Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 21:52:59 -0600 (MDT) From: steven meinking <steven.meinking-AT-m.cc.utah.edu> To: Foucault List <foucault-AT-world.std.com> Subject: RE: Foucauldian Activism Tom: There is no reason to approach this list with trepidation or to fear expressing yourself through discourse. Your thoughts are welcome here (regardless of how long they may be). However, I must request that you not post messages as long as or near the length of your last one, as posts of such a length tend to cause our mail server to malfunction. If you can, try to keep your posts under 250 lines. Now to your last post. I think you have demonstrated a very admirable zeal in meeting the task you have set for yourself, and I wish you the best of luck in completing the task. Please do not interpret any disagreement I may have with you as a complete dismissal of your program. When I mentioned my experiences with activism, they were just that, my experiences. You may have had other experiences that brought you happiness or motivation. Such is life. Now whether Foucault can be inscribed within your program, while remaining within a proximity of interpretation that does Foucault "justice," I don't know; especially given your last post, where you outlined your approach more definitively. A "melting of hearts" sounds very nice and very romantic, and this comes as no surprise given your references to Hegel. There is also your mention of Derrida, who to this day is still trying figure Foucault out. If you want to ground a system on "justice" that is fine too. And if you want to take a deconstructive approach to the concept, okay, but my point of disagreement, and I think possibly Foucault's too, is this movement into abstraction where concepts tend to operate quite whimsically. Descartes was able to accomplish quite a bit with the _cogito_, but when it came time to give it a material location, he ran into trouble. It seems that starting with justice as a principle and working from there is destined to convolute the thinker into a disorienting state. Such a given principle is actually functioning through material manifestations and networks, but to be understood, after its dogmatic acceptance, it can only be considered apart from those networks. This sort of dislocation disguises the principle in relations that tend to make its material connections difficult to discern. And this is partly why I am content to wholly concentrate on the "the care of the self." What are the material movements in practice that construct and destroy the self? How are such movements formulated? What are their operative functions and relations? In this way I am able to keep my focus and gaze within a material nexus that constitutes me. After such an understanding is achieved, then I will be ready to move into a more abstract domain, a domain beyond selves and institutions. Yours in discourse, Steven Meinking The University Of Utah steven.meinking-AT-m.cc.utah.edu
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