From: "Russell Pearson" <r.pearson-AT-clara.net>
Subject: M-TH: Foucault et al
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 22:14:17 -0000


Yo Thaxists,
I su*bscribe to Thaxis and Science at work and just Thaxis at home- and the
e-mail system at work is pretty primitive which means I miss some threads
(subject headings of mails are not displayed),  so apologies if there's any
crossed wires/postings here.
I'm at home so I'm working from memory on some points that, I believe, Hugh
made regarding Foucault and micro-politics/sociology and also on IT, on M
Science. I reckon that this discussion is best aired here. Hugh stated that
Foucault's theorisation of power was remarkably similar to Marx's,
especially in relation to the 'hidden hand' of social domination via the
market- the market is the par exemplar illustration of domination without a
central point of control. Now I've noted similarities between some points
made by James H's LM and Foucault, particularly around what LM dub the 'New
Authoritarianism' in British politics- that control is via a range of
'taboos' for want of a better word, or better still via acceptable and
unacceptable behaviour/morals/lifestyles etc. eg parents are culpable for
'bad children', car drivers are bad people and 'anti the community', risk
paranoia is restricting political aspiration...

 I find Hugh's defense of micro stuff interesting and also the fact that he
has time for Judith Butler ( I haven't read her more recent work). If I
remember correctly Hugh states that Marxism misses the very points Foucault
and Butler address. Now since I respect Hugh's political nonce, I find this
intriguing. Are yoy moving to a micro analysis which denies the wider
picture- the totality- the whole, the metanarrative or whatever, or are you
as I hope, arguing for a more subtle accomodation. Put bluntly (OK my
favourite devil's advocate tactic) arguing that Foucault was a crypto
Marxist? 
Now for the record I've time for Foucault and for many French wacko
theorists- many of whom knew their Marx far better than their opponents-
Baudrillard, Derrida and Lyotard spring first to mind, but I still go along
with Lefebvre's denunciation of Baudrillard that the theory is a 'wilful
dalliance with nihilism'. From a neo-Lukacsian position (that of _The
Destruction of Reason_ ) we might denounce the lot of them as a bunch of
decadents. But is that valid- (I want neither either/or but and- is this
tenable).

A last point, Hugh made a point about Marxism and IT, that Marxists have
failed to theorise the contradiction in its potential- care to expand in
another mail?

Russ




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