[lbo-talk] Chomsky on Foucault (Robert Hughes)

[Grant Lee]

From: Brian Siano

> Robert Hughes had a good coment on Foucault. He one said that, when he was
> writing his history of Australia, _The Fatal Shore_, he got absolutely
> _nothing_ out of Foucault's work.

Australian historians (as opposed to art critics playing at being
historians) said pretty much the same thing about Hughes's book, the
deficiencies of which are too numerous to discuss here.

> Here was a work of history that dealt
> with the founding of a whole _nation_ out of what Foucault would call the
> 'carceral,' the need to distance the criminal and separate the prisoner...

There is still an unresolved historiographic debate about whether the _main_
purpose of the settlement at Port Jackson in 1788 was as (1) prison (2) a
dumping ground for the relative surplus population of Britain and Ireland
more generally, or (3) strategic naval base. And "foundations" aside, the
number of free settlers quickly came to surpass the convict intake. I would
also suggest that a more significant (quantitatively and qualitatively) wave
of immigration was the gold rushes of the 1850s, when about 2% of the total
combined population of Britain and Ireland emigrated to New South Wales and
Victoria.

> and Hughes felt that, while Foucault was eloquent on the desires of the
> _state_, he had said nothing about the inner lives of the _prisoners_. I a
> way, Foucault's own work had erased the prisoner as thoroughly as any
other
> fever-dream of power.

I agree with Brian here. There are many other classic criticisms/weaknesses
of Foucault, such as his ignorance/denial of economics, his francocentrism
and so on.  Nevertheless, none of this has stopped Australian-based
historians -- even now -- admiring Foucault to an extraordinary degree.
Which goes some way towards showing the limited relevance of supposed
historical foundations.

Regards,

Grant.