From: brehkopf-AT-nexus.yorku.ca
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 10:09:51 -0500
Subject: Re: foucault, power and authenticity



 
> I agree with this absolutely.  It seems to me that one of the reasons
> why power perpetually reappears in discussions about Foucault is that we
> so often miss the point, which, as I see it, is that we should stop
> asking for a theory or definition of power and just start describing its
> effects.  I find it strangely paradoxical that Foucault should have
> generated such a huge industry of theorising and so little effort in
> applying his methods.
> 
> Murray 
> ================================
At the risk of regenerating the entire discussion about the "uses" of
Foucault (or more specifically Foucault's *work*, for the sake of the
person who chided us all for our blase' imprecision)....

Perhaps it is *ironic* that there resulted such a large industry of
theorising and a smaller industry applying his methods. I'm not sure
it's paradoxical, though, and I'm almost certain that such a response is
neither surprising nor unwarranted.

Foucault proposes a fairly new "theory" (of power, the subject,
whatever), one that goes very very deep. Now, what should people do in 
response? Should they accept his work, without hesitation or after
cursory and superficial examination? Or should they - and should
Foucault encourage them to - submit that work to thorough and rigorous 
examination? 

Foucault was calling for nothing less than a paradigm shift, and to me a
large part of his work suggests that such paradigm shifts are not simply
the result of mere choices to believe X rather than Y. I take it that
for Foucault, X (or Y...) wasn't just an idea to Foucault, to be taken
off or put on like a shirt, but rather that X was
in some way descriptive of one's subjectivity for him. I don't recall
Foucault ever implying or suggesting explicitly that "we" are any more
capable of rising out of / above / beyond our way of thinking so easily 
than was any other generation caught in these disciplines he describes.

So, far from it being paradoxical that the bulk of scholarship that has
resulted from Foucault's work is theory rather than application, it
would be paradoxical if "we" all did what Foucault said was largely not
in our...ummmm....*power* to do. 

I don't know if this makes sense, so feel free to point out where I've
gone wrong in my argument, such as it is. (And yeah, I know, I too have
claimed to "use" Foucault in an applied context...I never claimed *I* am
not paradoxical!)

Peace,

Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA 
 
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