yes, i am a debater for Univ. of Texas
are you?
Loren
----- Original Message -----
From: mike king <slothrop@xxxxxxxx>
To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 4:07 PM
Subject: Re: Foucault & Derrida
>
> >I'm not sure who has read the Spanos book Heidegger and Criticism, but it
> >seems spanos' critique of Derrida "the indifference of differance" is
> >similar to foucault's--that emergence is left out. However, Spanos also
> >critisizes foucault for ignoring ontology.
> >
> >loren
>
> hm....are/were you a debator? I've never heard of anyone outside of
debate having heard of spanos.
>
> it seems to me that spanos is saying that heidegger and foucault, the two
most important thinkers, were both blinded in their insight, which is, of
course, paul de man's phrase. Foucault's excessive focus on "sociopolitics"
prevented him from seeing such things as "enframing" and "the age of the
world picture," whereas heidegger's focus on ontology prevented him from
seeing things such as the evil of nazism, even though he later made a
reference to gas chambers in the context of a criticism of the technological
mindset. A synthesis of heidegger and foucault enables "oppositional
intellectuals" to avoid the mistakes of both.
>
> this synthesis is more explicitly noticeable in the new spanos book:
"America's Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire," in which spanos shows the
"ontological origins of occidental imperialism." the disciplinary,
classificatory tables and the truth discourse of the West, combined with a
calculative/technological understanding of Being, allow us to "level" and
"enframe" the Other into a "docile and useful body." The rhetoric of
problem-solving and "improvement" adds inevitability and moral necessity to
acts of imperialism. Resistances to this liberal humanist/democratic, such
as the "falsehood" or "errancy" of the communists or "savages," must be made
to fit the "true" discourse of the West.
>
> Spanos is not anti-Derridean, however. He shows that, in the Vietnam War,
Americans fought with the assumptions of and expectations for presence and
closure, which the NLF and NVA subverted, leading the Army to engage in
genocidal practice. Spanos argues that the task for oppositional
intellectuals is a discourse of resistance based on the Vietnamese strategy
in the war. We must subvert the assumptions of presence and closure on the
level of discourse, and allow humanism to defeat itself.
>
>
> The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it.
> --Jean Baudrillard
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Twice the Entertainment, half the talent.
> Stick Figure Death Theatre - http://www.sfdt.com/
are you?
Loren
----- Original Message -----
From: mike king <slothrop@xxxxxxxx>
To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 4:07 PM
Subject: Re: Foucault & Derrida
>
> >I'm not sure who has read the Spanos book Heidegger and Criticism, but it
> >seems spanos' critique of Derrida "the indifference of differance" is
> >similar to foucault's--that emergence is left out. However, Spanos also
> >critisizes foucault for ignoring ontology.
> >
> >loren
>
> hm....are/were you a debator? I've never heard of anyone outside of
debate having heard of spanos.
>
> it seems to me that spanos is saying that heidegger and foucault, the two
most important thinkers, were both blinded in their insight, which is, of
course, paul de man's phrase. Foucault's excessive focus on "sociopolitics"
prevented him from seeing such things as "enframing" and "the age of the
world picture," whereas heidegger's focus on ontology prevented him from
seeing things such as the evil of nazism, even though he later made a
reference to gas chambers in the context of a criticism of the technological
mindset. A synthesis of heidegger and foucault enables "oppositional
intellectuals" to avoid the mistakes of both.
>
> this synthesis is more explicitly noticeable in the new spanos book:
"America's Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire," in which spanos shows the
"ontological origins of occidental imperialism." the disciplinary,
classificatory tables and the truth discourse of the West, combined with a
calculative/technological understanding of Being, allow us to "level" and
"enframe" the Other into a "docile and useful body." The rhetoric of
problem-solving and "improvement" adds inevitability and moral necessity to
acts of imperialism. Resistances to this liberal humanist/democratic, such
as the "falsehood" or "errancy" of the communists or "savages," must be made
to fit the "true" discourse of the West.
>
> Spanos is not anti-Derridean, however. He shows that, in the Vietnam War,
Americans fought with the assumptions of and expectations for presence and
closure, which the NLF and NVA subverted, leading the Army to engage in
genocidal practice. Spanos argues that the task for oppositional
intellectuals is a discourse of resistance based on the Vietnamese strategy
in the war. We must subvert the assumptions of presence and closure on the
level of discourse, and allow humanism to defeat itself.
>
>
> The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it.
> --Jean Baudrillard
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Twice the Entertainment, half the talent.
> Stick Figure Death Theatre - http://www.sfdt.com/