Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 22:51:02 -0500 (EST)
From: "Greg J. Seigworth" <gseigwor-AT-marauder.millersv.edu>
Subject: the uninterrogated question of imbecility




Actually, I've always liked the line that Deleuze had on the intellectual
circumstances in France following Foucault's death.  Stivale writes: 
"Deleuze maintained that Foucault did not function as 'safeguard'
(garde-fou), but rather as an 'imbecile-guard' (guard-imbecile), and with
the passing of Foucault, the imbeciles would be unleashed" (_Two-Fold
Thought_, p.232).  Despite the perhaps unfortunate resonances of the last
word in this quote, it is not especially directed at anyone [really!] but
it can apply to you [the big impersonal you] if you feel it does.  And
there is an interesting (albeit, as Avital Ronell adds, "dreary and
terrifying") US history of the 'idiot,' 'the imbecile,' and 'the moron'
... though none of it really has the faintest relation to what Deleuze
means by 'stupidity' (which is much more bound up, of course, with the
exteriority of thought and 'is never that of others' [D&R, p.151]) ... not
sure where exactly buffoonery might fit in here though.

i'm with stupid ----->  Greg

On Mon, 4 Jan 1999 Unleesh-AT-aol.com wrote:

> "Franny was here and said watch out for fakes and half-wits,
> pseudo-intellectuals, auto-didacts schizo-didacts, resentful academic
> failures."
> 
> Wow, and to think that Deleuze took the side of the simalucrum against
> Plato!!!
> 
> I guess it's back to the old Platonic project of trying to rank and filter out
> the fakes from the reals...
>