Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 09:02:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: gilchrik-AT-ses.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Re: topical foucault quotes


Okay, just so you know, and don't get annoyed if I ask stupid 
questions, I'm 17, doing first year Cultural & Communication Studies 
at Curtin University in Western Australia, and for one of my classes 
we are currently studying Foucault to interpret the 1960s, but we've 
only just started, so I don't quite understand much of it yet. 
 
 
>>>>'If someone were to ask me how I conceive of what I do, I would 
reply if the strategist is the man who says 'What does this death, 
this cry, this uprising matter in the grand scale of things and what 
does a general principle matter to me in the situation in which we 
find ourselves?' well I don't care whether the strategist is a 
politician, a historian, a revolutionary, a supporter of the Shah or 
of the Ayatolla, my theoretical morality is the opposite. It is 
'antistrategic': to be respectful when a singularity rises up and 
intransigent when power infringes on the universal'Ý (1978xiv) 'Is 
it useless to 
revolt?'<<<<< 

Could someone explain what he means by "singularity" and 
"intransigent"? Does this mean (I know I've got this wrong but hell, 
I'll try anyway) does he mean that he would respect and listen to a 
group that is (for lack of a better word) uprising, but to stay out 
of it himself? But if the uprising people have power that is huge, 
or, universal, that he would stand firm against them? Or is it that 
he would join them if the power is with the people who are dominant 
and the not-uprising people? 
 
 
>>>>>..'terrorism... has a totally opposite effect which is to make 
the bourgeois class even more closely attached to its ideology. ... 
Using terror for revolution : it is a totally contradictory idea ..'Ý 
(1976) 'Le savoir comme crime', in Dits et Ecrits, t. III. Paris: 
Gallimard, 1994.Ý p.83.<<<< 

I would definately say that we can see that in the United States 
right now, very much so. 
 

Karen. 
 


> 
>Could someone explain what he means by "singularity" and 
>"intransigent"? Does this mean (I know I've got this wrong but hell, 
>I'll try anyway) does he mean that he would respect and listen to a 
>group that is (for lack of a better word) uprising, but to stay out 
>of it himself? But if the uprising people have power that is huge, 
>or, universal, that he would stand firm against them? Or is it that 
>he would join them if the power is with the people who are dominant 
>and the not-uprising people? 

Maybe my translation could have been better - Foucault is saying 
here that one should always listen to individual people protesting 
against injustice (eg prisoners or mad people protesting about bad 
conditions in institutions or oppressed people in a dictatorship) and 
take them seriously but at the same time not make any compromises 
under any circumstances when it comes to principles of justice, 
preservation of life and freedom and so on no matter how worthy the 
cause might seem. 

-- 
Clare 
************************************************ 
Clare O'Farrell 
email: panopticon1-AT-iprimus.com.au 
website: http://home.iprimus.com.au/panopticon1/ 
************************************************ 


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