Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 21:02:14 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com>
Subject: Re: Foucault: a technology of '0' (and vivisection, etc.)



Brad, All

> > My own view on Foucault's work is slightly different: the diagram of disciplinary power does not only
> > represent important constiuent elements of society (the social technologies of panoptican, sexuality,
> > madness, the family, the factory etc), but also indicates the zero points of instability from which
> > change occurs
> snip]
>
> "zero points of instability from which change occurs".  I don't understand this.
> (I wonder if it is a well-formed sentence in the "language" of "postmodernism"?)

I'll unpack this for you. - In its's bare essentials (without going into
the logic of the position, perhaps later) It is from these which
struggle and resistance begin. To be explicit only from the places where
power is in contention. In the present 'higher science' in the form of
genetics or computing are such places, physics probably isn't anymore
given its tendency to utilise myth as a support of propositions ('The
Tao of Physics' indeed!)



> Thus we see that some scientists even go
> so far as to treat themselves as things in pursuit of their
> science.  It is my heartfelt wish that those who wish to
> pursue experiments in psycho-physics would use as
> experimental "subjects" (i.e., *objects*) *only* themselves
> and their peers -- in that way, they would likely fairly
> quickly destroy their mental functioning, and their
> nefarious activity would in this way not only demonstrate its
> self-destructiveness, but also remove itself from -- i.e.,
> remove its threat to -- humanity.

I however believe that this tendency needs study!

> Radiation experimentation seems to me to have an analogy to
> capitalism.  A big problem with capitalism is the availability
> of labor power from other persons than the capitalists themselves.
> A big problem with radiation experimentation is the availability of
> living tissue other than the experimentors themselves.

Science and technology as a pillar of the state objectifies any subject
that it wishes to study. 

sorry 

Brain ruined by post-y2k mode of functioning...

regards 

steve.devos


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