Foucaults Sculpting
Euphoric7
I have a few rambling questions which hopefully will make some sense but
maybe not. I'm interested in how Foucault talks about sculpting oneself as if
one started out as a big block of marble and carved away the generic product of
being human into a beautiful sculpture as opposed to painting oneself as if one
was a blank canvas and adding layers of colors and images on the canvas. The
sculpture metaphor means to me that one has to sculpt away values ethics and
styles of living that are the norms of whatever society one is thrown into and
you would sculpt these norms, ethics, values, etc... so as to mold your true or
you own self as to what you want to be. This signifies a form of beauty that
is universal and can add to the world. As a certain leap here I propose that
it could get one in touch with their daimon. And when one does get in touch
with that through his own sculpting then he could very well transcend his
personal daimon into a universal daimon and almost lose himself in a sage-like
stupor. The other metaphor of the painting would be to splash colors or even
paint a self portrait on to a canvas which is adding layers upon nothing for
the pure the pure sake of narcissistic dandyism.
So I suppose my questions and confusions are these: Is Foucault's analysis of
the care of the self in his study of the ancients in the History of Sexuality
concerned with modernistic dandyism or is he advocating knowing thyself and
sculpting thyself to get at the Platonic universal soul. I would like to think
that Foucault deals with particulars as opposed to universals, yet may the
subjective
vs. the universal is too neat and tidy.
M.R.M. Parrott
:...Is Foucault's analysis...concerned with modernistic dandyism
:or...the Platonic universal soul....[?]
:
Very good question.
I think in his early work, on the asylum and prison, he makes it clear
the soul is merely an effect of the power systems which produce it. The
soul is real, but not universal or Platonic, outside of the power systems.
However, in his later work, he seemed to have shifted, on that
particular point. Maybe he was moving into a view which split the
difference between a straight platonism and a straight hegemonic relativism;
or a modern redressing of platonism, such as the Kantian transcendental
idealism. There is very little, but strong evidence for this possibility in
his essay on Kant's enlightenment...
Sadly, he died before his work could reflect the full shift in his
thought.
Yours,
Mark
www.rimric.com
Euphoric7
will have to read more about foucault's thoughts on kant...my curiousity came
from reading a chapter from 'the cambridge companion to foucault.'
i'm still confused on 2 issues, well i'm confused about getting out of bed in
the morning, but any comments on how Foucault goes about sculpting oneself?I
believe automatic writing is one. Other methods? And if sculpting oneself is so
crucial to Michel and his guru, Freddy N., wouldn't this be nothing more than
an intellectual pursuit of narcissim, not much different from a body builder
pumping ion in front of a mirror for the sake of personal admiration?
M.R.M. Parrott
:..any comments on how Foucault goes about sculpting oneself?
:
:wouldn't this be nothing more than an intellectual pursuit of
:narcissim, ...personal admiration?
:
Well, he makes it clearer in the full length of "The Care of the Self,"
and especially in "What is Enlightenment?". It's not too far away from
personal admiration, but closer to personal fulfillment. In CS he connects
all of this with the ancient practice of keeping a personal notebook, a
hyponemata, which is more than a diary and address book; it's like a sketch
book of life, with notes about how to live a well-balanced existence. The
Greeks sought to live a beautiful, individual life; they thought of their
life as a work of art, one which had to be sculpted, maintained, and
enjoyed.
In that sense, he wanted us to recognize this ancient tendency within
our modernity, connecting with Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Bataille, who all
advocated a similar approach to life; Danydisme, Transvaluation, open
sexuality. For Foucault, if we could put all of this together, we would
have an "ethos" of modernity based upon a zen-like presence, rather than the
kind of modernity described in " '68 thought terms," in his earlier work.
In WIE, he said our modern task was to refuse who we are, refuse the
power by interrogating the present, and with that, I find the indication of
how his work would have gone, if he had lived. I wrote all about this in my
book, "The Ethos of Modernity," featured on the site below. You should read
the Miller biography of Foucault; it's really great, giving a very
well-rounded picture.
Yours,
Mark
www.rimric.com