Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 10:29:31 +0300 (IDT) From: Gabriel Ash <ggabriel-AT-zoot.tau.ac.il> Subject: Re: Foucault and Normativity > On Tue, 11 Apr 1995 CROSBYJL-AT-ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu wrote: > > > > > It is very interesting to me how Foucault's discriptions of diciplinary > > practices and 'regulatory fuctions' are interpreted as attacks on them, > > and calls for their elimination. To my knowledge, this is not > > Foucault's goal. An understanding of the ways in which we opperate > > within power relations and institutions does not call for the > > elimination of those relations and institutions, but allows us to > > locate sites from which we can resist. Foucault is not an anarchist. Well, yes, if Anarchism is a sort of concerted party activity aimed at dismentling society. But such anarchism is a bit self-defeating. I would think that the refuse to 'call for the elimination' of whatsoverer is an extremely anarchic gesture, since any meaningful political action has to do with some sort of such elimination, whether it is the elimination of perverts or the elimination of prejudices. There is a problem there. What we get from F. is not a political counter-action, but a counter-political action, which nevertheless is political to the end. I am not sure I have it clear about the merits of such a stance. On Tue, 11 Apr 1995, Kristin Switala wrote: > The question, then, is what types of operations could be possible > (or are possible) within various power grids (institutions -- including > the Internet). Do you think Foucault says much about this? I do not, > but I could be incorrect. This is where I find the French feminists, > particularly Irigaray, so appropriate. I think that she offers > suggestions of ways women can operate within institutional power > structures. However, she has been accused of being too "pragmatic" (and > some even criticize Foucault as being pragmatic, which I think is > problematic) in her suggestions for possible political actions. Is > taking political action equivalent to being pragmatic? It seems to me that political action can be pragmatic only from the center. As such, pragmaticism seems apolitical and thechnocrat, without this to impede it from carrying out efficient political (and basically, stabilizing and conservatory) actions. But there may be a problem with being a pragmatic non-conformist or to carry out any sort of political truly oppositional action pragmaticaly. First of all, because the most practical thing to do is always to comply with the center. A center would soon callapse once it looses this reasonability. A counter-action has been traditionally seen as requiring some sort of positive illusion, at least in the possibility of meaningful opposition, and a motive for bypassing the pragmatic, which was often a religious or religiouslike ideal. Accusing F. of being pragmatic is therefore accusing him of being conservative, who removes the posibility of change by discarding the meaningfullness of the political ideal. F. is trying, I think, to de-center the political arena itself, in a way this undermines both pragmatic politics and traditional revolutionary activities. what is left is not clear. Yet I think that the 'care for the self' can be taken in an extremely unpragmatic sense. --------------------------- Gabriel Ash Tel-Aviv ggabriel-AT-zoot.tau.ac.il --------------------------- ------------------
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