Re: [Foucault-L] Pathologies of Power

"For us, the human body defines, by natural right, the
space of origin and distribution of disease; a space
whose lines, volumes, surfaces and routes are laid
down, in accordance with a now familiar . . .
anatomical atlas. But this order of the solid, visible
body is only one way--in all likelihood neither the
first, nor the most fundamental--in which one
spatializes disease. There have been, and will be,
other distributions of disease." Foucault, Birth of
the clinic.

Having said that, we are now better prepared to
entertain other possibilities of distributions of
disease apart from those which confine them to the
space defined by the human body.

Before I said anything further on the matter, I would
first ask you to paraphrase your questions by finding
synomous terms and expressions for the- all too often
encumbant- word 'power'. (I.e., if power is productive
of truth-effects, then all truth-effects imply a power
regeime).

I can, however, suggest the following work of
histiography: 'The Persecutory Imagination: English
Puritanism and the Literature of Religious Despair',
by John Stachniewski, (Clarendon, 1991). On this note,
a historical study on the persecutory imagination
should, I believe, take two historical related themes
deeply into its consideration: 1) the structure and
organization of the persecution complex which
functions at the heart of what Nietzsche called slave
moralities, 2) the formation of the conscience (both
phylogenic and ontogenci).

If you are interested in looking into alternate
distributions of the idiopathological complexes
characteristic of the schizophrenia groups, such as
delusions of persecution and self-reference,
catatonia, mutism, negativism, waxi-flexibility, etc.,
then I recommend checking out R.D. Laings study on
'Sanity, madness and the family' which attempts to
make the process of the formation of the
symptomalogical complexes typical of the schizophrenia
group as they take shape in the naturalistic setting
of the family intelligible in terms of social praxis.


There are many other directions whcih lay open to
us...





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Folow-ups
  • Re: [Foucault-L] Pathologies of Power
    • From: S. Legg
  • Replies
    Re: [Foucault-L] Pathologies of Power, M. Karskens
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