wrobert
> CB; I don't know about that. Foucault was a sincere Communist Party member
> in early years. Seems likely that a philosophical minded Party member like
> him would take a look at Engels and Lenin on philosophy.
>
He was a party member very briefly. It was a matter of months I believe.
^^^^^ CB: OK. All I can say is if he never thought about Lenin ( and Engels) on philosophy, it would be hard to see how he could be much like Marx philosophically, or be a Marxist materialist much.
^^^^^^
> 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?
^^^^ CB; Not irrelevant , but in fundamental and important contradiction with Marx's thinking. He is relevant to the realm of discoure here, because he has a lot of admirers. Not pieties. The issue with Marxism is politics and philosoophy. Most philosophy is idealist and bourgeois from the Marxist standpoint. The discussion on this thread is , as I understand it, is the compatibility of Foucault and Marx, and N. and Marx.
For Marx, philosophers have critically engaged the world in a number of ways, the thing is to change it, and not just change it in any old way, but in the specific way of overthrowing capitalism.
^^^^^^
>
> ^^^^
> 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.
^^^^
CB: Ok fluctuating then. The fluctuations away from Marx are the points at which, uh, he's not a Marxist. Of course, he's free to do that. All I'm doing is pointing out that when he does it, he's going off the rails, from the standpoint of Marxist materialists.
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.
^^^^^ CB; I didn't say he didn't quote Marx. I said he seemed to be consciously and purposely "fluctuating" from Marx in _content_, not in "reverence".
But you know, it's not all easy to understand. So, maybe he didn't mean what I thought. What about the book specifically on Marx, or an interview or something ?
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?
^^^^ CB; How is his concept of sexuality materialist in Marx's senses ? Real question.
^^^^^^
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
^^^^^^
CB; Yes, ok. It's not so much a matter of owning it, as having an opinion of what it is and expressing that opinion. I don't know if you think Marx owned any of the Marxist tradition, but he seemed to do a lot of distinguishing his thought from those who were close to him, including left anarchists. So, in defending a specific Marxism , I follow Marx's own approach to his thought. In other words, Marx's own treatment of his thought was very non-pluralist.