Foucault's Private Life

[Omar Haneef '96]

David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
>
> Foucault's Private Life
>
> When I was eighteen I had a summer to kill between a period spent
> abroad and my freshman year at college in the US. During the day, I
> life guarded and waited tables. At night I worked for a place called
> Public Interest Communications in Falls Church, Virginia. I had a
> little Yamaha, and Rt. 7 was nearly empty at that hour. The job was
> telefundraising, calling first to the East Coast, and working our way
> west as the night went on, trying to interrupt as many dinners as
> possible. We had records of people's past donations, and angled for
> amounts on that basis. We were working for the Democratic party,
> NARAL, the Audubon Society, Amnesty International, and a half dozen
> other groups of that sort. Only if asked did we inform our victims
> that we were not employed full-time by the organization we happened to
> be calling for at the moment. We worked at little cubicles with
> headsets on, flipping though pages and pages of people, keeping a tally
> of our failures and successes. Now and then (actually I only remember
> its happening once to me, though it also happened to others) a
> supervisor would come over and offer advice, revealing that he had been
> listening in on our last calls. We all knew, then, quite clearly
> (though I never gave it any thought) that someone might be listening in
> on our work at any time. The one occasion on which this entered my
> mind was when a potential donor informed me that he could not support
> Amnesty International so long as we (I was Amnesty International)
> opposed capital punishment. I did not tell him that we could do
> without murderers' money anyway, and did not because someone might have
> been listening.
>
> According to Foucault, at least as he is commonly understood, I ought
> to have been quite bothered by the invisible observation, and bothered
> especially because of its omnipresence and its very invisibility.

Does Foucault think you ought to be bothered? I didn't realise he
did. I thought the point he would want to make about this sort of survellance
is what it says about "our" notions of personhood. Specifically, that this sort
of surveillance leads to self-serveillance, you actually become the honest
hard worker they want you to become. He would also say that this is a
POSITIVE (in the sense of productive) transformation, that without it the
focus, hard work or whatever you need to carry out certain tasks in society
would not be possible.

I thought that Foucault would say it is inevitable.

-Omar

[David Swanson]

Foucault's Private Life

especially because of its omnipresence and its very invisibility. In
his account of Foucault in "Literature Against Philosophy," Mark
Edmundson describes an office of airline ticket agents working jobs
quite similar to mine. In fact, he seems to be describing an actual
office on which he has gathered information. He speculates that not
knowing when the boss is listening in

"probably induces a good deal of speculation. Based on various clues,
on gossip, maybe even on coordinated attempts to gather information,
the bookers at their terminals will arrive at some idea about
management's tactics. They'll have a sense of when the supervisor is
likely to be on line. But that sense will be tentative, always prey to
doubts. What if management gathers some intelligence on the bookers'
lore and changes its procedures? Or what if the workers' information
is simply wrong? Always there's a guessing game going on, a game in
which the worker tries to psych out the company."

By the time he reaches that last sentence, Edmundson has dropped the
words "probably," and "maybe even." But has he asked any managers
whether this cat and mouse game really exists? One suspects not, and
wonders why not. I saw nothing remotely similar at my job. It's true
that I was making more money than these bookers, and making it on
commission, not by the hour. It's true that I was interested in my
work, and that it was only part time. But many of my fellow employees
had been there for years, came pretty well exclusively for the money,
and depended on this work to survive. Not once did I hear of any
annoyance at being listened in on. The reason Edmundson expects such
annoyance is that he assumes the workers have something to hide. Is
that a reasonable assumption?

Edmundson might reply that were it not, the observation would never
have been instituted. But that is far from certain. Foucault, more
than I, is ready to blame such observation on will-to-power, and such a
motivation does not wait for other reasons. But this is not to the
point. If a worker has nothing to hide, then the observation will be a
barely noticeable annoyance. I am speaking here from experience. If
you have something to hide, then the question we need to ask is what
you have to hide. Perhaps it is something you ought to be permitted to
show, perhaps it is something you ought not to possess.

Let's be clear. Preventing workers from organizing, from talking to
each other, is not in the least defensible. We are not discussing such
matters. We are here examining something specific, not "privacy," not
"independence," but quite specifically unseen listening in on the phone
lines of tele-employees.

Is there any evidence that people are as bothered by such observation
as Foucault thinks they should be? Presumably the answer Foucault
would give is that THAT is precisely his point. They ought to become
bothered. But how desirable a goal is that? On what grounds does one
advocate making people miserable?

When I was little, my father would give me a task to do, and stand over
me waiting for me to do it, ready to interfere should I begin to do
anything ever so slightly out of line with what was expected. I
resented this. When I was in college, I finished a test early and was
told to stay in the room because another group was out in the hall
waiting to take the same test. I left the room and accepted the 'F' as
a badge of honor. When someone is observing me, I am so purposefully
indifferent to it as to not avoid something that I know will
misleadingly look bad. This is clearly some sort of fight against
surveillance. But these are specific cases. We can talk about what it
is in these cases that I am objecting to. In a nutshell, I am least
bothered by that observation which is the least personal. I find the
least annoyance precisely where Foucault wants me to be most enraged.
Video cameras on the corners of buildings, fingerprint readers on bank
machines, tele-managers listening in: what is at stake here? If I were
a criminal, or if I wanted to cheat my employer, I could see drawbacks.
But if the problem is something called "privacy," I need an
explanation of what that means.

Edmundson goes on to praise the magnificent joy of artistic creation,
but does not say how this applies to airline ticket agents. Their jobs
are horrible, overly monotonous, overly stressful, underpaid. We can
probably all agree on that. But is such work made more horrible by
hidden observation, and more horrible to the workers as opposed to more
horrible to English professors?

David

"What, in this moment of cusp, did the progressives do? They rallied,
God bless their little pea heads, behind Ralph Nader. Nader is the
nadir. He represents the end of left-liberalism, the personification
of holy self-marginalization." Michael Kelly

[moggin]

David --

This has nothing to do with Foucault -- it's just a sequel to your earlier
campaign against the Bill of Rights (the U.S. one, I mean). Last summer or
thereabouts you went after the 5th Amendment (self-incrimination). Now
you're going after the 4th (search and seizure). And you're making exactly
the same argument -- the one that boils down to saying, "Honest folks don't
_need_ rights!"

If you keep on, sometime this winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and
ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be required to house soldiers? Decent people
would be glad to, and anyone who would refuse is treasonous. So why do we
need a _law_ about it? Give up your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What
could be more fair?"

-- moggin

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0212...@user-37kb94f.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

I'm glad to hear this has nothing to do with Foucault. I take that to
mean that what bothers him is not just difficulties placed in the way
of crime (though there is that problem he has with prisons...). On the
other hand, I wish someone would tell me what it IS that bothers the
man.

I think the two points you bring up are even closer than you suggest.
The right to remain silent on a witness stand and have that silence
"ignored" can, so far as I can see, only be defended by reference to
some mysterious stuff called "privacy." This seems to be the same
stuff we're addressing in the telephone matter, if we're saying
anything at all.

The first point has, of course, nothing to do with not wanting to
discourage police corruption, just as the second has nothing to do with
discouraging labor organizing.

The bit about housing soldiers, if nothing else, suggests how out of
date your holy document has become.

[moggin]

mog...@mindspring.com (moggin):

>> This has nothing to do with Foucault -- it's just a sequel to your earlier
>> campaign against the Bill of Rights (the U.S. one, I mean). Last summer or
>> thereabouts you went after the 5th Amendment (self-incrimination). Now
>> you're going after the 4th (search and seizure). And you're making exactly
>> the same argument -- the one that boils down to saying, "Honest folks don't
>> _need_ rights!"

>> If you keep on, sometime this winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and
>> ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be required to house soldiers? Decent people
>> would be glad to, and anyone who would refuse is treasonous. So why do we
>> need a _law_ about it? Give up your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What
>> could be more fair?"

dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson):

>I'm glad to hear this has nothing to do with Foucault. I take that to
>mean that what bothers him is not just difficulties placed in the way
>of crime (though there is that problem he has with prisons...). On the
>other hand, I wish someone would tell me what it IS that bothers the
>man.

Why don't you read him and find out? That way you wouldn't have to rely
on second-hand accounts, discuss "Foucault, as he is commonly understood,"
or speculate about what he "presumably" would say. Wait a minute -- you
_have_ read him -- you just like to pretend differently. How come?

>I think the two points you bring up are even closer than you suggest.
>The right to remain silent on a witness stand and have that silence
>"ignored" can, so far as I can see, only be defended by reference to

>some mysterious stuff called "privacy." If I were a criminal, or if I

>wanted to cheat my employer, I could see drawbacks. But if the problem
>is something called "privacy," I need an explanation of what that means.

During the discussion of the 5th Amendment, you were offered several
explanations that didn't rely on privacy -- yet now you're claiming it's a
necessary element in any defense. Anyway, if it's so mysterious to you,
how can you say:

In a nutshell, I am least bothered by that observation which is the least
personal. I find the least annoyance precisely where Foucault wants me
to be most enraged. Video cameras on the corners of buildings, fingerprint
readers on bank machines, tele-managers listening in: what is at stake
here?"

Where Foucault wants you to be "enraged"? That doesn't sound like any of
the Foucault I've read. Got a cite? But more to the point, you're drawing a
distinction between public and private when you say that what bothers you
the least is specifically "the least personal." All your examples of things
that don't bother you are from the public realm. What _would_ bother you,
it follows, are video cameras in your bedroom or wiretaps on your phone --
that is, violations of your personal life -- which is to say, of your privacy.
Not only do you understand the concept, you adopt it -- you're not attacking
the concept of "privacy," which you rely on when you invoke "the personal."
You just want to place strict limits on its application by drawing a sharp
distinction between the private and the public spheres. (Oddly enough, the
same thing you criticize Rorty for.)

If I'm wrong about that, then you must _not_ object to cameras over your
bed or taps on your phone. By your reasoning, there isn't any basis for an
objection -- "privacy" is a meaningless concept, and only criminals would
protest surveillence, since they're the only ones with something to hide --
as an honest, law-abiding citizen, you should welcome the police into each
and every corner of your life. If you've rejected the concept of privacy, you
can't very well say, "Hey, get out of there -- that's _personal_!"

[...]

>The bit about housing soldiers, if nothing else, suggests how out of
>date your holy document has become.

I haven't either treated it as holy or claimed it as mine -- so please
cart those strawmen away. But let's not wait 'til the weather gets cold
-- go ahead and attack the 3rd Amendment right now. Or else explain
why you won't. You've suddenly made it relevant again.

-- moggin

[David Swanson]

In article <E1uL8...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:

> some mysterious stuff called "privacy."

Let me clarify. I shouldn't call privacy mysterious. I am not
speaking of something like "desert" that I just can't seem to make any
use of one way or another. I am not giving a Wittgensteinian argument
against the possibility of private language. Privacy seems to me a
perfectly coherent concept even when taken to mean a desire for keeping
secrets purely for the sake of keeping secrets. My bewilderment arises
in trying to understand why anyone would have such a desire.

[Ron Hardin]

David Swanson wrote:
> Let me clarify. I shouldn't call privacy mysterious. I am not
> speaking of something like "desert" that I just can't seem to make any
> use of one way or another. I am not giving a Wittgensteinian argument
> against the possibility of private language. Privacy seems to me a
> perfectly coherent concept even when taken to mean a desire for keeping
> secrets purely for the sake of keeping secrets. My bewilderment arises
> in trying to understand why anyone would have such a desire.

Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, p.21

The catastrophe I anticipate, controversially, is of course the event
or advent of skepticism, conceived now as precipitating not alone a
structure each individual is driven by, or resists, but as incorporating
a public history in the modern period, in principle awaiting a historical
explanation for its specific onset in, say, Shakespeare and Descartes. Such
a history will doubtless include the matter of the rise of the new science;
the consequent and precedent attenuation or displacement of God; the
attenuation of the concept of Divine Right; the preparation for the demand
of political legitimatation by individual consent - call this the exaction
of a personal willingness to be governed in common, as if one is becoming
responsible for the political world, unless one abdicates. Hegel says
with the birth of Christianity a new subjectivity enters the world. I want
to say that with the birth of skepticism, hence of modern philosophy,
a new intimacy, or wish for it, enters the world; call it privacy shared
(not shared with the public, but from it). I suppose this is registered,
among other places, in the history of marriage, in the shift from politically
arranged to romantically desired marriage. Here is a reasonable way to
consider what is enacted in Antony and Cleopatra in the shift from Rome
to Egypt...
--
Ron Hardin
r...@research.att.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

[Andy Perry]

In article <E1sqJ...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:

>Is there any evidence that people are as bothered by such observation
>as Foucault thinks they should be? Presumably the answer Foucault
>would give is that THAT is precisely his point. They ought to become
>bothered. But how desirable a goal is that? On what grounds does one
>advocate making people miserable?

The issue isn't making people miserable. The issue is making people
people. Foucault doesn't think people should be bothered by this
observation. He thinks that this observation is the mechanism which
creates the modern soul. Which presumably, for a Nietzschean, is not a
wholely bad thing. It's the ultimate mixed blessing, really.

The most useful way to conceive of Foucault's project (IMHO) is as a
genealogy of personhood. His major point is that personhood is not a
neutral, universal, category, a shapeless container. Rather, individuals
are produced as subjects in different ways in different times: personhood
just looks different at different moments in history. Discipline, as the
key mechanism in personhood's current incarnation, is the thing Foucault
focuses on.

Now, why do you think that Foucault wants people to be disturbed by his project?
--
Andy Perry We search before and after,
Brown University We pine for what is not.
English Department Our sincerest laughter
Andrew...@brown.edu OR With some pain is fraught.
st00...@brownvm.bitnet -- Shelley, d'apres Horace Rumpole

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0312...@user-37kb947.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

> mog...@mindspring.com (moggin):
>
> >> This has nothing to do with Foucault -- it's just a sequel to your earlier
> >> campaign against the Bill of Rights (the U.S. one, I mean). Last summer or
> >> thereabouts you went after the 5th Amendment (self-incrimination). Now
> >> you're going after the 4th (search and seizure). And you're making exactly
> >> the same argument -- the one that boils down to saying, "Honest folks don't
> >> _need_ rights!"
>
> >> If you keep on, sometime this winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and
> >> ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be required to house soldiers? Decent people
> >> would be glad to, and anyone who would refuse is treasonous. So why do we
> >> need a _law_ about it? Give up your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What
> >> could be more fair?"
>
> dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson):
>
> >I'm glad to hear this has nothing to do with Foucault. I take that to
> >mean that what bothers him is not just difficulties placed in the way
> >of crime (though there is that problem he has with prisons...). On the
> >other hand, I wish someone would tell me what it IS that bothers the
> >man.
>
> Why don't you read him and find out? That way you wouldn't have to rely
> on second-hand accounts, discuss "Foucault, as he is commonly understood,"
> or speculate about what he "presumably" would say. Wait a minute -- you
> _have_ read him -- you just like to pretend differently. How come?

Moggin, strawmen are one thing. You don't need to accuse me of
pretense. I can't make any sense out of the lunatic. I'm asking for
help. There's a crowd of authors buzzin' around who CLAIM to know what
he's all about. I can't even make any sense out of them.

>
> >I think the two points you bring up are even closer than you suggest.
> >The right to remain silent on a witness stand and have that silence
> >"ignored" can, so far as I can see, only be defended by reference to

> >some mysterious stuff called "privacy." If I were a criminal, or if I

> >wanted to cheat my employer, I could see drawbacks. But if the problem
> >is something called "privacy," I need an explanation of what that means.
>

> During the discussion of the 5th Amendment, you were offered several
> explanations that didn't rely on privacy -- yet now you're claiming it's a
> necessary element in any defense. Anyway, if it's so mysterious to you,
> how can you say:

I was? Some cop accused me of promoting torture. That's all I got out
of that discussion. And that's putting it generously. I am not
interested in either defending or condemning encouraging or
discouraging forcing a suspect to talk in a police station. It's a
strawman topic and deserves a bottle of kerosene with a match. I
wanted and still want to talk about putting a defendant on the witness
stand. If you want to discuss housing soldiers I'll need another beer.

>
> In a nutshell, I am least bothered by that observation which is the least
> personal. I find the least annoyance precisely where Foucault wants me
> to be most enraged. Video cameras on the corners of buildings, fingerprint
> readers on bank machines, tele-managers listening in: what is at stake
> here?"
>

> Where Foucault wants you to be "enraged"? That doesn't sound like any of
> the Foucault I've read. Got a cite? But more to the point, you're drawing a
> distinction between public and private when you say that what bothers you
> the least is specifically "the least personal." All your examples of things
> that don't bother you are from the public realm. What _would_ bother you,
> it follows, are video cameras in your bedroom or wiretaps on your phone --
> that is, violations of your personal life -- which is to say, of your privacy.
> Not only do you understand the concept, you adopt it -- you're not attacking
> the concept of "privacy," which you rely on when you invoke "the personal."
> You just want to place strict limits on its application by drawing a sharp
> distinction between the private and the public spheres. (Oddly enough, the
> same thing you criticize Rorty for.)

Hey, this is fun. Next time I want to know what I think, I won't
bother with that introspection crap. I'll just ask moggin. Look, I
said "personal" not "private" because I meant things relating to
specific facts about myself. I meant that when a friend observes me to
make sure I don't steal anything out of his room, it pisses me off no
end. I couldn't care less if somebody wants to put cameras in my room
or wiretaps on my phone, except that it wouldn't be fair to people who
call me or ....

>
> If I'm wrong about that, then you must _not_ object to cameras over your
> bed or taps on your phone. By your reasoning, there isn't any basis for an
> objection -- "privacy" is a meaningless concept, and only criminals would
> protest surveillence, since they're the only ones with something to hide --
> as an honest, law-abiding citizen, you should welcome the police into each
> and every corner of your life. If you've rejected the concept of privacy, you
> can't very well say, "Hey, get out of there -- that's _personal_!"

I don't want police searching my house without reason, because the
reason then (and there WOULD be one) would probably be sadistic
mischief, and they'd be liable to make a mess, and my dog wouldn't like
it. Similarly, I have no desire to go on "Oprah" and relate the most
embarrassing sex-related moment of my life, because that forum disgusts
me. I'd happily describe such a moment in a novel.

>
> [...]
>
> >The bit about housing soldiers, if nothing else, suggests how out of
> >date your holy document has become.
>
> I haven't either treated it as holy or claimed it as mine -- so please
> cart those strawmen away. But let's not wait 'til the weather gets cold
> -- go ahead and attack the 3rd Amendment right now. Or else explain
> why you won't. You've suddenly made it relevant again.
>
> -- moggin

Hell, let's run through the Bill o' Rights. I have stated that I side
with the other 48 states (excluding the two Virginias) in allowing
churches to incorporate. Why in blue blazes not? Let 'em incorporate
their hearts out. George Mason lived in a different era for sweet
Jesus' sake. That's numero uno. I support the Brady Bill and such
like. That's the Second. The Army has no desire to bed soldiers in my
house, and what would we talk about anyway? That's 3. #4 is speaking
about the government, not my former employers in a job I took
voluntarily. Let's leave that one be. "Compelled" decides the whole
question of #5. I have no desire to forcibly open jaws and manipulate
tongues (at least not with most of the criminals I've seen lately). I
simply want to treat silence as meaningful. Double jeopardy is the
biggest crock in the history of crocks as long as we have "criminal"
and "civil" trials. Ecco il quinto. I want to expand number 6 to
mandate the provision of public representation for all defendants, even
rich ones. If you think Amendment 7 still means something, I've got a
bridge to... Amendment 8 can stand proud. 9 means nothing. Same with
10.

Ca va?

[cullen]

David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
: In article <E1uL8...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
: dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:

: against the possibility of private language. Privacy seems to me a

: perfectly coherent concept even when taken to mean a desire for keeping
: secrets purely for the sake of keeping secrets. My bewilderment arises
: in trying to understand why anyone would have such a desire.

It seems that, for you, "privacy" is a desire for only those classes of
people you define as "criminals" or "deviants" - people whose activities
are such that they would wish to conceal them. People who wish to conceal
their activities, it follows, are precisely the ones who *should* be
watched - and people who don't wish to conceal their activities need not
worry.
The problem, to me, is that the individual does not have much of
a choice when it comes to whether they are perceived as a criminal or a
deviant. There is a very, very fine line between the criminal and the
normal person, and it often has nothing to do with personal, moral(or
ethical) choices. If you have forgotten to pay a traffic violation, you
can become a wanted person. If you are putting up political posters or
conducting similar activity displeasing to the law, you can be pursued as
a criminal - and all of the technology at hand for pursuing the
"criminal" is now available for pursuing you.
The omnipresence of surveillance means that not only, however,
will people have a tendency to no longer partake in these "fringe"
activities - stealing paper from work, not paying tickets, creating
political public disturbances, etc. - but it means that the fear of
surveillance will begin to infringe on the "legal" realm as well - that
is, people will avoid doing things that *seem* "illegal" or "immoral" -
things that *might* be "frowned upon" or "look bad down the line." People
not only internalize the current demands of the surveilling class, but
anticipate what "might" be desired.
You can see where this leads, and why it's such a fearful sight
for a Foucauldian, interested as s/he would be in the liberation of
desire...

--
--
Left Deviation
http://hamp.hampshire.edu/~cmnF93/revolution.html
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

[Julie Chason]

cmn...@hamp.hampshire.edu (cullen) writes:

>things that *might* be "frowned upon" or "look bad down the line." People
>not only internalize the current demands of the surveilling class, but
>anticipate what "might" be desired.
> You can see where this leads, and why it's such a fearful sight
>for a Foucauldian, interested as s/he would be in the liberation of
>desire...

Hmm. There are no doubt Foucauldians interested in "the liberation of
desire," but this just doesn't sound like something one would
(accurately) say about what Foucault wrote. Check out the first couple
of chapters of the first volume of the History of Sexuality, in which
he discusses how desire became a matter for (self-)inspection, and for
confession. I don't think that he posed the liberation of desire as
a goal. A questions that I would consider more Foucauldian would be:
At what point does the notion of desire as something that can and should be
liberated arise?

Similarly, I don't see at all that Foucault expresses moral outrage over
the development of surveillance and self surveillance during the past
few centuries. One thing he *does* do is show that
inspection/surveillance/examination has become distributed (I mean lacking
a central source) because it has become internalized. And if this is so,
then who exactly are you going to be outraged against? I'm not even sure
that "internalized" is an appropriate term to use; that almost implies that
there has been some sort of invasion of the self by outside forces at the
same time that it presupposes a self acting as both object and
agent, yada, yada, yada (I think it's getting past my bedtime).

I almost hate to bring the topic up, but if Foucault had been more willing
to examine how we can all throw off our shackles, or at least who to throw
rocks at, a certain MIT linguist would not have accused MF of nihilism.
I believe our badboy MiFo said something like, "pardon me, but you are
asking the wrong questions."

I should go back and read the History of Sexuality some more; I would like
to think about how it is that the West (or my little corner of it)
got from the Confessions of St. Augustine, the Panopticon, the diaries of
Puritans seeking purity, subjectivity in the 18th century novel, and the dream
journals of Freud to..."Cops" and "Oprah"???????

Sleep tight, y'all.

Julie

[Ted Samsel]

moggin (mog...@mindspring.com) wrote:
:
: If you keep on, sometime this winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and

: ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be required to house soldiers? Decent people
: would be glad to, and anyone who would refuse is treasonous. So why do we
: need a _law_ about it? Give up your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What
: could be more fair?"

Hey, with the big flap over the misuse of the recently issued American
Express cards by NCOs & enlisted men, one coulda prolly made some
dinero while being asked to quarter troops in one's house.

"let me validate that, Spec 4"

--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net "Took all the money I had in the bank,
Bought a rebuilt carburetor,
put the rest in the tank."
USED CARLOTTA.. 1995

[David Swanson]

While we're revising the Constitution, let's take a look at those three
allegedly different governmental branches. The Supreme Court is
different from the legislature, but it is different because it is
formed by appointments and life-terms. It is not different because it
measures laws against some preexisting standard. That pretense has had
its day.

There's an article on Justice Kennedy in the Nov 11th New Yorker, and
if you don't mind sifting through the accounts of what sort of wine he
drinks, etc., etc., you'll find there some pretty curious notions on
law and morality. Jeffrey Rosen is eager to praise (without
explanation) what he sees as Kennedy's unwillingness to apply his
"personal beliefs" to the law. Kennedy encourages this view of what he
does, claiming that one must make decisions that one does not like.
But when pressed, Kennedy explains that he has said there would be no
abortions in his family because in his family the child would be cared
for, and that he will not criminalize abortion because not all children
born will be cared for. Kennedy also states explicitly, on another
occasion, that what he bases his decisions on is his morality.

Why, then, does Kennedy speak of making decisions he himself does not
like? What can he possibly mean by that? And what is Rosen thinking
when he praises what he perceives as Kennedy's ability to separate his
beliefs from his decisions? One answer to this last question is, of
course, that Rosen is a liberal and would like all conservatives to
separate their beliefs from their actions. Well, so would I. But why
should conservatives want that? As it happens, most conservatives seem
extraordinarily upset with Justice Kennedy for this noble habit of his.
Why don't they get it? Why can't they accept that he's putting aside
everything he dearly cares about and acting on some other basis for the
common good? I'd suggest that they don't get it because there's
nothing there to get. Whether Kennedy would encourage his
granddaughter to have an abortion is simply a DIFFERENT question from
whether Kennedy thinks abortion should be criminalized. There is no
reason in the world to expect an answer to one to lead to a particular
answer to the other.

[David Swanson]

In article <32A4A0...@research.att.com>
Ron Hardin <r...@research.att.com> writes:

> David Swanson wrote:
> > Let me clarify. I shouldn't call privacy mysterious. I am not
> > speaking of something like "desert" that I just can't seem to make any
> > use of one way or another. I am not giving a Wittgensteinian argument

> > against the possibility of private language. Privacy seems to me a
> > perfectly coherent concept even when taken to mean a desire for keeping
> > secrets purely for the sake of keeping secrets. My bewilderment arises
> > in trying to understand why anyone would have such a desire.
>

> Cavell, Disowning Knowledge, p.21

I like Cavell. I've been reading a copy of "The Claim of Reason," in
which Rorty has scribbled some illuminating comments, which I would
love to quote, but won't since I haven't asked Rorty if I can, and I
respect his PRIVACY. I've looked for a published review by Rorty, but
haven't found one. Cavell has an admirable style of writing which I
have yet to really get a handle on.

>
> The catastrophe I anticipate, controversially, is of course the event
> or advent of skepticism, conceived now as precipitating not alone a
> structure each individual is driven by, or resists, but as incorporating
> a public history in the modern period, in principle awaiting a historical
> explanation for its specific onset in, say, Shakespeare and Descartes.

This from a man who has read Dewey as carefully as Cavell has?
Doesn't he know the wait is over?

Such
> a history will doubtless include the matter of the rise of the new science;

Yep.

> the consequent and precedent attenuation or displacement of God;

Yep.

the
> attenuation of the concept of Divine Right;

Yep.

the preparation for the demand
> of political legitimatation by individual consent - call this the exaction
> of a personal willingness to be governed in common, as if one is becoming
> responsible for the political world, unless one abdicates.

Yep. Cf. Dewey.

Hegel says
> with the birth of Christianity a new subjectivity enters the world. I want
> to say that with the birth of skepticism, hence of modern philosophy,
> a new intimacy, or wish for it, enters the world; call it privacy shared
> (not shared with the public, but from it). I suppose this is registered,
> among other places, in the history of marriage, in the shift from politically
> arranged to romantically desired marriage.

Exactly!

Here is a reasonable way to
> consider what is enacted in Antony and Cleopatra in the shift from Rome
> to Egypt...

Good comment.

> --
> Ron Hardin
> r...@research.att.com
>
> On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

[Ron Hardin]

David Swanson wrote:
> Yep. Cf. Dewey.

Cavell's most extended treatment of Dewey is in Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome,
p.13-16, with Rorty in it too; and in interesting page 168 in A Pitch of Philosophy;
in both cases involving Emerson. The phrase from the latter, Dewey's inability to
bury Emerson's words in his own..., being the keynote.

I haven't read Dewey so am just pointing at interesting places.

Conditions Handsome, p. 14, ``Rorty's placement of Dewey in the company of
Wittgenstein and of Heidegger, whose voices have seemed to me to eclipse
Dewey's, has been achieved, so I might put the matter, at the expense of
giving up the question of the question of philosophy, of what it is, if
anything, that calls for philosophy now, in favor or an idea that we are,
or should be, past interest in the distinctions between philosophy and other
modes of thought or of the presentation of thought. (An expense too high
for me; for Rorty a gift.)'' He goes on to express gratitude to Rorty etc.

The call for philosophy has to do with keeping the temptation of skepticism
alive, as in Wittgenstein. Incidentally there are fine readings of Wittgenstein
in Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome -

[jjohn...@aol.com]

For the criminal, for the person who has something to hide, there is
obviously a material advantage in advocating a right to privacy. For the
innocent person, on the other hand, the issue is one of trust. The
criminal expects suspicion from others, but the innocent person does not.
People who trust each other do not need to surreptitiously observe each
other, and to suggest that spying is necessary is to create an adversarial
relationship. When random inspections are instituted, it means that the
situation between employer and employee or between government and citizen
has deteriorated to the level of Cold War hositilities between the US and
USSR. When applying for a job resembles negotiating an arms control
agreement, the workplace has become dysfunctional.

The right to privacy is a manifestation of respect due to citizens living
in a free state and ought to be demanded by any law-abiding person. The
quiet breathing of your boss on another phone is a loud declaration that
you are not worthy of his trust. In the absence of trust there can only
exist a Hobbesian war of all against all, under which the life of man is
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

--Jeff Johnson

[Maynard Handley]

In article <583ehi$b...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, jch...@s.psych.uiuc.edu
(Julie Chason) wrote:

> I should go back and read the History of Sexuality some more; I would like
> to think about how it is that the West (or my little corner of it)
> got from the Confessions of St. Augustine, the Panopticon, the diaries of
> Puritans seeking purity, subjectivity in the 18th century novel, and the dream
> journals of Freud to..."Cops" and "Oprah"???????
>

I am not qualified to discuss anything about Foucalt, but I suspect the
answer to the questioned posed above is somewhat simpler, in that I
suspect the kinds of things that go in in "Cops" and "Oprah" have always
been with us, and have always been of interest to the commoners, but until
very recently the commoners did not have much to do with generating the
material that we view as history. Writing was hard work, took a long time,
and would live on after you died---you damn well were going to write
something worthwhile. Even if you were interested in with whom your
neighbor was sleeping, you'd discuss that in ethereal words, not commit it
to parchment.

Of course if there were evidence that I'm wrong, that the _average_
Roman/Frank/Elizabethan was NOT interested in the local gossip, mostly the
sex and violence of other people, that would be interesting indeed. But I
know of no such evidence.

Maynard

--
My opinion only

[moggin]

moggin:

>> Why don't you read him and find out? That way you wouldn't have to rely
>> on second-hand accounts, discuss "Foucault, as he is commonly understood,"
>> or speculate about what he "presumably" would say. Wait a minute -- you
>> _have_ read him -- you just like to pretend differently. How come?

David:

>Moggin, strawmen are one thing. You don't need to accuse me of
>pretense. I can't make any sense out of the lunatic. I'm asking for
>help. There's a crowd of authors buzzin' around who CLAIM to know what
>he's all about. I can't even make any sense out of them.

I don't understand why you talk about Foucault as though you hadn't read
him, rather than as someone you think is loony -- point out some passages
you think are sheer lunacy and we can hash them over -- Foucault usually
makes a good topic, and there are plenty of folks here interested in him.

David:

>> >I think the two points you bring up are even closer than you suggest.
>> >The right to remain silent on a witness stand and have that silence
>> >"ignored" can, so far as I can see, only be defended by reference to
>> >some mysterious stuff called "privacy." If I were a criminal, or if I
>> >wanted to cheat my employer, I could see drawbacks. But if the problem
>> >is something called "privacy," I need an explanation of what that means.

moggin:

>> During the discussion of the 5th Amendment, you were offered several
>> explanations that didn't rely on privacy -- yet now you're claiming it's a
>> necessary element in any defense.

>I was? Some cop accused me of promoting torture. That's all I got out

>of that discussion. And that's putting it generously. I am not
>interested in either defending or condemning encouraging or
>discouraging forcing a suspect to talk in a police station. It's a
>strawman topic and deserves a bottle of kerosene with a match. I
>wanted and still want to talk about putting a defendant on the witness
>stand. If you want to discuss housing soldiers I'll need another beer.

Let me remind you (with equal generosity) that there was more to the
debate than you recall. Unfortunately, I remember just about none of the
details, but it went beyond the question of rubber hoses. The cop made a
couple of good points, and he wasn't the only person you were debating --
you've completely forgotten Andy Perry, as well as a few others, I think.

I don't especially _want_ to talk about quartering troops, but it seems
like a natural progression. You began by rejecting the 5th Amendment
against self-incrimination, then moved to attacking the 4th, prohibiting
unreasonable search'n'seizure. So it's logical your next target will be
the 3rd, which limits the power of the gubbment to put soldiers in your
home (conventionally identified as a "private dwelling" -- henceforth
a barracks).

moggin:

>Anyway, if it's so mysterious to you, how can you say:

>> In a nutshell, I am least bothered by that observation which is the
least
>> personal. I find the least annoyance precisely where Foucault wants me
>> to be most enraged. Video cameras on the corners of buildings,
fingerprint
>> readers on bank machines, tele-managers listening in: what is at stake
>> here?"

>> Where Foucault wants you to be "enraged"? That doesn't sound like any of
>> the Foucault I've read. Got a cite? But more to the point, you're drawing a
>> distinction between public and private when you say that what bothers you
>> the least is specifically "the least personal." All your examples of things
>> that don't bother you are from the public realm. What _would_ bother you,
>> it follows, are video cameras in your bedroom or wiretaps on your phone --
>> that is, violations of your personal life -- which is to say, of your
privacy.
>> Not only do you understand the concept, you adopt it -- you're not attacking
>> the concept of "privacy," which you rely on when you invoke "the personal."
>> You just want to place strict limits on its application by drawing a sharp
>> distinction between the private and the public spheres. (Oddly enough, the
>> same thing you criticize Rorty for.)

David:

>Hey, this is fun. Next time I want to know what I think, I won't
>bother with that introspection crap. I'll just ask moggin.

I could've been wrong -- in fact, I said that I could be wrong, and offered
a different interpretation, in case that _wasn't_ what you thought -- you'll
find it below, starting, "If I'm wrong about that..."

>Look, I
>said "personal" not "private" because I meant things relating to
>specific facts about myself. I meant that when a friend observes me to
>make sure I don't steal anything out of his room, it pisses me off no
>end. I couldn't care less if somebody wants to put cameras in my room
>or wiretaps on my phone, except that it wouldn't be fair to people who
>call me or ....

Why ever not? Surely not because it would violate their privacy, seeing how
you tossed out that notion. And why does it bother you when a friend puts you
under surveillence, but not when the government does? You make no claims to
privacy, but you're angry when a person observes you, unless that person is a
public employee...right? That makes sense of your person/private distinction,
whether or not it makes sense. Anyway, I was wrong to say that you would be
concerned by video cameras in your bedroom or taps on your phone, since you
don't personally mind either one. Which brings us to the following:

moggin:

>> If I'm wrong about that, then you must _not_ object to cameras over your
>> bed or taps on your phone. By your reasoning, there isn't any basis for an
>> objection -- "privacy" is a meaningless concept, and only criminals would
>> protest surveillence, since they're the only ones with something to hide --
>> as an honest, law-abiding citizen, you should welcome the police into each
>> and every corner of your life. If you've rejected the concept of
privacy, you
>> can't very well say, "Hey, get out of there -- that's _personal_!"

David:

>I don't want police searching my house without reason, because the
>reason then (and there WOULD be one) would probably be sadistic
>mischief, and they'd be liable to make a mess, and my dog wouldn't like
>it. Similarly, I have no desire to go on "Oprah" and relate the most
>embarrassing sex-related moment of my life, because that forum disgusts
>me. I'd happily describe such a moment in a novel.

Nope, that won't fly. The police are searching your home because of what
they saw on the video-cams they installed (now they can finally _enforce_
those anti-sodomy laws!), or something they heard you say on the phone --
and of course you have no objection to that, as you just said. Besides, how
can you accuse the men in blue of sadism, when you say that's a strawman?

David:

>> >The bit about housing soldiers, if nothing else, suggests how out of
>> >date your holy document has become.

>> I haven't either treated it as holy or claimed it as mine -- so please
>> cart those strawmen away. But let's not wait 'til the weather gets cold
>> -- go ahead and attack the 3rd Amendment right now. Or else explain
>> why you won't. You've suddenly made it relevant again.

David:

>Hell, let's run through the Bill o' Rights. I have stated that I side
>with the other 48 states (excluding the two Virginias) in allowing
>churches to incorporate. Why in blue blazes not? Let 'em incorporate
>their hearts out. George Mason lived in a different era for sweet
>Jesus' sake. That's numero uno.

Aren't you against the rest of it, too? Surely the government that you
allow to watch your behavior and listen to your conversations should be
able to determine matters of public concern such as speech and religion.

>I support the Brady Bill and such like. That's the Second.

Well, naturally -- it wouldn't do to allow citizens to arm themselves.
The State has to have a monopoly on violence. Otherwise those folks who
don't like being wiretapped and videotaped might start to get uppity.

>The Army has no desire to bed soldiers in my house, and what would we
talk about
>anyway? That's 3.

Excuse me for repeating myself, but -- if you keep on, sometime this

winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be
required to house soldiers? Decent people would be glad to, and anyone who
would refuse is treasonous. So why do we need a _law_ about it? Give up
your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What could be more fair?"

>#4 is speaking about the government, not my former employers in a job I took

>voluntarily. Let's leave that one be.

In our society, taking a job is rarely voluntary, except for the rich and a
few others. So much for that idea. And what makes you think that the Bill of
Rights shouldn't apply beyond your doorstep? Oh, wait -- you don't think
it should apply _within_ your door, either. So I credit you for consistency.

>"Compelled" decides the wholequestion of #5.

No, it doesn't.

>I have no desire to forcibly open jaws and manipulate tongues (at least
not with
>most of the criminals I've seen lately). I simply want to treat silence as
>meaningful.

Your desires aren't at issue, since you don't go around arresting people (do
you?). And the fact that silence _is_ meaningful is a reason to keep the 5th
Amendment intact. (Cf. _Lear_ I, i.)

>Double jeopardy is the
>biggest crock in the history of crocks as long as we have "criminal"
>and "civil" trials. Ecco il quinto. I want to expand number 6 to
>mandate the provision of public representation for all defendants, even
>rich ones.

Make sure there's enough funding, or some other provision to ensure
that they get _effective_ representation (if you plan to leave the rest of
rest of the justice system as-is).

>If you think Amendment 7 still means something, I've got a
>bridge to... Amendment 8 can stand proud.

Not unless it's enforced.

-- moggin

[David Swanson]

In article <Andrew_Perry-0...@cis-ts2-slip1.cis.brown.edu>
Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:

> In article <E1sqJ...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
> dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:
>

> >Is there any evidence that people are as bothered by such observation
> >as Foucault thinks they should be? Presumably the answer Foucault
> >would give is that THAT is precisely his point. They ought to become
> >bothered. But how desirable a goal is that? On what grounds does one
> >advocate making people miserable?
>

> The issue isn't making people miserable. The issue is making people
> people. Foucault doesn't think people should be bothered by this
> observation. He thinks that this observation is the mechanism which
> creates the modern soul. Which presumably, for a Nietzschean, is not a
> wholely bad thing. It's the ultimate mixed blessing, really.
>
> The most useful way to conceive of Foucault's project (IMHO) is as a
> genealogy of personhood. His major point is that personhood is not a
> neutral, universal, category, a shapeless container. Rather, individuals
> are produced as subjects in different ways in different times: personhood
> just looks different at different moments in history. Discipline, as the
> key mechanism in personhood's current incarnation, is the thing Foucault
> focuses on.
>
> Now, why do you think that Foucault wants people to be disturbed by his project?

p. 306 D&P: "At present, the problem lies rather in the steep rise in
the use of these mechanisms of normalization and the wide-ranging
powers which, through the proliferation of new disciplines, they bring
with them."

How do you interpret the word "problem"?

> --
> Andy Perry We search before and after,
> Brown University We pine for what is not.
> English Department Our sincerest laughter
> Andrew...@brown.edu OR With some pain is fraught.
> st00...@brownvm.bitnet -- Shelley, d'apres Horace Rumpole

[moggin]

dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson):
[...]

>> >Is there any evidence that people are as bothered by such observation
>> >as Foucault thinks they should be? Presumably the answer Foucault
>> >would give is that THAT is precisely his point. They ought to become
>> >bothered. But how desirable a goal is that? On what grounds does one
>> >advocate making people miserable?

Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry):

>> The issue isn't making people miserable. The issue is making people
>> people. Foucault doesn't think people should be bothered by this
>> observation. He thinks that this observation is the mechanism which
>> creates the modern soul. Which presumably, for a Nietzschean, is not a
>> wholely bad thing. It's the ultimate mixed blessing, really.

>> The most useful way to conceive of Foucault's project (IMHO) is as a
>> genealogy of personhood. His major point is that personhood is not a
>> neutral, universal, category, a shapeless container. Rather, individuals
>> are produced as subjects in different ways in different times: personhood
>> just looks different at different moments in history. Discipline, as the
>> key mechanism in personhood's current incarnation, is the thing Foucault
>> focuses on.

>> Now, why do you think that Foucault wants people to be disturbed by his
>> project?

dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson):

>p. 306 D&P: "At present, the problem lies rather in the steep rise in
>the use of these mechanisms of normalization and the wide-ranging
>powers which, through the proliferation of new disciplines, they bring
>with them."

>How do you interpret the word "problem"?

David's right. Re: 18th century reformism: "Why this universal horror of
torture and such lyrical insistence that punishment be 'humane'? Or, which
amounts to the same thing, how are the two elements, which are everywhere
present in demands for a more lenient penal system, 'measure' and 'humanity,'
to be articulated upon one another, in a single strategy? These elements are so
necessary and yet so uncertain that it is they, as disturbing as ever and still
associated in the same dubious relation, that one finds today whenever the
problem of an economy of punishment is posed. It is as if the eighteeth century
had opened up the crisis of this economy and, in order to resolve it, proposed
the fundamental law that punishment must have 'humanity' as its 'measure,'
without any definitive meaning being given this principle, which nevertheless
is regarded as insuperable. We must, therefore, recount the birth and early
days of this enigmatic 'leniency'" (_Discipline and Punish_, 75).

And a couple of pages later:

"In fact, the shift from a criminality of blood to a criminality of
fraud forms
part of a whole complex mechanism, embracing the development of production,
the increase of wealth, a higher juridical and moral value placed on property
relations, stricter methods of surveillence, a tighter partitioning of the
population, more efficient techniques of locating and obtaining information:
the shift in illegal practices is correlative with an extension and a refinement
of punitive practices.
"Was this a general change of attitude, a 'change that belongs to the
domain of
the spirit and the subconscious' (the exression is Mogensen's)? Perhaps, but
more certainly and more immediately it was an effort to adjust the mechanisms
of power that frame the everyday lives of individuals; an adaptation and a
refinement of the machinery that assumes responsibility for and places under
surveillence their everyday behavior, their identity, their activity, their
apparently unimportant gestures; another policy for that multiplicity of bodies
and forces that constitutes a population. What was emerging no doubt was not so
much a new respect for the humanity of the condemned -- torture was still
frequent in the execution of even minor criminals -- as a tendency towards a
more finely tuned justice, towards a closer penal mapping of the social body"
(77-78).

-- moggin

[moggin]

dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson):
[...]

>> >Is there any evidence that people are as bothered by such observation
>> >as Foucault thinks they should be? Presumably the answer Foucault
>> >would give is that THAT is precisely his point. They ought to become
>> >bothered. But how desirable a goal is that? On what grounds does one
>> >advocate making people miserable?

Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry):

[moggin]

dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson):
[...]

>> >Is there any evidence that people are as bothered by such observation
>> >as Foucault thinks they should be? Presumably the answer Foucault
>> >would give is that THAT is precisely his point. They ought to become
>> >bothered. But how desirable a goal is that? On what grounds does one
>> >advocate making people miserable?

Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry):

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

> Is there any evidence that people are as bothered by such observation
> as Foucault thinks they should be? Presumably the answer Foucault
> would give is that THAT is precisely his point. They ought to become
> bothered. But how desirable a goal is that? On what grounds does one
> advocate making people miserable?

You should read _Discipline & Punish_ again. Foucault is not talking
about some supposedly free, independent subject who gets restrained and
manipulated by his superiors; in fact, he's arguing against that kind of
schema.

The panopticon is not an 'outside' force that moves 'into' the subject.
As a result of disciplinary training (from schools, police, industrial
institutions, 'health' authorities, etc.) a human body is the means of
his own subjection. The subject keeps an eye on itself. The human body
manufactures itself as a subject by enacting the disciplinary behavior
that makes it intelligible to power. A subject *as* subject, remember,
is subject *to* something -- that is, it exists only in its relation to
something. To what? To power. Power, for Foucault, is
indistinguishable from knowledge. A subject is not intelligible as such
except in its relation to bodies of knowledge (each of which, for
Foucault, is a purely historical aggregate of documentary discourse, not
a system or a 'science').

For instance: Psychology is a discipline. That is, psychology is one
of the means by which power 'takes hold' of human bodies. A
psychologist gives you a long questionnaire designed to map your
personality. Most people succumb to the fiction that such a
questionnaire is one of the means by which one 'finds out' about
oneself, by which one 'discovers' some truth about oneself, by which
some pre-existing 'self' is brought to light. In fact, the
questionnaire is a disciplinary apparatus that manufactures the
parameters and details that will make the body intelligible as a
subject. You now have a file; The particular responses you gave --
which make your questionnaire distinguishable from another's -- is one
of the ways power/knowledge *individuates* you among other subjects
(This is what Foucault means when he talks about the cellular
regimentation of the subject in a series). The file *details* the
subject, i.e., assigns details to the subject that make it intelligible
*as* a subject. This is why the psychological, medical or institutional
subject is recognizable *as* a subject only when he has been associated
with one or more 'aberrations' or 'abnormalities'. As Foucault says,
"when one wishes to individualize the healthy, normal and law-abiding
adult, it is always by asking him how much of the child he has in him,
what secret madness lies within him, what fundamental crime he has
dreamt of committing."

-- brian

[David Swanson]

In article <583ehi$b...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
jch...@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Julie Chason) writes:

> cmn...@hamp.hampshire.edu (cullen) writes:
>
> >things that *might* be "frowned upon" or "look bad down the line." People
> >not only internalize the current demands of the surveilling class, but
> >anticipate what "might" be desired.
> > You can see where this leads, and why it's such a fearful sight
> >for a Foucauldian, interested as s/he would be in the liberation of
> >desire...
>
>
> Hmm. There are no doubt Foucauldians interested in "the liberation of
> desire," but this just doesn't sound like something one would
> (accurately) say about what Foucault wrote. Check out the first couple
> of chapters of the first volume of the History of Sexuality, in which
> he discusses how desire became a matter for (self-)inspection, and for
> confession. I don't think that he posed the liberation of desire as
> a goal. A questions that I would consider more Foucauldian would be:
> At what point does the notion of desire as something that can and should be
> liberated arise?
>

Got me. I haven't yet seen the post you're replying to. But, anyway,
I kind of had Discipline and Punish in mind.

> Similarly, I don't see at all that Foucault expresses moral outrage over
> the development of surveillance and self surveillance during the past
> few centuries. One thing he *does* do is show that
> inspection/surveillance/examination has become distributed (I mean lacking
> a central source) because it has become internalized. And if this is so,
> then who exactly are you going to be outraged against? I'm not even sure
> that "internalized" is an appropriate term to use; that almost implies that
> there has been some sort of invasion of the self by outside forces at the
> same time that it presupposes a self acting as both object and
> agent, yada, yada, yada (I think it's getting past my bedtime).

Well, of course, you couldn't get F to admit to "moral outrage," but he
sure as hell does express it. He takes himself to be describing a
problem, something low and nasty. He takes J. Bentham to have been
much less of a nice guy than Bentham foolishly supposed himself to be.
He sees prison reformers as driven by power. He might tell us that
that is neither good nor bad (whatever that can possibly mean), but
it's WRONG.

>
> I almost hate to bring the topic up, but if Foucault had been more willing
> to examine how we can all throw off our shackles, or at least who to throw
> rocks at, a certain MIT linguist would not have accused MF of nihilism.
> I believe our badboy MiFo said something like, "pardon me, but you are
> asking the wrong questions."

Why do you hate to bring it up? It's the central stupidity of
Foucault's career. He simply could not bring himself to suggest
anything, for to do so would have required the recognition of altruism
in past suggesters.

>
> I should go back and read the History of Sexuality some more; I would like
> to think about how it is that the West (or my little corner of it)
> got from the Confessions of St. Augustine, the Panopticon, the diaries of
> Puritans seeking purity, subjectivity in the 18th century novel, and the dream
> journals of Freud to..."Cops" and "Oprah"???????
>

> Sleep tight, y'all.
>
> Julie

TV shows which scandalize people by revealing the private are not such
an unexpected development in a culture that holds the private sacred.

"Cops" also seems pretty unmysterious.

[David Swanson]

In article <32A695...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> David Swanson wrote:
>
> > Is there any evidence that people are as bothered by such observation
> > as Foucault thinks they should be? Presumably the answer Foucault
> > would give is that THAT is precisely his point. They ought to become
> > bothered. But how desirable a goal is that? On what grounds does one
> > advocate making people miserable?
>

A stupid dichotomy.

You now have a file; The particular responses you gave --
> which make your questionnaire distinguishable from another's -- is one
> of the ways power/knowledge *individuates* you among other subjects
> (This is what Foucault means when he talks about the cellular
> regimentation of the subject in a series). The file *details* the
> subject, i.e., assigns details to the subject that make it intelligible
> *as* a subject. This is why the psychological, medical or institutional
> subject is recognizable *as* a subject only when he has been associated
> with one or more 'aberrations' or 'abnormalities'. As Foucault says,
> "when one wishes to individualize the healthy, normal and law-abiding
> adult, it is always by asking him how much of the child he has in him,
> what secret madness lies within him, what fundamental crime he has
> dreamt of committing."
>
> -- brian

Now, see, I normally just ask people what their name is.

What makes you think I haven't read all about this? Or, rather, let me
ask this question: Do you think Foucault is happy with the situation
he's describing? I'm PERFECTLY well aware that he wouldn't lift a
finger to alter anything to save his life. But do you think his
writing is content with or indifferent to the state our society's in?

Forget Foucault for a moment. Do you want to tell me that you don't
care one way or another whether employers listen in on phonelines, but
that you find it important to point out that that listening in is
power-knowledge? OK. I don't mind. I don't find it important, but de
gustibus, no? Or do you want to tell me it's horrible? In that case,
I don't care whether it's horrible to people or horrible to some
complex subjectless social stuff. My point is that I don't see what's
so horrible about it.

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

> brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

>> For instance: Psychology is a discipline. That is, psychology is
>> one of the means by which power 'takes hold' of human bodies. A
>> psychologist gives you a long questionnaire designed to map your
>> personality. Most people succumb to the fiction that such a
>> questionnaire is one of the means by which one 'finds out' about
>> oneself, by which one 'discovers' some truth about oneself, by which
>> some pre-existing 'self' is brought to light. In fact, the
>> questionnaire is a disciplinary apparatus that manufactures the
>> parameters and details that will make the body intelligible as a
>> subject.
>
> A stupid dichotomy.

What dichotomy??

>> You now have a file; The particular responses you gave --
>> which make your questionnaire distinguishable from another's -- is
>> one of the ways power/knowledge *individuates* you among other
>> subjects (This is what Foucault means when he talks about the
>> cellular regimentation of the subject in a series). The file
>> *details* the subject, i.e., assigns details to the subject that make
>> it intelligible *as* a subject. This is why the psychological,
>> medical or institutional subject is recognizable *as* a subject only
>> when he has been associated
>> with one or more 'aberrations' or 'abnormalities'. As Foucault says,
>> "when one wishes to individualize the healthy, normal and law-abiding
>> adult, it is always by asking him how much of the child he has in
>> him, what secret madness lies within him, what fundamental crime he
>> has dreamt of committing."

> What makes you think I haven't read all about this?

Because you've claimed more than once that Foucault is mourning the
violation of some 'private self' that escapes panopticism once he closes
the door to his secure bedroom. Anybody who had read and understood
_D&P_ would know this is a thousand miles away from what Foucault is
talking about. Panopticism is not simply a general term for
surveillance.

> Or, rather, let me
> ask this question: Do you think Foucault is happy with the situation
> he's describing? I'm PERFECTLY well aware that he wouldn't lift a
> finger to alter anything to save his life. But do you think his
> writing is content with or indifferent to the state our society's in?

_D&P_ is a historical account of the rise of discipline as a tactic of
power since the 17th century, an account of how the human body has been
constructed as a subject by schools, correctional institutions and the
disciplines of the human sciences in general. This is a major project;
it has nothing to do with lamenting 'the state our society's in.'
Foucault's lucidity is largely the *result* of his dispassionate
analytic eye and rigorous historical contextualization. This analysis
and contextualization are exactly the things that would be effaced by
the Brer Rabbit 'moral to the story' you seem to want.

Please, read the book. If you don't understand it, ask for help.

-- brian

[David Christopher Swanson]

Rorty and Cavell understand each other perfectly and agree to
disagree. FWIW I agree with Rorty. If Cavell has a convincing
argument for why we still need to keep philosophy around, other
than the statement that he can't bear to part with it, I'd like
to read that. Of lesser importance is which of these two guys
gets Wittgenstein right. FWIW I think Rorty is obviously much
closer.

DS

[moggin]

David:

>> Or, rather, let me
>> ask this question: Do you think Foucault is happy with the situation
>> he's describing? I'm PERFECTLY well aware that he wouldn't lift a
>> finger to alter anything to save his life. But do you think his
>> writing is content with or indifferent to the state our society's in?

Brian:

>_D&P_ is a historical account of the rise of discipline as a tactic of
>power since the 17th century, an account of how the human body has been
>constructed as a subject by schools, correctional institutions and the
>disciplines of the human sciences in general. This is a major project;
>it has nothing to do with lamenting 'the state our society's in.'
>Foucault's lucidity is largely the *result* of his dispassionate
>analytic eye and rigorous historical contextualization. This analysis
>and contextualization are exactly the things that would be effaced by
>the Brer Rabbit 'moral to the story' you seem to want.

Why? David made the good point that Foucault doesn't happily accept
things-as-they-are. True enough, wouldn't you say? Compatible with
rigorous analysis, too -- how would acknowledging his politics efface
his work? You wouldn't claim that Foucault is a model of the objective,
disinterested scholar -- so why insist on his supposed indifference?

-- moggin

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0412...@user-37kb969.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

> That's exactly it. Some other questions: "Do the workings of power, and in
> particular those mechanisms which are brought into play in societies such as
> ours, really belong primarily to the category of repression? Are prohibition,
> censorship, and denial truly the forms through which power is exercised in a
> general way, if not in every society, most certainly in our own? [...] Did the
> critical discourse that addresses itself to repression come to act as a
> roadblock
> to a power mechanism that had operated unchallenged up to that point, or is it
> not in fact part of the same historical network as the thing it denounces (and
> doubtless misrepresents) by calling it 'repression'?" (Foucault, _History of
> Sexuality_,Vol.1, 10).

FWIW I understand this, have no complaint with it, and wish it were in
some other thread.

>
> >I almost hate to bring the topic up, but if Foucault had been more willing
> >to examine how we can all throw off our shackles, or at least who to throw
> >rocks at, a certain MIT linguist would not have accused MF of nihilism.
> >I believe our badboy MiFo said something like, "pardon me, but you are

> >asking the wrong questions." [...]
>
> Said calls him a nihilist, too, but at least Said knows what he means by the
> term -- he also knows Foucault's work, which is helpful. Anyway, Foucault
> examines "how we can all throw off our shackles" very closely -- it's one of
> his central themes -- as you know, since you were making that point above.

*W*H*A*T*? Where? When? How'd I miss it? Can you explain it? I
take back everything I said about another thread and any hastily rude
remarks. I want to be educated here. What in the world are you
talking about?

> If Chomsky accuses him of nihilism (does he, in fact? where is that?), then
> it would most likely be because of Foucault's suggestion that the concept of
> "liberation" (i.e., "throwing off our shackles") is part of the mechanisms of
> power -- from a liberal perspective, that's _lese-majeste_.

You lost me.

>
> -- moggin

David

"I'd like to play for you now a song that's been very closely
associated with me for many many dec'des. Mainly because I wrote it.
It has WITHSTOOD the vah-sisitoods of the contingent world and moved in
an odyssey into the realm of the . . . metaphysical. And may we offer
at this time A Night In Tuneeseea." -Diz

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0412...@user-37kb969.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

> David:
>
> >Moggin, strawmen are one thing. You don't need to accuse me of
> >pretense. I can't make any sense out of the lunatic. I'm asking for
> >help. There's a crowd of authors buzzin' around who CLAIM to know what
> >he's all about. I can't even make any sense out of them.
>
> I don't understand why you talk about Foucault as though you hadn't read
> him, rather than as someone you think is loony -- point out some passages
> you think are sheer lunacy and we can hash them over -- Foucault usually
> makes a good topic, and there are plenty of folks here interested in him.

OK, maybe I will. I am snowed in, after all. But I'm not pretending
not to have read him. I happened to be discussing a book by Edmundson
that he based on Foucault, and which seemed Foucauldian enough to me.
And I was discussing what seems a very common way of thinking these
days, and one that is generally called Foucauldian. As I've said
already in a few different posts, either Foucault (or Edmundson, or
you, or Brian, or Andy, etc) sees phone-listening - as I described it -
as horrible or he doesn't. If he doesn't, I take everything back,
offer my sincere apologies, and beg to be informed what the hell he
does have to say and why it's important.

>
> David:
>
> >> >I think the two points you bring up are even closer than you suggest.
> >> >The right to remain silent on a witness stand and have that silence
> >> >"ignored" can, so far as I can see, only be defended by reference to
> >> >some mysterious stuff called "privacy." If I were a criminal, or if I
> >> >wanted to cheat my employer, I could see drawbacks. But if the problem
> >> >is something called "privacy," I need an explanation of what that means.
>
> moggin:
>
> >> During the discussion of the 5th Amendment, you were offered several
> >> explanations that didn't rely on privacy -- yet now you're claiming it's a
> >> necessary element in any defense.
>
> >I was? Some cop accused me of promoting torture. That's all I got out
> >of that discussion. And that's putting it generously. I am not
> >interested in either defending or condemning encouraging or
> >discouraging forcing a suspect to talk in a police station. It's a
> >strawman topic and deserves a bottle of kerosene with a match. I
> >wanted and still want to talk about putting a defendant on the witness
> >stand. If you want to discuss housing soldiers I'll need another beer.
>
> Let me remind you (with equal generosity) that there was more to the
> debate than you recall. Unfortunately, I remember just about none of the
> details, but it went beyond the question of rubber hoses. The cop made a
> couple of good points, and he wasn't the only person you were debating --
> you've completely forgotten Andy Perry, as well as a few others, I think.

Well, let Andy remind us, if not even you remember the stuff you're
remembering.

>
> I don't especially _want_ to talk about quartering troops, but it seems
> like a natural progression. You began by rejecting the 5th Amendment
> against self-incrimination, then moved to attacking the 4th, prohibiting
> unreasonable search'n'seizure. So it's logical your next target will be
> the 3rd, which limits the power of the gubbment to put soldiers in your
> home (conventionally identified as a "private dwelling" -- henceforth
> a barracks).
>

Clear as mud. I want to make a very particular change in the Fifth
Amendment, which I will cease repeating. Taking a job in which an
employer listens to your work is not unreasonable government seach and
seizure, as you must be well aware. And where you get your notions of
"logical progressions" is beyond me. I suppose if I was a Commie and a
faggot it would LOGICALLY follow that I was a Satanist, but in that
case the reasoning is admirably Aristotelian and flows so naturally
that one just can't seem to dispute it. Or if I wanted to raise taxes
by five percent, it would NATURALLY follow that I wanted to raise taxes
by six percent. But you aren't up to this sort of reasoning it seems.

I've thrown out religion, Moggin, but I don't burn down churches, since
other people like them. Matter of fact, I live in one. I do not care
about cameras in my house, but other people might. And if they were
there for troublesome reasons, such as in order to rob me or frame me
or sell pornography, then I would be bothered. This last example
(pornography) is that of being "made an object." This is not the same
as pure "privacy." What I am endlessly trying to get across is that I
can think of a gazillion reasons to keep tons of things secret, but do
not share what seems to be a common attachment to secrecy PER SE. If
someone is really going to laugh at me, I may hesitate to inform him of
some secret fact about myself. But if he's just kind of curious, then
what the hell do I care? So much the better if people know each other,
I say. I intentionally began this thread with a single specific
example, requested that the discussion be held to that specific
example, and haven't heard of it since. What harm is done to me by the
supervisor listening in on my telefundraising? That is the one and
only question I want answered, and I'll be happy, content, satisfied,
and at ease.

>
> moggin:
>
> >> If I'm wrong about that, then you must _not_ object to cameras over your
> >> bed or taps on your phone. By your reasoning, there isn't any basis for an
> >> objection -- "privacy" is a meaningless concept, and only criminals would
> >> protest surveillence, since they're the only ones with something to hide --
> >> as an honest, law-abiding citizen, you should welcome the police into each
> >> and every corner of your life. If you've rejected the concept of
> privacy, you
> >> can't very well say, "Hey, get out of there -- that's _personal_!"
>
> David:
>
> >I don't want police searching my house without reason, because the
> >reason then (and there WOULD be one) would probably be sadistic
> >mischief, and they'd be liable to make a mess, and my dog wouldn't like
> >it. Similarly, I have no desire to go on "Oprah" and relate the most
> >embarrassing sex-related moment of my life, because that forum disgusts
> >me. I'd happily describe such a moment in a novel.
>
> Nope, that won't fly. The police are searching your home because of what
> they saw on the video-cams they installed (now they can finally _enforce_
> those anti-sodomy laws!), or something they heard you say on the phone --
> and of course you have no objection to that, as you just said. Besides, how
> can you accuse the men in blue of sadism, when you say that's a strawman?

Repeal the sodomy laws. Imagine the manhours required to listen to all
those phones. Etc. These are one sort of reply I could make. But I
refer you to my statements above in this post. I am not out to subject
myself to actual honest to god torture that I can comprehend. I want
to know about the telefundraising example for the love of jesus,
joseph, and especially mary.

>
> David:
>
> >> >The bit about housing soldiers, if nothing else, suggests how out of
> >> >date your holy document has become.
>
> >> I haven't either treated it as holy or claimed it as mine -- so please
> >> cart those strawmen away. But let's not wait 'til the weather gets cold
> >> -- go ahead and attack the 3rd Amendment right now. Or else explain
> >> why you won't. You've suddenly made it relevant again.
>
> David:
>
> >Hell, let's run through the Bill o' Rights. I have stated that I side
> >with the other 48 states (excluding the two Virginias) in allowing
> >churches to incorporate. Why in blue blazes not? Let 'em incorporate
> >their hearts out. George Mason lived in a different era for sweet
> >Jesus' sake. That's numero uno.
>
> Aren't you against the rest of it, too? Surely the government that you
> allow to watch your behavior and listen to your conversations should be
> able to determine matters of public concern such as speech and religion.

Note that it is this last post that you decided the cameras would be
owned by the government and that that government would be corrupt. In
fact any government DOES and must "determine matters of public concern
such as speech and religion." Name me a government that doesn't.

>
> >I support the Brady Bill and such like. That's the Second.
>
> Well, naturally -- it wouldn't do to allow citizens to arm themselves.
> The State has to have a monopoly on violence. Otherwise those folks who
> don't like being wiretapped and videotaped might start to get uppity.

Try to grasp the fucking point, Moggin.

>
> >The Army has no desire to bed soldiers in my house, and what would we
> talk about
> >anyway? That's 3.
>
> Excuse me for repeating myself, but -- if you keep on, sometime this
> winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be
> required to house soldiers? Decent people would be glad to, and anyone who
> would refuse is treasonous. So why do we need a _law_ about it? Give up
> your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What could be more fair?"

Why should I excuse you as long as you keep putting these words in MY
mouth and I keep spitting them out. You can reply to such a claim.
That's fine. Just don't imagine you're replying to ME.

>
> >#4 is speaking about the government, not my former employers in a job I took

> >voluntarily. Let's leave that one be.

>
> In our society, taking a job is rarely voluntary, except for the rich and a
> few others.

Horseshit. Where do you come up with this stuff?

So much for that idea. And what makes you think that the Bill of
> Rights shouldn't apply beyond your doorstep? Oh, wait -- you don't think
> it should apply _within_ your door, either. So I credit you for consistency.

Huh?

>
> >"Compelled" decides the wholequestion of #5.
>
> No, it doesn't.
>
> >I have no desire to forcibly open jaws and manipulate tongues (at least
> not with
> >most of the criminals I've seen lately). I simply want to treat silence as
> >meaningful.
>
> Your desires aren't at issue, since you don't go around arresting people (do
> you?). And the fact that silence _is_ meaningful is a reason to keep the 5th
> Amendment intact. (Cf. _Lear_ I, i.)

You couldn't discuss a concrete example to save your life, could you?
I'm sorry if I'm sounding annoyed, but either you want to talk about a
specific legal question in the American justice system or you don't.
Cordelia was not accused of a crime, was not arrested, was not
threatened, did not hear a case presented against her, was not advised
of her rights, was not put on the stand, was not speaking to a court of
law, probably prefered to suffer, and was eventually vidicated. What
is the point you want to make? Can you make it with Le Malentendu du
Albert Camus?

>
> >Double jeopardy is the
> >biggest crock in the history of crocks as long as we have "criminal"
> >and "civil" trials. Ecco il quinto. I want to expand number 6 to
> >mandate the provision of public representation for all defendants, even
> >rich ones.
>
> Make sure there's enough funding, or some other provision to ensure
> that they get _effective_ representation (if you plan to leave the rest of
> rest of the justice system as-is).

OK. ('course I don't.)

>
> >If you think Amendment 7 still means something, I've got a
> >bridge to... Amendment 8 can stand proud.
>
> Not unless it's enforced.
>
> -- moggin

Can we use policemen for that or do you have a better plan?

[David Swanson]

The telefundraising supervisor is motivated at least in part by
admirable concerns. He's trying to make certain his office does good
work. (It's disgusting work; that's not the point.) He may feel a
jolt of power in that situation. He may indulge in satisying some
curiosity. He may have a slight voyeuristic thrill. He may be
interested not only in helping people work better, but also in
startling them with his presence. But so what? We put up with such
"human" weaknesses and much more in face to face interaction everyday.
We compensate for each others fears and greed and ego-trips constantly.
Where would we be if we didn't? We wouldn't be in any premodern
village, or in any small towns I know of today, the curiosity of which
is notorious. If we could once and for all set aside all the strawman
shit about whether or not we want to assist the police in their gleeful
harrassment of us, and face this question, we might get somewhere. Is
something or is something not taken to be undesirable in the
telefundraising situation? If so, what? Is it the technological
nature of it that's undesirable? Is it the unremmittingness? But we
can spend the day in public places without any resentment. We can
sleep on a friend's couch without horror. What is the distinct and
concrete problem in the telephone example? (Or give me another
example).
It seems to me that we're dealing with a desire to keep secrets from
the well-intentioned and harmless. And that I do not understand.
Philip Johnson refuses to sleep in his glass house. I myself close the
curtains at night on my windows. Why? Fear. But when there is no
cause for fear, what then? Do we still need something called privacy?
In any case, it has yet to be established that any workers think they
do. It's only been shown that English professors fantasize that
workers think they do.

[David Swanson]

In article <E1z9s...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:

> It seems to me that we're dealing with a desire to keep secrets from
> the well-intentioned and harmless. And that I do not understand.
> Philip Johnson refuses to sleep in his glass house. I myself close the
> curtains at night on my windows. Why? Fear.

I'm not sure that's even right. It seems to me I only close the
curtains when I'm working on something and want to be sure of not being
interrupted.

[moggin]

moggin:

>> Said calls him a nihilist, too, but at least Said knows what he
means by the
>> term -- he also knows Foucault's work, which is helpful. Anyway, Foucault
>> examines "how we can all throw off our shackles" very closely -- it's one of
>> his central themes -- as you know, since you were making that point above.

David:

>*W*H*A*T*? Where? When? How'd I miss it? Can you explain it? I
>take back everything I said about another thread and any hastily rude
>remarks. I want to be educated here. What in the world are you
>talking about?

It's late. I'll get to the rest of your posts sometime tomorrow, promise (I
don't mind your comments -- I probably deserved them), but I better set you
straight on what I meant, to keep you from getting your hopes up about this
right here. Foucault doesn't offer a step-by-step program of shackle-tossing,
or even one for shackle-loosening (the reformist option). I was making the
same point as Julie, who wrote, " I don't think that he posed the
liberation of
desire as a goal. A question that I would consider more Foucauldian would be:

At what point does the notion of desire as something that can and should be

liberated arise?" Sorry to disappoint you. I was trying to say that Foucault
closely examines the _question_, "How can we all throw off our shackles?"

-- moggin

[Noel Smith]

moggin wrote:
[...]

> I don't especially _want_ to talk about quartering troops, but it seems
> like a natural progression. You began by rejecting the 5th Amendment
> against self-incrimination, then moved to attacking the 4th, prohibiting
> unreasonable search'n'seizure. So it's logical your next target will be

> the 3rd, [...]

Because of numeric progression, rather than meaning? Shit, moggin, I
gathered that you thought this way, but I never dreamed you'd be so dumb as
to be explicit about it.
[...]

> -- moggin

- Noel

[Robert Teeter]

David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:

: The right to remain silent on a witness stand and have that silence

: "ignored" can, so far as I can see, only be defended by reference to
: some mysterious stuff called "privacy."

There's another reason the 5th amendment is there besides privacy.
It means the state has to prove its case. The state can't force the
defendant to prove its own case.

--
Bob Teeter (rte...@netcom.com) | "Write me a few of your lines"
http://www.wco.com/~rteeter/ | -- Mississippi Fred McDowell
"You might say that, but I couldn't possibly comment." -- Francis Urquhart
"Only connect" -- E. M. Forster

[David Swanson]

In article <32A72C...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> David Swanson wrote:
>
> > brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:
>
> >> For instance: Psychology is a discipline. That is, psychology is
> >> one of the means by which power 'takes hold' of human bodies. A
> >> psychologist gives you a long questionnaire designed to map your
> >> personality. Most people succumb to the fiction that such a
> >> questionnaire is one of the means by which one 'finds out' about
> >> oneself, by which one 'discovers' some truth about oneself, by which
> >> some pre-existing 'self' is brought to light. In fact, the
> >> questionnaire is a disciplinary apparatus that manufactures the
> >> parameters and details that will make the body intelligible as a
> >> subject.
> >
> > A stupid dichotomy.
>
> What dichotomy??

The one Heidegger accused Nietzsche of, the idea that something can be
either a "discovery" or a "creation." I have repeatedly objected to
the use of this dichotomy in your posts, and never before received a
response. Perhaps you only replied this time because you didn't
realize what I was complaining about. One would suspect as much
because even in this post you cut off the last part of it, presumably
finding it inconvenient to reply to, and ignore those posts in which I
have quoted F discussing a problem and asked for a reading of "problem"
that does not treat it as, well, a problem.

>
> >> You now have a file; The particular responses you gave --
> >> which make your questionnaire distinguishable from another's -- is
> >> one of the ways power/knowledge *individuates* you among other
> >> subjects (This is what Foucault means when he talks about the
> >> cellular regimentation of the subject in a series). The file
> >> *details* the subject, i.e., assigns details to the subject that make
> >> it intelligible *as* a subject. This is why the psychological,
> >> medical or institutional subject is recognizable *as* a subject only
> >> when he has been associated
> >> with one or more 'aberrations' or 'abnormalities'. As Foucault says,
> >> "when one wishes to individualize the healthy, normal and law-abiding
> >> adult, it is always by asking him how much of the child he has in
> >> him, what secret madness lies within him, what fundamental crime he
> >> has dreamt of committing."
>
> > What makes you think I haven't read all about this?
>
> Because you've claimed more than once that Foucault is mourning the
> violation of some 'private self' that escapes panopticism once he closes
> the door to his secure bedroom. Anybody who had read and understood
> _D&P_ would know this is a thousand miles away from what Foucault is
> talking about. Panopticism is not simply a general term for
> surveillance.

Has Moggin been coaching you? I will repeat once more that I don't
give a champsellysseean shit whether what's at stake is "some 'private
self'" or whether it's some other stuff "a thousand miles away."
Foucault is not relating the narrative of a battle or an election.
He's complaining. More than that, he's whining. And about SOMETHING
or other. I have repeatedly asked for an explanation of WHAT from
those of you who claim to understand him well. If you prefer to say
(as I gather, though you seem unwilling to put it baldly in so many
words) that F is utterly indifferent, I can only reply either (as you
do) Read the book, or ask why - if that were the case - why anyone
would read the book.

>
> > Or, rather, let me
> > ask this question: Do you think Foucault is happy with the situation
> > he's describing? I'm PERFECTLY well aware that he wouldn't lift a
> > finger to alter anything to save his life. But do you think his
> > writing is content with or indifferent to the state our society's in?
>

> _D&P_ is a historical account of the rise of discipline as a tactic of
> power since the 17th century, an account of how the human body has been
> constructed as a subject by schools, correctional institutions and the
> disciplines of the human sciences in general. This is a major project;
> it has nothing to do with lamenting 'the state our society's in.'
> Foucault's lucidity is largely the *result* of his dispassionate
> analytic eye and rigorous historical contextualization. This analysis
> and contextualization are exactly the things that would be effaced by
> the Brer Rabbit 'moral to the story' you seem to want.
>

> Please, read the book. If you don't understand it, ask for help.
>
>
> -- brian

The above paragraph seems, if for any reason, to be placed beneath the
question above it because of these words "it has nothing to do with
lamenting 'the state our society's in." I will post more quotations
illustrative of how laughable this assertion is after I read responses
to those Moggin and I have already posted.

[cullen]

I don't know if my point has been lost in the shuffle, not sufficiently
posted, or what, so let me re-state it a bit in case anyone other than
myself might find it of value:

The question of privacy and surveillance goes beyond the question of the
mere "rights of the innocent." It is, in a sense, fundamentally correct
that the "innocent" person should not have to worry about his "privacy"
being infringed upon, because other than a slight invonvenience, random
searches, wire-tapping, etc. will turn up nothing. What i am proposing is
that the right to be free from surveillance should be defended on the
grounds that the GUILTY - or those defined as such - can no longer get
away with activities in a way that was previously possible.
The acceptance of the notions of "guilt" and "innocence" in the
terms in which they are laid out presupposes that the parties who lay out
these terms are always correct. Even the U.S. constitution presupposes
the exact opposite - that those in power might in fact be *wrong*, that
they may even have a *tendency* to be wrong. Therefore, space is granted
to those whose ideas and actions run counter to the desires of the
controlling power - the right to express views opposite of the State, or
to amass arms to abolish existing conditions.
I think it won't be difficult for people to agree with me that
past systems have been fundamentally unjust - slavery, feudalism, etc. In
these circumstances, the forces of justice - democrats, abolitionists,
free-thinkers of many stripes - committed "crimes" against the status
quo. In the terms of the status quo, they were guilty. They did indeed
have something to fear from those in power. The complacent - those
actually implicated in the crimes of the system - had nothing to fear. If
i were to advocate that laws should have been in power to respect
slave-holders and royalty only, i think i would be rightly ridiculed. But
this same logic is now being used(and by more people than merely the ones
in this newsgroup) to question why "the innocent should worry."
I worry because, as a free-thinker, i am *not* innocent.
Foucault, defender of the deviant and the marginal, would probably agree.

- cullen

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

>> brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:
>>
>>> For instance: Psychology is a discipline. That is, psychology is
>>> one of the means by which power 'takes hold' of human bodies. A
>>> psychologist gives you a long questionnaire designed to map your
>>> personality. Most people succumb to the fiction that such a
>>> questionnaire is one of the means by which one 'finds out' about
>>> oneself, by which one 'discovers' some truth about oneself, by which
>>> some pre-existing 'self' is brought to light. In fact, the
>>> questionnaire is a disciplinary apparatus that manufactures the
>>> parameters and details that will make the body intelligible as a
>>> subject.
>>::: A stupid dichotomy.
>>
>> What dichotomy??
>
> The one Heidegger accused Nietzsche of, the idea that something can be
> either a "discovery" or a "creation."

By 'creation,' I assume you mean something like 'construction' ... in
any case, the sentence is a bit vague. I assume you're talking about
Foucault's argument that the human sciences do not 'unveil' the self or
'soul,' but instead discursively construct it. This argument does not
propose a dichotomy: it is, in fact, based on the deconstruction of the
interior/exterior dichotomy that the notion of an 'inner self' relies
upon in the first place. 'Discovery' vs. 'construction' could only be a
dichotomy if the 'construction' argument claimed that the soul is a pure
'externality.' That is not the claim. Foucault doesn't propose that
the subject is 'merely' shell externally constructed with a hollow
interior: he proposes that we do away with that interior/exerior model
altogether. A truly historical understanding of the self, in fact,
demands such a deconstruction; it removes from view the illusory
distraction of an everlasting soul supposedly independent of all
history.

> I have repeatedly objected to
> the use of this dichotomy in your posts, and never before received a
> response.

You have? I must have missed it. I was out of town there for a week
... still, I don't remember any such objection. I'm usually the one
trashing dichotomies...

> Perhaps you only replied this time because you didn't
> realize what I was complaining about. One would suspect as much
> because even in this post you cut off the last part of it, presumably
> finding it inconvenient to reply to, and ignore those posts in which I
> have quoted F discussing a problem and asked for a reading of
> "problem" that does not treat it as, well, a problem.

I'll have to take your word for this...

>> ... you've claimed more than once that Foucault is mourning the

>> violation of some 'private self' that escapes panopticism once he
>> closes the door to his secure bedroom. Anybody who had read and
>> understood _D&P_ would know this is a thousand miles away from what
>> Foucault is
>> talking about. Panopticism is not simply a general term for
>> surveillance.
>
> Has Moggin been coaching you? I will repeat once more that I don't
> give a champsellysseean shit whether what's at stake is "some 'private
> self'" or whether it's some other stuff "a thousand miles away."
> Foucault is not relating the narrative of a battle or an election.
> He's complaining. More than that, he's whining.

We *are* talking about Michel Foucault's _Discipline & Punish_, are we
not? I have to make sure, because anybody who had actually read the
book would never make such a ridiculous statement. Foucault is famous
(or infamous) for his utterly detached and non-judgemental prose.
That's why people like Benjamin accuse him of being a nihilist for
chrissake, because he refuses to moralize or agonize about the results
of his research.

I will personally mail you my upper lip if you can transcribe *one*
sentence or paragraph that could be described as a whine or a complaint.

> And about SOMETHING
> or other. I have repeatedly asked for an explanation of WHAT from
> those of you who claim to understand him well. If you prefer to say
> (as I gather, though you seem unwilling to put it baldly in so many
> words) that F is utterly indifferent, I can only reply either (as you
> do) Read the book, or ask why - if that were the case - why anyone
> would read the book.

Just because you don't see the point in an informative book that doesn't
moralize doesn't mean everybody else has that problem. Good lord --
Foucault has given a historical explanation of both the rise of
organized corrective institutions and the human sciences as disciplines
-- and he's clearly shown how both phenomena are intimately related to
boot ... this isn't good enough? It's all junk because you can't walk
away from it with a 100-word moral-to-the-story?

-- brian

[moggin]

mog...@mindspring.com (moggin)::

>> That's exactly it. Some other questions: "Do the workings of power,

and in
>> particular those mechanisms which are brought into play in societies such as
>> ours, really belong primarily to the category of repression? Are prohibition,
>> censorship, and denial truly the forms through which power is exercised in a
>> general way, if not in every society, most certainly in our own? [...]
Did the
>> critical discourse that addresses itself to repression come to act as a
>> roadblock to a power mechanism that had operated unchallenged up to that

>> point, or is is not in fact part of the same historical network as the

thing it
>> denounces (and doubtless misrepresents) by calling it 'repression'?"
>> (Foucault, _History of Sexuality_,Vol.1, 10).

David:

>FWIW I understand this, have no complaint with it, and wish it were in
>some other thread.

Your wish is granted.

[...]

moggin:

>> If Chomsky accuses him of nihilism (does he, in fact? where is that?), then
>> it would most likely be because of Foucault's suggestion that the concept of
>> "liberation" (i.e., "throwing off our shackles") is part of the mechanisms of
>> power -- from a liberal perspective, that's _lese-majeste_.

David:

>You lost me.

Slaves without masters, as somebody said the other day, in the discussion
about abolishing work.

-- moggin

[moggin]

David:

>> >Moggin, strawmen are one thing. You don't need to accuse me of
>> >pretense. I can't make any sense out of the lunatic. I'm asking for
>> >help. There's a crowd of authors buzzin' around who CLAIM to know what
>> >he's all about. I can't even make any sense out of them.

moggin:

>> I don't understand why you talk about Foucault as though you hadn't read
>> him, rather than as someone you think is loony -- point out some passages
>> you think are sheer lunacy and we can hash them over -- Foucault usually
>> makes a good topic, and there are plenty of folks here interested in him.

David:

>OK, maybe I will. I am snowed in, after all. But I'm not pretending
>not to have read him. I happened to be discussing a book by Edmundson
>that he based on Foucault, and which seemed Foucauldian enough to me.
>And I was discussing what seems a very common way of thinking these
>days, and one that is generally called Foucauldian. As I've said
>already in a few different posts, either Foucault (or Edmundson, or
>you, or Brian, or Andy, etc) sees phone-listening - as I described it -
>as horrible or he doesn't. If he doesn't, I take everything back,
>offer my sincere apologies, and beg to be informed what the hell he
>does have to say and why it's important.

Snowed in? Nawnther. O.k., you're not pretending. But for the most
part, neither are you talking about Foucault. We can set that aside,
though, since it's not essential to your question about eavesdropping. It
makes perfect sense that you wouldn't see any difficulty -- assuming I
understood you right, you don't have any objection to the police tapping
your phones, or putting video cameras in your bedroom -- so it would
be surprising if you objected to the idea of your boss listening in to
your conversations.

[...]

moggin:

>> I don't especially _want_ to talk about quartering troops, but it seems
>> like a natural progression. You began by rejecting the 5th Amendment
>> against self-incrimination, then moved to attacking the 4th, prohibiting
>> unreasonable search'n'seizure. So it's logical your next target will be
>> the 3rd, which limits the power of the gubbment to put soldiers in your
>> home (conventionally identified as a "private dwelling" -- henceforth
>> a barracks).

David:

>Clear as mud. I want to make a very particular change in the Fifth
>Amendment, which I will cease repeating. Taking a job in which an
>employer listens to your work is not unreasonable government seach and
>seizure, as you must be well aware. And where you get your notions of
>"logical progressions" is beyond me. I suppose if I was a Commie and a
>faggot it would LOGICALLY follow that I was a Satanist, but in that
>case the reasoning is admirably Aristotelian and flows so naturally
>that one just can't seem to dispute it. Or if I wanted to raise taxes
>by five percent, it would NATURALLY follow that I wanted to raise taxes
>by six percent. But you aren't up to this sort of reasoning it seems.

Guess I'm not, but I sure did enjoy the sample -- thanks.

David:

>> >Look, I
>> >said "personal" not "private" because I meant things relating to
>> >specific facts about myself. I meant that when a friend observes me to
>> >make sure I don't steal anything out of his room, it pisses me off no
>> >end. I couldn't care less if somebody wants to put cameras in my room
>> >or wiretaps on my phone, except that it wouldn't be fair to people who
>> >call me or ....

moggin:

>> Why ever not? Surely not because it would violate their privacy,
seeing how
>> you tossed out that notion. And why does it bother you when a friend
puts you
>> under surveillence, but not when the government does? You make no claims to
>> privacy, but you're angry when a person observes you, unless that person is a
>> public employee...right? That makes sense of your person/private
distinction,
>> whether or not it makes sense. Anyway, I was wrong to say that you would be
>> concerned by video cameras in your bedroom or taps on your phone, since you
>> don't personally mind either one. Which brings us to the following:

David:

>I've thrown out religion, Moggin, but I don't burn down churches, since
>other people like them. Matter of fact, I live in one. I do not care
>about cameras in my house, but other people might. And if they were
>there for troublesome reasons, such as in order to rob me or frame me
>or sell pornography, then I would be bothered. This last example
>(pornography) is that of being "made an object." This is not the same
>as pure "privacy." What I am endlessly trying to get across is that I
>can think of a gazillion reasons to keep tons of things secret, but do
>not share what seems to be a common attachment to secrecy PER SE. If
>someone is really going to laugh at me, I may hesitate to inform him of
>some secret fact about myself. But if he's just kind of curious, then
>what the hell do I care? So much the better if people know each other,
>I say. I intentionally began this thread with a single specific
>example, requested that the discussion be held to that specific
>example, and haven't heard of it since. What harm is done to me by the
>supervisor listening in on my telefundraising? That is the one and
>only question I want answered, and I'll be happy, content, satisfied,
>and at ease.

I'm guilty of ignoring your request -- sorry. Telefunding isn't one of
my favorite subjects. But Jeff J. aimed a reply directly at your topic, so
maybe you can take it up with him; all I can say is that if you don't mind
police video-cams in your bedroom, it's no surprise you're unconcerned
about your boss eavesdropping on you at work.

moggin:

>>>> If I'm wrong about that, then you must _not_ object to cameras over your
>>>>bed or taps on your phone. By your reasoning, there isn't any basis for an
>>>>objection -- "privacy" is a meaningless concept, and only criminals would
>>>>protest surveillence, since they're the only ones with something to hide --
>>>>as an honest, law-abiding citizen, you should welcome the police into each
>>>>and every corner of your life. If you've rejected the concept of
>>>>privacy, you can't very well say, "Hey, get out of there -- that's
>>>>_personal_!"

David:

>> >I don't want police searching my house without reason, because the
>> >reason then (and there WOULD be one) would probably be sadistic
>> >mischief, and they'd be liable to make a mess, and my dog wouldn't like
>> >it. Similarly, I have no desire to go on "Oprah" and relate the most
>> >embarrassing sex-related moment of my life, because that forum disgusts
>> >me. I'd happily describe such a moment in a novel.

moggin:

>> Nope, that won't fly. The police are searching your home because of what
>> they saw on the video-cams they installed (now they can finally _enforce_
>> those anti-sodomy laws!), or something they heard you say on the phone --
>> and of course you have no objection to that, as you just said. Besides, how
>> can you accuse the men in blue of sadism, when you say that's a strawman?

David:

>Repeal the sodomy laws. Imagine the manhours required to listen to all
>those phones. Etc. These are one sort of reply I could make. But I
>refer you to my statements above in this post. I am not out to subject
>myself to actual honest to god torture that I can comprehend. I want
>to know about the telefundraising example for the love of jesus,
>joseph, and especially mary.

It's trivial by comparison. If you're o.k. with the video-cams and the
wiretaps, I can't imagine why it _would_ bother you.

David:

>> >> >The bit about housing soldiers, if nothing else, suggests how out of
>> >> >date your holy document has become.

moggin:

>> >> I haven't either treated it as holy or claimed it as mine -- so please
>> >> cart those strawmen away. But let's not wait 'til the weather gets cold
>> >> -- go ahead and attack the 3rd Amendment right now. Or else explain
>> >> why you won't. You've suddenly made it relevant again.

David:

>> >Hell, let's run through the Bill o' Rights. I have stated that I side
>> >with the other 48 states (excluding the two Virginias) in allowing
>> >churches to incorporate. Why in blue blazes not? Let 'em incorporate
>> >their hearts out. George Mason lived in a different era for sweet
>> >Jesus' sake. That's numero uno.

moggin:

>> Aren't you against the rest of it, too? Surely the government that you
>> allow to watch your behavior and listen to your conversations should be
>> able to determine matters of public concern such as speech and religion.

David:

>Note that it is this last post that you decided the cameras would be
>owned by the government and that that government would be corrupt. In
>fact any government DOES and must "determine matters of public concern
>such as speech and religion." Name me a government that doesn't.

I borrowed the video-cameras from you -- in your example, they were
attached to buildings, and I assumed the government had put them there --
I just moved them into your bedroom. At no point, then or now, did I say
that the government was corrupt. Big Brother doesn't have to take bribes.
Anyway, liberal democracies often pride themselves on protecting "free
speech," "freedom of belief," and suchlike. I take it you're not impressed
with the results.

David:

>> >The Army has no desire to bed soldiers in my house, and what would we
>> >talk about anyway? That's 3.

moggin:

>> Excuse me for repeating myself, but -- if you keep on, sometime this
>> winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be
>> required to house soldiers? Decent people would be glad to, and anyone who
>> would refuse is treasonous. So why do we need a _law_ about it? Give up
>> your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What could be more fair?"

David:

>Why should I excuse you as long as you keep putting these words in MY
>mouth and I keep spitting them out. You can reply to such a claim.
>That's fine. Just don't imagine you're replying to ME.

I was employing, or at least parodying the reasoning that you applied in
your criticism of Amendments numbers five and four. You can reject my
efforts, but you're definitely the one that I'm replying to.

David:

>>>#4 is speaking about the government, not my former employers in a job I took
>>>voluntarily. Let's leave that one be.

moggin:

>> In our society, taking a job is rarely voluntary, except for the
rich and a
>> few others.

David:

>Horseshit. Where do you come up with this stuff?

Experience and observation. Under the present dispensation, it's tough
to survive without some source of funds -- for most people, that makes
holding a job a requirement. Which is why unemployment is a "problem."

moggin:

>>So much for that idea. And what makes you think that the Bill of Rights
>>shouldn't apply beyond your doorstep? Oh, wait -- you don't think it
>>should apply _within_ your door, either. So I credit you for consistency.

David:

>Huh?

I would have argued that the protections you demand in your own home
should also apply in the workplace, and we would have had an entirely
predictable argument about where what rights should be protected. You
spared us that fate by denying that they should apply anywhere -- i.e.,
at work _or_ at home.

David:

>>>"Compelled" decides the wholequestion of #5. I have no desire to

forcibly open
>>>jaws and manipulate tongues (at least not with most of the criminals
I've seen
>>>lately). I simply want to treat silence as meaningful.

moggin:

>> Your desires aren't at issue, since you don't go around arresting
people (do
>> you?). And the fact that silence _is_ meaningful is a reason to keep the 5th
>> Amendment intact. (Cf. _Lear_ I, i.)

David:

>You couldn't discuss a concrete example to save your life, could you?
>I'm sorry if I'm sounding annoyed, but either you want to talk about a
>specific legal question in the American justice system or you don't.
>Cordelia was not accused of a crime, was not arrested, was not
>threatened, did not hear a case presented against her, was not advised
>of her rights, was not put on the stand, was not speaking to a court of
>law, probably prefered to suffer, and was eventually vidicated. What
>is the point you want to make? Can you make it with Le Malentendu du
>Albert Camus?

I'd have to double-check. But Cordelia offers a good example of silence
as meaning. For what it's worth, she _was_ accused (you know by who),
declared guilty (ditto), suffered and died. My point was that not only is
silence meaningful, it can incriminate the innocent. And in the American
justice system, that's what everyone is presumed to be -- right?

[...]

>> >If you think Amendment 7 still means something, I've got a
>> >bridge to... Amendment 8 can stand proud.

moggin:

>> Not unless it's enforced.

David:

>Can we use policemen for that or do you have a better plan?

As you may have noticed, it's the police who are presently violating it.

-- moggin

[Andy Perry]

In article <E1x4M...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:

>p. 306 D&P: "At present, the problem lies rather in the steep rise in
>the use of these mechanisms of normalization and the wide-ranging
>powers which, through the proliferation of new disciplines, they bring
>with them."
>
>How do you interpret the word "problem"?

Well, first I'd include the sentence right before the one you quote:

"If there is an overall political issue around the prison, it is not
therefore whether it is to be corrective or not; whether the judges, the
psychiatrists or the sociologists are to exercise more power in it than
the administrators or supervisors; it is not even whether we should have
prison or something other than prison. At present, the problem lies

rather in the steep rise in the use of these mechanisms of normalization
and the wide-ranging powers which, through the proliferation of new
disciplines, they bring with them."

In context, it doesn't exactly sound like an incitement to moral outrage.
Sure, it's a political issue which MF describes, but one to think about as
well as mobilize around. This passage may even be a call to arms, but in
the context of _Discipline and Punish_, it's hard to see why moral outrage
would be the kind of thing Foucault would choose to arm his soldiers
with...

[Andy Perry]

In article <E1uw8...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:

>In article <E1uL8...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>

>dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:
>
>> some mysterious stuff called "privacy."
>

>Let me clarify. I shouldn't call privacy mysterious. I am not
>speaking of something like "desert" that I just can't seem to make any
>use of one way or another. I am not giving a Wittgensteinian argument
>against the possibility of private language. Privacy seems to me a
>perfectly coherent concept even when taken to mean a desire for keeping
>secrets purely for the sake of keeping secrets. My bewilderment arises
>in trying to understand why anyone would have such a desire.

I think it is inappropriate (actually, to be honest, I think it is morally
repugnant) to require other people to be comprehensible before you are
willing to grant them full human dignity. Which isn't to say that you
shouldn't try to understand this bewildering desire. It's just that your
lack of understanding is not an argument against a right to privacy.
Unless, of course, you're a humanist. Which is precisely the problem with
humanism.

[Andy Perry]

In article <32A8DE...@nwu.edu>, brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> wrote:

>We *are* talking about Michel Foucault's _Discipline & Punish_, are we
>not? I have to make sure, because anybody who had actually read the
>book would never make such a ridiculous statement. Foucault is famous
>(or infamous) for his utterly detached and non-judgemental prose.
>That's why people like Benjamin accuse him of being a nihilist for
>chrissake, because he refuses to moralize or agonize about the results
>of his research.

I think I need to weigh in on the side of moggin and David on this one. I
think it's far from clear that D&P is written from a detached
perspective. Personally, I think it's far from clear what perspective,
emotion-wise, it's written from. It is INCREDIBLY difficult (at least for
me) confidently to judge the tone of Foucault's utterances in this book.
Sometimes he does sound extremely upset. Other times he doesn't. When he
does sound upset, it's hard to imagine what he wants to do about it.
Especially since the thing he's upset about is the process of
individuation--does he want people to be mindless clones? No. So what's
the deal.

D&P in this regard is very similar to _Capital_. There is precisely the
same attempt to portray detachedly the very social phenomena which the
author finds most disturbing, and the same corresponding muddiness of
tone.

[Andy Perry]

In article <E20DG...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:

>Has Moggin been coaching you? I will repeat once more that I don't
>give a champsellysseean shit whether what's at stake is "some 'private
>self'" or whether it's some other stuff "a thousand miles away."
>Foucault is not relating the narrative of a battle or an election.
>He's complaining. More than that, he's whining. And about SOMETHING
>or other. I have repeatedly asked for an explanation of WHAT from
>those of you who claim to understand him well. If you prefer to say
>(as I gather, though you seem unwilling to put it baldly in so many
>words) that F is utterly indifferent, I can only reply either (as you
>do) Read the book, or ask why - if that were the case - why anyone
>would read the book.

If you really want to know what Foucault is up to, in D&P or in general, I
strongly suggest that you read "The Subject and Power." This essay can be
found either in _Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics_
by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, or in _Critical Inquiry_ 8 (Summer
1982). It, of course, must be taken with a grain of salt, in the sense
that in it Foucault attempts to make the entire body of his work sound
coherent and unified, which it arguably is not. However, it is essential
reading for anyone interested in figuring out what the "SOMETHING" that he
talks about actually is. And I would love to discuss the essay with
anyone who's interested.

In the meantime, I leave you with a quotation from a very different essay
by Foucault to mull over, and see how it gels with your questions and
concerns:

"When the book [_Discipline and Punish_] came out, various
readers--particularly prison guards, social workers, etc.--gave this
singular judgment: 'It is paralyzing. There may be some correct
observations, but in any case it certainly has its limits, because it
blocks us, it prevents us from continuing our activities.' My reply is
that it is just that relation that proves the success of the work, proves
that it worked as I had wanted it to. That is, it is read as an
experience that changes us, that prevents us from always being the same,
or from having the same kind of relationship with things and with others
that we had before reading it. This demonstrates to me that the book
expresses an experience that extends beyond my own. The book is merely
inscribed in something that was already in progress; we could say that the
transformation of contemporary man is in relation to his sense of self.
On the other hand, the book also worked *for* this transformation; it has
been, even if in a small way, an agent. That's it. This, for me, is an
'experience-book' as opposed to a 'truth-book' or a 'demonstration-book'"
(Michel Foucault, "The 'Experience-Book'" in _Remarks on Marx_ pp. 41-2).

A fascinating essay, really, especially if you're interested in literary
Impressionism. It almost makes Foucault sound like a descendent of
Conrad.

[brian artese]

Andy Perry wrote:

> It is INCREDIBLY difficult (at least for me) confidently to judge the
> tone of Foucault's utterances in this book. Sometimes he does sound
> extremely upset. Other times he doesn't.

I am sincerely baffled. Can you point out a passage that sounds 'upset'?

> When he
> does sound upset, it's hard to imagine what he wants to do about it.
> Especially since the thing he's upset about is the process of
> individuation--does he want people to be mindless clones? No. So
> what's the deal.

Again, I can't imagine what you're referring to when you say he's 'upset'
about individuation -- which doesn't mean what you seem to think it
means. It's not the quality of 'individuality' that the Sprite
commercials cheer, nor the degree to which one is 'special'. To oppose
it to 'mindless clones' suggests it refers to a quality of mind. It
doesn't. It refers to the situation of the subject on a table of
intelligibility. Foucault:

"Whereas natural taxonomy is situated on the axis that links character
and category, disciplinary tactics is situated on the axis that links the
singular and the multiple. It allows both the characterization of the
individual as individual and the ordering of a given multiplicity. It is
the first condition for the control and use of an ensemble of distinct
elements [e.g., the details that arise from a completed psychological
profile, details which are articulated in a vocabulary already supplied
by the psychologist. It is the peculiar aggregate of these details that
situate the subject as a particular 'cell' on a table of intelligibility
-- b]: the base for a micro-physics of what might be called a 'cellular'
power" (149).

> D&P in this regard is very similar to _Capital_. There is precisely the
> same attempt to portray detachedly the very social phenomena which the
> author finds most disturbing, and the same corresponding muddiness of
> tone.

I suggest that what causes the 'muddiness' for you is not
Foucault's prose, but your own difficulty in receiving a discourse that
doesn't administer categorical imperatives.

-- brian

[David Christopher Swanson]

mog...@mindspring.com writes:
> David:

>
> >> Or, rather, let me
> >> ask this question: Do you think Foucault is happy with the situation
> >> he's describing? I'm PERFECTLY well aware that he wouldn't lift a
> >> finger to alter anything to save his life. But do you think his
> >> writing is content with or indifferent to the state our society's in?
>

> Brian:

>
> >_D&P_ is a historical account of the rise of discipline as a tactic of
> >power since the 17th century, an account of how the human body has been
> >constructed as a subject by schools, correctional institutions and the
> >disciplines of the human sciences in general. This is a major project;
> >it has nothing to do with lamenting 'the state our society's in.'
> >Foucault's lucidity is largely the *result* of his dispassionate
> >analytic eye and rigorous historical contextualization. This analysis
> >and contextualization are exactly the things that would be effaced by
> >the Brer Rabbit 'moral to the story' you seem to want.
>

> Why? David made the good point that Foucault doesn't happily accept
> things-as-they-are. True enough, wouldn't you say? Compatible with
> rigorous analysis, too -- how would acknowledging his politics efface
> his work? You wouldn't claim that Foucault is a model of the objective,
> disinterested scholar -- so why insist on his supposed indifference?
>
> -- moggin

Well, of course I agree with your agreement with me, but
Foucault does encourage confusion in so far as he despises
things and refuses to say what exactly he despises about them
or to offer any recommendations for change. I actually find
confusion an appropriate response to reading Foucault.

DS

[David Christopher Swanson]

I think that asymmetrical way of putting it (innocent until
proven guilty) is a little bit silly. One ought just to be
given "the right to a trial" and leave it at that. Once the
trial begins, the decision is usually based on which is more likely,
innocence or guilt. Sometimes a little more certainty than
that is required for a guilty verdict. But the defendant
certainly is required to prove his case. But, anyway, Moggin's
the one who wants to discuss destruction of the various
amendments. I simply wanted to give the prosecution the right
to question a defendant on the stand and take any refusals to
speak as possibly significant.

DS

[David Christopher Swanson]

jjohn...@aol.com writes:
> For the criminal, for the person who has something to hide, there is
> obviously a material advantage in advocating a right to privacy. For the
> innocent person, on the other hand, the issue is one of trust. The
> criminal expects suspicion from others, but the innocent person does not.
> People who trust each other do not need to surreptitiously observe each
> other, and to suggest that spying is necessary is to create an adversarial
> relationship. When random inspections are instituted, it means that the
> situation between employer and employee or between government and citizen
> has deteriorated to the level of Cold War hositilities between the US and
> USSR. When applying for a job resembles negotiating an arms control
> agreement, the workplace has become dysfunctional.
>
> The right to privacy is a manifestation of respect due to citizens living
> in a free state and ought to be demanded by any law-abiding person. The
> quiet breathing of your boss on another phone is a loud declaration that
> you are not worthy of his trust. In the absence of trust there can only
> exist a Hobbesian war of all against all, under which the life of man is
> solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
>
> --Jeff Johnson
>

I sympathize with this way of seeing it. In the situation I
described, however, there were many reasons for the listening,
including hearing how the people on the other end were
responding to the calls, and offering the employees
suggestions. One can view that as just a charade if one is
willfully blind. But it was only part of the story. Another
part was, no doubt, making sure the employees didn't say
anything rude. I'd prefer the sort of trust that does not need
that. But I tended to assume that others were not necessarily
trust worthy, even though I was. (I would not have actually
said anything rude on the phone if I had been trusted not to.)
Now, if someone had stood beside me listening, I would have
objected. But since the observation was itself unobservable,
and could be easily forgotten, I didn't mind it. There are
those who imagine such observation is worse precisely because
it's unobtrusive. This bewilders me. Still, if you want to
put the whole discussion in terms of trust rather than secrecy,
you'll have a lot easier job of convincing me of things.

DS

[Andy Perry]

In article <32A92C...@nwu.edu>, brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> wrote:

>Andy Perry wrote:
>
>> It is INCREDIBLY difficult (at least for me) confidently to judge the
>> tone of Foucault's utterances in this book. Sometimes he does sound
>> extremely upset. Other times he doesn't.
>
>I am sincerely baffled. Can you point out a passage that sounds 'upset'?

I'll look for one later, if I have a moment.

>> When he
>> does sound upset, it's hard to imagine what he wants to do about it.
>> Especially since the thing he's upset about is the process of
>> individuation--does he want people to be mindless clones? No. So
>> what's the deal.
>
>Again, I can't imagine what you're referring to when you say he's 'upset'
>about individuation -- which doesn't mean what you seem to think it
>means. It's not the quality of 'individuality' that the Sprite
>commercials cheer, nor the degree to which one is 'special'. To oppose
>it to 'mindless clones' suggests it refers to a quality of mind. It
>doesn't. It refers to the situation of the subject on a table of
>intelligibility.

Yes. Sure. But it's not individuation AS SUCH that he's talking about,
because he doesn't believe there such a thing as individuation as such.
So it's not the situation of the subject on a table of intelligibility
that's the problem. It's the situation of the subject on the currently
operative table of intelligibility, within the currently operative regimes
of power. "Mindless clones" may have been a silly way to put an extreme
alternative, but one of the axioms that Foucault has inherited from
Nietzsche is precisely that the modern soul (the type of subjectivity he's
describing) is the one with the most depth and complexity, with whose
appearance life first becomes truly interesting, etc.

>> D&P in this regard is very similar to _Capital_. There is precisely the
>> same attempt to portray detachedly the very social phenomena which the
>> author finds most disturbing, and the same corresponding muddiness of
>> tone.
>
>I suggest that what causes the 'muddiness' for you is not
>Foucault's prose, but your own difficulty in receiving a discourse that
>doesn't administer categorical imperatives.

And this follows from the comparison with _Capital_ how?

[jjohn...@aol.com]

>I sympathize with this way of seeing it. In the situation I

>described, however, there were many reasons for the listening,
>including hearing how the people on the other end were
>responding to the calls, and offering the employees
>suggestions. One can view that as just a charade if one is
>willfully blind. But it was only part of the story. Another

I have no objection to constructive criticism, but that can be achieved
without secretly, randomly monitoring calls. So far you've been saying
that the employee has no right to hide anything, but shouldn't that also
apply to the employer? I've raised the issue of trust, but I can also
raise the issue of fairness (which I discussed in the context of defendant
vs. prosecutor in a parallel post). Do employees have the right to observe
the employer's activities? Who guards the guardians?

>part was, no doubt, making sure the employees didn't say
>anything rude. I'd prefer the sort of trust that does not need
>that. But I tended to assume that others were not necessarily
>trust worthy, even though I was. (I would not have actually
>said anything rude on the phone if I had been trusted not to.)
>Now, if someone had stood beside me listening, I would have
>objected. But since the observation was itself unobservable,
>and could be easily forgotten, I didn't mind it. There are
>those who imagine such observation is worse precisely because
>it's unobtrusive. This bewilders me. Still, if you want to
>put the whole discussion in terms of trust rather than secrecy,
>you'll have a lot easier job of convincing me of things.

--Jeff Johnson

[moggin]

David:

>> >> Or, rather, let me
>> >> ask this question: Do you think Foucault is happy with the situation
>> >> he's describing? I'm PERFECTLY well aware that he wouldn't lift a
>> >> finger to alter anything to save his life. But do you think his
>> >> writing is content with or indifferent to the state our society's in?

Brian:

>> >_D&P_ is a historical account of the rise of discipline as a tactic of
>> >power since the 17th century, an account of how the human body has been
>> >constructed as a subject by schools, correctional institutions and the
>> >disciplines of the human sciences in general. This is a major project;
>> >it has nothing to do with lamenting 'the state our society's in.'
>> >Foucault's lucidity is largely the *result* of his dispassionate
>> >analytic eye and rigorous historical contextualization. This analysis
>> >and contextualization are exactly the things that would be effaced by
>> >the Brer Rabbit 'moral to the story' you seem to want.

moggin:

>> Why? David made the good point that Foucault doesn't happily accept
>> things-as-they-are. True enough, wouldn't you say? Compatible with
>> rigorous analysis, too -- how would acknowledging his politics efface
>> his work? You wouldn't claim that Foucault is a model of the objective,
>> disinterested scholar -- so why insist on his supposed indifference?

David:

>Well, of course I agree with your agreement with me, but
>Foucault does encourage confusion in so far as he despises
>things and refuses to say what exactly he despises about them
>or to offer any recommendations for change. I actually find
>confusion an appropriate response to reading Foucault.

So much for our brief moment of agreement -- it should be easy to
reduce your confusion, though. One, stop putting words in Foucault's
mouth -- if you don't claim that he expects you to be "enraged," you
won't have to ask why he doesn't tell you what to be enraged about.
Two, read what he says. I don't mean to sound condescending -- look
at what Foucault writes, as opposed to what you presume that he'd
say, or what Edmunson says, or the "common understanding." Then
if something _is_ confusing, we can talk about it.

-- moggin

P.S. Foucault's stand on "recommendations" is perfectly clear. You
may not like it (I know you don't), but it's no cause for confusion.

[jjohn...@aol.com]

dc...@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (David Christopher Swanson) wrote:

>I simply wanted to give the prosecution the right
>to question a defendant on the stand and take any refusals to
>speak as possibly significant.

There are many possible interpretations of the defendant's silence. One
possible interpretation is, "This charge by the state is ridiculous, on
the level of a sleazy tabloid allegation, and I refuse to dignify it with
a response." (The grand jury is a rather one-sided affair, the standards
are lower, and the prosecutor usually gets the indictment he wants.)

Moreover, without the Fifth Amendment, the prosecutor has an unfair
advantage over the defendant, because the defendant does not have the
right to place the prosecutor on the stand to question him.

--Jeff Johnson

[brian artese]

Andy Perry wrote:

> ... it's not individuation AS SUCH that [Foucault's] talking about,

> because he doesn't believe there such a thing as individuation as
> such.

What? Didn't we just agree that he's describing a means by which a
person is individuated among others -- that is, mapped out as a
particular 'case' among other 'cases'?

> So it's not the situation of the subject on a table of intelligibility
> that's the problem. It's the situation of the subject on the
> currently operative table of intelligibility, within the currently
> operative regimes of power.

Well, again, to use 'current' is a little strange in relation to D&P,
since he's talking about tactics that emerged (at the latest) in the
17th century.

> "Mindless clones" may have been a silly way to put an extreme
> alternative, but one of the axioms that Foucault has inherited from
> Nietzsche is precisely that the modern soul (the type of subjectivity
> he's describing) is the one with the most depth and complexity, with
> whose appearance life first becomes truly interesting, etc.

Foucault would never use the term 'subjectivity' as you're using it.
His analysis has the effect of dismissing the 'interior bubble'
metaphysic that the term implies. It is *this* sense of an independent
interior that Foucault 'doesn't believe in,' as you say above, not the
process of individuation.

And again, you'll have to show me where Foucault ever talks about a
'modern' soul -- then you'll have to show me where he descrdibes it as
more 'interesting' than ... well, than what?

In tracing Foucault's inheritances, you would do better to look at
Althusser and Derrida. Foucault is influenced by Nietzsche, of course,
but that influence is so broad and widely shared it doesn't really flesh
out our understanding of critical history. It's like saying Willa
Cather was influenced by Shakespeare.

>>> D&P in this regard is very similar to _Capital_. There is precisely
>>> the same attempt to portray detachedly the very social phenomena
>>> which the author finds most disturbing, and the same corresponding
>>> muddiness of tone.

>> I suggest that what causes the 'muddiness' for you is not
>> Foucault's prose, but your own difficulty in receiving a discourse
>> that doesn't administer categorical imperatives.

> And this follows from the comparison with _Capital_ how?

Did it claim to follow from that comparison? In any case, it seems odd
to take two incredibly lucid, enlightening and cool-headed analyses like
_Capital_ and _D&P_ and describe them as 'muddy in tone.' My suggestion
was that it is this very non-preaching cool-headedness that is the
source of your problem with these works, since you seem to think that
any discourse that doesn't sermonize or dole out categorical injunctions
is a waste of time.

-- brian

[brian artese]

I can't find the post in which moggin writes the following, so I'll use
this one.

moggin wrote:

> Brian:
>
>> _D&P_ is a historical account of the rise of discipline as a tactic
>> of power since the 17th century, an account of how the human body has
>> been constructed as a subject by schools, correctional institutions
>> and the disciplines of the human sciences in general. This is a
>> major project;
>> it has nothing to do with lamenting 'the state our society's in.'
>> Foucault's lucidity is largely the *result* of his dispassionate
>> analytic eye and rigorous historical contextualization. This
>> analysis and contextualization are exactly the things that would be
>> effaced by the Brer Rabbit 'moral to the story' you seem to want.
>
> moggin:
>
> Why? David made the good point that Foucault doesn't happily accept
> things-as-they-are. True enough, wouldn't you say? Compatible with
> rigorous analysis, too -- how would acknowledging his politics efface
> his work? You wouldn't claim that Foucault is a model of the
> objective, disinterested scholar -- so why insist on his supposed
> indifference?

I never insisted on his indifference. We're starting to conflate two
distinct issues here: One has to do with the history of Foucault's
political activism, the movements with which he declared himself to be
in alignment or opposition, and the political discourse he engaged in
when speaking as Foucault the citizen. These are important issues, of
course, but they are not identical to the issue of the rhetorical
strategy of books like _Discipline & Punish_. Foucault chose --
rightly, in my opinion -- not to preach or moralize, but to lucidly
delinate the nature of disciplinary power. Like all good scholarship,
the reasearch leaves it up to the reader to decide upon a moral or
political program.

-- brian

[Andy Perry]

In article <32A9E7...@nwu.edu>, brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> wrote:

>Andy Perry wrote:
>
>> ... it's not individuation AS SUCH that [Foucault's] talking about,
>> because he doesn't believe there such a thing as individuation as
>> such.
>
>What? Didn't we just agree that he's describing a means by which a
>person is individuated among others -- that is, mapped out as a
>particular 'case' among other 'cases'?

Probably.

>
>> So it's not the situation of the subject on a table of intelligibility
>> that's the problem. It's the situation of the subject on the
>> currently operative table of intelligibility, within the currently
>> operative regimes of power.
>
>Well, again, to use 'current' is a little strange in relation to D&P,
>since he's talking about tactics that emerged (at the latest) in the
>17th century.

And which seem to continue into the present, no? There is a picture of a
20th century American prison right under the one of the Maison Centrale in
the illustrations.

>
>> "Mindless clones" may have been a silly way to put an extreme
>> alternative, but one of the axioms that Foucault has inherited from
>> Nietzsche is precisely that the modern soul (the type of subjectivity
>> he's describing) is the one with the most depth and complexity, with
>> whose appearance life first becomes truly interesting, etc.
>
>Foucault would never use the term 'subjectivity' as you're using it.
>His analysis has the effect of dismissing the 'interior bubble'
>metaphysic that the term implies.

It does? And here I thought the soul was the prison of the body. He may
radically refigure the "interior bubble," but if there is one thing he
would never ever do, it's dismiss it. I think you're reading rather a lot
into my use of the term "subjectivity" to make it different from the way
Foucault would use it. I'm certainly not claiming that a subject is a
pure mind without a body, or anything like that.

>And again, you'll have to show me where Foucault ever talks about a
>'modern' soul

Huh?!? How about page 23 of D&P: "This book is intended as a correlative
history of the modern soul."

>-- then you'll have to show me where he descrdibes it as
>more 'interesting' than ... well, than what?

Than other types of souls which have been produced by other regimes of
power. That he doesn't do directly, but he's clearly referencing
Nietzsche directly when he uses the term. See below.

>In tracing Foucault's inheritances, you would do better to look at
>Althusser and Derrida. Foucault is influenced by Nietzsche, of course,
>but that influence is so broad and widely shared it doesn't really flesh
>out our understanding of critical history. It's like saying Willa
>Cather was influenced by Shakespeare.

Oh, come on. Let's look at that whole paragraph on page 23. It's only
one sentence, so it shouldn't take too long:

"This book is intended as a correlative history of the modern soul and of
a new power to judge; a genealogy of the present scientifico-legal complex
from which the power to punish derives its bases, justifications and
rules, from which it extends its effects and by which it masks its
exorbitant singularity."

In the context of this sentence, which sets out the project of the book,
it's hard to see why anyone would object to placing Nietzsche as an
extremely relevant influence.

>
>>>> D&P in this regard is very similar to _Capital_. There is precisely
>>>> the same attempt to portray detachedly the very social phenomena
>>>> which the author finds most disturbing, and the same corresponding
>>>> muddiness of tone.
>
>>> I suggest that what causes the 'muddiness' for you is not
>>> Foucault's prose, but your own difficulty in receiving a discourse
>>> that doesn't administer categorical imperatives.
>
>> And this follows from the comparison with _Capital_ how?
>
>Did it claim to follow from that comparison? In any case, it seems odd
>to take two incredibly lucid, enlightening and cool-headed analyses like
>_Capital_ and _D&P_ and describe them as 'muddy in tone.' My suggestion
>was that it is this very non-preaching cool-headedness that is the
>source of your problem with these works, since you seem to think that
>any discourse that doesn't sermonize or dole out categorical injunctions
>is a waste of time.

Um, why?

(That is, why would you think that my remarks indicate that Foucault and
Marx are a waste of time?)

[Seth Tisue]

David, have you ever worked as a telemarketer?

--
== Seth Tisue <s-t...@nwu.edu> http://www.cs.nwu.edu/~tisue/

[Seth Tisue]

In article <E1y7u...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
David Swanson <dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu> wrote:
>In article <32A695...@nwu.edu>

>brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:
>> For instance: Psychology is a discipline. That is, psychology is one
>> of the means by which power 'takes hold' of human bodies. A
>> psychologist gives you a long questionnaire designed to map your
>> personality. Most people succumb to the fiction that such a
>> questionnaire is one of the means by which one 'finds out' about
>> oneself, by which one 'discovers' some truth about oneself, by which
>> some pre-existing 'self' is brought to light. In fact, the
>> questionnaire is a disciplinary apparatus that manufactures the
>> parameters and details that will make the body intelligible as a
>> subject.
>
>A stupid dichotomy.

Why?

[moggin]

Brian:

>>> _D&P_ is a historical account of the rise of discipline as a tactic
>>> of power since the 17th century, an account of how the human body has
>>> been constructed as a subject by schools, correctional institutions
>>> and the disciplines of the human sciences in general. This is a
>>> major project; it has nothing to do with lamenting 'the state our
>>>society's in.' Foucault's lucidity is largely the *result* of his
>>>dispassionate analytic eye and rigorous historical contextualization.
>>>This analysis and contextualization are exactly the things that would be
>>> effaced by the Brer Rabbit 'moral to the story' you seem to want.

moggin:

>> Why? David made the good point that Foucault doesn't happily accept
>> things-as-they-are. True enough, wouldn't you say? Compatible with
>> rigorous analysis, too -- how would acknowledging his politics efface
>> his work? You wouldn't claim that Foucault is a model of the
>> objective, disinterested scholar -- so why insist on his supposed
>> indifference?

Brian:

>I never insisted on his indifference. We're starting to conflate two
>distinct issues here: One has to do with the history of Foucault's
>political activism, the movements with which he declared himself to be
>in alignment or opposition, and the political discourse he engaged in
>when speaking as Foucault the citizen. These are important issues, of
>course, but they are not identical to the issue of the rhetorical
>strategy of books like _Discipline & Punish_. Foucault chose --
>rightly, in my opinion -- not to preach or moralize, but to lucidly
>delinate the nature of disciplinary power. Like all good scholarship,
>the reasearch leaves it up to the reader to decide upon a moral or
>political program.

It seems I made the wrong assumption -- you _do_ want to claim that
Foucault's scholarship is objective and disinterested -- in fact, you
describe Foucault exactly as Chomsky describes himself. (Over here he
keeps his research, over there his politics, and never the twain shall
meet.) That's a strange way to look at the author of _Power/Knowlege_.
And talk about unnecessary dichotomies! On the one hand, politics, a.k.a.
preaching and moralizing; on the other, "good scholarship," defined by
rigor and lucidness. I have to say the same thing I did to David: think
about reading some Foucault. Or Adorno, for that matter. Or Benjamin.

-- moggin

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0212...@user-37kb94f.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

> David --
>
> This has nothing to do with Foucault -- it's just a sequel to your earlier
> campaign against the Bill of Rights (the U.S. one, I mean). Last summer or
> thereabouts you went after the 5th Amendment (self-incrimination). Now
> you're going after the 4th (search and seizure). And you're making exactly
> the same argument -- the one that boils down to saying, "Honest folks don't
> _need_ rights!"
>
> If you keep on, sometime this winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and

> ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be required to house soldiers? Decent people
> would be glad to, and anyone who would refuse is treasonous. So why do we
> need a _law_ about it? Give up your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What
> could be more fair?"
>

> -- moggin

In rereading this post, I find something charmingly quixotic in both
the opinion attributed to me and in the opinion that someone could hold
such an opinion.

[brian artese]

>> Foucault would never use the term 'subjectivity' as you're using it.
>> His analysis has the effect of dismissing the 'interior bubble'
>> metaphysic that the term implies.

> It does? And here I thought the soul was the prison of the body.

When Foucault says the soul is the prison of the body, he doesn't mean
that the body is trapped in a subjectivity or interiority. In fact, the
paragraph in which that comment is embedded beutifully explains the
crucial point that you're missing:

"It would be wrong to say that the soul is an illusion, or an
ideological effect. On the contrary, it exists, it has a reality, it is
produced permanently around, on, within the body by the functioning of a
power that is excercised on those punished -- and, in a more general
way, on those one supervises, trains and corrects, over madmen, children
at home and at school, the colonized, over those who are stuck at a
machine and supervised for the rest of their lives. This is the
historical reality of the soul .... This real, non-corporal soul is not
a substance; it is ... the machinery by which the power relations give
rise to a possible corpus of knowledge..."

Now here is the important part, for our discussion:

"On this reality-reference [i.e., the 'soul'], various concepts have
been constructed and domains of analysis carved out: psyche,
subjectivity, personality, consciousness, etc.; on it have been built
scientific techniques and discourses, and the moral claims of humanism.
But let there be no misunderstanding: ... The man described for us,
whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a
subjection .... The soul is the effect and instrument of a political
anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body" (29-30).

I suspect our bickering about periodization

The comment comes immediatly after a prolonged discussion of the soul as
a construct that

>> And again, you'll have to show me where Foucault ever talks about a
>> 'modern' soul

> Huh?!? How about page 23 of D&P: "This book is intended as a
> correlative history of the modern soul."

Okay, granted; but you do realize that he's using the term 'modern'
simply to indicate 'post-Enlightenment.'

I suspect we don't really disagree about the Nietzsche's-influence
thing, so I'll skip it.

>> ... it seems odd

>> to take two incredibly lucid, enlightening and cool-headed analyses
>> like _Capital_ and _D&P_ and describe them as 'muddy in tone.' My
>> suggestion
>> was that it is this very non-preaching cool-headedness that is the
>> source of your problem with these works, since you seem to think that
>> any discourse that doesn't sermonize or dole out categorical
>> injunctions is a waste of time.
>
> Um, why?
>
> (That is, why would you think that my remarks indicate that Foucault
> and Marx are a waste of time?)

Notice I didn't say you thought F & M were a waste of time, only
'discourse that doesn't sermonize or dole out categorical injunctions.'
Your original complaint about _D&P_ was that it did not clearly
administer such an injunction; at one point you even said something to
the effect that if you couldn't extract from the book a program for how
one 'ought' to behave, why read it?

-- brian

[brian artese]

moggin wrote:

> It seems I made the wrong assumption -- you _do_ want to claim that
> Foucault's scholarship is objective and disinterested -- in fact, you
> describe Foucault exactly as Chomsky describes himself. (Over here he
> keeps his research, over there his politics, and never the twain shall
> meet.) That's a strange way to look at the author of
> _Power/Knowlege_. And talk about unnecessary dichotomies! On the one
> hand, politics, a.k.a. preaching and moralizing; on the other, "good
> scholarship," defined by rigor and lucidness. I have to say the same
> thing I did to David: think about reading some Foucault. Or Adorno,
> for that matter. Or Benjamin.

I don't think I was constructing a dichotomy; I never suggested that
'good scholarship' does not often administer political/behavioral
injunctions, or that such work cannot be rigorous and lucid. -- and I
certainly never attempted to characterize Foucault's oeuvre as a whole.
In short, I did not engage in the categorical discourse you're
presenting. I was simply talking about a specific book -- _D&P_ --
which, perhaps unlike other works of Foucault that I haven't read, does
not engage the question about what one 'ought' to do to effect social
change, or the degree to which one can 'intervene' in power relations.
I was simply correcting, imo, David's inaccurate description of _D&P_ as
an impassioned plea for such intervention. I certainly don't believe
that _D&P_ does not contribute to a map of political relations, and is,
in that sense, political. But that still does not erase the fact that
the project of _D&P_ cannot be described as a 'call to action,' or the
formation of a systematic political program.

-- brian

[David Swanson]

In article <32A92C...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> Andy Perry wrote:
>
> > It is INCREDIBLY difficult (at least for me) confidently to judge the
> > tone of Foucault's utterances in this book. Sometimes he does sound
> > extremely upset. Other times he doesn't.
>
> I am sincerely baffled. Can you point out a passage that sounds 'upset'?
>

> > When he
> > does sound upset, it's hard to imagine what he wants to do about it.
> > Especially since the thing he's upset about is the process of
> > individuation--does he want people to be mindless clones? No. So
> > what's the deal.
>
> Again, I can't imagine what you're referring to when you say he's 'upset'
> about individuation -- which doesn't mean what you seem to think it
> means. It's not the quality of 'individuality' that the Sprite
> commercials cheer, nor the degree to which one is 'special'. To oppose
> it to 'mindless clones' suggests it refers to a quality of mind. It

> doesn't. It refers to the situation of the subject on a table of
> intelligibility. Foucault:
>
> "Whereas natural taxonomy is situated on the axis that links character
> and category, disciplinary tactics is situated on the axis that links the
> singular and the multiple. It allows both the characterization of the
> individual as individual and the ordering of a given multiplicity. It is
> the first condition for the control and use of an ensemble of distinct
> elements [e.g., the details that arise from a completed psychological
> profile, details which are articulated in a vocabulary already supplied
> by the psychologist. It is the peculiar aggregate of these details that
> situate the subject as a particular 'cell' on a table of intelligibility
> -- b]: the base for a micro-physics of what might be called a 'cellular'
> power" (149).
>

> > D&P in this regard is very similar to _Capital_. There is precisely the
> > same attempt to portray detachedly the very social phenomena which the
> > author finds most disturbing, and the same corresponding muddiness of
> > tone.
>
> I suggest that what causes the 'muddiness' for you is not
> Foucault's prose, but your own difficulty in receiving a discourse that
> doesn't administer categorical imperatives.
>

> -- brian

I haven't seen Andy's post, but agree 100% with the bits copied here.
I even find the reference to Marx a particularly good one, one that
illuminates the sort of defenses of Foucault that Moggin has posted, in
which the guiding premise seems to be that the forces of evil form an
homogeneous mass including the government and everybody with a steady
job. Imagine if the Nation magazine had a manifesto.
I would suggest, as long as we're making suggestions, that Brian has
yet to read Foucault critically, that is to ask what use Foucault is,
not in Foucault's terms, but in Brian's.

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0712...@user-37kb944.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

>
> So much for our brief moment of agreement -- it should be easy to
> reduce your confusion, though. One, stop putting words in Foucault's
> mouth -- if you don't claim that he expects you to be "enraged," you
> won't have to ask why he doesn't tell you what to be enraged about.
> Two, read what he says. I don't mean to sound condescending -- look
> at what Foucault writes, as opposed to what you presume that he'd
> say, or what Edmunson says, or the "common understanding." Then
> if something _is_ confusing, we can talk about it.
>
> -- moggin
>
>
> P.S. Foucault's stand on "recommendations" is perfectly clear. You
> may not like it (I know you don't), but it's no cause for confusion.

Well, I'll go on in my confusion until you make it clear, or until a
rereading does so. Your telling me it's not really confusing doesn't
seem to be helping me much. You've AGREED with me that Foucault is
unhappy about the current state of things. If you didn't use the word
"unhappy" you used "unsatisfied" or something to the effect of "not
entirely at ease and content with." Now, what do YOU think follows
from that? Apparently nothing. So be it. I just won't read Foucault
because he no longer interests me. What *I* expect to follow from such
a position is an explanation of WHAT he's unsatisfied with. I take a
necessary part of any such explanation, however partial, to be a
recommendation for change. You know all this.

[David Swanson]

In article <32A9E7...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> Andy Perry wrote:
>
> > ... it's not individuation AS SUCH that [Foucault's] talking about,
> > because he doesn't believe there such a thing as individuation as
> > such.
>
> What? Didn't we just agree that he's describing a means by which a
> person is individuated among others -- that is, mapped out as a
> particular 'case' among other 'cases'?
>

> > So it's not the situation of the subject on a table of intelligibility
> > that's the problem. It's the situation of the subject on the
> > currently operative table of intelligibility, within the currently
> > operative regimes of power.
>
> Well, again, to use 'current' is a little strange in relation to D&P,
> since he's talking about tactics that emerged (at the latest) in the
> 17th century.

Again, I haven't seen Andy's post, but the above assertion suggests
that Brian has quite literally not looked through the book under
discussion.

>
> > "Mindless clones" may have been a silly way to put an extreme
> > alternative, but one of the axioms that Foucault has inherited from
> > Nietzsche is precisely that the modern soul (the type of subjectivity
> > he's describing) is the one with the most depth and complexity, with
> > whose appearance life first becomes truly interesting, etc.
>

> Foucault would never use the term 'subjectivity' as you're using it.
> His analysis has the effect of dismissing the 'interior bubble'

> metaphysic that the term implies. It is *this* sense of an independent
> interior that Foucault 'doesn't believe in,' as you say above, not the
> process of individuation.
>

> And again, you'll have to show me where Foucault ever talks about a

> 'modern' soul -- then you'll have to show me where he descrdibes it as

> more 'interesting' than ... well, than what?
>

> In tracing Foucault's inheritances, you would do better to look at
> Althusser and Derrida.

Derrida the obscurantist?

Foucault is influenced by Nietzsche, of course,
> but that influence is so broad and widely shared it doesn't really flesh
> out our understanding of critical history. It's like saying Willa
> Cather was influenced by Shakespeare.
>

> >>> D&P in this regard is very similar to _Capital_. There is precisely
> >>> the same attempt to portray detachedly the very social phenomena
> >>> which the author finds most disturbing, and the same corresponding
> >>> muddiness of tone.
>
> >> I suggest that what causes the 'muddiness' for you is not
> >> Foucault's prose, but your own difficulty in receiving a discourse
> >> that doesn't administer categorical imperatives.
>

> > And this follows from the comparison with _Capital_ how?
>

> Did it claim to follow from that comparison? In any case, it seems odd

> to take two incredibly lucid, enlightening and cool-headed analyses like
> _Capital_ and _D&P_ and describe them as 'muddy in tone.' My suggestion
> was that it is this very non-preaching cool-headedness that is the
> source of your problem with these works, since you seem to think that
> any discourse that doesn't sermonize or dole out categorical injunctions
> is a waste of time.
>

> -- brian

The muddiness of *Capital* is an extensive topic in itself, but the
particular muddiness Andy seems to have in mind in Foucault is not
simply a failure to suggest anything. After all, Willa Cather didn't
suggest anything, and wasn't muddy. Foucault's failure is that he
wants to condemn things without explaining why, without suggesting what
might be better. (Well, he's chock-full of factual failures too, but I
find that much less interesting.) Of course this is only about the
eighteenth time I've said this, and Brian's responses cannot be accused
of muddiness as long as they continue not to exist.

[David Swanson]

In article <32A9EF...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> I can't find the post in which moggin writes the following, so I'll use
> this one.
>
> moggin wrote:
>

> > Brian:
> >
> >> _D&P_ is a historical account of the rise of discipline as a tactic
> >> of power since the 17th century, an account of how the human body has
> >> been constructed as a subject by schools, correctional institutions
> >> and the disciplines of the human sciences in general. This is a
> >> major project;
> >> it has nothing to do with lamenting 'the state our society's in.'
> >> Foucault's lucidity is largely the *result* of his dispassionate
> >> analytic eye and rigorous historical contextualization. This
> >> analysis and contextualization are exactly the things that would be
> >> effaced by the Brer Rabbit 'moral to the story' you seem to want.
> >
> > moggin:
> >
> > Why? David made the good point that Foucault doesn't happily accept
> > things-as-they-are. True enough, wouldn't you say? Compatible with
> > rigorous analysis, too -- how would acknowledging his politics efface
> > his work? You wouldn't claim that Foucault is a model of the
> > objective, disinterested scholar -- so why insist on his supposed
> > indifference?
>

> I never insisted on his indifference. We're starting to conflate two
> distinct issues here: One has to do with the history of Foucault's
> political activism, the movements with which he declared himself to be
> in alignment or opposition, and the political discourse he engaged in
> when speaking as Foucault the citizen. These are important issues, of
> course, but they are not identical to the issue of the rhetorical
> strategy of books like _Discipline & Punish_. Foucault chose --
> rightly, in my opinion -- not to preach or moralize, but to lucidly
> delinate the nature of disciplinary power. Like all good scholarship,
> the reasearch leaves it up to the reader to decide upon a moral or
> political program.
>

> -- brian

I have very little doubt that that is precisely what Foucault himself
would say. I also think it's incoherent hogwash. BTW, nobody until
now had mentioned Foucault's political activism. The trouble, if one
must point out the obvious, is that Foucault has not written an account
of the second marriage of some obscure poet, Foucault has not created a
list of inscriptions found on Roman monuments, Foucault has not, in
short, created scholarly screeds lacking in any apparent significant
usefulness. Like a good Nietzschean, he has used history to illuminate
the present. And he has made clear his feelings toward that present.
In the case of sex, Foucault makes perfectly clear that he thinks Freud
was not a break with past repression but rather a refinement of past
obsession. When one recognizes this (And I do, I think Foucault's
right) something instantly follows, namely the proposal to no longer be
so obsessed with sex, and in particular not in the ways advocated by
Freudians. In the case of prisons, Foucalt makes perfectly clear that
he thinks they're up to no good, their creation has been motivated not
by any respectable motives but by a uniquely crazed Wille zur Macht.
What would seem to follow, if one believed this (and I don't; I think
it's simplistic, paranoid childishness) would be the abolition of
prisons. But then the mud starts. Foucault makes perfectly clear that
he wants nothing to follow. He does not just want somebody else to
finish his book. He intends his book to remain unfinished. He thinks
of it as finished that way. Well, all right, but let's not read it
then, or let's read it only in order to better understand stuff like
Edmundson's concern with telephones.

Foucault's writing has the merit of being entertaining. His view of
history has the merit of his notion of epistemes. He has a flair for
digging out good anecdotes from obscure sources. Etc. But to value
the notion of power-knowledge as dispersed and internalized is beyond
my poor powers (knowledges?). It's always been internalized, for
godsake. Foucault's complaint is with what is now internalized. He
really does seem to be a frustrated Marxist. For all his intelligence
and scholoarliness, Foucault somehow remains a child who never could
think of himself as a part of society. Society is his enemy, as it is
any adolescent's. Foucault's sexual persuasions may explain but cannot
excuse this.

[David Swanson]

In article <32a8a...@news.hampshire.edu>
cmn...@hamp.hampshire.edu (cullen) writes:

> I don't know if my point has been lost in the shuffle, not sufficiently
> posted, or what, so let me re-state it a bit in case anyone other than
> myself might find it of value:
>
> The question of privacy and surveillance goes beyond the question of the
> mere "rights of the innocent." It is, in a sense, fundamentally correct
> that the "innocent" person should not have to worry about his "privacy"
> being infringed upon, because other than a slight invonvenience, random
> searches, wire-tapping, etc. will turn up nothing. What i am proposing is
> that the right to be free from surveillance should be defended on the
> grounds that the GUILTY - or those defined as such - can no longer get
> away with activities in a way that was previously possible.
> The acceptance of the notions of "guilt" and "innocence" in the
> terms in which they are laid out presupposes that the parties who lay out
> these terms are always correct. Even the U.S. constitution presupposes
> the exact opposite - that those in power might in fact be *wrong*, that
> they may even have a *tendency* to be wrong. Therefore, space is granted
> to those whose ideas and actions run counter to the desires of the
> controlling power - the right to express views opposite of the State, or
> to amass arms to abolish existing conditions.
> I think it won't be difficult for people to agree with me that
> past systems have been fundamentally unjust - slavery, feudalism, etc. In
> these circumstances, the forces of justice - democrats, abolitionists,
> free-thinkers of many stripes - committed "crimes" against the status
> quo. In the terms of the status quo, they were guilty. They did indeed
> have something to fear from those in power. The complacent - those
> actually implicated in the crimes of the system - had nothing to fear. If
> i were to advocate that laws should have been in power to respect
> slave-holders and royalty only, i think i would be rightly ridiculed. But
> this same logic is now being used(and by more people than merely the ones
> in this newsgroup) to question why "the innocent should worry."
> I worry because, as a free-thinker, i am *not* innocent.
> Foucault, defender of the deviant and the marginal, would probably agree.
>
> - cullen

I have two questions. First, is what you value secrecy or - as Jeff
suggested - honor, i.e. being trusted. If it's secrecy, then I'm glad
you posted this, because I had you in mind as an opponent to debate
with. If it's honor, you just might convince me.
Second, who ever suggested that my former employer was a government
agency? In other words, how did the government get into this?

[David Swanson]

In article <Andrew_Perry-0...@cis-ts1-slip3.cis.brown.edu>
Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:

> If you really want to know what Foucault is up to, in D&P or in general, I
> strongly suggest that you read "The Subject and Power." This essay can be
> found either in _Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics_
> by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, or in _Critical Inquiry_ 8 (Summer
> 1982). It, of course, must be taken with a grain of salt, in the sense
> that in it Foucault attempts to make the entire body of his work sound
> coherent and unified, which it arguably is not. However, it is essential
> reading for anyone interested in figuring out what the "SOMETHING" that he
> talks about actually is. And I would love to discuss the essay with
> anyone who's interested.

Can't get it before Monday or Tuesday if it's not on line.

>
> In the meantime, I leave you with a quotation from a very different essay
> by Foucault to mull over, and see how it gels with your questions and
> concerns:
>
> "When the book [_Discipline and Punish_] came out, various
> readers--particularly prison guards, social workers, etc.--gave this
> singular judgment: 'It is paralyzing. There may be some correct
> observations, but in any case it certainly has its limits, because it
> blocks us, it prevents us from continuing our activities.'

D'you ever meet a prison guard or social worker or "etc." who talked
this way? One might say (especially if one skipped the final pages)
that IF the book was correct THEN it would mean ceasing such
activities. But "it blocks us"? Come on. What is that? Foucault
does not suggest that anybody ceased his or her activities. I take
this to mean that they did not find the book "correct." Foucault takes
it to mean something else, but again, God knows what.

My reply is
> that it is just that relation that proves the success of the work, proves
> that it worked as I had wanted it to. That is, it is read as an
> experience that changes us, that prevents us from always being the same,
> or from having the same kind of relationship with things and with others
> that we had before reading it. This demonstrates to me that the book
> expresses an experience that extends beyond my own. The book is merely
> inscribed in something that was already in progress; we could say that the
> transformation of contemporary man is in relation to his sense of self.
> On the other hand, the book also worked *for* this transformation; it has
> been, even if in a small way, an agent. That's it. This, for me, is an
> 'experience-book' as opposed to a 'truth-book' or a 'demonstration-book'"

What's it? Why would we say this? If the point is that the prison
guard and social worker now see themselves (without any disapproval) as
part of a system F described and one that will go right on existing
exactly as before, then what good did F do? Don't say entertainment,
because these people clearly didn't enjoy the book.

> (Michel Foucault, "The 'Experience-Book'" in _Remarks on Marx_ pp. 41-2).
>
> A fascinating essay, really, especially if you're interested in literary
> Impressionism. It almost makes Foucault sound like a descendent of
> Conrad.

Poor Conrad. First Hollywood, now this.

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0712...@user-37kb953.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

>
> Snowed in? Nawnther. O.k., you're not pretending. But for the most
> part, neither are you talking about Foucault. We can set that aside,
> though, since it's not essential to your question about eavesdropping. It
> makes perfect sense that you wouldn't see any difficulty -- assuming I
> understood you right, you don't have any objection to the police tapping
> your phones, or putting video cameras in your bedroom -- so it would
> be surprising if you objected to the idea of your boss listening in to
> your conversations.

Exactly. Almost. Let me repeat that when you asked about the cameras
and wiretaps, it was asked sort of IN GENERAL. You did not say they
would belong to the police. For all I knew they would belong to my
friend Moggin who was researching the study habits of failed academics.
IN GENERAL, then, I have no objection. I do not, however, desire a
society in which the police monitor all spaces. Even if machines could
supply the manhours necessary for such a project, the motives could not
be the best. Trust is a part of this. I'm grateful to Jeff for
bringing that out. But the danger of political misuse of such toys is
a major factor. You will no doubt take this as a recantation. And if
your strawmen existed, I'd recant for each of them. The point was is
and shall be that I don't value secrecy for its own sake.

>
> [...]
>
> moggin:
>
> >> I don't especially _want_ to talk about quartering troops, but it seems
> >> like a natural progression. You began by rejecting the 5th Amendment
> >> against self-incrimination, then moved to attacking the 4th, prohibiting
> >> unreasonable search'n'seizure. So it's logical your next target will be
> >> the 3rd, which limits the power of the gubbment to put soldiers in your
> >> home (conventionally identified as a "private dwelling" -- henceforth
> >> a barracks).
>
> David:
>
> >Clear as mud. I want to make a very particular change in the Fifth
> >Amendment, which I will cease repeating. Taking a job in which an
> >employer listens to your work is not unreasonable government seach and
> >seizure, as you must be well aware. And where you get your notions of
> >"logical progressions" is beyond me. I suppose if I was a Commie and a
> >faggot it would LOGICALLY follow that I was a Satanist, but in that
> >case the reasoning is admirably Aristotelian and flows so naturally
> >that one just can't seem to dispute it. Or if I wanted to raise taxes
> >by five percent, it would NATURALLY follow that I wanted to raise taxes
> >by six percent. But you aren't up to this sort of reasoning it seems.
>
> Guess I'm not, but I sure did enjoy the sample -- thanks.

De nada. Hope you read it.

>
> David:
>
> >> >Look, I
> >> >said "personal" not "private" because I meant things relating to
> >> >specific facts about myself. I meant that when a friend observes me to
> >> >make sure I don't steal anything out of his room, it pisses me off no
> >> >end. I couldn't care less if somebody wants to put cameras in my room
> >> >or wiretaps on my phone, except that it wouldn't be fair to people who
> >> >call me or ....
>
> moggin:
>
> >> Why ever not? Surely not because it would violate their privacy,
> seeing how
> >> you tossed out that notion. And why does it bother you when a friend
> puts you
> >> under surveillence, but not when the government does? You make no claims to
> >> privacy, but you're angry when a person observes you, unless that person is a
> >> public employee...right? That makes sense of your person/private
> distinction,
> >> whether or not it makes sense. Anyway, I was wrong to say that you would be
> >> concerned by video cameras in your bedroom or taps on your phone, since you
> >> don't personally mind either one. Which brings us to the following:
>
> David:
>
> >I've thrown out religion, Moggin, but I don't burn down churches, since
> >other people like them. Matter of fact, I live in one. I do not care
> >about cameras in my house, but other people might. And if they were
> >there for troublesome reasons, such as in order to rob me or frame me
> >or sell pornography, then I would be bothered. This last example
> >(pornography) is that of being "made an object." This is not the same
> >as pure "privacy." What I am endlessly trying to get across is that I
> >can think of a gazillion reasons to keep tons of things secret, but do
> >not share what seems to be a common attachment to secrecy PER SE. If
> >someone is really going to laugh at me, I may hesitate to inform him of
> >some secret fact about myself. But if he's just kind of curious, then
> >what the hell do I care? So much the better if people know each other,
> >I say. I intentionally began this thread with a single specific
> >example, requested that the discussion be held to that specific
> >example, and haven't heard of it since. What harm is done to me by the
> >supervisor listening in on my telefundraising? That is the one and
> >only question I want answered, and I'll be happy, content, satisfied,
> >and at ease.
>
> I'm guilty of ignoring your request -- sorry. Telefunding isn't one of
> my favorite subjects. But Jeff J. aimed a reply directly at your topic, so
> maybe you can take it up with him; all I can say is that if you don't mind
> police video-cams in your bedroom, it's no surprise you're unconcerned
> about your boss eavesdropping on you at work.

Of course. And it's no surprise that masochists like pain, right?
What I want to understand is why it should be no surprise when someone
does object o the eavesdropping at work. Jeff gave a pretty good,
pretty unFoucauldian answer.

>
> moggin:
>
> >>>> If I'm wrong about that, then you must _not_ object to cameras over your
> >>>>bed or taps on your phone. By your reasoning, there isn't any basis for an
> >>>>objection -- "privacy" is a meaningless concept, and only criminals would
> >>>>protest surveillence, since they're the only ones with something to hide --
> >>>>as an honest, law-abiding citizen, you should welcome the police into each
> >>>>and every corner of your life. If you've rejected the concept of
> >>>>privacy, you can't very well say, "Hey, get out of there -- that's
> >>>>_personal_!"
>
> David:
>
> >> >I don't want police searching my house without reason, because the
> >> >reason then (and there WOULD be one) would probably be sadistic
> >> >mischief, and they'd be liable to make a mess, and my dog wouldn't like
> >> >it. Similarly, I have no desire to go on "Oprah" and relate the most
> >> >embarrassing sex-related moment of my life, because that forum disgusts
> >> >me. I'd happily describe such a moment in a novel.
>
> moggin:
>
> >> Nope, that won't fly. The police are searching your home because of what
> >> they saw on the video-cams they installed (now they can finally _enforce_
> >> those anti-sodomy laws!), or something they heard you say on the phone --
> >> and of course you have no objection to that, as you just said. Besides, how
> >> can you accuse the men in blue of sadism, when you say that's a strawman?
>
> David:
>
> >Repeal the sodomy laws. Imagine the manhours required to listen to all
> >those phones. Etc. These are one sort of reply I could make. But I
> >refer you to my statements above in this post. I am not out to subject
> >myself to actual honest to god torture that I can comprehend. I want
> >to know about the telefundraising example for the love of jesus,
> >joseph, and especially mary.
>
> It's trivial by comparison. If you're o.k. with the video-cams and the
> wiretaps, I can't imagine why it _would_ bother you.

I'm not asking you to imagine that. I'm asking you to help me imagine
the contrary reaction.

>
> David:
>
> >> >> >The bit about housing soldiers, if nothing else, suggests how out of
> >> >> >date your holy document has become.
>
> moggin:
>
> >> >> I haven't either treated it as holy or claimed it as mine -- so please
> >> >> cart those strawmen away. But let's not wait 'til the weather gets cold
> >> >> -- go ahead and attack the 3rd Amendment right now. Or else explain
> >> >> why you won't. You've suddenly made it relevant again.
>
> David:
>
> >> >Hell, let's run through the Bill o' Rights. I have stated that I side
> >> >with the other 48 states (excluding the two Virginias) in allowing
> >> >churches to incorporate. Why in blue blazes not? Let 'em incorporate
> >> >their hearts out. George Mason lived in a different era for sweet
> >> >Jesus' sake. That's numero uno.
>
> moggin:
>
> >> Aren't you against the rest of it, too? Surely the government that you
> >> allow to watch your behavior and listen to your conversations should be
> >> able to determine matters of public concern such as speech and religion.
>
> David:
>
> >Note that it is this last post that you decided the cameras would be
> >owned by the government and that that government would be corrupt. In
> >fact any government DOES and must "determine matters of public concern
> >such as speech and religion." Name me a government that doesn't.
>
> I borrowed the video-cameras from you -- in your example, they were
> attached to buildings, and I assumed the government had put them there --

Well, on government buildings maybe. Been in any cities lately?

> I just moved them into your bedroom. At no point, then or now, did I say
> that the government was corrupt. Big Brother doesn't have to take bribes.
> Anyway, liberal democracies often pride themselves on protecting "free
> speech," "freedom of belief," and suchlike. I take it you're not impressed
> with the results.

Our government forbids not only such trivial examples as shouting
"Fire!" in crowded unburning places, but also such talk as it takes to
constitute treasonous conspiracy, or conspiracy to commit a crime. We
(that's right, WE) do not allow religion to torture farm animals or
deprive children of medical treatment or murder people. We allow
religion some slight influence on our public schools and no more. We
are "tolerant" of that which we find it more harmful to criminalize
than to allow to continue. I favor allowing Jimmy Swaggart types to
preach because of the power they would gain from banning them. I favor
forcing Christian Scientists to take their ill children to hospitals,
because I don't think that that compulsion will do more damage than the
damage done by letting the kids die. This, and not some global
approval of "tolerance" or "freedom," is how things work. Deal with
it.

>
> David:
>
> >> >The Army has no desire to bed soldiers in my house, and what would we
> >> >talk about anyway? That's 3.
>
> moggin:
>
> >> Excuse me for repeating myself, but -- if you keep on, sometime this

> >> winter you'll look at the 3rd Amendent and ask, "Why _shouldn't_ people be
> >> required to house soldiers? Decent people would be glad to, and anyone who
> >> would refuse is treasonous. So why do we need a _law_ about it? Give up
> >> your bedroom or be shot as a traitor. What could be more fair?"
>

> David:
>
> >Why should I excuse you as long as you keep putting these words in MY
> >mouth and I keep spitting them out. You can reply to such a claim.
> >That's fine. Just don't imagine you're replying to ME.
>
> I was employing, or at least parodying the reasoning that you applied in
> your criticism of Amendments numbers five and four. You can reject my
> efforts, but you're definitely the one that I'm replying to.

You never convinced me that I had a quarrel with #4. And I frankly
can't find anything to call "reasoning" in your parody.

>
> David:
>
> >>>#4 is speaking about the government, not my former employers in a job I took
> >>>voluntarily. Let's leave that one be.
>
> moggin:
>
> >> In our society, taking a job is rarely voluntary, except for the
> rich and a
> >> few others.
>
> David:
>
> >Horseshit. Where do you come up with this stuff?
>
> Experience and observation. Under the present dispensation, it's tough
> to survive without some source of funds -- for most people, that makes
> holding a job a requirement. Which is why unemployment is a "problem."

So let's imagine someone has a choice between death and working in
Edmundson's airline office. That STILL doesn't make the airline office
a branch of the government. Nor does it make it a branch of the
governmental-industrial-informational-medico-sociologico-psychiatrico-ob
servational complex. Your appeal to the government must be that it ban
a certain activity engaged in by the airline, and not by itself.

>
> moggin:
>
> >>So much for that idea. And what makes you think that the Bill of Rights
> >>shouldn't apply beyond your doorstep? Oh, wait -- you don't think it
> >>should apply _within_ your door, either. So I credit you for consistency.
>
> David:
>
> >Huh?
>
> I would have argued that the protections you demand in your own home
> should also apply in the workplace, and we would have had an entirely
> predictable argument about where what rights should be protected. You
> spared us that fate by denying that they should apply anywhere -- i.e.,
> at work _or_ at home.
>
> David:
>
> >>>"Compelled" decides the wholequestion of #5. I have no desire to
> forcibly open
> >>>jaws and manipulate tongues (at least not with most of the criminals
> I've seen
> >>>lately). I simply want to treat silence as meaningful.
>
> moggin:
>
> >> Your desires aren't at issue, since you don't go around arresting
> people (do
> >> you?). And the fact that silence _is_ meaningful is a reason to keep the 5th
> >> Amendment intact. (Cf. _Lear_ I, i.)
>
> David:
>
> >You couldn't discuss a concrete example to save your life, could you?
> >I'm sorry if I'm sounding annoyed, but either you want to talk about a
> >specific legal question in the American justice system or you don't.
> >Cordelia was not accused of a crime, was not arrested, was not
> >threatened, did not hear a case presented against her, was not advised
> >of her rights, was not put on the stand, was not speaking to a court of
> >law, probably prefered to suffer, and was eventually vidicated. What
> >is the point you want to make? Can you make it with Le Malentendu du
> >Albert Camus?
>
> I'd have to double-check. But Cordelia offers a good example of silence
> as meaning. For what it's worth, she _was_ accused (you know by who),
> declared guilty (ditto), suffered and died. My point was that not only is
> silence meaningful, it can incriminate the innocent. And in the American
> justice system, that's what everyone is presumed to be -- right?

Certainly not. That just doesn't mean much, if anything. And I have
no argument with the proposition that silence can be meaningful.

My claim is quite simply that allowing the prosecution to put a
defendant on the stand and question him would lead to an improved
record of convicting the guilty and possibly even of freeing the
innocent, and that it certainly would not lead to mass convictions of
the innocent.

The juries, if we must have juries (let's save that debate for a rainy
day, shall we), would have to interpret refusals to speak as best they
could, and if they did no better than Lear (a clear ignoramus nutcase)
we'd be doing all right.

>
> [...]
>
> >> >If you think Amendment 7 still means something, I've got a
> >> >bridge to... Amendment 8 can stand proud.
>
> moggin:
>
> >> Not unless it's enforced.
>
> David:
>
> >Can we use policemen for that or do you have a better plan?
>
> As you may have noticed, it's the police who are presently violating it.
>
> -- moggin

How so? (There seem to be three parts.)

[David Swanson]

In article <58db9g$o...@Godzilla.cs.nwu.edu>
ti...@cs.nwu.edu (Seth Tisue) writes:

> David, have you ever worked as a telemarketer?
>

> --
> == Seth Tisue <s-t...@nwu.edu> http://www.cs.nwu.edu/~tisue/

Just a tele-fundraiser, as I described, though I once sold an old BMW
by calling people at random. Why? You got a job offer?

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0712...@user-37kb947.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

> It seems I made the wrong assumption -- you _do_ want to claim that
> Foucault's scholarship is objective and disinterested -- in fact, you
> describe Foucault exactly as Chomsky describes himself. (Over here he
> keeps his research, over there his politics, and never the twain shall
> meet.) That's a strange way to look at the author of _Power/Knowlege_.
> And talk about unnecessary dichotomies! On the one hand, politics, a.k.a.
> preaching and moralizing; on the other, "good scholarship," defined by
> rigor and lucidness. I have to say the same thing I did to David: think
> about reading some Foucault. Or Adorno, for that matter. Or Benjamin.
>

> -- moggin

I agree, of course. Chomsky's got a much easier task, since his
linguistics is arguably not politics. But recognize where all this
confusion comes from. Foucault hates the current power-knowledge
organization but does not say why.

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-0712...@user-37kb953.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

> >> If Chomsky accuses him of nihilism (does he, in fact? where is that?), then
> >> it would most likely be because of Foucault's suggestion that the concept of
> >> "liberation" (i.e., "throwing off our shackles") is part of the mechanisms of
> >> power -- from a liberal perspective, that's _lese-majeste_.
>
> David:
>
> >You lost me.
>
> Slaves without masters, as somebody said the other day, in the discussion
> about abolishing work.
>
> -- moggin

In other words we haven't got an identifiable oppressor? Well, so
what? If we're oppressed by a societal structure or by ourselves, then
we can change society or change ourselves. Just tell us how and I'll
be the first to volunteer.

[David Swanson]

In article <32A8DE...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> >> What dichotomy??
> >
> > The one Heidegger accused Nietzsche of, the idea that something can be
> > either a "discovery" or a "creation."
>
> By 'creation,' I assume you mean something like 'construction' ... in
> any case, the sentence is a bit vague. I assume you're talking about
> Foucault's argument that the human sciences do not 'unveil' the self or
> 'soul,' but instead discursively construct it.

Why would you assume that? I was talking about your own comments.

This argument does not
> propose a dichotomy: it is, in fact, based on the deconstruction of the
> interior/exterior dichotomy that the notion of an 'inner self' relies
> upon in the first place. 'Discovery' vs. 'construction' could only be a
> dichotomy if the 'construction' argument claimed that the soul is a pure
> 'externality.' That is not the claim. Foucault doesn't propose that
> the subject is 'merely' shell externally constructed with a hollow
> interior: he proposes that we do away with that interior/exerior model
> altogether. A truly historical understanding of the self, in fact,
> demands such a deconstruction; it removes from view the illusory
> distraction of an everlasting soul supposedly independent of all
> history.

Nothing but applause from me. By all means lose the inner/outer thing.
But be sure you lose the discover/create thing too. Discoverers
include scientists and anglo philosophers who imagine they're getting
at a preexisting Truth. Creators can be found in English departments,
but are mostly the strawmen of the discoverers who like to complain
that "everything's not a social construct." Heidegger thought
Nietzsche viewed human action as creation. I think Heidegger was full
of it. Nietzsche favored the term "interpretation." But H makes the
point well. Our products are not independent of a "world" or
independent of us.

>
> > I have repeatedly objected to
> > the use of this dichotomy in your posts, and never before received a
> > response.
>
> You have? I must have missed it. I was out of town there for a week
> ... still, I don't remember any such objection. I'm usually the one
> trashing dichotomies...

No, *I'm* usually the ONE trashing dichotomies ... (banned symbol here)

>
> > Perhaps you only replied this time because you didn't
> > realize what I was complaining about. One would suspect as much
> > because even in this post you cut off the last part of it, presumably
> > finding it inconvenient to reply to, and ignore those posts in which I
> > have quoted F discussing a problem and asked for a reading of
> > "problem" that does not treat it as, well, a problem.
>
> I'll have to take your word for this...
>
> >> ... you've claimed more than once that Foucault is mourning the
> >> violation of some 'private self' that escapes panopticism once he
> >> closes the door to his secure bedroom. Anybody who had read and
> >> understood _D&P_ would know this is a thousand miles away from what
> >> Foucault is
> >> talking about. Panopticism is not simply a general term for
> >> surveillance.
> >
> > Has Moggin been coaching you? I will repeat once more that I don't
> > give a champsellysseean shit whether what's at stake is "some 'private
> > self'" or whether it's some other stuff "a thousand miles away."
> > Foucault is not relating the narrative of a battle or an election.
> > He's complaining. More than that, he's whining.
>
> We *are* talking about Michel Foucault's _Discipline & Punish_, are we
> not? I have to make sure, because anybody who had actually read the
> book would never make such a ridiculous statement. Foucault is famous
> (or infamous) for his utterly detached and non-judgemental prose.

You hit an 'r' by mistake there.

> That's why people like Benjamin accuse him of being a nihilist for
> chrissake, because he refuses to moralize or agonize about the results
> of his research.

...AND because his research would seem designed for moralizing and
agonizing. Anyway, that's what's good about the sex books: the
moralizing is so obvious, or at least follows so obviously.

>
> I will personally mail you my upper lip if you can transcribe *one*
> sentence or paragraph that could be described as a whine or a complaint.

But I've done so and you've taken my word for it and I don't WANT your
upper lip.

>
> > And about SOMETHING
> > or other. I have repeatedly asked for an explanation of WHAT from
> > those of you who claim to understand him well. If you prefer to say
> > (as I gather, though you seem unwilling to put it baldly in so many
> > words) that F is utterly indifferent, I can only reply either (as you
> > do) Read the book, or ask why - if that were the case - why anyone
> > would read the book.
>
> Just because you don't see the point in an informative book that doesn't
> moralize doesn't mean everybody else has that problem. Good lord --
> Foucault has given a historical explanation of both the rise of
> organized corrective institutions and the human sciences as disciplines
> -- and he's clearly shown how both phenomena are intimately related to
> boot ... this isn't good enough? It's all junk because you can't walk
> away from it with a 100-word moral-to-the-story?
>
> -- brian

Yes. It is. (Except that 100 word part.) Read Nietzsche on history.

[David Swanson]

In article <Andrew_Perry-0...@cis-ts1-slip3.cis.brown.edu>
Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:

> In article <E1x4M...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
> dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:
>
> >p. 306 D&P: "At present, the problem lies rather in the steep rise in
> >the use of these mechanisms of normalization and the wide-ranging
> >powers which, through the proliferation of new disciplines, they bring
> >with them."
> >
> >How do you interpret the word "problem"?
>
> Well, first I'd include the sentence right before the one you quote:
>
> "If there is an overall political issue around the prison, it is not
> therefore whether it is to be corrective or not; whether the judges, the
> psychiatrists or the sociologists are to exercise more power in it than
> the administrators or supervisors; it is not even whether we should have
> prison or something other than prison. At present, the problem lies
> rather in the steep rise in the use of these mechanisms of normalization
> and the wide-ranging powers which, through the proliferation of new
> disciplines, they bring with them."
>
> In context, it doesn't exactly sound like an incitement to moral outrage.
> Sure, it's a political issue which MF describes, but one to think about as
> well as mobilize around. This passage may even be a call to arms,

Exactly. How the hell can it not be? Well, here's how: F goes on to
condemn calls to arms. He's confused.

but in
> the context of _Discipline and Punish_, it's hard to see why moral outrage
> would be the kind of thing Foucault would choose to arm his soldiers
> with...

You obviously have something specific in mind with this term "moral
outrage." It's your term. My complaint is (in addition to the
inaccuracy of his observations) that he arms them with NOTHING.

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

> I haven't seen Andy's post, but agree 100% with the bits copied here.
> I even find the reference to Marx a particularly good one, one that
> illuminates the sort of defenses of Foucault that Moggin has posted, in
> which the guiding premise seems to be that the forces of evil form an
> homogeneous mass including the government and everybody with a steady
> job. Imagine if the Nation magazine had a manifesto.
> I would suggest, as long as we're making suggestions, that Brian has
> yet to read Foucault critically, that is to ask what use Foucault is,
> not in Foucault's terms, but in Brian's.

I dunno. Since Foucault was a student of Althusser's, his connection to
Marx shouldn't strike one as a 'discovery'. Of course Foucault's
historical materialism is indebted to Marx; but since production, for
Foucault, is something accomplished not only by factories, but by
institutions of correction and training, in conjunction with the
knowledge-machines of the human sciences themselves -- this constitutes a
major, major break with the man.

In any case, the assertion that Foucault is of unclear 'use' to me is
based on the somewhat childish premise that a book should do the reader's
moralizing *for* him, that it has to preach or distribute
political/behavioral injunctions in order to be 'useful'. Has it occured
to anyone that Foucault, like Milan Kundera, simply finds the world to be
far more complex than the magic-bean mechanism of the categorical
imperative?

-- brian

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

> The muddiness of *Capital* is an extensive topic in itself, but the
> particular muddiness Andy seems to have in mind in Foucault is not
> simply a failure to suggest anything. After all, Willa Cather didn't
> suggest anything, and wasn't muddy. Foucault's failure is that he
> wants to condemn things without explaining why, without suggesting what
> might be better. (Well, he's chock-full of factual failures too, but I
> find that much less interesting.) Of course this is only about the
> eighteenth time I've said this, and Brian's responses cannot be accused
> of muddiness as long as they continue not to exist.

I've asked half a dozen times to see an excerpt from _D&P_ that could be
described as a 'condemnation' or 'complaint,' and of course none could be
found.

In fact, since among the three of us (you, Andy and i) I'm the only one
who has taken the time to paraphrase _Discipline & Punish_ -- i.e., long
explanations of the construction of the 'soul' by institutions of training
and correction, which are themselves founded on the disciplinary practices
of the human sciences flourishing since the 17th-century -- I'm the only
one of us who has demonstrated any understanding of the book at all. Your
and Andy's posts have shown such a blatant lack of textual support for
your vague, sweeping and strong opinions -- an objective observer would
have no reason to conclude you've read anything besides some Terry
Eagleton paraphrase of the text.

-- brian

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

> Foucault's writing has the merit of being entertaining. His view of
> history has the merit of his notion of epistemes. He has a flair for
> digging out good anecdotes from obscure sources. Etc. But to value
> the notion of power-knowledge as dispersed and internalized is beyond
> my poor powers (knowledges?). It's always been internalized, for
> godsake. Foucault's complaint is with what is now internalized.

Nope. Foucault explicitly explains over and over why discipline cannot
be spoken of as an 'internalization.' See the excerpt I transcribed in
another post about the 'soul,' or at least read pp 29-30 of _D&P_ (it's
at your local bookstore). Since you don't understand this utterly basic
premise, you don't really understand any of it.

> For all his intelligence
> and scholoarliness, Foucault somehow remains a child who never could
> think of himself as a part of society. Society is his enemy, as it is
> any adolescent's. Foucault's sexual persuasions may explain but cannot
> excuse this.

Oh, this is beautiful. Where'd you go to school, Redneck U? Foucault
was gay (bisexual, whatever) so that 'explains' a lot of things, does it?
Yeah. I dare you to answer the following question and not sound like an
idoit: How does *your* sexuality help to explain *your* intellectual
activities?

-- brian

[David Swanson]

In article <Andrew_Perry-0...@cis-ts1-slip3.cis.brown.edu>
Andrew...@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) writes:

> >Let me clarify. I shouldn't call privacy mysterious. I am not
> >speaking of something like "desert" that I just can't seem to make any
> >use of one way or another. I am not giving a Wittgensteinian argument
> >against the possibility of private language. Privacy seems to me a
> >perfectly coherent concept even when taken to mean a desire for keeping
> >secrets purely for the sake of keeping secrets. My bewilderment arises
> >in trying to understand why anyone would have such a desire.
>
> I think it is inappropriate (actually, to be honest, I think it is morally
> repugnant) to require other people to be comprehensible before you are
> willing to grant them full human dignity. Which isn't to say that you
> shouldn't try to understand this bewildering desire. It's just that your
> lack of understanding is not an argument against a right to privacy.
> Unless, of course, you're a humanist. Which is precisely the problem with
> humanism.

Meaning you want to outlaw the practice of phone monitoring as engaged
in by managers of telefundraising firms? Or WHAT? What right do you
have in mind? And where exactly have you discovered that I want to
violate it? (Note: this is not the same question as Where exactly have
you discovered that Moggin imagines I want to violate it? .)

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

>> Foucault explicitly explains over and over why discipline cannot
>> be spoken of as an 'internalization.' See the excerpt I
>> transcribed in another post about the 'soul,' or at least read pp
>> 29-30 of _D&P_ (it's at your local bookstore). Since you don't
>> understand this utterly basic premise, you don't really understand
>> any of it.

> Is this sort of childishness supposed to demonstrate Foucault's
> maturity by means of a contrast?

... and thus the issue of internalization is neatly derailed, as have
been all of our discussions of the *specific issues* in _Discipline &
Punish_. Opinins are rampant around here about Foucault, Derrida, et
al. Specific, sustained critiques of any of their arguments? None
at all.

>>> For all his intelligence and scholoarliness, Foucault somehow
>>> remains a child who never could think of himself as a part of
>>> society. Society is his enemy, as it is any adolescent's.
>>> Foucault's sexual persuasions may explain but cannot excuse this.

>> Oh, this is beautiful. Where'd you go to school, Redneck U?
>> Foucault was gay (bisexual, whatever) so that 'explains' a lot of
>> things, does it? Yeah. I dare you to answer the following

>> question and not sound like an idiot: How does *your* sexuality

>> help to explain *your* intellectual activities?

> Confidence and honesty do not scream and spit. You are not doing
> yourself any favors.

... and thus the issue of the blatant bigotry in your post is neatly
avoided. I pose the question again: How does *your* sexuality help

[David Swanson]

In article <32AB27...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> David Swanson wrote:
>
> > Foucault's writing has the merit of being entertaining. His view of
> > history has the merit of his notion of epistemes. He has a flair for
> > digging out good anecdotes from obscure sources. Etc. But to value
> > the notion of power-knowledge as dispersed and internalized is beyond
> > my poor powers (knowledges?). It's always been internalized, for
> > godsake. Foucault's complaint is with what is now internalized.
>

> Nope. Foucault explicitly explains over and over why discipline cannot

> be spoken of as an 'internalization.' See the excerpt I transcribed in
> another post about the 'soul,' or at least read pp 29-30 of _D&P_ (it's
> at your local bookstore). Since you don't understand this utterly basic
> premise, you don't really understand any of it.

Is this sort of childishness supposed to demonstrate Foucault's
maturity by means of a contrast?

>

> > For all his intelligence
> > and scholoarliness, Foucault somehow remains a child who never could
> > think of himself as a part of society. Society is his enemy, as it is
> > any adolescent's. Foucault's sexual persuasions may explain but cannot
> > excuse this.
>
> Oh, this is beautiful. Where'd you go to school, Redneck U? Foucault
> was gay (bisexual, whatever) so that 'explains' a lot of things, does it?
> Yeah. I dare you to answer the following question and not sound like an

> idoit: How does *your* sexuality help to explain *your* intellectual
> activities?
>
> -- brian

Confidence and honesty do not scream and spit. You are not doing
yourself any favors.

[David Swanson]

As an intro. to a more useful discussion of prisons I'd recommend we
all read the article in the Nov. 4th New Yorker. Poor Foucault isn't
even mentioned, but I'd be curious to hear what his acolytes think.

[David Swanson]

In article <32AA7A...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> I don't think I was constructing a dichotomy; I never suggested that
> 'good scholarship' does not often administer political/behavioral
> injunctions, or that such work cannot be rigorous and lucid. -- and I
> certainly never attempted to characterize Foucault's oeuvre as a whole.
> In short, I did not engage in the categorical discourse you're
> presenting. I was simply talking about a specific book -- _D&P_ --
> which, perhaps unlike other works of Foucault that I haven't read, does
> not engage the question about what one 'ought' to do to effect social
> change, or the degree to which one can 'intervene' in power relations.
> I was simply correcting, imo, David's inaccurate description of _D&P_ as
> an impassioned plea for such intervention.

With all due respect, get a fucking grip. I've repeated almost
endlessly that Foucault's topic is one that seems to call for action
but that Foucault explicitly condemns the very idea of suggesting
action. I've repeated almost endlessly that this is a cause of much
confusion. Some people suppose it to be a prescriptive book, other
suppose the contrary. Both have some reason. Neither is right. It's
a confused, incoherent book.

I certainly don't believe
> that _D&P_ does not contribute to a map of political relations, and is,
> in that sense, political. But that still does not erase the fact that
> the project of _D&P_ cannot be described as a 'call to action,' or the
> formation of a systematic political program.
>
> -- brian

David
"It was well known among the citizens of the state that the university
had pots of money and that there were highly paid faculty members in
every department who had once taught Marxism and now taught something
called deconstructionism which was only Marxism gone underground in
preparation for emergence at a time of national weakness." Jane Smiley

[David Swanson]

In article <32AB23...@nwu.edu>
brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:

> I've asked half a dozen times to see an excerpt from _D&P_ that could be
> described as a 'condemnation' or 'complaint,' and of course none could be
> found.
>
> In fact, since among the three of us (you, Andy and i) I'm the only one
> who has taken the time to paraphrase _Discipline & Punish_ -- i.e., long
> explanations of the construction of the 'soul' by institutions of training
> and correction, which are themselves founded on the disciplinary practices
> of the human sciences flourishing since the 17th-century -- I'm the only
> one of us who has demonstrated any understanding of the book at all. Your
> and Andy's posts have shown such a blatant lack of textual support for
> your vague, sweeping and strong opinions -- an objective observer would
> have no reason to conclude you've read anything besides some Terry
> Eagleton paraphrase of the text.
>
> -- brian

I'm gonna assume this lovely missive has appeared on my screen out of
its proper chronological order.

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

> With all due respect, get a fucking grip. I've repeated almost
> endlessly that Foucault's topic is one that seems to call for action
> but that Foucault explicitly condemns the very idea of suggesting
> action. I've repeated almost endlessly that this is a cause of much
> confusion. Some people suppose it to be a prescriptive book, other
> suppose the contrary. Both have some reason. Neither is right. It's
> a confused, incoherent book.

It's confused and incoherent because it "seems" to you to be a "call for
action"? You need to stop projecting and start reading. Since _D&P_
doesn't write *one word* about a "call to action," nor does it ever
"explicitly condemn" any such thing -- and since you obviously cannot
find even an excerpt that supports your fantasy -- one can only conclude
that you haven't read the book at all, but simply read about it in the
cartoon-ful _Introducing Foucault_. Again, _Discipline & Punish_ can be
found at your local bookstore.

> "It was well known among the citizens of the state that the university
> had pots of money and that there were highly paid faculty members in
> every department who had once taught Marxism and now taught something
> called deconstructionism which was only Marxism gone underground in
> preparation for emergence at a time of national weakness." Jane Smiley

... haw! English profs make "pots of money!" -- hooo hoooo!....
Meanwhile, Jane Smiley's begging for 'more' at the local soup kitchen.
Jane Smiley ... christ... Can't wait for your next quotation ... maybe
it'll be The Bridges of Madison County -- oh boy!

-- brian

[juliane varvaro]

sorry boys to break up your threesome, but you guys really aren't
getting anywhere and I thought another perspective might be helpful.

On Sun, 8 Dec 1996, brian artese wrote:

> David Swanson wrote:
>
> > The muddiness of *Capital* is an extensive topic in itself, but the
> > particular muddiness Andy seems to have in mind in Foucault is not
> > simply a failure to suggest anything. After all, Willa Cather didn't
> > suggest anything, and wasn't muddy. Foucault's failure is that he
> > wants to condemn things without explaining why, without suggesting what
> > might be better. (Well, he's chock-full of factual failures too, but I
> > find that much less interesting.) Of course this is only about the
> > eighteenth time I've said this, and Brian's responses cannot be accused
> > of muddiness as long as they continue not to exist.
>

David, please see below, F. does offer us a glimpse of what might be
better, only if you read closely and read comprehensively as many of his
works as possible

Brian said:

> I've asked half a dozen times to see an excerpt from _D&P_ that could be
> described as a 'condemnation' or 'complaint,' and of course none could be
> found.

first of all, Brian, this isn't a very good criticism. Wouldn't it be
more useful to offer a criticism from within Foucault's body of
literature, than asking for a particular example from D and P. This is
just one book of many, and i don't think you guys can solve your problem
without trying to understand F. overall project, which i think he
explains nicely in "What is an Author" and in "what is enlightenment."
take for instance his discussion concerning the creation of a new
philosophical ethos "consisting in a critique of what we are saying,
thinking, and doing, through a historical ontology of ourselves"
(Rabinow, F. reader)

F says: "criticism [should be practiced] as a historical investigation
into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves and to recognize
ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking, saying.In that
sense, this criticism is not transcendental, and its goal is not that of
making a metaphysics possible: it is geneological in its design and
archaeological in its method..it is geneological in the sence that it will
not deduce from the form of what we are what it is impossible for us to
do and to know; but it will separate out, from the contingency that has
made us what we are, do or think.......i mean that this work done at the
limits of ourseleves must, on the one hand, put itself to the test of
reality, of contemporary reality, both to grasp the points where change is
possible and desirable, and to determine the precise form this change
should take. *****this means that the historical ontology of ourselves
must turn away from all projects that claim to be global or radical. In
fact we know from experience that the claim to escape from the system of
contemporary reality so as to produce the overall programs of another
society, of another way of think, of another culture, another vision of
the world, has led only to the return of the most dangerous traditions" (46)

now, if you all have read this, and there is tons of good stuff from this
article as well as others, we see that F. is, yes Brain, a troubled
Marxists who recognizes the inprobablity and undesirablitity of
formulating an ideal system. Because of this, instead of giving us a
political theory, he radically developes N. ideas concerning geneaological
and ontology in order for us to try to develop a philosophical attitude,
or ethos, "a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is
at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are
imposed on us and an experiment with the possability of going beyond them" 50.

Now, if you want to criticize F. for not dealing with possibilities, this
may be plausible; however, i think his writing does give us much insight
into what is possible; how can we as individual attempt to overthrow the
shackles of the social if we don't understand the limits placed on
ourselves? we have to know how we were constructed in order to "leave
home" as N. would put it, don't we?

>
> In fact, since among the three of us (you, Andy and i) I'm the only one
> who has taken the time to paraphrase _Discipline & Punish_ -- i.e., long
> explanations of the construction of the 'soul' by institutions of training
> and correction, which are themselves founded on the disciplinary practices
> of the human sciences flourishing since the 17th-century -- I'm the only
> one of us who has demonstrated any understanding of the book at all. Your
> and Andy's posts have shown such a blatant lack of textual support for
> your vague, sweeping and strong opinions -- an objective observer would
> have no reason to conclude you've read anything besides some Terry
> Eagleton paraphrase of the text.
>
> -- brian
>

> I don't understand why you guys keep bickering about who has read
more; we all, at all times, could go for rereading stuff. I think David
has brought up some good points and criticisms, as well as Andy and
yourself. The problem is not who has read more and thereby who is less
confused, F. is confusing; he demands a lot from his readers. why can't
you guys stop criticizing and start trying to understand each other's
perspectives in an attempt to make sense out of F.? From all of the
postmoderns/poststructuralist, etc, i have attempted to read, I think F.
is the least conservative and pessimistic...postmodernism is
pessimistic...these guys tell us we are inherently oppressed and nothing,
no revolution, is going to change that, given the failures in the 60s.
thus, all we can do is try to pinpoint areas where we can experience
moments of freedom. For Wittgenstein this would mean being able to
respond to the phrase in every situation. For F. this would mean coming
to understand limitations placed on us, so that we can go beyond. what
this means could be debatable. this should be the nature of your debate
over the usefulness of F, not over if he is complaining or not about the
conditions of society. complaining and getting angry gets one nowhere,
only through understanding can we go beyond the present.

[David Christopher Swanson]

ti...@cs.nwu.edu writes:
> In article <E1y7u...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
> David Swanson <dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu> wrote:
> >In article <32A695...@nwu.edu>
> >brian artese <b-ar...@nwu.edu> writes:
> >> For instance: Psychology is a discipline. That is, psychology is one
> >> of the means by which power 'takes hold' of human bodies. A
> >> psychologist gives you a long questionnaire designed to map your
> >> personality. Most people succumb to the fiction that such a
> >> questionnaire is one of the means by which one 'finds out' about
> >> oneself, by which one 'discovers' some truth about oneself, by which
> >> some pre-existing 'self' is brought to light. In fact, the
> >> questionnaire is a disciplinary apparatus that manufactures the
> >> parameters and details that will make the body intelligible as a
> >> subject.
> >
> >A stupid dichotomy.
>
> Why?

> --
> == Seth Tisue <s-t...@nwu.edu> http://www.cs.nwu.edu/~tisue/

Our posts have probably crossed in the cybermail. Let me know
if you still want an answer to that.

A question that seems
interesting to me is that of the distinction between trust and
secrecy. I think it's interesting because there are situations
in which the difference will be, to all appearances, merely
verbal. But a more-than-verbal difference CAN, I think, always be drawn out.
Do I want to keep you from knowing something so that I can
possess it exclusively? Or do I resent being accused of
dishonesty? This is a very important distinction.

Another question that interests me is that of the conception of
a body of power. Clearly it can be helpful to view the monied
of the world as a single group. It can also be dehumanizing,
blinding, productive of unhelpful prejudice. To view a
business as part of a single gargantuan capitalist enemy
results in a pessimism that is self-fulfilling. I refuse to
see my former boss (to return to the example that only Jeff
seems willing to discuss) as something other than a largely
well-intentioned, if none too brilliant, imperfect person. At
the same time I recognize the limited options in life of some
of his employees.

Another question I'm interested in, to go slightly off topic,
is that of the need to speak, to confess, to vent, to share.
This comes to mind in particular from my concern to keep crime
victims out of courtrooms, and my recognition of the aid that
listening to them speak can be to them.

This has little to do with Foucault. But this is the SORT of
thing I, for one, would like to talk about, and in as
unscholarly and open a manner as possible.

Incidentally, I'll try to pick up that Foucault paper tomorrow.

DS

[David Christopher Swanson]

brian artese writes:
> David Swanson wrote:
>
> >> Foucault explicitly explains over and over why discipline cannot
> >> be spoken of as an 'internalization.' See the excerpt I
> >> transcribed in another post about the 'soul,' or at least read pp
> >> 29-30 of _D&P_ (it's at your local bookstore). Since you don't
> >> understand this utterly basic premise, you don't really understand
> >> any of it.
> > Is this sort of childishness supposed to demonstrate Foucault's
> > maturity by means of a contrast?
>

> ... and thus the issue of internalization is neatly derailed, as have
> been all of our discussions of the *specific issues* in _Discipline &
> Punish_. Opinins are rampant around here about Foucault, Derrida, et
> al. Specific, sustained critiques of any of their arguments? None
> at all.

Brian, I agree with you and Dewey and Foucault and Rorty and
Heidegger and Derrida and Vattimo and Wittgenstein and probably
Andy and Moggin that we're better off not talking in terms of
internal and external. But if we just use internalize to mean
blindly and voluntarily submit to, then I think Foucault would
say we've internalized power-knowledge, in so far as he'd be
willing to use the word "we." I'm really not terribly
interested in his subtleties on this point, and certainly never
wanted to critique them. The discussions of Foucault in this
thread, as far as I'm concerned are all red herrings working to
divert attention from my original query.

>
> >>> For all his intelligence and scholoarliness, Foucault somehow
> >>> remains a child who never could think of himself as a part of
> >>> society. Society is his enemy, as it is any adolescent's.
> >>> Foucault's sexual persuasions may explain but cannot excuse this.
>
> >> Oh, this is beautiful. Where'd you go to school, Redneck U?
> >> Foucault was gay (bisexual, whatever) so that 'explains' a lot of
> >> things, does it? Yeah. I dare you to answer the following

> >> question and not sound like an idiot: How does *your* sexuality

> >> help to explain *your* intellectual activities?
>

> > Confidence and honesty do not scream and spit. You are not doing
> > yourself any favors.
>

> ... and thus the issue of the blatant bigotry in your post is neatly

> avoided. I pose the question again: How does *your* sexuality help

> to explain *your* intellectual activities?
>
> -- brian

Get a life. Seriously. Allen Ginsberg, to take an example
from a thread you'll find handy in RAB, will tell you that the
single greatest factor in making him see himself as an outsider
was his homosexuality. Call him a bigot. I really don't give
a shit.

DS

[moggin]

moggin;

>> >> If Chomsky accuses F. of nihilism (does he, in fact? where is

that?), then
>> >> it would most likely be because of Foucault's suggestion that the
concept of
>> >> "liberation" (i.e., "throwing off our shackles") is part of the
mechanisms of
>> >> power -- from a liberal perspective, that's _lese-majeste_.

David:

>> >You lost me.

moggin:

>> Slaves without masters, as somebody said the other day, in the discussion
>> about abolishing work.

David:

>In other words we haven't got an identifiable oppressor? Well, so
>what? If we're oppressed by a societal structure or by ourselves, then
>we can change society or change ourselves. Just tell us how and I'll
>be the first to volunteer.

We'll need to understand the nature of our oppression -- what it is
and what it's not -- which is exactly where Foucault can be helpful.

-- moggin

[David Swanson]

In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.96120...@ux8.cso.uiuc.edu>
juliane varvaro <jvar...@students.uiuc.edu> writes:

> > I don't understand why you guys keep bickering about who has read
> more; we all, at all times, could go for rereading stuff. I think David
> has brought up some good points and criticisms, as well as Andy and
> yourself. The problem is not who has read more and thereby who is less
> confused, F. is confusing; he demands a lot from his readers. why can't
> you guys stop criticizing and start trying to understand each other's
> perspectives in an attempt to make sense out of F.? From all of the
> postmoderns/poststructuralist, etc, i have attempted to read, I think F.
> is the least conservative and pessimistic...postmodernism is
> pessimistic...these guys tell us we are inherently oppressed and nothing,
> no revolution, is going to change that, given the failures in the 60s.
> thus, all we can do is try to pinpoint areas where we can experience
> moments of freedom. For Wittgenstein this would mean being able to
> respond to the phrase in every situation. For F. this would mean coming
> to understand limitations placed on us, so that we can go beyond. what
> this means could be debatable. this should be the nature of your debate
> over the usefulness of F, not over if he is complaining or not about the
> conditions of society. complaining and getting angry gets one nowhere,
> only through understanding can we go beyond the present.

By all means, more voices are needed here. Certainly Brian's obsession
with pedantry is not helping. But I have read the articles you cite.
Brian (or Andy?) DID recommend another which I haven't read yet. But I
fail to find anything prescriptive, and think that I have looked at
your post pretty closely. As I've said elsewhere, I can make good use
of some of F's other books, notably the sex ones. In the above
paragraph, who are "these guys"?

David

[David Swanson]

In article <19961207173...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
jjohn...@aol.com writes:

> >I sympathize with this way of seeing it. In the situation I
> >described, however, there were many reasons for the listening,
> >including hearing how the people on the other end were
> >responding to the calls, and offering the employees
> >suggestions. One can view that as just a charade if one is
> >willfully blind. But it was only part of the story. Another
>
> I have no objection to constructive criticism, but that can be achieved
> without secretly, randomly monitoring calls. So far you've been saying
> that the employee has no right to hide anything, but shouldn't that also
> apply to the employer? I've raised the issue of trust, but I can also
> raise the issue of fairness (which I discussed in the context of defendant
> vs. prosecutor in a parallel post). Do employees have the right to observe
> the employer's activities? Who guards the guardians?

But this begs the whole question of whether the observation is
something offensive or not.

Let's not speak in existential terms about "rights." I said I don't
see why the employee should want to hide anything, and happen to know
that a lot of them do not.

>
> >part was, no doubt, making sure the employees didn't say
> >anything rude. I'd prefer the sort of trust that does not need
> >that. But I tended to assume that others were not necessarily
> >trust worthy, even though I was. (I would not have actually
> >said anything rude on the phone if I had been trusted not to.)
> >Now, if someone had stood beside me listening, I would have
> >objected. But since the observation was itself unobservable,
> >and could be easily forgotten, I didn't mind it. There are
> >those who imagine such observation is worse precisely because
> >it's unobtrusive. This bewilders me. Still, if you want to
> >put the whole discussion in terms of trust rather than secrecy,
> >you'll have a lot easier job of convincing me of things.
>
> --Jeff Johnson

[David Swanson]

In article <19961207173...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
jjohn...@aol.com writes:

> dc...@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (David Christopher Swanson) wrote:
>
> >I simply wanted to give the prosecution the right
> >to question a defendant on the stand and take any refusals to
> >speak as possibly significant.
>
> There are many possible interpretations of the defendant's silence. One
> possible interpretation is, "This charge by the state is ridiculous, on
> the level of a sleazy tabloid allegation, and I refuse to dignify it with
> a response." (The grand jury is a rather one-sided affair, the standards
> are lower, and the prosecutor usually gets the indictment he wants.)

That is only possible if you add to it "...and I'm willing to risk a
penalty."

>
> Moreover, without the Fifth Amendment, the prosecutor has an unfair
> advantage over the defendant, because the defendant does not have the
> right to place the prosecutor on the stand to question him.
>

About what?

[David Swanson]

In article <moggin-1012...@user-37kb941.dialup.mindspring.com>
mog...@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:

> We'll need to understand the nature of our oppression -- what it is
> and what it's not -- which is exactly where Foucault can be helpful.
>
> -- moggin

You suspect so or you know so? (If the latter, you know what I'll ask
you for.)

[David Swanson]

David:
> >
> > >>> For all his intelligence and scholarliness [spelling corrected], Foucault somehow

> > >>> remains a child who never could think of himself as a part of
> > >>> society. Society is his enemy, as it is any adolescent's.
> > >>> Foucault's sexual persuasions may explain but cannot excuse this.
> >

Brian:

> > >> Oh, this is beautiful. Where'd you go to school, Redneck U?
> > >> Foucault was gay (bisexual, whatever) so that 'explains' a lot of
> > >> things, does it? Yeah. I dare you to answer the following
> > >> question and not sound like an idiot: How does *your* sexuality
> > >> help to explain *your* intellectual activities?
> >

David:

> > > Confidence and honesty do not scream and spit. You are not doing
> > > yourself any favors.
> >

Brian:

> > ... and thus the issue of the blatant bigotry in your post is neatly
> > avoided. I pose the question again: How does *your* sexuality help
> > to explain *your* intellectual activities?
> >
> > -- brian
>

David:

> Get a life. Seriously. Allen Ginsberg, to take an example
> from a thread you'll find handy in RAB, will tell you that the
> single greatest factor in making him see himself as an outsider
> was his homosexuality. Call him a bigot. I really don't give
> a shit.
>
> DS

Another one of those points on which Brian will never be heard from
again. What was that Moggin was saying about silence being
significant?

[jjohn...@aol.com]

dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) wrote:

>Another one of those points on which Brian will never be heard from
>again. What was that Moggin was saying about silence being
>significant?

Hey, that was me!

--Jeff Johnson

[jjohn...@aol.com]

In article <E279v...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:

>> >I sympathize with this way of seeing it. In the situation I
>> >described, however, there were many reasons for the listening,
>> >including hearing how the people on the other end were
>> >responding to the calls, and offering the employees
>> >suggestions. One can view that as just a charade if one is
>> >willfully blind. But it was only part of the story. Another

Jeff:

>> I have no objection to constructive criticism, but that can be achieved
>> without secretly, randomly monitoring calls. So far you've been saying
>> that the employee has no right to hide anything, but shouldn't that
also
>> apply to the employer? I've raised the issue of trust, but I can also
>> raise the issue of fairness (which I discussed in the context of
defendant
>> vs. prosecutor in a parallel post). Do employees have the right to
observe
>> the employer's activities? Who guards the guardians?

David:

>But this begs the whole question of whether the observation is
>something offensive or not.
>
>Let's not speak in existential terms about "rights." I said I don't
>see why the employee should want to hide anything, and happen to know
>that a lot of them do not.

The employer should not want to hide anything either. Of the "many reasons
for the listening," the only one I can think of that requires secrecy is a
lack of trust between employer and employee.

[jjohn...@aol.com]

In article <E279q...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:

>> >I simply wanted to give the prosecution the right
>> >to question a defendant on the stand and take any refusals to
>> >speak as possibly significant.

Jeff:

>> There are many possible interpretations of the defendant's silence. One
>> possible interpretation is, "This charge by the state is ridiculous, on
>> the level of a sleazy tabloid allegation, and I refuse to dignify it
with
>> a response." (The grand jury is a rather one-sided affair, the
standards
>> are lower, and the prosecutor usually gets the indictment he wants.)

David:

>That is only possible if you add to it "...and I'm willing to risk a
>penalty."

There is no penalty under current law; you propose to change that. There
is a risk in not speaking, but there is also a risk in speaking--even an
innocent person can get nervous testifying in court. In fact, your support
for a change in the law is premised on the notion that when defendants are
forced to speak there will be more convictions.

Jeff:

>> Moreover, without the Fifth Amendment, the prosecutor has an unfair
>> advantage over the defendant, because the defendant does not have the
>> right to place the prosecutor on the stand to question him.

David:

>About what?

The prosecutor probably knows more about the evidence in the case than
anyone in the courtroom. Furthermore, if there is no reason to assume that
the defendant is not a liar/cheat/fraud before he is proven so by the
prosecution, then there seems to be no reason to assume that the
prosecutor is not a liar/cheat/fraud before he is proven so, and thus to
deprive the defense of the opportunity to question the prosecutor about
tampering with or hiding evidence would be to put the defense at a
disadvantage.

--Jeff Johnson

[juliane varvaro]

are you refering to my you guys? if so, than You, Brian, and andy.
anyway, D and P. is helpful in the overal project of F. I find it
extremely helpful when thinking about education, and how schools
construct "personalities" and "selves". in relation to prisons, no this
book can't tell us what to do now...the point is, since power is
everywhere, it is pointless to talk about how can we restructure
anything...because, in a theory of empowerment, you are just creating
another ideology that will be opressive. therefore, we need to have a
multiplicity of ideologies, thereby allowing for more points of liberation.
in short, there will alwyas be opressive stuctures and technologies, how
can we conceive of them otherwise? we cannot liberate a "self" or feel
liberation/will to p. since the self is social, we are always being
indoctinated..the points is, how can we construct/ react, have an
ethos, that allows for points of liberation where we can take part in
constructing a self we want to have? in other words, there will always be
structures or technologies in poststructualism.

j.

[Ron Hardin]

Somebody should compare Foucault's prisons to Erving Goffman's _Asylums_,
I would be interested to hear similarities
--
Ron Hardin
r...@research.att.com

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

[David Swanson]

I read, as recommended, "The Subject and Power," which was the
afterward to a book on Foucault. The paper is in two parts, the first
originally written in English. The second part is all about power, and
is probably important to those already convinced that Foucault has
something useful to say. The first part is the part that makes a few
vague passing references to actual action, and is so probably the part
I was meant to concentrate on. But I am little wiser than ever on the
topic of what the hell, if anything, Foucault suggests. Notable
passages, relevant to discussions here, include the reference to "good
boys" (p. 208) - I maintain Foucault is acting the naughty child. On p
209 he says fascism and Stalinism used and extended "mechanisms"
already lying around. But what does this tell us? What would it be
for them not to have? On the top of p 210 he begins a sentence "What
we need...," and at the bottom of the page he says "I would like to
suggest...," but I can't seem to get much meaning out of it. Also on p
210 he pairs "bureacracy" with "concentration camps" in a ludicrous
manner. On p 211 F concerns himself with "everything which makes
individuals truly individual." On p 214 he writes "Finally, this form
of power cannot be exercised without knowing the inside of people's
minds, without exploring their souls, without making them reveal their
innermost secrets." Consider and discuss, those who see some purpose
in doing so.

[brian artese]

David Swanson wrote:

> For all his intelligence and scholarliness [spelling corrected],
> Foucault somehow
> remains a child who never could think of himself as a part of
> society. Society is his enemy, as it is any adolescent's.
> Foucault's sexual persuasions may explain but cannot excuse this.
Brian:

>> Oh, this is beautiful. Where'd you go to school, Redneck U?
>> Foucault was gay (bisexual, whatever) so that 'explains' a lot of
>> things, does it? Yeah. I dare you to answer the following
>> question and not sound like an idiot: How does *your* sexuality
>> help to explain *your* intellectual activities?

[snip]

David:

>> Get a life. Seriously. Allen Ginsberg, to take an example
>> from a thread you'll find handy in RAB, will tell you that the
>> single greatest factor in making him see himself as an outsider
>> was his homosexuality. Call him a bigot. I really don't give
>> a shit.
>>
>>
>>

>> Another one of those points on which Brian will never be heard from
>> again. What was that Moggin was saying about silence being
>> significant?

golly, don't panic, I had a paper to write. For future reference, you
should know that there are some days that I don't get on the 'net...

Frankly, I'm surprised you're pursuing this. You clearly, plainly,
baldly asserted that your characterization of _Discipline & Punish_ can
be "explained" by Foucault's sexuality -- that you have the power to
deduce something about Foucault's psyche based on his sexual practices.
Calling this mere bigotry is a kindness. I'm not saying you're
idiotic, but that statement surely is. Don't you see why? Whatever
Ginsberg has to say about *himself* has no bearing at all on the simple,
irrefutable fact that you would never, ever in a million years attempt
to explain, say, Wittgenstein's neuroses on his heterosexuality.

-- brian

[brian artese]

juliane varvaro wrote:

> sorry boys to break up your threesome, but you guys really aren't
> getting anywhere and I thought another perspective might be helpful.

Well, you're right about that. You've stepped into what started as a
fairly tedious argument about whether or not Foucault displayed "anger"
or "rage" in _D&P_ -- I can't quite see it myself -- which then turned
into an even more tedious argument about ... well, not much. But in my
own defense I did post a couple of long excerpts from the book to try to
explain F's interior/exterior erasure in relation to the "soul," but it
didn't generate much response.

> F says: "criticism [should be practiced] as a historical investigation
> into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves and to
> recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking,

> saying. In that sense, this criticism is not transcendental, and its

> goal is not that of making a metaphysics possible: it is geneological
> in its design and archaeological in its method..it is geneological in
> the sence that it will not deduce from the form of what we are what it
> is impossible for us to do and to know; but it will separate out, from
> the contingency that has made us what we are, do or think.......i mean
> that this work done at the
> limits of ourseleves must, on the one hand, put itself to the test of
> reality, of contemporary reality, both to grasp the points where
> change is possible and desirable, and to determine the precise form
> this change should take. *****this means that the historical ontology
> of ourselves must turn away from all projects that claim to be global
> or radical. In fact we know from experience that the claim to escape
> from the system of contemporary reality so as to produce the overall
> programs of another society, of another way of think, of another
> culture, another vision of the world, has led only to the return of
> the most dangerous traditions" (46)
>
> now, if you all have read this, and there is tons of good stuff from
> this article as well as others, we see that F. is, yes Brain, a
> troubled Marxists who recognizes the inprobablity and undesirablitity
> of formulating an ideal system.

Yes; but the excerpt also reminds me of the strange paradox that
Foucault's break with the majority of Marxist critiques is a result of
his rigorous use of a true historical materialsim -- the very thing
Marxists are supposed to be doing. I was just talking to someone who
suggested that Foucault never uses the term ideology in D&P precisely
because he never shifts his gaze from particular ideological state
apparatuses; he never attempts to "step back" and speak about them "in
general," therefore he doesn't need to use the theoretical term
"ideology." (since ideology exists only in particular ISAs) Thus, as
you say below, he doesn't need to give us a "political theory" since
he's always talking about historical realities.

> Because of this, instead of giving us a
> political theory, he radically developes N. ideas concerning
> geneaological and ontology in order for us to try to develop a
> philosophical attitude, or ethos, "a philosophical life in which the
> critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical
> analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with
> the possability of going beyond them" 50.

I'm not sure why you say F developes ideas about 'ontology.' One may be
able to carry on debates *about* ontology based upon Foucault's work,
but he rarely uses that concept himself. I suspect the attempt to
appropriate some pure exteriority, as the word 'ontology' does, is not
really part of F's project.

> Now, if you want to criticize F. for not dealing with possibilities,
> this may be plausible; however, i think his writing does give us much
> insight into what is possible; how can we as individual attempt to
> overthrow the shackles of the social if we don't understand the limits
> placed on ourselves? we have to know how we were constructed in order
> to "leave home" as N. would put it, don't we?

Yep.

> ... From all of the

> postmoderns/poststructuralist, etc, i have attempted to read, I think
> F. is the least conservative and pessimistic...postmodernism is
> pessimistic...these guys tell us we are inherently oppressed and
> nothing,
> no revolution, is going to change that, given the failures in the 60s.
> thus, all we can do is try to pinpoint areas where we can experience
> moments of freedom.

Well ... who are you thinking of, in particular, as conservative?

-- brian

_________
Don't be paranoid.
It makes you look suspicious to the authorities.