[lbo-talk] Chomsky on Foucault

[Shane Taylor]

Dennis Perrin wrote:
> I don't know much about his ideas to begin with, so
> a specific request is pointless. I suppose I want
> someone to explain F's importance in language I
> can understand. I've watched his exchange with
> Chomsky several times, and each time F simply lost
> me. It seems he engaged in a form of techno-speak,
> understood by the Smart Ones or those otherwise
> "inside," but to me it sounds like verbal wanking.

Of course abstractions should not go unexplained where possible, and "big
words" should not go undefined.  It's alienating to assume your audience
knows these things.  I agree with that.

But consider Albert's appearance on Behind the News last Thursday. 
Participatory economics is a big word, and a foreign concept. 
"Disempowering" and "empowering" are murky abstractions that I don't
understand.  Ditto "balanced job complexes".  Everything Noam just
faulted Foucault for was there with Albert.

The problem with general denunciations of "abstractions" and "big words"
is that 1) there is a tremendous amount about human affairs that is *not*
immediately obvious, not an accepted "truism" (where have we heard that
word before...) and 2) one person's abstraction is another's Common
Sense.

-- Shane

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