Date: Mon, 22 Jan 96 10:09:52 EST
From: "Joe Cronin" <croninj-AT-thomasmore.edu>
Subject: Re[6]: ethics and poststructuralism


          Greg,

          I agree with everything you say except that Foucault is
          interested in a 'micro-analysis'.  Genealogy begins a the
          micro level, but Focuault's analysis is an "ascending one" -
          he is still interested in forms of power which achieve a
          general set od effects.  Largely, I htink that marx himself
          is misread; he also claims that a study of power realtions
          must be local and specific - I am especially referring to
          Marx's materialsit method set out in The German Ideology,
          but present throughout his later writings.  Marx is
          interested an emprical, materialist appproach to history -
          this does not preclude a "general" analysis.  Marx is also
          critical of Hegel and others for thinking of history as a
          process independent of living human beings - a "global"
          analysis, if you will, which lies at the heart of F's
          critique of the "repressive hypothesis."  The Marxian ( as
          opposed to 'Marxist') point is that a general analysis is
          essential to understanding the specific effects and
          functions of power/knowledge in modern Euro culture.  The
          better elements of F's genealogies follow from his Marxian
          science - why else would F go to great pains to establish
          himself as materialist, an empiricist, and a critical
          historian, if he had no 'scientific' basis for his research?
          If this basis is not Marxian, what is it?

              -- Joe Cronin, Thomas More College


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