"Mike, Thanks for bringing this up. One reaction I have is I like the pre-Foucault theories of class struggle and national/racial liberation better than Foucault's."
By the pre-Foucault theory of cass struggle, I assume (please correct me if otherwise) that you mean the various forms of Marxism... I also like Marx's theory -generally speaking- than Foucault's, but I do think the way Foucault treats the way power functions in society should be addressed for several reasons: (1) to show those post-modernists some good old fashion modernism and (2) to generate a Marxist queer theory rather than a post-modern queer theory which I described in my first post in the topic... I wouldn't mind sharing some of Foucault with y'all to see if his ideas and Marx's can be somehow wedded together? or simply dismissed?
This post addresses how Foucault also sees society in terms of conflict, power, and dominance just as Marx does, but also why Foucault dismisses any Marxist claim that communism awaits... it is based on Judith Butler's great introduction to Foucault (I think) in her dissertation/book 'Subjects of Desire.
She first discusses Foucault by comparison with Freud Marcuse, a more Marxist thinker (even if, that is, he is hardly traditional in that sense):
Freud: desire arises from instincts whose sublimation is needed fof civilization to function. Civ. in Freud then is "a juridical and prohibiive set of institutions which both repress original instincts and is itself the sublimated form of those instincts."
Marcuse (of 'Eros and Civilization'): Eros is a "nonrepressive and nonjuridical organizaing principle of cultural production" which shoud be endorsed by leftists. Eros is the way, in a sense, to a pleasurable civilization whose members are completely sexually liberated.
Foucault: the postulation of any ahistorical instinct or Eros is denied. "...Desire is not repressed by the juridical law, and neither is it a derivative or ublimated form of that originally repressed instinct [b/c no such instinct exists for Foucault]. Desire is created by the repressive law itself..."
Which is to say: "The law which we expect to repress some set of desires which could be said to exist prior to the law succeeds, rather, in naming, delimiting, and thereby giving meaning and possibility to precisely those desires it intended to eradicate... Hence, for Foucault, there is no desire outside of discourse, and no discourse free of power-relations [b/c the law which generates desire as well as power-relations is reproduced through given discursive practices]."
Because in this way power and discourse are coextensive, "Emancipation cannot consist in ascending to a power-free discourse..."
Further, "If there is to be an emancipatory potential in discourse, it must consist of the transformation rather than the transcendence of power."
This, of course, goes against any hope of a classless society, eh? Does anyone have any thoughts on a Marxist criticism of such an argument? Hopefully it isnt too abstract? Any criticism I've seen of this rests, as I mentioned, on psychoanalysis but I'm curious to hear of other approaches?
Mike