Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 17:05:07 -0600 (CST)
From: David Pekerow <dpekerow-AT-condor.depaul.edu>
Subject: Re: power



In reply to James Stranger's comments on Deleuze's reading of Foucault on 
power, let's recall how Foucault praised _The Anti-Oedipus_ as "a guide 
to non-fascist living."  It seems given the affinity between the two 
philosophers, it is plausible to assume that Deleuze thought of 
Foucault's thought in similar fashion.  Foucault, in teaching one to 
recognize "truth" as a discursive production of power/knowledge, could 
empower one to better be able to 'think for himself', as the cliche 
goes.  L. Ron Hubbard, on the other hand, gives you The Truth, 
alleviating the burden of a care of the self; at a high $ price, Hubbard's 
"church" takes up residence in your body and transforms you into just 
another boring, disciplined subject.  

I do agree that Foucault would have been disturbed by any dogma which 
would proclaim itself so privileged among doctrines of Truth that a 
"promise" could be made to make you "better," whatever that is.  For 
Foucault, there is nothing which "frees" you from power; the challenge is 
to be able to cultivate whatever power/knowledge you have been invested 
with and mobilize it.  The latter is undertheorized in Foucault; it is 
clear, however, that Foucault leaves open possibilities for resistance to 
and transformation of existing power/knowledge regimes.  But there are no 
"cures" which can wipe clean the slate of subjectivity.  Even if 
'science' were able to locate the 'gay gene' and inject every 
'homosexual' with the 'heterosexual' serum, this would not wipe out one's 
identity as part of a/the 'gay' community if one had previously invested 
himself with the knowledge which gives such a community its intelligibility.
At least at the outset; the pernicious discursive repitition of 'sex' as 
always already natural reduces multiple possibilities for 'sexuality' to 
a heterosexual imperative enslaved to a difference between male and 
female figured as naturally oppositional, always in need of each 
other for the logical completion of 'sex' as such.  Such logic of the 
same must be identified wherever it crops up and addressed with the 
speech of the megaphone.

David Pekerow
DePaul University


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