> (Pannekoek and Gorter both had less than
> kind things to say though and managed to remain Marxists), but Foucault's
> work always had a materialist basis to it. I'm not sure why one can't
> engage with Marx and Nietzsche at the same time. Many of the Italian
> Marxists of the 70's did it without damage.
>
> ^^^^
> CB; Of course, one _can_. It is just my opinion that Nietzsche is a sort
> of
> anti-Marx. So, in engaging Nietzsche, one is substantially disengaging
> Marx
> and vica versa. It's like "engaging" water and oil at the same time.
>
> I'll save Jim Farmelant the time, and mention that Lunarcharsky, Bolshevik
> Minister of Education, and other Bolsheviks , had "engaged" Nietzsche in
> the
> early 1910's. But I'd say Nietzsche's atheism is the atheism of the
> ruling
> classes down through the ages, the opposite of Marxist atheism.
>
> Here's an example. Marx celebrated the Paris Commune. Nietzsche denounced
> it. That's pretty telling. No Marxist materialist would do that.
>
Does this mean that his concepts are irrelevant? Is philosophy a matter of
expressing the right pieties or is it the production of concepts that
critically engage with the world?
>
> Last, Foucault's relationship
> to the Marxist tradition is clearly vexed, most likely because of the
> nature of the PCF. There are moments when he insists that Marxism is
> crucial to his project and other points when he tries to distance himself.
>
> ^^^^
> CB; Exactly my point. Foucault seems to me to distance himself consciously
> from Marxism. I don't understand why Foucault fans don't just say "yea,
> you
> are right. Foucault distanced himself from Marx."
>
This is a misreading of my statement. Actually I emphasized the ways that
Foucault fluctuated on the question. As I said, I suspect that this had
to do with the dislike he had for the PCF, which I am somewhat sympathetic
with.
>
> The most important books for my engagement with Foucault is Discipline
> and Punish and the History of Sexuality books. Discipline and Punish is
> primarily concerned with the apparatuses needed to produce abstract 'labor
> power' and the end of the book quotes extensively from Capital. The
> history of sexuality introduction criticizes a certain Freudo-Marxism, but
> primarily as a criticism of a particular reading of Freud by those authors
> that reads power as primarily repressive. robert wood
>
> ^^^^^
>
> CB; Lots of intellectuals quote Marx while pursuing a project that goes
> against the fundamentals of Marx. When I read the History of Sexuality,
> it
> seemed to me that Foucault was consciously differentiating himself from
> Marx.
>
> Why not just let Marx go, and argue/declare/standup for your position, or
> Foucault's ?
>
If you read my comments about Discipline and Punish, my response
emphasized the way that Foucault is thinking through Marx's conceptual
framework and the way that he expands on that vocabulary. Foucault makes
the following comment in his interview Prison Talk "But there is also a
sort of game that I play with this. I often quote concepts, texts and
phrases from Marx, but without feeling obliged to add the authenticating
label of a footnote with a laudatory phrase to accompany the quotation.
As long as one does that, one is regarded as someone who knows and reveres
Marx, and will be suitably honored in the so-called Marxist journals. But
I quote Marx without saying so, without quotation marks, and because
people are incapable of recognizing Marx's texts I am thought to be
someone who doesn't quote Marx. When a physicist writes a work of physics
does he feel it necessary to quote Newton and Einstein? He uses them, but
he doesn't need the quotation marks, the footnote and the eulogistic
comment to prove how completely he is being faithful to the master's
thought...." Unfortunately, I think this applies to your reading of
Foucault to an extent. As for the comment on the history of sexuality,
you would have to explain why you think that the way Foucault theorizes
power and resistance that is so allergic to Marxian thought per se and not
simply certain Marxist thinkers? As for your last question, The reason I
won't 'let Marx go' is because my thought comes out of the Marxist
tradition. It is not the Marxist tradition that you are invested in.
It's a much more fractured tradition, but nonetheless it is as a much a
part of the debates as the holy trinity of Marx, Engels, Lenin. I feel
that there are elements of Foucault's work that both follows in that
tradition and contributes to that tradition. No one owns the Marxist
tradition.
robert wood
>