[lbo-talk] Chomsky on Foucault

[Shane Taylor]

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

Big words and abstractions, as opposed to:

[Michael Albert in a ZNet update on 8/29:]
> One little note. Some people have written to me
> saying how come you list links on the top page
> without some additional description of what the
> links lead to. How do I know if I want to click on it
> and read it. 
>
> It is a fair question. Partly you might decide by the
> author. Partly you might decide just by knowing us
> and our proclivity for having articles you find
> interesting. Partly you might decide by noting what
> the subject of the article is by looking down the ZNet
> top page to the subject/topical areas and seeing
> where it appears, rather than looking only at the
> recent articles list at the top. 
>
> But mostly, and most efficiently, all you have to
> do is click the link for recent artcles, which is
> called Most Recent, and located right at the top...and
> you will get page that lists recent additions with a
> brief description of each. In other words, we do list
> descriptions for new links -- and for all links, in fact,
> we just put all that on its own page.

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