> ^^^^
> 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.
>
I think that Nietzsche provides a way of questioning certain assumptions
about the enlightenment tradition that is hardly innocent from the
legitimization of 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.
I think there is a difference between rhetorically distancing oneself from a tradition and abandoning a historical project. Actually, Bitch puts this quite well. There are simply phenomena in society that cannot be adequately be responded to with Marx's framework. This doesn't mean that the overwhelming usefulness of the project shouldn't be abandoned, just that it shouldn't be fetishized. I think this is implicit in Marx's understanding of capitalism as a dynamic system.
> 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 ?
It's an interview.
> 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.
It's a material practice used to constitute and legitimate a certain class
domination. (sex is the bourgeoisie what blood is to the aristocracy)
>
> 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.
>
No, Marx doesn't own the tradition either. My reading of the tradition is
that much of its productivity comes out of it contentious nature and the
debates that have occurred in it. My view comes out of the Luxemburg side
of the tradition that emphasizes multiplicity, experimentation and
learning from failure. I think that Marxism has been in constant turmoil
and crisis. It's precisely this that marks its productivity. The part
that I am less enamored with is the need for many of its members to claim
that they speak from the truth of Marxism. I think that Marx's thought
probably would have been infinitely less interesting if it weren't for the
many challenges put to it by members of the workers' movement.
I guess ultimately I am concerned with historical materialist tradition rather than Marx as a lone individual. I never got into the is he a nice guy argument precisely because I don't care. I think that marxism has made a profound contribution to historical material. One that ignores at the peril of falling into mystification, but it is not a hermetically sealed tradition either.
Ultimately I believe that Marxism would benefit from a more pluralistic engagement with others (in a non-liberal sense of the word). There are a multiplicity of traditions within Marxism beyond the Leninist tradition, which are still nonetheless Marxist.
robert wood
>