A pretty unfair reading of Foucault, I must say - though I doubt
Scruton has ever really read him. Have never heard Les mots et les
choses referred to as the bible of 68 before - anyone care to comment
on that?
I notice that the title is completely inaccurate since it doesn't
explain why Scruton became a conservative, but simply details what it
was like for him as a conservative in the irrationalist leftist
milieux of France and Britain.
On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 02:36:50 +0000 (GMT), Matthew King <making@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >From a recent article by Roger Scruton, an ... interesting description of
> Les Mots et les choses:
>
> the bible of the soixante-huitards, the text which seemed to justify every
> form of transgression, by showing that obedience is merely defeat. It is
> an artful book, composed with a satanic mendacity, selectively
> appropriating facts in order to show that culture and knowledge are
> nothing but the discourses of power. The book is not a work of philosophy
> but an exercise in rhetoric. Its goal is subversion, not truth, and it is
> careful to argue--by the old nominalist sleight of hand that was surely
> invented by the Father of Lies--that truth requires inverted commas, that
> it changes from epoch to epoch, and is tied to the form of consciousness,
> the episteme, imposed by the class which profits from its propagation. The
> revolutionary spirit, which searches the world for things to hate, has
> found in Foucault a new literary formula. Look everywhere for power, he
> tells his readers, and you will find it. Where there is power there is
> oppression. And where there is oppression there is the right to destroy.
>
> http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/feb03/burke.htm
>
> Matthew
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>
--
http://www.geocities.com/mgekelly
Scruton has ever really read him. Have never heard Les mots et les
choses referred to as the bible of 68 before - anyone care to comment
on that?
I notice that the title is completely inaccurate since it doesn't
explain why Scruton became a conservative, but simply details what it
was like for him as a conservative in the irrationalist leftist
milieux of France and Britain.
On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 02:36:50 +0000 (GMT), Matthew King <making@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >From a recent article by Roger Scruton, an ... interesting description of
> Les Mots et les choses:
>
> the bible of the soixante-huitards, the text which seemed to justify every
> form of transgression, by showing that obedience is merely defeat. It is
> an artful book, composed with a satanic mendacity, selectively
> appropriating facts in order to show that culture and knowledge are
> nothing but the discourses of power. The book is not a work of philosophy
> but an exercise in rhetoric. Its goal is subversion, not truth, and it is
> careful to argue--by the old nominalist sleight of hand that was surely
> invented by the Father of Lies--that truth requires inverted commas, that
> it changes from epoch to epoch, and is tied to the form of consciousness,
> the episteme, imposed by the class which profits from its propagation. The
> revolutionary spirit, which searches the world for things to hate, has
> found in Foucault a new literary formula. Look everywhere for power, he
> tells his readers, and you will find it. Where there is power there is
> oppression. And where there is oppression there is the right to destroy.
>
> http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/feb03/burke.htm
>
> Matthew
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>
--
http://www.geocities.com/mgekelly