Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 14:23:54 GMT
From: KENNETH MCPHAIL <K.J.MCPHAIL-AT-dundee.ac.uk>
To: foucault-AT-world.std.com
Subject: Foucault and 'the starving millions'


In the conclusion of Allan Megills excellent book, 'Prophets of 
Extreminty,' he says,
'The most comprehensive charge that can be leveled against them 
(Foucault Derrida, Hiedegger & Nietzsche) is that they totaly 
overlook or misconstrue the truly pressing realities of human life.  
In their idealism, they try to come to grips not with gravity but but 
with the spirit of gravity.  It can be argued that the point about 
such apparent banalities as, 'what about the workers' or 'what about 
the starving millions' is that they refer to an underlying social 
reality with problems far weightier than the issues that interest 
crisis thinkers'

I had been thinking about this for some time before I read Megills 
book.  I have some friends who are currently working in Rawanda and 
the experiances which they have related to me seem to ironise and 
trivialise Foucaults and Derrias fictions.  It is very difficult to 
tell someone who has witnessed the 'reality' of genocide that 'world 
itself is nothing other than art', and that 'there is no true world.' 
Is Foucault really working at such a superficial level?  What is the 
scope and context of Foucaults work?


Ken