>Why the impulse always to point out the deficiencies of a text -
>either to quote some shred to denounce it, or poke about looking for
>irreconcilable differences? Why not read something and say some of
>it's good, some of it's not, and let it inspire some thought? Yeah,
>I have some differences with H&N's Empire, but it also helped me see
>the world in a fresh way. Is that the problem? That you have to
>think about ambiguities and novelties, when the old verities are so
>much more comforting?
>
>Doug
>
>----
>
>from REMARKS ON MARX, Michel Foucault interviewed by Duccio Trombadori
>[Semiotext(e), 1991]
>
>Duccio Trombadori: But still apropos of polemics, you have also stated
>clearly that you don't like and will not accept those kinds of arguments
>"which mimic war and parody justice." Could you explain to me more clearly
>what you meant by saying this?
>
>Michel Foucault: What is tiresome in ideological arguments is that one is
>necessarily swept away by the "model of war." That is to say that when you
>find yourself facing someone with ideas different from your own, you are
>always led to identify that person as an enemy (of your class, your
>society, etc.). And we know that it is necessary to wage combat against the
>enemy until triumphing over him. This grand theme of ideological struggle
>has really disturbed me. First of all because the theoretical coordinates
>of each of us are often, no, always, confused and fluctuating, especially
>if they are observed in their genesis.
>
>Furthermore: might not this "struggle" that one tries to wage against the
>"enemy" only be a way of making a petty dispute without much importance
>seem more serious than it really is? I mean, don't certain intellectuals
>hope to lend themselves greater political weight with their "ideological
>struggle" than they really have? A book is consumed very quickly, you know.
>An article, well.... What is more serious: acting out a struggle against
>the "enemy," or investigating, together or perhaps divergently, the
>important problems that are posed? And then I'll tell you: I find this
>"model of war" not only a bit ridiculous but also rather dangerous. Because
>by virtue of saying or thinking "I'm fighting against the enemy," if one
>day you found yourself in a position of strength, and in a situation of
>real war, in front of this blasted "enemy," wouldn't you actually treat him
>as one? Taking that route leads directly to oppression, no matter who takes
>it: that's the real danger. I understand how pleasing it can be for some
>intellectuals to try to be taken seriously by a party or a society by
>acting out a "war" against an ideological adversary: but that is disturbing
>above all because of what it could provoke. Wouldn't it be much better
>instead to think that those with whom you disagree are perhaps mistaken; or
>perhaps that you haven't understood what they intended to say?
Why then Foucault's fight againt Marxism? The Great Confinement that
Foucault analyzes in _Madness & Civilization_, _Discipline & Punish_,
etc. makes much more sense in a Marxist theoretical framework than a
Weberian one: primitive accumulation & industrialization (and under
it the transition from formal to real subsumption) are changes in
social relations that created the biopolitics & governmentality that
Foucault discusses. Since Foucault sought to create a new theory,
rather than explaining the Great Confinement by Marxist theory,
however, he ended up going into unnecessary theoretical contortions.
Yoshie
