From: BabblePreacher-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 00:46:14 EDT
Subject: Re: [postanarchism] Chomsky on Foucault, Agamben and Negri


I am curious what others of you think of Chomsky's raillery against Foucault 
and intellectualism, here. Compared with Deleuze, Derrida and even some of the 
Frankfurt School writings (hell, even Sartre), Foucault is more readable, as 
far as I can tell (have only read a few of his works, though). The mention of 
Foucault's utilization of the 'old-school' French method of discourse has been 
brought up in many critiques (whether they be positive or negative), but I do 
not see that a comprehensive understanding of it is required to navigate some 
of his more major works ("Madness & Civilization" and "Discipline & Punish", 
for example). Before I knew much of the author, I had read the first, and 
while I certainly had trouble at points, and while there were definitely areas 
which remain out of my field of comprehension, I drew much from that work during 
that reading. Beyond this, though, I prize a certain sort of esotericism in 
works such as these, and see their inaccessibility as something to be heralded, 
not denounced. Television, propaganda, marketing; these all appeal to the 
"masses", strive towards the exoteric simplicity that Chomsky insists is inherent 
in everything. If the "carpenter next door" cannot read Foucault because of 
his style of discourse or his "big words", as Chomsy challenges, I am quite sure 
that if this method were abolished and the big words were shrunken down (if 
the topic were actually susceptible to simplification), the carpenter would 
probably still not care to take up the book - not that this has anything to do 
with carpenters. In other words, I think Chomsky, here, tries, and fails, to 
situate the failure of the appeal of content onto that of form. I doubt that it 
is Hegel's notorious density that shuns a more broad audience, but the subject 
matter itself is of no concern to most people. Are we, then, to devote 
ourselves merely to those topics which all are interested in? Shall philosophy/theory 
try to integrate, as does Zizek, more pop culture, to help "build an 
audience"? I thank Foucault and Derrida and Adorno and Woolf and Kafka for their 
iridescent impenetrability: it helps keep out those who would not care to enter in 
the first place - it has nothing to do with "power", but a sense of pride in 
knowledge, despite the artillery fire that this concept has come under in 
recent years. Intellectualism certainly has its faults, but its esotericism is not 
one of them. For those like Chomsky, who search for the simplification of what 
is such a mess of gordian knots, I recommend the box of fortune cookies in 
Aisle D at the local SUPERmarket.

       phil.

"Connection is not a matter of unbroken transition but a matter of sudden 
change." -Adorno

In a message dated 8/26/2003 10:17:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com writes:

> A: Foucault is an interesting case because I'm sure he
> honestly wants to undermine power but I think with his
> writings he reinforced it. The only way to understand
> Foucault is if you are a graduate student or you are
> attending a university and have been trained in this
> particular style of discourse. That's a way of
> guaranteeing, it might not be his purpose, but that's
> a way of guaranteeing that intellectuals will have
> power, prestige and influence. If something can be
> said simply say it simply, so that the carpenter next
> door can understand you. Anything that is at all well
> understood about human affairs is pretty simple. I
> find Foucault really interesting but I remain
> skeptical of his mode of expression. I find that I
> have to decode him, and after I have decoded him maybe
> I'm missing something. I don't get the significance of
> what I am left with. I have never effectively
> understood what he was talking about. I mean, when I
> try to take the big words he uses and put them into
> words that I can understand and use, it is difficult
> for me to accomplish this task It all strikes me as
> overly convoluted and very abstract. But â what
> happens when you try to skip down to real cases? The
> trouble with Foucault and with this certain kind of
> theory arises when it tries to come down to earth.
> Really, nobody was able to explain to me the
> importance of his work... 


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