Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 11:09:45 +0300 (IDT)
From: Gabriel Ash <ggabriel-AT-zoot.tau.ac.il>
Subject: Re: A Defense Of Miller?


On Sun, 16 Apr 1995, steven meinking wrote:

 Miller does not conceive his book as a definitive nor authoritative 
> biographical account of Foucault's life and practices.  Rather, it is an 
> exclusive exploration of the passions of Foucault as Miller perceives 
> them.  The result is a somewhat limited view of a man, Foucault; a view 
> primarily comprised of concerns that fuse Miller within that sector of 
> Foucault's life that tended to demonstrate his passions at their 
> peak levels, i.e. Foucault's sexuality.  It is for this reason that I am 

I didn't read miller, but I find it strange someone can characterize the 
pursuit of sexual passions as the completion of the Nietzchean percept of 
self-creation.
I suggest to read the preface for the second volume of the History of 
Sexcuality, where F. gives a bibliographical account which turns around a 
passion - to think otherwise ( penser autrement).  Miller seems to be 
reading F. according to Marx characterization of mass culture: to look for 
the stamp of humanity in the animal life - food, sex, etc., and to despise 
the 
specifically human , i.e. work ( which should be 'opus', and not only 
'onus').  It may be that thinking otherwise is stimulated by having one's 
pleasures otherwise. And this can be used either as justification or as 
an indictment, but the 'low' or 'high' origins of a thought are not a 
proof of its value or of its lack of value, they only reffer us to the 
tragi-comic aspect of geneology.

 ---------------------------

Gabriel Ash
Tel-Aviv
ggabriel-AT-zoot.tau.ac.il

---------------------------


     ------------------