Date: Wed, 06 Nov 1996 10:48:12 +0000
From: Ian Robert Douglas <I.R.Douglas-AT-bristol.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Foucault Vs. Baudrillard


--- You wrote:
I agree you could say we are building on and transcending MF, but one
could also
argue there is greater value in noting how we are forgetting about power
and
forgetting about things grounded in the reality principle. Thus, in other
words, "the age of simulations proper" leaves behind discourse the way
that JB
calls us to leave behind MF.
--- end of quoted material ---

Ryan,
  I think your comments are well made.  Perhaps in my last posting i
wasn't entirely clear about the notion of transcending.  I do not mean
simply that JB is 'building' as such on the life project of MF, but
rather that JB seems in this essay, and elsewhere when referring to MF,
to acknowledge that MF opened up a certain area of conceptual space, into
which others explored.  I think that it is this space itself which allows
JB to, as you put it, note how we are forgetting about power and
forgetting about things grounded in the reality
principle.  My puzzle - one to which I admit i have no ready answer - is
to what extent does MF follow JB in certain senses, and to what extent
does this essay represent a break or a 'next stage'.  Intellectual (and
conceptual) history of this kind is never easy.  Simple point
(simple-minded perhaps): I think that there are more than a few meanings
being carried in the provocative title 'Forget Foucault'.  I never had
the impression (despite the obviousness of referring to MF as the 'last
great dinosaur' of the collapsing classical age), that JB was setting
himself up in opposition (as perhaps the title may suggest).  If
anything, what i took from the second half of the Semiotext version,
'Forget Baudrillard', was the impression that a politics of forgetting
was a serious statement aimed, if anything, to *save* MF in the face of a
range of catastrophes (the ascendance of the fatal object/image) that MF
had too unfortunately underestimated.  Note for example JB's response in
interview with Salvatore Mele and Mark Titmarsh:

     .. (MF) always thinks in terms of _active_ strategies.  He doesn't
think of                     
     inertia as a strategy.  He doesn't consider that polarity.  This is
not a 
     criticism.  His analysis is perfect at that level.  Quite simply, I
think 
     its still traditional.  It is still an analysis of power; its more
fluid, 
     but its still determined.  It is still _power_. Basically there's no
more
     power in that sense - it is neutralised, that is, as it is perfected
..

The inference is very much that shared in _The mirror of production_: not
so much an obliteration of Marx as such, but an attempt to rescue the
line of critique from an unfortunate naivete (the 'nostalgic effect of
theory').  Indeed, in FF, JB uses the same retort:

     In short Foucault's discourse is a mirror of the power is describes
.. (pp.           
     9-10) 

again, I'm rather hesitant (though of course I see the 'evidence') to
conclude that JB is frontally *rejecting*, as such, the work of MF here.
I guess its a matter of emphasis.  I was always *just a little*
uncomfortable with the way in which some interpreters set up a strict
line of difference between the two (and between JB and Marx .. but that's
a real can of worms).  Again, its simply a matter of emphasis (and how
one delimits the field of comparison).  However, when Baudrillard
discusses power and desire, and how they both blend together, finishing
with the quip:

     let's forget them both. (p.19)

I guess one has to read this as more than an attempt to rescue (if at
all).
Still, in the back of my mind I have JB's objection that 'power can
always be reversed', ... a false objection given the MF's whole position
on power was 'circulatory' .. are they *really* that different?  Oh well,
just random thoughts .... 


--- You continue:
is there some other temporal relation we could imagine having with JB?
Not forgetting that he is in the future, on the other side of the
mod-pomod divide; Not forgetting that he is coming, or that we are coming
to him. Could we look at JB not in the present, but in the infinitive? As
a hypothesis or possibility, rather than as a "real" or "present" theory
of our current situation?
--- end of quoted material ---

Again, well put.  Look to the closing paragraphs of 'Forget Baudrillard'
for support on this.  I always found the last few pages bizarre .. never
quite figured out what was going on there.  Sylvere Lotringer takes over
with long, wild questions to which JB replies in the briefest of answers
.. The comment: 

     You put theory into a state of grace into which you dare the world
to 
     follow you

always stood out for me.  There is also that book of photos compiled by
JB (too expensive, I didn't buy it), entitled _Follow me_ (yes?).  I like
the idea of JB as a hypothesis, but I need to think about it for a few
years.,

take care,
ian.r.d.

_______________________________________________________________________

Ian Robert Douglas,       
Department of Politics,     "It is not enough for a wise man to
University of Bristol,      study nature and truth; he should dare
Bristol, BS8 1TU, UK.       state truth for the benefit of the few 
		                          who are willing and able to think.  As
I.R.Douglas-AT-bris.ac.uk      for the rest, who are voluntarily slaves
Tel: (0117) 928 7898        of prejudice, they can no more attain
Fax: (0117) 973 2133        truth, than frogs can fly." (La Mettrie)

Co-convenor "Justice and Post-Politics" conference, Sept.18-19 1996
http://mail.bris.ac.uk/%7Eportls/JPP

_______________________________________________________________________