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<P>Interesting. I have never cared much for de Gaulle and Foucault is the first Frenchman I have come across who makes any sense. Mind you living with 300 self-serving French Canadians at RMC in Kingston for 3 years is likely the cause. I disagree with Robert Fulford - Foucault's ideas are not bad at all. Yet, they may be dangerous to those embroiled in corruption. I find Foucault's ideas are helpful for providing a most valuable alternate perspective to consider how things might actually be. The powerful do appear to oppress and one way to deal with oppression may well be to highlight conflicts of interest and corruption. For example, (pardon the unsubstantiated B.S.) senior managers do not do anything for the good of society or the environment unless they are caught doing something wrong.</P>
<P>See: <A href="http://www.crikey.com.au";>www.crikey.com.au</A></P>
<DIV>>From: "Jeremy W. Crampton" <JCRAMPTON@xxxxxxx></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>Reply-To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<DIV></DIV>>To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<DIV></DIV>>Subject: Re: foucault-digest V2 #567
<DIV></DIV>>Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:09:01 -0400
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>French intellectuals don't age well
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Robert Fulford
<DIV></DIV>>National Post
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Saturday, July 27, 2002
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>The most famous exports of France have always been cheese, wine, and ideas.
<DIV></DIV>>The cheese is excellent, the wine has good and bad years, and the
<DIV></DIV>>illustrious ideas are consistently dreadful. Today, in universities across
<DIV></DIV>>the West, Michel Foucault (1926-1984) exemplifies the bad French idea at its
<DIV></DIV>>most brilliant and its most poisonous.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Foucault spent his life proving that the institutions of modern civilization
<DIV></DIV>>do nothing but disguise one essential truth: the powerful oppress everyone,
<DIV></DIV>>always. He yearned for revolution, the bloodier the better. In 1971 he said
<DIV></DIV>>that when the workers take power, they may create a murderous dictatorship:
<DIV></DIV>>"I can't see what objection could possibly be made to this." When he visited
<DIV></DIV>>Tehran he praised the Ayatollah Khomeini's movement as a "religion of combat
<DIV></DIV>>and sacrifice." He paid no attention to data and instead sprayed the air
<DIV></DIV>>around him with ideas informed by paranoid fantasies. He received his
<DIV></DIV>>reward: Dissertations on Foucault now fill university archives while armies
<DIV></DIV>>of art critics, feminist rhetoricians, and post-colonial theorists spend
<DIV></DIV>>their days quoting him.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>He was wrong about everything, which only adds to his stature. He followed
<DIV></DIV>>the path of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), who found excuses for the crimes of
<DIV></DIV>>all communist despots but considered the United States profoundly evil
<DIV></DIV>>("America is a mad dog"). Sartre was so wrong that he was considered truly
<DIV></DIV>>great. Charles de Gaulle compared him to Voltaire.
<DIV></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. <a href='http://g.msn.com/1HM1ENAU/c157??PI=44314'>Click Here</a><br></html>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<P>Interesting. I have never cared much for de Gaulle and Foucault is the first Frenchman I have come across who makes any sense. Mind you living with 300 self-serving French Canadians at RMC in Kingston for 3 years is likely the cause. I disagree with Robert Fulford - Foucault's ideas are not bad at all. Yet, they may be dangerous to those embroiled in corruption. I find Foucault's ideas are helpful for providing a most valuable alternate perspective to consider how things might actually be. The powerful do appear to oppress and one way to deal with oppression may well be to highlight conflicts of interest and corruption. For example, (pardon the unsubstantiated B.S.) senior managers do not do anything for the good of society or the environment unless they are caught doing something wrong.</P>
<P>See: <A href="http://www.crikey.com.au";>www.crikey.com.au</A></P>
<DIV>>From: "Jeremy W. Crampton" <JCRAMPTON@xxxxxxx></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>Reply-To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<DIV></DIV>>To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<DIV></DIV>>Subject: Re: foucault-digest V2 #567
<DIV></DIV>>Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:09:01 -0400
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>French intellectuals don't age well
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Robert Fulford
<DIV></DIV>>National Post
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Saturday, July 27, 2002
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>The most famous exports of France have always been cheese, wine, and ideas.
<DIV></DIV>>The cheese is excellent, the wine has good and bad years, and the
<DIV></DIV>>illustrious ideas are consistently dreadful. Today, in universities across
<DIV></DIV>>the West, Michel Foucault (1926-1984) exemplifies the bad French idea at its
<DIV></DIV>>most brilliant and its most poisonous.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Foucault spent his life proving that the institutions of modern civilization
<DIV></DIV>>do nothing but disguise one essential truth: the powerful oppress everyone,
<DIV></DIV>>always. He yearned for revolution, the bloodier the better. In 1971 he said
<DIV></DIV>>that when the workers take power, they may create a murderous dictatorship:
<DIV></DIV>>"I can't see what objection could possibly be made to this." When he visited
<DIV></DIV>>Tehran he praised the Ayatollah Khomeini's movement as a "religion of combat
<DIV></DIV>>and sacrifice." He paid no attention to data and instead sprayed the air
<DIV></DIV>>around him with ideas informed by paranoid fantasies. He received his
<DIV></DIV>>reward: Dissertations on Foucault now fill university archives while armies
<DIV></DIV>>of art critics, feminist rhetoricians, and post-colonial theorists spend
<DIV></DIV>>their days quoting him.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>He was wrong about everything, which only adds to his stature. He followed
<DIV></DIV>>the path of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), who found excuses for the crimes of
<DIV></DIV>>all communist despots but considered the United States profoundly evil
<DIV></DIV>>("America is a mad dog"). Sartre was so wrong that he was considered truly
<DIV></DIV>>great. Charles de Gaulle compared him to Voltaire.
<DIV></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. <a href='http://g.msn.com/1HM1ENAU/c157??PI=44314'>Click Here</a><br></html>