File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_2000/foucault.0009, message 32


From: JBCM2-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 12:49:45 EDT
Subject: Re: Lynne Cheney's views on Foucault



More to the point, if David Cheshier, or anyone else, thinks that there's an 
intellectual legitimacy to Lynne Cheney's book, or her argument against 
Foucault, then he or she should state what they think that is.  The fact that 
some folks use Foucault to proselytize to *facilitate emancipatory politics* 
is beside the point, unless one thinks that those who argue for the reverse 
-- that is, politics of slavery -- deserve equal time.  I don't.  
Misrepresentation is misrepresentation, and it certainly doesn't justify 
further misrepresentation.  I know, I know, it's going to happen, the law of 
action and reaction, etc., but I can't imagine why one would waste one's 
time.  Anyone read Buchannan's book lately?

joe brennan

In a message dated 09/23/2000 12:35:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
joudmc-AT-panther.gsu.edu writes:

<< 
 Cheney's book was in fact a best-seller several years back when it first
 appeared.  While she is in many respects a noxious figure on the
 nation's political stage, I recommend that critics at least read her
 argument before casting judgment, that is, if they care enough about
 her politics to do the necessary work.  Yes, the woman has a tendency to
 portray her own positions in strident and cartoonish ways, but then again
 the Nation has every partisan incentive to help her along.
 
 More to the point of this particular list:  I mean this as no criticism of
 Foucauldian scholars, but many dozens, maybe hundreds, have pursued the
 Foucauldian project because of their view that, if properly proselytized,
 his insights would help facilitate emancipatory politics, or at least to
 the precursor emancipation implicit in "unmasking."  If his defenders have
 the right to defend the utopian promise implicit in Foucault's work, then
 his accusers have every right to warn against it, even at the risk of
 ridicule from the editors of the Nation.
 
 David Cheshier
 
  >>

   

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