it's aleady posted by Jenny dear moderator, wher gone ur moderating acumen?
On 2 Oct, 15:41, Deepa Paul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > see the below interview > > Deepa > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: anu joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Oct 2, 2:49 pm > Subject: Polemics, Politics and Problematizations > To: Grey Youth Kerala > > http://foucault.info/foucault/interview.html > > Polemics, Politics and Problematizations > This interview took place in order for Foucault to answer questions > frequently asked by American audiences. > It was conducted by Paul Rabinow in May 1984, just before Foucault's > death. > Translation by Lydia Davis, volume 1 "Ethics" of "Essential Works of > Foucault", The New Press 1997. > > Paul Rabinow: Why is it that you don't engage in polemics ? > > Michel Foucault: I like discussions, and when I am asked questions, I > try to answer them. It's true that I don't like to get involved in > polemics. If I open a book and see that the author is accusing an > adversary of "infantile leftism" I shut it again right away. That's > not my way of doing things; I don't belong to the world of people who > do things that way. I insist on this difference as something > essential: a whole morality is at stake, the one that concerns the > search for truth and the relation to the other. > > In the serious play of questions and answers, in the work of > reciprocal elucidation, the rights of each person are in some sense > immanent in the discussion. They depend only on the dialogue > situation. The person asking the questions is merely exercising the > right that has been given him: to remain unconvinced, to perceive a > contradiction, to require more information, to emphasize different > postulates, to point out faulty reasoning, and so on. As for the > person answering the questions, he too exercises a right that does not > go beyond the discussion itself; by the logic of his own discourse, he > is tied to what he has said earlier, and by the acceptance of dialogue > he is tied to the questioning of other. Questions and answers depend > on a game-a game that is at once pleasant and difficult-in which each > of the two partners takes pains to use only the rights given him by > the other and by the accepted form of dialogue. > > The polemicist , on the other hand, proceeds encased in privileges > that he possesses in advance and will never agree to question. On > principle, he possesses rights authorizing him to wage war and making > that struggle a just undertaking; the person he confronts is not a > partner in search for the truth but an adversary, an enemy who is > wrong, who is armful, and whose very existence constitutes a threat. > For him, then the game consists not of recognizing this person as a > subject having the right to speak but of abolishing him as > interlocutor, from any possible dialogue; and his final objective will > be not to come as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring > about the triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly upholding > from the beginning. The polemicist relies on a legitimacy that his > adversary is by definition denied. > > Perhaps, someday, a long history will have to be written of polemics, > polemics as a parasitic figure on discussion and an obstacle to the > search for the truth. Very schematically, it seems to me that today we > can recognize the presence in polemics of three models: the religious > model, the judiciary model, and the political model. As in > heresiology, polemics sets itself the task of determining the > intangible point of dogma, the fundamental and necessary principle > that the adversary has neglected, ignored or transgressed; and it > denounces this negligence as a moral failing; at the root of the > error, it finds passion, desire, interest, a whole series of > weaknesses and inadmissible attachments that establish it as culpable. > As in judiciary practice, polemics allows for no possibility of an > equal discussion: it examines a case; it isn't dealing with an > interlocutor, it is processing a suspect; it collects the proofs of > his guilt, designates the infraction he has committed, and pronounces > the verdict and sentences him. In any case, what we have here is not > on the order of a shared investigation; the polemicist tells the truth > in the form of his judgment and by virtue of the authority he has > conferred on himself. But it is the political model that is the most > powerful today. Polemics defines alliances, recruits partisans, unites > interests or opinions, represents a party; it establishes the other as > an enemy, an upholder of opposed interests against which one must > fight until the moment this enemy is defeated and either surrenders or > disappears. > > Of course, the reactivation, in polemics, of these political, > judiciary, or religious practices is nothing more than theater. One > gesticulates: anathemas, excommunications, condemnations, battles, > victories, and defeats are no more than ways of speaking, after all. > And yet, in the order of discourse, they are also ways of acting which > are not without consequence. There are the sterilizing effects. Has > anyone ever seen a new idea come out of a polemic? And how could it be > otherwise, given that here the interlocutors are incited not to > advance, not to take more and more risks in what they say, but to fall > back continually on the rights that they claim, on their legitimacy, > which they must defend, and on the affirmation of their innocence? > There is something even more serious here: in this comedy, one mimics > war, battles, annihilations, or unconditional surrenders, putting > forward as much of one's killer instinct as possible. But it is really > dangerous to make anyone believe that he can gain access to the truth > by such paths and thus to validate, even if in a merely symbolic form, > the real political practices that could be warranted by it. Let us > imagine, for a moment, that a magic wand is waved and one of the two > adversaries in a polemic is given the ability to exercise all the > power he likes over the other. One doesn't even have to imagine it: > one has only to look at what happened during the debate in the USSR > over linguistics or genetics not long ago. Were these merely aberrant > deviations from what was supposed to be the correct discussion? Not at > all-they were the real consequences of a polemic attitude whose > effects ordinarily remain suspended. > > P.R. You have been read as an idealist, as a nihilist, as a "new > philosopher", an anti-Marxist, a new conservative, and so on...Where > do > you stand? > > M.F. I think I have in fact been situated in most of the squares on > the political checkerboard, one after another and sometimes > simultaneously: as anarchist, leftist, ostentatious or disguised > Marxist, nihilist, explicit or secret anti-Marxist, technocrat in the > service of Gaullism, new liberal and so on. An American professor > complained that a crypto-Marxist like me was invited in the USA, and I > was denounced by the press in Eastern European countries for being an > accomplice of the dissidents. None of these descriptions is important > by itself; taken together, on the other hand, they mean something. And > I must admit that I rather like what they mean. > > It's true that I prefer not to identify myself, and I'm amused by the > diversity of the ways I've been judged and classified. Something tells > me that by now a more or less approximate place should have been found > for me, after so many efforts in such various directions; and since I > obviously can't suspect the competence of the people who are getting > muddled up in their divergent judgments, since it isn't possible to > challenge their inattention or their prejudices, I have to be > convinced that their inability to situate me has something to do with > me. > > And no doubt fundamentally it concerns my way of approaching political > questions. It is true that my attitude isn't a result of the form of > critique that claims to be a methodical examination in order to reject > all possible solutions except for the one valid one. It is more on the > order of "problematization"-which is to say, the development of a > domain of acts, practices, and thoughts that seem to me to pose > problem for politics. For example, I don't think that in regard to > madness and mental illness there is any "politics" that can contain > the just and definitive solution. But I think that in madness, in > derangement, in behavior problems, there are reasons for questioning > politics; and politics must answer these questions, but it never > answers them completely. The same is true for crime and punishment: > naturally, it would be wrong to imagine that politics have nothing to > do with the prevention and punishment of crime, and therefore nothing > to do with a certain number of elements that modify its form, its > meaning, its frequency; but it would be just as wrong to think that > there is a political formula likely to resolve the question of crime > and put an end to it. The same is true of sexuality: it doesn't exist > apart from a relationship to political structures, requirements, laws, > and regulations that have a primary importance for it; and yet one > can't expect politics to provide the forms in which sexuality would > cease to be a problem. > > It is a question, then, of thinking about the relations of these > different experiences to politics, which doesn't mean that one will > seek in politics the main constituent of these experiences or the > solution that will definitively settle their fate. The problems that > experiences like these pose to politics have to be elaborated. But it > is also necessary to determine what "posing a problem" to politics > really means. Richard Rorty points out that in these analyses I do not > appeal to any "we"-to any of those "wes" whose consensus, whose > values, whose traditions constitute the framework for a thought and > define the conditions in which it can be validated. But the problem > is, precisely, to decide if it is actually suitable to place oneself > within a "we" in order to assert the principles one recognizes and the > values one accepts; or if it is not, rather, necessary to make the > future formation of a "we" possible by elaborating the question. > Because it seems to me that "we" must not be previous to the question; > it can only be the result-and the necessary temporary result-of the > question as it is posed in the new terms in which one formulates it. > For example, I'm not sure that at the time when I wrote the history of > madness, there was a preexisting and receptive "we" to which I would > only have had to refer in order to write my book, and of which this > book would have been the spontaneous expression. Laing, Cooper, > Basaglia, and I had no community, nor any relationship; but the > problem posed itself to those who had read us, as it also posed itself > to some of us, of seeing if it were possible to establish a "we" on > the basis of the work that had been done, a "we" that would also be > likely to form a community of action. > > I have never tried to analyze anything whatsoever from the point of > view of politics, but always to ask politics what it had to say about > the problems with which it was confronted. I question it about the > positions it takes and the reasons it gives for this; I don't ask it > to determine the theory of what I do. I am neither an adversary nor a > partisan of Marxism; I question it about what it has to say about > experiences that ask questions of it. > > As for the events of May 1968, it seems to me they depend on another > problematic. I wasn't in France at that time; I only returned several > months later. And it seemed to me one could recognize completely > contradictory elements in it: on the one hand, an effort, which was > very widely asserted, to ask politics a whole series of questions that > were not traditionally a part of its statutory domain (questions about > women, about relations between the sexes, about medicine, about mental > illness, about environment, about minorities, about delinquency); and, > on the other hand, a desire to rewrite all these problems in the > vocabulary of a theory that was derived more or less directly from > Marxism. But the process that was evident at that time led not to > taking over the problems posed by the Marxist doctrine but, on the > contrary, to a more and more manifest powerlessness on the part of > Marxism to confront these problems. So that one found oneself faced > with interrogations that were addressed to politics but had not > themselves sprung from a political doctrine. From this point of view, > such a liberation of the act of questioning seemed to me to have > played a positive role: now there was a plurality of questions posed > to politics rather than the reinscription of the act of questioning in > the framework of a political doctrine. > > P.R. Would you say that your work justifys on the relations among > ethics, politics, and the genealogy of truth? > > M.F. No doubt one could say that in some sense I try to analyze the > relations among science, politics, and ethics; but I don't think that > would be an entirely accurate representation of the work I set out to > do. I don't want to remain at that level; rather, I am trying to see > how these processes may have interfered with one another in the > formation of a scientific domain, a political structure, a moral > practice. Let's take psychiatry as an example: no doubt, one can > analyze it today in its epistemological structure-even if that is > still rather loose; one can also analyze it within the framework of > the political institutions in which it operates; one can also study it > in its ethical implications, as regards the person who is the object > of the psychiatry as much as the psychiatrist himself. But my goal > hasn't been to do this; rather I have tried to see how the formation > of psychiatry as a science, the limitation of its field, and the > definition of its object implicated a political structure and a moral > practice: in the twofold sense that they were presupposed by the > progressive organization of psychiatry as a science, and that they > were also changed by this development. Psychiatry as we know it > couldn't have existed without a whole interplay of political > structures and without a set of ethical attitudes; but inversely, the > establishment of madness as a domain of knowledge [savoir] changed the > political practices and the ethical attitudes that concerned it. It > was a matter of determining the role of politics and ethics in the > establishment of madness as a particular domain of scientific > knowledge [connaissance], and also of analyzing the effects of the > latter on political and ethical practices. > > The same is true in the relation to delinquency. It was a question of > seeing which political strategy had, by giving its status to > criminality, been able to appeal to certain forms of knowledge > [savoir] and certain moral attitudes; it was also a question of seeing > how these modalities of knowledge [connaissance] and these forms of > morality could have been reflected in, and changed by, these > disciplinary techniques. In the case of sexuality it was the > development of a moral attitude that I wanted to isolate; but I tried > to reconstruct it through the play it engaged in with political > structures (essentially in the relation between self-control [maîtrise > de soi] and domination of others) and with the modalities of knowledge > [connaissance] (self-knowledge and knowledge of different areas of > activity). > > So that in these three areas-madness, delinquency, and sexuality- I > emphasized a particular aspect each time: the establishment of a > certain objectivity, the development of a politics and a government of > the self, and the elaboration of an ethics and a practice in regard to > oneself. But each time I also tried to point out the place occupied > here by the other two components necessary for constituting a field of > experience. It is basically a matter of different examples in which > the three fundamental elements of any experience are implicated: a > game of truth, relations of power, and forms of relation to oneself > and to others. And if each of these examples emphasizes, in a certain > way, one of these three aspects-since the experience of madness was > recently organized as primarily a field of knowledge [savoir], that of > crime as an area of political intervention, while that of sexuality > was defined as an ethical position-each time I have tried to show how > the two other elements were present, what role they played, and how > each one was affected by the transformations in the other two. > > P.R. You have recently been talking about a "history of problematics". > What is a history of problematics ? > > M.F. For a long time, I have been trying to see if it would be > possible to describe the history of thought as distinct both from the > history of ideas (by which I mean the analysis of systems of > representation) and from the history of mentalities (by which I mean > the analysis of attitudes and types of action [schémas de > comportement]). It seemed to me there was one element that was capable > of describing the history of thought-this was what one could call the > problems or, more exactly, problematizations. What distinguishes > thought is that it is something quite different from the set of > representations that underlies a certain behavior; it is also quite > different from the domain of attitudes that can determine this > behavior. Thought is not what inhabits a certain conduct and gives it > its meaning; rather, it is what allows one to step back from this way > of acting or reacting, to present it to oneself as an object of > thought and to question it as to its meaning, its conditions, and its > goals. Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by > which one detaches from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects > on it as a problem. > > To say that the study of thought is the analysis of a freedom does not > mean one is dealing with a formal system that has reference only to > itself. Actually, for a domain of action, a behavior, to enter the > field of thought, it is necessary for a certain number of factors to > have made it uncertain, to have made it lose its familiarity, or to > have provoked a certain number of difficulties around it. These > elements result from social, economic, or political processes. But > here, their only role is that of instigation. They can exist and > perform their action for a very long time, before there is effective > problematization by thought. And when thought intervenes, it doesn't > assume a unique form that is the direct result or the necessary > expression of these difficulties; it is an original or specific > response-often taking many forms, sometimes even contradictory in its > different aspects-to these difficulties, which are defined for it by a > situation or a context, and which hold true as a possible question. > > To one single set of difficulties, several responses can be made. And > most of the time different responses actually are proposed. But what > must be understood is what makes them simultaneously possible: it is > the point in which their simultaneity is rooted; it is the soil that > can nourish them all in their diversity and sometimes in spite of > their contradictions. To the different difficulties encountered by the > practice regarding mental illness in the eighteen century, diverse > solutions were proposed: Tuke's and Pinel's are examples. In the same > way, a whole group of solutions was proposed for the difficulties > encountered in the second half of the eighteenth century by penal > practice. Or again, to take a very remote example, the diverse schools > of philosophy of the Hellenistic period proposed different solutions > to the difficulties of traditional sexual ethics. > > But the work of a history of thought would be to rediscover at the > root of these diverse solutions the general form of problematization > that has made them possible-even in their very opposition; or what has > made possible the transformation of the difficulties and obstacles of > a practice into a general problem for which one proposes diverse > practical solutions. It is problematization that responds to these > difficulties, but by doing something quite other than expressing them > or manifesting them: in connection with them, it develops the > conditions in which possible responses can be given; it defines the > elements that will constitute what the different solutions attempt to > respond to. This development of a given into a question, this > transformation of a group of obstacles and difficulties into problems > to which the diverse solutions will attempt to produce a response, > this is what constitutes the point of problematization and the > specific work of thought. > > It is clear how far one is from an analysis in terms of deconstruction > (any confusion between these two methods would be unwise). Rather, it > is a question of a movement of critical analysis in which one tries to > see how the different solutions to a problem have been constructed; > but also how these different solutions result from a specific form of > problematization. And it then appears that any new solution which > might be added to the others would arise from current > problematization, modifying only several of the postulates or > principles on which one bases the responses that one gives. The work > of philosophical and historical reflection is put back into the field > of the work of thought only on condition that one clearly grasps > problematization not as an arrangement of representations but as a > work of thought.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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