[lbo-talk] more Foucault

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Thu Aug 31 11:38:18 PDT 2006


Doug Henwood wrote:
> <http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/007863.html>
>
> What Are The Iranians Dreaming About
> Michel Foucault
>
> [...]


> A religious authority explained to me that it would require long work
> by civil and religious experts, scholars, and believers in order to
> shed light on all the problems to which the Quran never claimed to give
> a precise response. But one can find some general directions here:
> Islam values work; no one can be deprived of the fruits of his labor;
> what must belong to all (water, the subsoil) shall not be appropriated
> by anyone. With respect to liberties, they will be respected to the
> extent that their exercise will not harm others; minorities will be
> protected and free to live as they please on the condition that they do
> not injure the majority; between men and women there will not be
> inequality with respect to rights, but difference, since there is a
> natural difference. With respect to politics, decisions should be made
> by the majority, the leaders should be responsible to the people, and
> each person, as it is laid out in the Quran, should be able to stand up
> and hold accountable he who governs.

I've a big fan of F., but this just seems astonishingly naive to me. --Of course there is only one reading of the Quran that will be universally accepted by all Iranians, and no clerics would ever manipulate and interpret passages in a holy book to use as justifications for social inequality. (This is just about as embarassing to me as Nietzsche's stuff about women.)

Miles



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