Cheney's book was in fact a best-seller several years back when it first
appeared. While she is in many respects a noxious figure on the
nation's political stage, I recommend that critics at least read her
argument before casting judgment, that is, if they care enough about
her politics to do the necessary work. Yes, the woman has a tendency to
portray her own positions in strident and cartoonish ways, but then again
the Nation has every partisan incentive to help her along.
More to the point of this particular list: I mean this as no criticism of
Foucauldian scholars, but many dozens, maybe hundreds, have pursued the
Foucauldian project because of their view that, if properly proselytized,
his insights would help facilitate emancipatory politics, or at least to
the precursor emancipation implicit in "unmasking." If his defenders have
the right to defend the utopian promise implicit in Foucault's work, then
his accusers have every right to warn against it, even at the risk of
ridicule from the editors of the Nation.
David Cheshier
.On Sat, 23 Sep 2000
TODDVANNOY@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Has anyone read the last edition of "The Nation" (October 2/2000) ? There is
> an article detailing the views of the Republican Vice-Presidential
> candidate's wife, Lynne Cheney- a right-wing culture warrior, ala William
> Bennett. Apparently, Mrs. Cheney wrote a book in 1995, titled "Telling the
> Truth," which seems to attack Foucault, as a defender of godless relativism,
> I assume. According to the Nation, "Telling the Truth" declares that
> Foucault's ideas threaten nothing less than the survival of western
> civilization," going as far to blame Foucault for the murder of an ice-cream
> vendor in Philadelphia, stating that "intellectual elites do no one a favor
> by sending through society messages that there is no external reality in
> which we all participate, that there is only the game of the moment, the
> entertainment of the day."
> Does anyone have any comments, concerning Mrs. Cheney's views?
> TRV
>
Dr. David Cheshier
Assistant Professor & Director of Debate
Department of Communication
Georgia State University
University Plaza
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
o 404-651-2621
f 404-651-1409
e joudmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx