Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 12:28:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matthew King <making-AT-yorku.ca>
Subject: The Foucauldian Left (was: Foucauldian examinations of The Market)


A couple of weeks ago, Wynship (echoing Rorty's harangue on "the
Foucauldian left" in _Achieving Our Country_ and elsewhere) wrote:

> I am nostalgic for the times when political integrity meant more
> than using non-sexist language, publishing clever criticism, and going to 
> protests.

I'm not sure exactly what "more" you have in mind here, but I'd suggest to
you (and Rorty) that a lot of members of "the Foucauldian left" *are*
involved in more kinds of political action than those, even if their
Foucauldian language leaves them without the theoretical tools to justify
other kinds of action (but then, so does a Rortyan language).  Anyway,
what did pre-'68 intellectuals do that was "more than ... going to
protests"?  Not to mention:  what would '68 have been without all those
people going to protests?  Not many people can develop revolutionary
consciousnesses on their own, after all.

> Speaking of Foucault's specific
> intellectual, he did in fact say that this would be the political position 
> par excellance, and that is why I am
> astonished that nobody is playing this role. 

After some of the more recent discussion on the idea of the specific
intellectual, I looked at and thought about some of what Foucault has to
say on the subject--and I'm starting to suspect that the common
understanding holding that Foucault *recommends* the role of specific over
general intellectual is at least somewhat faulty.  I think his claim is
largely a descriptive one, namely that specific intellectuals *are* more
important to politics today than general intellectuals.  The example of
Oppenheimer (which has always jarred me) really underscores this:  the
point there is that Oppenheimer's little bit of privileged knowledge had
astronomical political effects ... whereas the universal knowledge claimed
by someone like Sartre (and indeed like Foucault) had negligible political
effects.  In "Truth and Power", at least, I don't think it's at all clear
that Foucault is happy about this development.

Matthew

 ---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
        "Whatever we have words for, that we have already got beyond.   
                In all talk there is a grain of contempt."
 --------------------------------(Nietzsche)--------------------------------