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Alright. Thread. I’m gonna point by point here. Sentence by sentence. Let’s go. https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1339877451393077249
The utilization of Foucault’s preface to Anti-Oedipus is an odd one and doesn’t indicate anything about Foucault but instead about Foucault’s reading of Deleuze and Guattari, but I’ll let it slide... 1/x
To say Foucault said “do not seek power” misses the point of Foucault’s power analytic. But, he also didn’t say that. He said don’t become “enamored” with power in that preface. Which is fundamentally different.
address the comment about “rejecting hierarchies”:
Foucault engages in an epistemological critique of the presuppositional assertions that establish and maintain particular forms of suppression, discipline, corporeal categorization, so on. Again, your analysis misses the point
Foucault engages in an epistemological critique of the presuppositional assertions that establish and maintain particular forms of suppression, discipline, corporeal categorization, so on. Again, your analysis misses the point
“Do not embrace an overarching political goal”?
Just Google “Foucault GIP” and that’s it. You’re done.
But I think you’re playing a game with the word “overarching,” you sly dog. I’ll deal with that too, give you the real reasoned response you deserve.
Just Google “Foucault GIP” and that’s it. You’re done.
But I think you’re playing a game with the word “overarching,” you sly dog. I’ll deal with that too, give you the real reasoned response you deserve.
If an “overarching political goal” means commitment to some sort of meta historical notion of liberation, then yes Foucault is skeptical of that. But to conflate that with a call for political inaction is just... wrong. So goddamn wrong.
“Reject the idea that negativity is politically effective”
Man, this one’s intellectually pernicious. Again, you’re reading his interpretation of D&G and then just making it a straw man for Foucault. So many issues here. Yes, to Foucault power is productive, not purely negative.
Man, this one’s intellectually pernicious. Again, you’re reading his interpretation of D&G and then just making it a straw man for Foucault. So many issues here. Yes, to Foucault power is productive, not purely negative.
To your quotation of Foucault’s statement about “de-individualization”
For this one you have to actually read Deleuze and Guattari. From the get go, your choice of text is flawed. This is a preface to someone else’s work. But I’ll try to explain.
For this one you have to actually read Deleuze and Guattari. From the get go, your choice of text is flawed. This is a preface to someone else’s work. But I’ll try to explain.
The de-individualization is not some sort of abandonment of individuality, but a call for a perpetual fusion of groups. D&G are remarkably receptive to Sartre’s analysis of group formation in Critique of Dialectical Reason (which any good comrade should know).
I’m ignoring your comment about sad passions because, on principle, I’ll save you the discussion on Nietzsche. Let’s get to the real content of your page here.
Have Foucault’s (D&G’s) commandments been wildly adopted? I find the left is still stagnated where it was after 1968. I don’t think there’s a lot to indicate that Foucault’s critique of confinement has been taken to heart. The US prison system has expanded since 1975, for example
This critique of horizontalism is worth pursuing, but again it’s targeted at D&G. You’re not even sure who you’re critiquing here. But I’ll try to defend D&G from your blind shots in the dark.
This critique of D&G on the basis that companies employ horizontal methods of control is not incompatible with AO. The molecular counterrevolution, to steal from Andrew Culp, goes hand in hand with the society of control. You should listen to our podcast about it!
To address Foucault’s “logical problem”, as you say:
Foucault isn’t trying to dissolve individuality. He is attempting to expose the way in which power alters how we engage with ourselves as individuals. But again, you’re talking about a preface to another person’s work...
Foucault isn’t trying to dissolve individuality. He is attempting to expose the way in which power alters how we engage with ourselves as individuals. But again, you’re talking about a preface to another person’s work...
I’m gonna ignore the insulting fumble of the death of man.Your notion of ethics is tied to some idea of universalized “man”. You have to justify that. You can’t just lament Foucault, you have to justify an ethics based around an understanding subjects as totalized singularities.
To your point about Foucault’s Care of the Self.
1. This isn’t a call for “virtue ethics”. It’s an analysis of how they impact the formation of subjects.
2. CHRISTIAN VIRTUE ETHICS, GREEK ETHICS, AND ROMAN ETHICS ARE ALL RADICALLY DIFFERENT. THAT’S THE POINT OF THE BOOOOOOKS!
1. This isn’t a call for “virtue ethics”. It’s an analysis of how they impact the formation of subjects.
2. CHRISTIAN VIRTUE ETHICS, GREEK ETHICS, AND ROMAN ETHICS ARE ALL RADICALLY DIFFERENT. THAT’S THE POINT OF THE BOOOOOOKS!
You don’t actually know what care of the self means here. You just throw a baseless polemic. Epimeleia heautou, is a process of taking stock of oneself, returning to oneself and knowing oneself. It can be the basis of beginning of a radical break from power. It’s quite beautiful.
But you don’t care to actually read it. You’re here to lament. To whine. To cry. To wallow. Foucault didn’t destroy left activism.
Read who you critique. OR AT LEAST KNOW WHAT YOURE CITING, MY GOODNESS.
Read who you critique. OR AT LEAST KNOW WHAT YOURE CITING, MY GOODNESS.