File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1994/F-1, message 50


Date: Fri, 16 Sep 1994 13:01:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim-AT-panix.com>
To: foucault-AT-world.std.com
Cc: steven.meinking-AT-m.cc.utah.edu, Foucault List <foucault-AT-world.std.com>,
Subject: Re: Nazis



In relation to Feyerabend, I also think we should be careful here. There 
is a tendency to dismiss for example the work of Joseph Beuys on the same 
ground, and I find, frankly, the attacks a while ago (in RL not on any 
list) on Paul deMan equally suspect - I too wrote things at 20 I wouldn't 
want to see in print now. There is a difference between naive and/or 
coerced behavior when very young and mature work, and it's never a 
straight-forward situation of cause and effect. These sorts of attacks 
can only lead to a relatively right-wing closure on, say, post-structural 
thought in general.

Issues of anti-semitism, by the way, are equally difficult to deal with - 
what do we "do" with Blanchot, Bataille, Sartre's misguided book on anti- 
semitism, Lacan - not to mention Pound, Eliot, H.G.Wells, Dostoevsky? For 
me, Heidegger _does_ seem damaged, but cleaning the slate (which should 
be on some level) would also mean wiping out a lot of 19th-20th century 
thinkers.

This is troubling no matter how you cut it.

Alan

   

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