From: brehkopf-AT-nexus.yorku.ca
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 12:36:00 -0400
Subject: Re: more on nasty cyber-nazis



Colin must be thanked for his persistence in challenging some of these
ideas....  
 
> Is not Foucault himself guilty of this after all, the assertion that as
> intellectuals we should not tell others what to do is an assertion of what
> intellectuals should or should not do? Non? He is at least telling
> intellectuals what they should do.

Well, the context is the relationship of intellectuals (qua
intellectuals) vis-a-vis non-intellectuals, *not* vis-a-vis other 
intellectuals (qua intellectuals).  So Foucault is not contradicting 
himself here. 

> What is true simply cannot be reduced or separated from the function of
> truth. And to think otherwise is simply dangerous. Since the function of
> truth in a Nazi discourse is to legitimate the destruction of peoples they
> do not like, then I suppose Foucualt would tell us what we already know.
> What is true is important because people tell lies. The function of truth is
> only one of its modes of operation.

> When things do get so bad
> how will you Foucautians know? I mean, I know this is a cheap shot, but
> Foucault was at least honest himself about his idealism, discursive or
> otherwise, and consistently refused to belief in AIDS and safe sex.
> Unfortunately, for all of us, AIDS was real, independent of what Foucault
> thought. End of story. I think your own notions of human nature are
> beginning to show through Sean. Don't you have an overidealised view of
> humans? And by the way, tell the 50 million, or there abouts, people who
> died in WWII that fear of the Nazis was irrational, not to mention the many
> Asians and other who suffer regularly form their practices in my
> country.

With all due respect, there *is* a "cheap shot" located in your argument
here. Surely you need to take into account the timeline of discovery
in the epidemiological course of AIDS. It is nonsensical to say that
Foucault "consistently refused to belief [sic] in AIDS and safe sex."
Further, the fact that certain people - even 13 years after Foucault's
death, and with better scientific knowledge - engage in risky behavior,
has very little to do with their failure to "believe in" AIDS or safer
sex.

Apart from this example, I think a problem that continues to run through
a lot of this discussion is what truths we are talking about. Clearly
Foucault was mainly intersted in the sorts of truths that float about
within the social sciences. He says very little, if anything?, about the
sorts of basic truths (the existence of HIV or sub-atomic particles or
whatever) that so-called hard science proposes or denies. 

In "Truth and Power," Foucault tries to explain that "by truth I do not 
mean 'the ensemble of truths which are to be discovered and accepted,'
but rather 'the ensemble of rules according to which the true and the
false are separated and specific effects of power attached to the true,'
it being understood also that it's not a matter of a battle 'on behalf'
of the truth, but of a battle about the status of truth and the economic
and political role it plays."  
 
My point here is that Foucault is not simply spouting up to say that you
ought to refuse a belief in all the truths you have been taught - he
never says that Fascism or Naziism didn't exist nor did he deny the
horrendous consequences, as if he were some sort of Holocaust denier or
revisionist. The question, more aptly for him - and I am speculating
here - might be how these historical facts influence (license, prohibit,
legitimate, etc.) the present; that's Foucault's "history of the
present." 

His concern would be more akin to understanding the role that an
awareness of the holocaust and Naziism has on the way people today
govern and are governed (in a local, immediate way) by themselves and 
others. Calling someone a Nazi or raising the spectre of fascism or the
holocaust is extremely widespread. (I think it was on this list, about 2
or 3 years ago, someone had collected all the instances of the holocaust
being used as a metaphor or argument they could find over a few weeks,
and there were literally hundreds. *Everyone* is acting "like Hitler" or
"being a Nazi" these days, it seems.)

Anyway, at the end of the day, I doubt that Foucault's work can ever
tell us whether we ought to censor the Nazis. But at the end of the day,
I doubt whether good old fashioned liberalism can, either. Or Kant. Or
Utilitarianism. Or Hobbes.

Perhaps the difference is that Foucault never claims his work can or
ought to do so. This may be unsatisfying, but I don't think false
promises are ultimately more satisfying. 


> The key question I have yet to have answered is when might a Foucautian act
> and why? 

I'm not sure I count as what you would consider a Foucaultian, but I'm 
probably as close as anyone. I act all the time, and because I am human 
above all. I am influenced by Foucault's work, it is true. But does that
immobilize me? Far from it. Why *wouldn't* I act? I don't get it. The
simple fact is that Foucault's work never denies the relevance - which
is not to say never critiques - other moral and political works. Surely
Kant's work picks out something that has a hold on me and my actions.
Same with utilitarianism. Same with contractarianism. Same with
Aristotle. Same with my knowledge of the holocaust. Same with my
knowledge of AIDS and safer sex. 

Foucault's work helps me to examine the hold that each of these among
others has on my actions, how and why it might influence those actions. 

I think that certain people want to read Foucault as denying the
existence of a Kantian intrinsic human worth, a utilitarian concern with
pain and happiness, the importance of contractarian sociality,
Aristotelian teleology and order, the indescribable horribleness of the
holocaust, the pain and politics of AIDS. Frankly, such denial is not to
be found in Foucault's work. 

Peace,

Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
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