-
anarchist version of Foucault who speaks to French audiences and a liberal
version of Foucault who speaks to anglophone audiences. I don't know to
what extent that is true, but it is clear from the texts that have been
translated that Foucault does tailor what he says to suit his
interlocutors ("Discussion with Maoists" and the discussion at the end of
_Language, Counter-Memory, Practice_ being prime examples). As far as I
know, none of the dispatches from Iran (or any of his other journalistic
work) have been translated.
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
dear readers, my apologies.
I'm drifting in and out of sleep.
---------------------------------(R.E.M.)----------------------------------
> what was to be admired about Khomeyni?
I don't know. You have the text, I don't; what else does he say? But
perhaps a certain steadfastness against "the tide of history", a
willingness to make a "rupture in history", as Foucault says in "Is it
Useless to Revolt?" Not, for the most part, a good one, as it turns
out--hence not to be *supported*, but perhaps still to be *admired*.
> Beside it is not just Khomeyni, he believed that Islam will establish
> democratic institution in the society!
Really? Does he say that? For that matter, was there never a moment when
the Islamic revolutionaries *could have* established democratic
institutions? Did Puritan revolutionaries not help to establish
democratic institutions in the UK? (And if those institutions had failed
to take root, would we not now scoff at the idea that they ever could
have?)
> And what is that SPIRITUALITY he supported in the revolution?
Well, this, to me, is the really interesting question, though Foucault
does not seem to have left us enough--that has been translated into
English, anyway--to answer it. But certainly, one can find echoes of
Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger, Camus and Sartre here--of a longing for a
life with meaning, with purpose, with soul; a life that is not simply
mechanical and instrumental.
> and waht do you mean by: Ah, "the French Foucault" rears his ugly
> head ;).
Some--Vincent Descombes, Richard Rorty--find that there is a Nietzschean-
anarchist version of Foucault who speaks to French audiences and a liberal
version of Foucault who speaks to anglophone audiences. I don't know to
what extent that is true, but it is clear from the texts that have been
translated that Foucault does tailor what he says to suit his
interlocutors ("Discussion with Maoists" and the discussion at the end of
_Language, Counter-Memory, Practice_ being prime examples). As far as I
know, none of the dispatches from Iran (or any of his other journalistic
work) have been translated.
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
dear readers, my apologies.
I'm drifting in and out of sleep.
---------------------------------(R.E.M.)----------------------------------