> I also wonder what anyone who cares to comment would think of F's
> claim, in "What is critique?", that critique is itself a virtue
> that can and should be pursued even when one lacks a decent
> blueprint for a just society.
John,
I haven't read "What is critique?" (although, certainly I will now),
but your description and quotation sound like Foucalt is heavily
under the influence of the Frankfurt School here; Marcuse in particular
emphasized the "power of negative thinking." His basic position here
springs from possessing a blueprint of the /current/ society, and
an understanding of its injustice. In /One-Dimensional Man/, he writes:
> ... in the most advanced areas of this civilization, the social
> controls have been introjected to the point where even individual
> protest is affected at its roots. The intellectual and emotional
> refusal "to go along" appears neurotic and impotent. This is the
> socio-psychological aspect of the political event that marks the
> contemporary period: the passing of the historical forces which,
> at the preceding stage of industrial society, seemed to present
> the possibility of new forms of existence...
> ... In this process, the "inner" dimension of the mind in which
> opposition to the status quo can take root is whittled down. The
> loss of this dimension, in which the power of negative thinking--
> the critical power of Reason--is at home, is the ideological
> counterpart to the very material process in which advanced
> industrial society silences and reconciles the opposition.
The resistance to the prerequisite of a blueprint for the future,
or a "blueprint for a just society," comes from Marx's critique of
the Utopian socialists. This is consistent with the long strain of
historicist philosophy running from Hegel to present day, and
certainly through Foucalt. Forward-looking political prescriptions
are based on an analysis of the present, and its unstable elements,
as opposed to constructing an abstract theory of an ideal society
(More's /Utopia/ being the seminal text in this tradition, but
popular amongst late 18th and early 19th century socialists, a la
Fourier and Saint-Simon.)
To use Marcuse's words again (but more briefly!), "slaves must be
/free for/ their liberation before they can become free." In other
words, to steal from Nietzsche, "If a temple is to be erected a
/temple must be destroyed/: that is the law--let anyone who can
show me a case in which it is not fulfilled!" A negation must
precede a creation, and especially when the supressive "temple"
we wish to negate embodies the very language we speak with,
it must necessarily be broken down before it can be "though around."
I'm uncertain if there was any link between Marcuse and Foucalt, but
I don't imagine that they could have avoided each other. Marcuse
doesn't seem to have faired very well over the years--his influence
today seems minimal--but he was a seminal figure during the sixties
and early seventies, and was probably the name most intimately linked
with the student movement at the time.
----Ben
> claim, in "What is critique?", that critique is itself a virtue
> that can and should be pursued even when one lacks a decent
> blueprint for a just society.
John,
I haven't read "What is critique?" (although, certainly I will now),
but your description and quotation sound like Foucalt is heavily
under the influence of the Frankfurt School here; Marcuse in particular
emphasized the "power of negative thinking." His basic position here
springs from possessing a blueprint of the /current/ society, and
an understanding of its injustice. In /One-Dimensional Man/, he writes:
> ... in the most advanced areas of this civilization, the social
> controls have been introjected to the point where even individual
> protest is affected at its roots. The intellectual and emotional
> refusal "to go along" appears neurotic and impotent. This is the
> socio-psychological aspect of the political event that marks the
> contemporary period: the passing of the historical forces which,
> at the preceding stage of industrial society, seemed to present
> the possibility of new forms of existence...
> ... In this process, the "inner" dimension of the mind in which
> opposition to the status quo can take root is whittled down. The
> loss of this dimension, in which the power of negative thinking--
> the critical power of Reason--is at home, is the ideological
> counterpart to the very material process in which advanced
> industrial society silences and reconciles the opposition.
The resistance to the prerequisite of a blueprint for the future,
or a "blueprint for a just society," comes from Marx's critique of
the Utopian socialists. This is consistent with the long strain of
historicist philosophy running from Hegel to present day, and
certainly through Foucalt. Forward-looking political prescriptions
are based on an analysis of the present, and its unstable elements,
as opposed to constructing an abstract theory of an ideal society
(More's /Utopia/ being the seminal text in this tradition, but
popular amongst late 18th and early 19th century socialists, a la
Fourier and Saint-Simon.)
To use Marcuse's words again (but more briefly!), "slaves must be
/free for/ their liberation before they can become free." In other
words, to steal from Nietzsche, "If a temple is to be erected a
/temple must be destroyed/: that is the law--let anyone who can
show me a case in which it is not fulfilled!" A negation must
precede a creation, and especially when the supressive "temple"
we wish to negate embodies the very language we speak with,
it must necessarily be broken down before it can be "though around."
I'm uncertain if there was any link between Marcuse and Foucalt, but
I don't imagine that they could have avoided each other. Marcuse
doesn't seem to have faired very well over the years--his influence
today seems minimal--but he was a seminal figure during the sixties
and early seventies, and was probably the name most intimately linked
with the student movement at the time.
----Ben