[lbo-talk] Power (Waiting for Foucault)

Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Thu Jul 3 13:24:52 PDT 2008



>>> Dennis Claxton

What I just asked you about is what Ted sent a while ago (see link).

Like Chris suggested, if you're really serious about finding out what Foucault said why don't you read Foucault instead of Sahlins and Ted's selected quotes? Otherwise, this exercise you're engaged in is as tedious as a Marx detractor pulling out quotes from Capital and saying "this demonstrates that Marx was an enemy of humankind."

^^^^^ CB: I read Vol. I of the history of sexuality, and an interview on Marx. I just read that interview you sent a copy of. I'm not inclined to read him more , because what I have read by him seems a bit off. That gets reinforced by things like what Ted quoted, or commentary from Sahlins. I'm willing to do a list reading of a selected Foucault text, like we did with Butler ten years ago.

Or maybe, you could give a brief outline of his ideas, with reference to texts.

I can't think of any small passages from

Marx from _Capital_ or otherwise that would lead one to think "this demonstrates that Marx was an enemy of humankind." It doesn't seem like Foucault is an enemy of humankind. It does seem like he leads a lot of social theory astray; and maybe that he's having fun messing with people's minds.

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