Date: Thu, 12 Sep 96 08:09:32 EST
From: "Joe Cronin" <croninj-AT-thomasmore.edu>
Subject: Re: Foucault and the Environment?


          On Foucault and the environment...

          I'mo not sure exactly how one is to read F's discussion of
          'bio-power', but if it's looked at as a "power over life,"
          the environment (and here's where I have trouble ---should
          we be talking about discursive environments?) is included in
          bio-technical strategies.
          An interesting road to travel, it seems to me, would be to
          take Marcuse's notion of the developnment of capitalism
          as the history of the domination and exploitation of
          nature,including human nature, (especially in One
          Dimenasional Man), and then to develop a Foucauldian
          criticism of this view along the lines of his criticism of
          the "Repressive Hypothesis" (HS,V.I) and see where things
          end up.  My inclination is that, in this debate, the
          Marcuseans win out this time, because it's very difficult to
          speak of any kind of "disciplining" of nature, or the
          creation of a positive set of habits, behaviors, ways of
          thinking, the creative capacity of discourses of nature,
          etc., because it seems to me to be more accurate to say that
          we have dominated, repressed, and said "no" to nearly every
          eco-system in this part of the world, largely for profit,
          control, private gain, etc. (in short, all of the
          traditional Marxian explanations still work best).