From: Marcos Peralta <Marcos.Peralta-AT-owen.vanderbilt.edu> Subject: Pinochet and disappeared Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 17:37:58 -0600 Ian, I have some thoughts ... (but not very academic ones) I think that what happened in Chile (as well as in Argentina -my country- and many other South American countries) is a good example of what Foucault says in the first part of your quote. I think that Chile is an extreme example (extreme at least for Americans and western Europeans) of how an specific group can use the different forms of legitimized control (justice, the existence of a military force, regulations about what is moral or not, etc) to support its political hegemony. Further, I think that today the same reasoning applies. Even though I am not a Pinochet supporter, I have to agree that this intent to judge Pinochet is a political act. And sincerely, I don't think that this fact is necesarily bad. Besides this debate around the use of justice as a political tool, I think that there is a much more interesting physics-of-power analysis to be made about the Chilean process such as, how did Chileans build networks to develop opposition activities at their local level of influence? how did they build connections with other nodes? how did Pinochet and his allies confronted the micro-networks that opposed them?. I think that an analysis like this may generate good insights about how to develop strategies at the micro-physic level of power to combat a macro-physic state-driven hegemony. Saludos / Regards Marcos A. Peralta -----Original Message----- From: Ian Robert Douglas [mailto:Ian_Robert_Douglas-AT-Brown.edu] Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 1998 7:43 PM To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Subject: disappeared Does anyone have any thoughts on Pinochet? There is an interesting response from Foucault in _Remarks on Marx_ where he states, "It seems to me that the idea of justice in itself is an idea which in effect has been invented and put to work in different types of societies as an instrument of a certain political and economic power or as a weapon against that power .. One can't .. put these notions forward to justify a fight which should .. overthrow the very fundaments of our society." I'm quoting out of context, of course, but I wonder what Foucault might have said about Pinochet. Or better still--for we shouldn't feel any need to parrot-fashion attempt to use the words he might use--I wonder what people who, like myself, have been deeply influenced by his force of thinking and intervention think about this immediate issue. best wishes/sincerely, ____________________________________________ Ian Robert Douglas, Watson Institute of International Studies, Brown University, Box 1831, 130 Hope Street, Providence, RI 02912 tel: 401 863-2420 fax: 401 863-2192 "Above all, we must keep firmly in mind what it means to be a human being." - Kierkegaard
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005