> >
> >Even as a joke, this is pretty pathetic. This guy obviously hasn't read
> >or understood a page of Foucault's work.
> >
> >Miles
>
>
>What struck me is it's hard to place Danner's use of Foucault in the
>usual categories of leftists blaming him for identity politics etc.
>and rightists blaming him for convincing us that crazy people should
>be let out of the asylum etc.
This issue, though not directly related to Foucault, came up on the teaching sociology list some time back. What's undergirding his claim is the notion that people believe that Bush/neocons express the idea that, since there is no objective truth to determine who should win out in a struggle, then the only thing that matters is who wrests control of power. Bush is as right as Osama Bin Laden is as right as working class struggle is as right as .... fill in the blank.
Yes. It was exasperating, that debate. I wish I had my archives of it on this machine. I'd send it to you and Miles. It'd make you both want to scream.
BTW, didn't the sociologist of deviance or maybe he was a psychologist -- Laing maybe? -- have a lot to do with th enotion that most of what was called mental illness in the 60s was socially constructed -- a way to marginalized and warehouse people? And that it was the imposition of questionable social norms and values on people that ought to be questioned, not anything real about mental illness at all? Can't recall his name but he was quite popular in the 70s and I recall a grad stud colleague being into his work. She is now an FBI agent, ditching PhD studies for career ("real") employment.
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