...and, for matt


The history of "A conversation about the work of Michel Foucault"



>>the beautiful possibilities filtering through

Stage setting:


The following sentence will give us the content of the argument to follow the following sentence. The content of the 'argument' to follow, is as follows:

  • 1. Miscellaneous Identity #1 holds that Foucault's historical analyses (Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, etc.) are sorts of cautionary tales/a call to arms. They are, at the very least indicative of a greater liberatory project.
  • 2. Miscellaneous Identity #2 holds that this is not so; that, in fact, Foucault's analyses give no indication of such a liberatory project and that to ascribe such a project to these analyses is to superimpose one's one political agenda upon them. As an example of such a superimposition, Miscellaneous Identity #2 cites Charles Taylor's interpretation of Foucault's work.
  • 3. It seems that, in the 'end' Miscellaneous Identity #1 may have made a stronger case, especially given later remarks made to a third party, to whom this "History" is, in itself, 'addressed' (the use of the term 'addressed' is here meant to be ironic, as the author (who?) is somewhat aware/cautious of what it might 'entail' (if anything)).







...and, for matt: here is a prolonged argument about 
Foucault that i had with cletus the foetus from e2
one thing i learned from this is that arguing made me 
realise that i know a fair bit about foucault..or at least 
i can talk like i do to someone that knows something about 
him....
heres the whole conversation (in its entirety, as "whole" would indicate):


but first he said to you much later after first

  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says 1) Find the interview. Get it through the interlibrary loan system of your school's library. 2) You say that my position is that "does see the possibility of liberation by resistance to power." This is not what I said at all. What the
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says heck does "resistance to power" mean, when all resistance *is* power? You're confusing power (ie., the capacity to get someone do what you want them to do) with domination (ie., the capacity to *force* someone do what you want them to do)
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says Domination is one form of power, but not the only one. Love is power, for example. Furthermore, in the context of the Anti-Oedipus preface, he's not talking about the "individual" as a being, but the individual as a "person" with
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says distinct "feelings" that are part of a regulated world. This world is constituted by power (NOT just domination -- it also involves emotional coaxing, convincing, etc. on top of threat and fraud). The "multiplication" and "displacement"
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says psychological self-transformations, part of a new ethic of "care for self" that F. envisions. They are forms of resistance against power, but they ARE power as well -- we can't "oppose" power, we can only oppose UNDESIRABLE outside power
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says with our own, internal, care-of-self power. 3) What are you saying about the preface? That it doesn't provide any insight to Foucault because he'd lie about the context of his own work as a favour to friends who are talking about
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says completely different from his own work? (And no, I don't think he was getting paid, and in any event even if he was, remember that Deleuze would later go on to write a book about Foucault, so I don't think it's unreasonable to say there
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says is a certain copacetic vibe there.)
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says 4) Find the interview.
  • (r) Cletus the Foetus says What did *you* take Foucault's overall theme as being? Renunciation to the state?

  • To be fair to my friend Frankdeluxe, I don't think he would ascribe any sort of overall theme to Michel FoucaultFoucault...





    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Howdy.


    Miscellaneous Identity #2: hey so yeah, what kind of stuff you read? and: postgraduate? so you are doing graduate stuff now then?


    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Yeah, see, simply going by what I could get from what you were saying about JD., I must say that I don't like the sounds of graphocentrism any more than I like the sounds of phonocentrism. What stuff do I read? Well, I'm a big Nietzsche fan, and I'm getting all into Deleuze right now. (Plus I'm teaching myself economics.)


    Miscellaneous Identity #2: yeah he doesnt really endorse it as much as i lead on but i havent read the book right now, so i just made it somewhat facile. its more like he is saying graphocentrismis the trend now (ie 1960's 1970's) deconstruction is not grapho or phono centric though which is what he is more about


    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: I'm in my last semester of my undergrad degree (BA), with a double major in phil. and english (since my school doesn't offer an honours program in philosophy. Well that might be ok then. See, in addition to Nietzsche and Deleuze, I'm also totally all about Chuang tzu. And William Blake.


    Miscellaneous Identity #2: cool im in my third year of a combined honours in phil and contemporary studies sort of interdisciplinary deal what school do you go to? hows Deleuze anyway? i read a few of his joints, but i dont know shit about psychoanalysis so it mostly went over my head hes got a good essay on lewis caroll though


    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: But see, with Chuang tzu, and Lao tzu even moreso, it's about learning to use language without getting tangled up in the idea that there's an essential connection between language and experience. And for the Taoists, experience is the primary focus.






    Commentary:

    Arguing about nothing is never arguing about nothing. Even when I seem to be holding no position whatsoever, the act of arguing still holds some intentional sort of content. I'm still trying to reach some sort of goal. What is the goal in this case? What will happen in the end? Where will the conversation go? If I want to talk to someone about "academic"-esque topics (re: Michel Foucault) does that mean an argument of sorts will inevitably ensue? It seems to be almost always the case, even if I hold a lot of the same opinions as the other person, I will, in the "heat" of discussion flip flop, even arguing for something I see as 'incorrect'. The thing is, when I argue a position, I "believe" it as much as I ever believe in anything. The entire paragraph leading up to this sentence is poorly written, and not at all something I would agree to. I argue with people for no reason, and for the reason that it helps me work out things about subjects that I didn't realise I knew. I guess a socio-biologist would say that it was a survival instinct. My instinct to survive usually doesn't seem terribly automatic. I'm just a walking courtship display. I reject my work, I reject your work.

    Argumentisargument.




    the great soup kitchen explosion of ought four



    Miscellaneous Identity #2: yeah a lot of eastern shit seems to be pretty phenomenology-y im more into language itself :)

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: I go to the University of Prince Edward Island. Deleuze is cool -- "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" is pretty heavy, though you can almost track where it is Deleuze is speaking and where Guattari. Though it's never quite concrete, and besides it's irrelevant. They have a chapter on the sociology of black magic and lycanthropy, which turns into music theory halfway through.


    Miscellaneous Identity #2: haha!!! i go to dal/kings i was looking into pei's non-existent grad programmes thats funny that we are so close

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: No shit! I've got friends who're over there. Wow, it's a small world.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: quite. thats funny.

    yeah i read capitalism and schizophrenia. i just dont know much about freud/lacan et al so it wasnt that exciting to me i like their literary criticism stuff though

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: It's only half about the psychoanalysis, though. It's also half about economics; it's basically a revision of the theory of desire, in a radical way that alters the perspectives of both sciences.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: so how do i get rid of these square brackets? &91?



    ((Commentary))

    Textual Note regarding the striking through (striking through) of typographical laughter in the conversation. This decision (incision)/revision has been made for the following reasons:
    • One
    • Time
    • Too
    • Many
    • We
    • Fled
    • For
    • Their
    • Lies

    For further information on this curious editorial procedure, see *'s.
    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: [ and ] See, in economics, desire was always characterized negatively. Desire was want, as in, you wanted something you didn't have and you acted to make the desire go away. In psychology, desire was something that was teased out by circumstances, and then repressed back against itself, because oh golly gee, it's just all too titillating. Well, you've read Foucault, right?



    * (0.015): Laughter is that disease peculiar to the human condition. Laughter is (or has become) that paralysing fear of one's own death.


    Miscellaneous Identity #2: so i put one after and one before then? thats annoying. haha yeah, i just dont get all the father/son circumcision etc. metaphors that much ive been reading some lacan lately for a class so im getting it a bit more but its not really my thing i guess

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Yarp, [ is [ and ] is ]. (For reference, \ is | -- ceci n'est pas une pipe.) Lacan is another one of those dudes who's just too far out for me.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: haha>/so> he's alright i dont really like him that much i dont know, psychoanalysis is funny to me

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: But Deleuze and Guattari totally revised the theory of desire, using the idea of a Body without Organs as a controlling metaphor. Foucault's as anti-psychoanalytic as Deleuze & Guattari. Their stuff represents criticism of the methods, perspective and content of psychoanalysis.



    * (0.0175): Coins are all flipped the same way. (There is no advice here, nor has there been or will there "be")



    Miscellaneous Identity #2: yeah i know, its just that its hard to understand critiques of something you dont know anything about :) hahaa

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Yeah I bet. That's probably one of the main reasons I couldn't quite get my head around Derrida.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: yeah, it just takes some getting used to.

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Guess so. I was always paranoid that there was something substantial that I was missing, that if I knew it I might totally revise everything I thought about everything, but since I didn't know it I'd live forever in ignorance. Glad to know that isn't quite the case.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: haha well i wouldnt say that derrida does have a lot of importnat things to say my wu's are actually pretty crappy glosses of a lot of what he says you really do have to read what he says to get most of it he's big into the 'performance' of writing/reading

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: See, I reckon that with stuff like what he's doing, a great deal will get lost in the translation. And my french isn't as good as I wish it were. But on the other hand, I can't entirely relate to the idea that we're becoming any less of a verbal-oriented culture, or a verbal-oriented philosophical tradition.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: yeah, he is pretty finicky with his translator's though and a lot of the hard parts are given in both languages (doesnt help me because i dont speak french) that is true though

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: (Hey, did you know Derrida is a noder? Check out the user jderrida.)


    ************************************************************

    "BREAK!" said in break-dancing 'call to arms' voice

    2002.02.10  16.37
    forgetting/amnesis/anamnesis/remembering
    
    well i forgot about this journal
    in some ways
    but it was in the back of my mind
    the advent of everything has not yet destroyed my "need" 
    
    (not really a need, more of a benefit caused by) of this journal
    
    everything is moderated, but this isn't moderated
    its just what i want to write
    so i still have use for this
    
    fitting everything nicely into (marxist)/economist terms 
    right there
    
    "use"
    
    

    ((thats why i like george bataille))

    or why i think i like him exploding the notion of use/disuse the productivity of waste? how can political economy deal with waste/art etc. nothing is a closed or open system nothing is anything

    im so fucking clever.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: hahaha that would be funny if it was him i think e2 is ridiculously derridean

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: I was always skeptical of jderrida -- I mean, look through his w/u's. There'll be these incredibly cunning "impersonations," and then there'll be some crazy piece on American indiepop.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: haha

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Seriously had me messed up for a while. I kept /msg'ing the dude, trying to extract hints as to the true nature of his game. Was it Derrida, an old man with bizarre musical tastes? Was it Derrida, with his grandson using the same account? Or was it an amazing impersonation? I needed answers.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: im surprised you are into the sort of thing you are, upei seems like a very analytical philosophy department (like the rest of north america) or...it was just a nerd like me that chose a bad user name.

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Yeah, Neb Kujundzic, the chair, is from Croatia, so he's well-versed in the Slavic logical tradition (they all had to be, it was perceived as the least subversive form of philosophy), and Malcolm Murray is a contractarian. Tony Couture is an old-school (Godwinian) anarchist with Habermas-sympathies (total reformed Heideggerian). The new guy, Louis Groarke, he's an Aristotelean (as far as I can tell). I'm just a free-thinker. I read for myself, and I won't let my professors tell me I'm wrong when I know I'm not.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: im always wrong i rarely realise it though

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Hah. Unpositive attitude dude. I've been reading Nietzsche since high school, and none of the other profs read much of him, so I'm used to having a niche of knowledge. I just expanded from there.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: well its positive in that it doesnt bother me that im wrong

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Yeah, that's good. Been there too. So what are you going in to? Canada's got a strong tradition of media studies, and as you probably have the dubious honour of being one of the few people in the country who can extract something useful out of it, you could probably do a lot of creative stuff there. (Sorry, out of Derrida.)





    * (1.00000034): I will relent. I'm convinced by (his)(its?) argument. The reason I've struck all the laughter from this "record" (awful contractual) is because of laughters explosive disregard for the argumentative style. What can laughter mean in a debate? Doesn't it automatically render any appeal to rationality absurd? Or at least, absurd within the range of the laughter itself. Importantly: the range (band-breadth) of this laughter multiplies itself out of all control if it finds a 'permanent' home (dwelling) on the internet. Thus: if I leave the traces of this once-original laughter to remain here, am I not already invalidating the possible seriousness of the questions that may (or may not)(more likely the 'may not') follow. More on this later.... back to the breaks.




    Miscellaneous Identity #2: i dont know waste my life doing silliness :) some grad school some where probably western i dont know

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Blah. See, I couldn't handle it if I thought that what I was doing wasn't useful in a larger context. Like, media studies in general I can understand. But these scholars who devote their entire lives to minutiae -- it drives me crazy just thinking about it.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: im not really into helping my fellow man so it doesnt bother me so much nothing changes live/die

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: See, I'm a closet altruist. I present the veneer of disinterested egoism (it's a religious thing for me) but deep down inside I'm a total pathetic softy. It's kinda embarrassing.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: that being said: its not like i have contempt for philosophy i think its useful for something, me etc. i like other people somewhat i just dont think there is anything to do that will "save humanity" and i think thinking in terms like that is pretty dangerous a lot of the time. so i just do my small things

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: I'm on this whole "World Peace" kick lately. I've been reading too much William Blake lately, maybe.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: hhaha people fight that is.

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: I used to believe that there would always be war and destructuion and hate and conflict and fighting, but then I realized that, at least, there's no longer any need for actual WAR. But of course, if I ever said as much I'd be laughed at. Because I'd be an idiot to maintain such a thing. Unless I was a prophet, in which case *most* people would laugh at me but *some* people would begin the infection-like spread of my credibility.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: yeah maybe but: if there is no war, then there will be other things you read foucualt... and: just because there is no NEED for war (has there ever been?) doesnt mean it wont happen society is not fundamentally economic.. YO haha

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: If there's no war, there will be insane boredom and psychological cruelty. There will also still be crime. But I don't think Foucault's point is quite so pessimistic. I mean, there was a point to his writing.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: not according to him fuck charles taylor :) i dont see liberation in foucault haha

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: 1) Charles Taylor promoted kindness to workers. Happy workers are more efficient. Why do you think the Roman Empire ended slavery? 2) Yes, fuck charles taylor. 3) There's liberation written all over Foucault! "Where there's the exercise of power, there's the possibility of resistance." Always.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: resistance=power there is no outside of power... at least for foucault all relations are power relations and i didnt mean fuck charles taylor entirely, just him pretending that his views are found in foucault i like his other stuff hes a good writer

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Resistance is power, yes. But power over self is different from power over others. In fact, it's more powerful. That's why he became interested in the technologies of the self later on -- these are techniques for becoming a better person, society be damned. Ahem, sorry, I had the wrong Taylor. I don't even know who Charles Taylor is.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: ... well considering his views on the subject i don't think he would EVER say that one could become a "better" person and power isnt something that one can have, power constitutes subjects, and subjects are its vehicle its not like you can hoard it and then you will be happy ... or thats what i get anyway

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: No, I totally disagree. You can become a better person by your own standards. He would never say that there was some abstract "betterness" you could discover and strive for. But there's such a thing as art. (Which is different from pretention.) Power is something you exercise. When you resist, you exercise power. When you transform, you exercise power. When you create, and when you destroy. Nonetheless, some forms of power are good for life, and some are bad.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: well he specifically says that our own standards are entirely limited by the epistemic system we are currently in, which you cant escape... so its hard to see how you could become better if the notion of better is limited by outside standards... not for foucault foucault never says that forms of power are good or bad he just says they are you may disagree but foucault doesnt say that

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: But that's only for abstract, metaphysical standards. If you believe in some "Good" (like G.E. Moore). What I see in Foucault, and this is his inheritance from Nietzsche, is the emphasis on the aesthetic. No, he never says that forms of power are good or bad. But you've got to read between the lines. His theses are almost always insinuations. It's all about *personal* standards, for oneself, that have little or nothing to do with what other people think.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: no its not just abstract: foucault says that all categories of good and bad are constructed through power relations, which we cant escape if our categories of good and bad are constitued through and by power relations then how can we be a better person? personal standards ARE power relations, but not of your own creation...

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: But you can have a self-relationship. An identity. Power over oneself.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: well its hard to read between the lines when he states PRECISELY and repeatedly the obvious no you can't because any self-relation is constituted by external power relations ie: the self is historical we can only relate to ourselves in specific, historical ways which are enforced on us by the llarger epistemic regime

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: No, nothing is "constituted" by the outside relations. It's strategic, not mechanical. There are concrete ways in which people are personally repressed by others. It's always specific people being mean to each other in specific ways. When you recognize those, that's the beginning of empowerment. That's the whole point of Foucault's career.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: it was metaphorical i just mean that any standards you have are entirely dictated by what standards the epistemic regime you are in allows you can only relate to yourself in certain historical ways, which are dictated not by your self, because that self is dictated by your time! i cant believe you think that you can be "empowered" in foucault! that seems to me to be the exact OPPOSITE of what he says!!

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Yes, of course. But what it all boils down to is that there are only two basic epistemological systems; Either you adhere slavishly to what other people tell you, or you rely on yourself. The technologies of the self are all about the latter. Aesthetic standards are all about the latter. Do you know anything about Foucault's life, personally?

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: no there arent only two epistemological systems ack nevermind we obviously disagree on our readings of him...i cant see how you could possibly say that and yes i do, but im not going to fall into the trap of relating a biography to a persons work

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: No, I think it's totally important. (Especially given his Nietzschean bent -- I think he'd want us to understand his writings in the context of his life.)

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: haha read "what is an author" and tell me that again. foucault is not nietzsche

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: No, he's not. "What is an Author?" is not quite the same thing as what I want to do.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: well, it disintigrates any notion that foucault would have wanted us to relate his life to his work, ill say that much.

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: "WiaA?" is about the relationship of the author, qua "authority," to the specific content of the words. But what I'm talking about is understanding the spirit in which they were uttered.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: note how much he talks about himself in his interviews/articles/books what is an author is about disintegrating the notion that the author has privilged access to the meaning of his words (ie: like derrida) he would disagree that the "spriit" is important

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Fine then, but by those standards even my reading isn't wrong. Mine is just more interesting, and more hopeful.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: ...? how so? thats not to say that IN THE TEXT there isnt anything more interesting to you and more hopeful but less plausible im just saying foucault does not want us to look at him as the privileged viewpoint on his own work he doesnt "own" the meaning in his work

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Not less plausible at all. His whole corpus generally focuses on one theme: How the individual can resist the general tide of a society in which people have the impunity to be complete dickheads to one another. His genealogical works focus on the society. His "technologies of the self" works focus on the individual within that society. Together they form a hopeful picture.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: it is less plausible in that all his texts either dont say what you are saying they say, or directly deny it his TEXTS not him as an author they arent like that at all, though it might be nice for people like you and charles taylor to look at them and come up with that ON YOUR OWN but that isnt in foucault

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Tell you what: Why don't you find a point where he directly denies something that I've said.Editorial incision("People like me?" This is becoming not fun anymore.)Editorial decision



    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    **cut**MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: ("People like me?" This is becoming not fun anymore.)***

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    What happened here?
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    ratiocination
    
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    * (21.3469) The following thirteen phrases contributed to (I would say 'led up to' but that would be to teleological for my anti-Hegelianism) this "upset" in the regular process of semi-rational argumentation:
    1. Well, you've read Foucault, right?
    2. ... im surprised you are into the sort of thing you are
    3. Unpositive attitude dude
    4. i dont know waste my life doing silliness :) some grad school some where probably western i dont know
    8. There's liberation written all over Foucault! "Where there's the exercise of power, there's the possibility of resistance." Always.
    9. ... i dont think he would EVER say ...
    10. No, nothing is "constituted ...
    12. Mine is just more interesting, and more hopeful.
    13. Tell you what: Why don't you ...

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: if i had all of foucault's books in my room and NOT at a library maybe i would hahahaha people like you just means people who are socially hopeful its not an epithet i agree with you i just disagree that foucault says any of it

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Seriously, look at what he's written. Discipline and Punish is about how we treat prisoners horribly. Why would he write a book like that?History of Sexuality, volume one, is about how the Victorians came up with a system whereby they pinned down for themselves *exactly* what kinds of perverts they were, and then used that to mount an attack on anyone who wouldn't play the game.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: who knows? maybe as an example as to how we should treat them or how we shouldnt? we cant say that he tells us either way!

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: An example of how we *should* treat them? I really don't think that's what the book is about.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: i just think you are ascribing a message to him that isnt there thats all in the texts think what you want about him its about how prisoners WERE treated he doesnt assign value to it its nice to look at it that way though dont you get my point?

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Hist of Sex volumes 2 & 3 are all about how the ancient Greeks and Romans (some of them, anyway) thought of ethics in terms of taking care of oneself, considering things in terms of personal regimen and taste. I think he clearly thinks this is a better way of thinking about matters of "the good." No, it's only ostensively about how prisoners "were" treated. It's really about how prisoners *came to be treated* as they are today. And I think he assigns value in his insinuations. Read his debate with Chomsky.



    * (self technologizing; rap referent; 0.0110): well, painted today STOP and realised that i dont really enjoy painting pieces that much anymore STOPN or with certain people STOPO i dont know STOPT i just didnt like the atmosphere today STOPA it was too antagonistic STOPL it felt like a prolonged attack or something STOPK whatever STOPI my style needs work too STOPN i was generally displeased with the whole affair STOPS i also missed me some XXXXXXXXXXX STOP 1 its funny sometimes i dont see her for two days or whatever, and now its only been a day, and it feels longer STOPR bah STOP she'll have fun STOPR murderin fools etc. STOPA mackin suckas to get free (non-roofinated) drizinks or some shizzle, you know how we do in the 902 FULLSTOPH, REVERSE.


    Miscellaneous Identity #2: its the "its really" thats the problem read what is an author see him debunk the "its really" that is a good way to look at it but its not in the book! thats all im saying ive read/seen it

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: No, I don't think that's what "WiaA?" is about. Or if it is, it was a lapse on his part. Because if that's how he really wanted his books to be treated, there would never have been a point to writing them in the first place. If he really didn't care about sides, he would have answered those questions in the debate *completely* differently.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: hahaha see what you are doing? a lapse on his part you are assigning your own views to foucault! its good to use his arguments for your puproses but admit you are doing it HE did care, his books do NOT give us his political opinion! hes saying that he doesnt give us the point to writing his works just are

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Yes fine. But his books are useless if not for use with my opinion! And he knew it. And he liked it.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: HAHAHAA i suppose. that was my argument though so i win! muahah haha

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Kinda.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: ?!?! oh come on!

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: But do you see my point? Although it's true that his works exist, divorced from him forever, for use as raw materials for our own social changes, it's clear he had particular sides and social issues in mind when he wrote the books. And it comes out in the books.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: i always saw yer point but i disagree that it comes out in his books at all. but: there are other uses for his books, ones that would disagree with your politics, i think. although i agree with your politics does that make sense? im a bad arguer haha



    "Using the 'contest' as a model for life can be dangerous in some ways. For instance: in contests, there are opposing sides. If you are treating your own life as a contest, you are either opposing/competing with yourself, or competing with the world/those around you. So, in order to achieve your goal (in order to 'beat' your opponent) you must separate them from yourself. This means either separating yourself from yourself (alienating yourself) or separating yourself from your community/friends/family/coworkers or your environment."

    *****

    ***** (349.012311): This passage is struck through for its remarkable (functional) similarities to the meme "haha". For more on this editorial procedure, see the sentence immeditaley following this one. Sentence: The above 'quotation' (cited here surreptitiously) has been deemed humours due to the presence of the word "beat". For more on this editorial procedure, see the sentence immediately preceding this one.

    Back to the (serious) topic at (hands) hand...

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Perhaps. I suppose someone could plan out a whole engine of destruction and misery using his books as guidelines.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: exactly

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: But I still see those books as empowering.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: i like that engine of destruction

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Because if you know what you're up against, there is the possibility of resistance.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: i dont wanna argue anymore :) haha so what grad school you plannin on going to? or do you know?

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: (I've been reading a lot of Blake lately, that's a very Blakean phrase. Or maybe he'd say "Satanic millwheels.")

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: haha its funny my thing about author in foucault is terrible and not at all what i was saying but its from a paper from like 3 semesters ago im glad you didnt call me on it hahaha

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Hm? Which thing was that?

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: a writeup on e2 its terrible i shouldnt have put it on there im gonna re-write a nice one i just havent done it yet i dont want it destroyed cause im gonna redo it w/ the same title anyway so i might as well just edit it

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Oh, for grad schools, I dunno. I'm graduating this semester, and then I'm taking a year off to prevent burn-out. Then in the fall I'm going to shop around. I've got a really strong application (or so my profs are all telling me) so I'm just going to have to see who gives me financial assistance.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: nice i dont know what im gonna look like i want to go to the centre for theory and criticism at western pretty snotty but what im into the other names sound familiar

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: hahah notedxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.




    ...and none that are important enough anymore that come to mind...

    
    
    
    om
    com
    .com
    2.com
    g2.com
    ng2.com
    ing2.com
    hing2.com
    thing2.com
    ything2.com
    rything2.com
    erything2.com
    verything2.com
    everything2.com
    .everything2.com
    w.everything2.com
    ww.everything2.com
     www.everything2.com
      www.everything2.com
       www.everything2.com
        www.everything2.com
         www.everything2.com
          www.everything2.com
           www.everything2.com
            www.everything2.com                 Everything began with OM
           www.everything2.com
          www.everything2.com
         www.everything2.com
        www.everything2.com
       www.everything2.com
      www.everything2.com
     www.everything2.com
    www.everything2.com
    ww.everything2.com
    w.everything2.com
    .everything2.com
    everything2.com
    verything2.com
    erything2.com
    rything2.com
    ything2.com
    thing2.com
    hing2.com
    ing2.com
    ng2.com
    g2.com
    2.com
    .com
    com
    om
    
    

    matt is so excited "its the only thing ive ever been excited about on the internet"
    im pretty excited about it now too internet nerdery factor: +10 agility: -10 even stephen? 2002.02.05 17.40



    separate existences, at no cost.

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Well I gotta take off. Sleep beckons. It's been fun nerding out with ya; I rarely get a chance to butt heads with anyone who's actually *read* Foucault.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: hahah have a good night that was a hilariously vehement argument

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: (Oh and by the way: If there are more than two epistemological theories-- authority and criticism -- then why do you say in Feminist standpoint epistemology that there are only two epistemologies -- objectivism and subjectivism?) heh heh -- that's just my parting shot. I'm far too tired to take it seriously, so you shouldn't either.

    Miscellaneous Identity #2: not epistemological THEORIES epistemic regimes ie: historical periods when certain kinds of claims count as knowledge

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: G'night man. If you ever need any noding help, just /msg ctf (all lower case).

    Is this the untimely end of ....

    Is this the untimely end of We

    Is this the untimely end of ....

    Is this the untimely end of Off

    Is this the untimely end of ....

    Is this the untimely end of Last

    Is this the untimely end of ....

    Is this the untimely end of He

    Is this the untimely end of ....

    Is this the untimely end of What

    Is this the untimely end of ....

    Is this the untimely end of Was

    wasnotwas? terrible, just terrible!





    So how do you feel about the whole thing?

    I don't know what to think

    
    
    
    
    
     2002.02.13  21.21
    workshop it guy
    
    the reason why i love her
    well there is no 'reason
    
    this is something though:
    
    she is her own universe
    her nuances are described by their own laws
    
    down to every last detail, every pixelated speck of her she is herself
    
    thats 'why' i love her
    as if why plays a part.
    
       2002.02.11  08.19
    bleah
    
    ***************************** ***************************** *****************************
    dot com dot com
    the track is speeding up
    im a sea anemone
    sucking up meaning
    and spittin' 'er out
    except i have no ocean to absorb my offal
    it just floats in front of me in dead space
    
    because i dont advertise
    like disco stu
    
    
    the poetics of space huh
    yeah i think thats a good idea
    
    designing erotic cities
    


    2002.02.10 20.01

    If we kill him YOU'RE burying him this time. Nothing fits into Marx 'Nothing' does not fit into Marx re: Georges Bataille



    2002.02.05 20.16

    everything twice? im overwhelmed at the prospect of this thing it may prove to be an interesting endeavour what name to choose thats key im not sure if i like this new name: bertolt brecht or if i should go with the classic cabin favour time will tell while im waiting for life to happen talkin' bout: video killed the radio star pictures attacking sounds pixels versus decibels

    2002.02.05 19.20


    subject: (optional, for use on longer entries)////whistling.////wittgenstein could whistle symphonies...////


    BREAK

    i cant even write a decent journal////yet, im still the most important person in the world.////odd how that works.////morewriting////and now this is the easiest way////i like, and always take, easy ways////because they are easy////


    BREAK

    and thats what i like.////new game: relate words based on their appearance and on their meaning ease case cases bases basis basic basin bad sin adam apple computer binary trinary urinary tract tractatus wittgenstein beer stein ben stein


    BREAK

    stone tone tome tomb womb birth mirth thats enough for now getting my association on associations: american medical associationi would like it if there were big medical conspiracies


    BREAK

    like if 'they' had the cure for cancer but were keeping it under wraps or something what reason would they have for that one? maybe worried about paying for the elderly? im not sure but it would be exciting........dot.



    and we could all use excitement/when i say "i would like" i invariably mean "it would be interesting" or "amusing"/my default state of existence is amusement/im still a little worried about this whole 'emotionless mass of me' business

    but not too much/because that would be out of character and if there's one thing i am, its in character/all the time, every day/ready for new lines at the drop of a hat its almost like im not even acting/im THAT good.


    for some reason the idea that mimes can be philosophically important is at once attractive to me, and ridiculous i like that shit yo.

    mimetic representation and so forth
    mallarme
    dont play
    etc.
    
    i wish english had accents like other languages
    it would be more compelling.
    
    the desert/edmond jabes/t.e. lawrence/dune
    i think the desert makes me feel more like a person than anything else
    
    i wonder if i actually went to the desert if i would like it or not
    i think i would, mostly at night.
    
    i can enumerate who i consider my friends
    
    re: guarding hey

    i just realised: Matt's journal is like his soapbox what a delusional motherfucker

    like:
  • 1. Anyone will be reading his journal
  • 2. The people that might be reading it would not understand Kant.

  • Venn Diagrams




    
    geez
    he should just devolve into useless rhetoric like me
    that would be more amusing for me
    

    doesnt he know that i am the centre of the universe yet

    bassline shooting up my spin e 2002.02.05 17.29 a treatise on the very idea of a universal human right

    fuck human rights.

    
    its a good IDEA to have laws about what all people should have
    but the pretension that these are some fundamental right is ridiculous
    no one has a right to anything
    no one deserves anything
    
    the sooner we realise that the something
    
    i get a kick out of people saying that education is a fundamental human right
    how fucking ridiculous is that
    
    lets rephrase it:
    
    in the particular western tradition a particular form of
    
    education is a FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN (not a particularised western) right
    

    come on.

    who are we kidding. fuck education anyway.

    2002.04.07 at 07:18 Conversationalist Alpha says Well, I'd like to see this node before you actually submit it....

    2002.04.07 at 16:38 Conversationalist Alpha says My viewer is telling me that your scratchpad isn't publicly shared. Make sure the "private" checkbox is unchecked.

    2002.04.07 at 16:50 Conversationalist Alpha says That looks fun. (I love Commentary #2). Just a note: When I said "Yarp" I was explaining the HTML entity codes for squ. brackets and pipes -- those didn't format properly, you're going to have to put in [ where I said [ and

    2002.04.07 at 16:50 Conversationalist Alpha says Oh well, you see where I"m going.

    2002.04.07 at 16:52 Conversationalist Alpha says "Walking courtship display" -- nice. Incidentally, I've been zenning on better articulating my arguments for considering texts in the context of the author's life, if'n yer innerestid.

    2002.04.07 at 16:53 Conversationalist Alpha says (Although it's been about a year since I've read "What is an Author?" I don't think my argument is un-Foucauldian, either.)

    2002.04.07 at 17:00 Conversationalist Alpha says I just think that the distinction between "writing" and "life" is arbitrary when considering a philosopher for whom writing was an event and life was a creation. Relating writing to life is relating a part of a work of art to the whole

    2002.04.07 at 17:01 Conversationalist Alpha says (even if that part is also a whole of its own)

    2002.04.07 at 17:01 Conversationalist Alpha says Not "writing" vs. "life," but writing/event plus life/creation.

    2002.04.07 at 17:02 Conversationalist Alpha says Thanks -- it was the most intense academic experience I've ever had. Makes me extremely nervous about my Master's stuff.

    2002.04.07 at 17:14 Conversationalist Alpha says No way! Nietzsche's all about liberation too. ;) (By the way, my "miscellaneous identity" is completely transparent. I dunno if I mind, but it doesn't ring right.)

    2002.04.07 at 17:20 Conversationalist Alpha says I dunno, I guess I think of D&P, Madness & Civ., Hist of Sex., etc., to be like calls to arms -- they seem just like anatomies of the engines of oppression, but they're also exhortations behind that.

    2002.04.07 at 17:22 Conversationalist Alpha says Did you ever hear that story about Foucault taking a trip and laughing so hard on the plane that he pissed his pants, and had to buy new ones at the destination airport?

    2002.04.07 at 17:26 Conversationalist Alpha says They could *use* them differently, of course. But that would be using the enemies own battle plans against him, not discovering him to be a partner in crime.

    2002.04.07 at 18:24 Conversationalist Alpha says Don't know. Probably something that wouldn't seem half as funny to anyone who wasn't there at the time (ain't it always the way)!

    2002.04.07 at 18:25 Conversationalist Alpha says I think the difference between me and the evil genius is that I didn't just *decide* to like Foucault (I never do that -- there are so many philosophers I wish I could read into more, if I were the type to read into things). Rather, I

    2002.04.07 at 18:26 Conversationalist Alpha says came to these conclusions by situating the texts, which I grant are wholes and events and not inherently tied to anything other than themselves, to the greater sequence of creation-events (Foucault's life) of which they are parts. (They

    2002.04.07 at 18:27 Conversationalist Alpha says may be wholes, but they are also parts; to say that they should be treated as wholes, as Foucault says, does not mean that they can't *also* be treated as parts, as Nietzsche says.)

    2002.04.07 at 18:34 Conversationalist Alpha says Depends on what you mean by "liberal agenda." (He referred to himself once, with his tongue in his cheek, as a "crypto-Marxist.") Remember his interest in the Stoics and in "technologies of self" in general -- the liberation I'm thinking

    2002.04.07 at 18:35 Conversationalist Alpha says thinking about isn't "political" liberation (exclusively) as distinguished from "personal" or "spiritual" liberation, attached to particular political forms. I'm thinking of a general revolution which begins in the consciousness.

    2002.04.07 at 18:44 Conversationalist Alpha says So what you are saying is that in the whole oeuvre of Foucault's work, nothing points to the exhortation to liberate oneself? (Re: crypto-marxist, maybe; I got the impression that he was ironically taking that label, whether he or someone

    2002.04.07 at 18:44 Conversationalist Alpha says else thought of it.)

    2002.04.07 at 18:51 Conversationalist Alpha says I'm not "privileging" my own reading -- I believe that other interpretations aren't supported by evidence.

    2002.04.07 at 18:51 Conversationalist Alpha says They neglect details of the whole (Foucault's life/work/creation) that I have taken pains to include.

    2002.04.07 at 18:52 Conversationalist Alpha says Look, quite frankly, I've had this same criticism of my Blake paper (that I'm privileging my own reading). I really don't understand what that means. That I shouldn't believe what I'm saying?

    2002.04.07 at 18:52 Conversationalist Alpha says Maybe you can explain this to me. What am I reading in here that isn't there? or what am I ignoring?

    2002.04.07 at 18:57 Conversationalist Alpha says 1) If I had to explicitly preface every statement with "This is my interpretation" I'd bore myself to death. I'm a perspectivist. I'm interested in different perspectives, and consider my view of things to be one perspective. I take it

    2002.04.07 at 18:58 Conversationalist Alpha says for granted from myself and from other people. Be that as it may, I don't know anything *other* than interpretations of phenomena, so I can hardly be faulted for being committed to views that are "only" interpretations.

    2002.04.07 at 18:59 Conversationalist Alpha says 2) What "HISTORIES?" I've been referring specifically to "Madness & Civilization," to "Discipline & Punish," to "History of Sexuality;" these themes that I'm talking about also play a big role in "Order of Things."

    2002.04.07 at 19:01 Conversationalist Alpha says 3) I'm not saying and have never said that his works outline a liberatory program. What I said was that they are part of an exhortation. That is an illocution which becomes clear in the context of the pieces/events plus life/creation sum.

    2002.04.07 at 19:03 Conversationalist Alpha says My views on F. are an interpretation, as would be anyone else's; the question is, who's got a more complete consideration of the details and how they relate together? Who uncovers more of the potential power behind the words?

    2002.04.07 at 19:09 Conversationalist Alpha says You misunderstood what I meant by "behind the words." I don't mean to treat words (or anything else) as anything other than an event. That's my whole point. By "power behind the words" I mean, which interpretation can use the words as the

    2002.04.07 at 19:09 Conversationalist Alpha says most powerful lever (as an arm applying torque "behind the lever"). Don't mix my metaphors! :)

    2002.04.07 at 19:10 Conversationalist Alpha says Simply because "everything is only an interpretation (of fact/events)" it doesn't mean that all are "equal." My question is, which is a more convincing, complete, purposeful, and useful interpretation?

    2002.04.07 at 19:20 Conversationalist Alpha says But my politics is not my only reason for reading. I also read for friendship and influences. Considered solely as anatomies of domination and power-accretion, then yes, what you say is true. But I read for a wide variety of reasons,

    2002.04.07 at 19:20 Conversationalist Alpha says including appreciatory and literary and biographical (no, that's too crass -- biopoetic). They are all related in a way that a more pessimistic interpretation of F.'s writings couldn't be.

    2002.04.07 at 19:21 Conversationalist Alpha says (ie., I would not be so insistent upon the liberatory potential of F.'s writings if I didn't think they played an important part in the constitution of F.'s life, and therefore of one another qua texts, thus opening new avenues for

    2002.04.07 at 19:22 Conversationalist Alpha says productive reading that just wouldn't be there on a more superficial single-purpose reading.)

    2002.04.07 at 19:28 Conversationalist Alpha says I guess the issue is whether you are interested in the genealogy (or forensics) leading up to an event. I am. (Foucault was.) I don't think you can pick and choose which events have genealogies and which don't.

    2002.04.07 at 19:29 Conversationalist Alpha says I don't know why you use the word "inherent" to characterize what I'm saying.

    2002.04.07 at 19:31 Conversationalist Alpha says I just said, it's not "inherent," but that's not the point. The point is which is more complete and more useful? I don't really give a flip what "Foucault scholars" are doing; they may have different, pedantic and limit(ed/ing) "reading

    2002.04.07 at 19:32 Conversationalist Alpha says protocols" -- a phenomenon all too common in academia in general.

    2002.04.07 at 19:36 Conversationalist Alpha says Useful to me, yes. But not more complete "to me." I'm not interested in people's reading protocols that permit glossing over details or neglecting context or situating a perspective.

    2002.04.07 at 19:36 Conversationalist Alpha says (i don't think F. was either)

    2002.04.07 at 19:44 Conversationalist Alpha says You didn't mention any, really, except "What is an Author?" which I'd like to reread but am pretty sure deals with issues quite distinct from the ones I'm talking about.

    2002.04.07 at 19:55 Conversationalist Alpha says WHAT about his histories do you think I'm ignoring?

    2002.04.07 at 19:56 Conversationalist Alpha says No, I don't mean to exclude "WiaA?" -- I already said, I read it before. I need to refresh my memory about it in order to review my position and articulate a response; that's different from neglecting it.

    2002.04.07 at 19:58 Conversationalist Alpha says I'm also including things from his interviews (with Chomsky, with those guys for "Philosophy & Soc. Crit.") and the preface to "Anti-Oedipus."

    2002.04.07 at 20:03 Conversationalist Alpha says Well, the thing that made the discussion "not fun anymore" for me was just that we continued to talk at "cross purposes" until we started falling into "attack positions" for each other.

    2002.04.07 at 20:04 Conversationalist Alpha says Some of those remarks you highlighted as contributing to that, I took as being completely innocuous -- it was just the few messages leading directly up to that comment that made me start to back off.

    2002.04.07 at 20:08 Conversationalist Alpha says Looks good. (Are you keeping the "/msg ctf" or the ref to UPEI? Those are dead give-aways -- I'm the only ctf, and the only regular noder at UPEI) Gotta run, cheers.

    delete unArchive

    You have 51 messages total.




    
    its nice to have education
    its nice to have water
    its nice to have food
    its nice to have a soft pillow
    but none of those are our god-given (or..universe-given) rights
    they are just things that are nice to have 
    and its nice to have other people to prohibit other people 
    
    (another other) from denying us these things
    
    but we dont have to pretend like any of these things are
     universal or absolute or 'deserved'
    

    just because you exist doesnt give you 'rights'


    Absent-minded (see: terrible) Love "Poetry" MARK 1

    2002.02.18  22.50
    
    skin peeling cold snow hand crakkerz
    "hey sara...i love you!"
    done with dancing and hip wiggling
    also: in frank sinatra/tony bennett voice
    cause we do it like that.

    I don't think life (or anything, for that matter) needs a 'point' to be rewarding, etc. We shouldn't have to justify our existence by imaging a reason behind our actions that always just seems to elude us.

    Anti-sentimental (see: vague) Love "Poetry" MARK 2

    Why I think life is (or at least should be) pointless
    It seems silly that we have to posit some sort of goal that we are attempting to achieve every morning by "waking up" rather than just accepting the fact that we are alive, and not treating life like a big contest.





    Anxious (see: Protestant) Love "Poetry" MARK 3

    Why is this kind of separation "dangerous"?

    In separating yourself from something (say, your best friend) in order to achieve your goal, you are less likely to see the world from that person's point of view, and more likely to trample over their little slice of happiness. Ditto the environment. But how can you do this to yourself?

    If you set a goal for yourself then:

    If you achieve that goal, you are more likely to rest on your laurels, or become disillusioned with your life (i.e. "Have I reached my 'full' potential?", etc. etc.)

    time slot...

    Apathetic disclaimer: but, really, I don't think either....(it cuts off here).


    Where is that goddamned closure?

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    HER: "It's right where you left it."

    her: "Do you mean, 'It's Right. Where you left it'?"

    HER: "Yes, sorry, I didn't enunciate that very well."

    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    Being an incidental note in this symphony of deconstruction, I will sound off at the appropriate moment to harmonize with one melody while causing dissonance with its other. I will represent the stance taken up by myself and miscellaneous identity #2 (hereafter referred to as miscellaneous identity 2+n), which, despite its apparent coherence, is full of self fragmentary contradictions. But, as we know, everything contains both itself and its other; that asymmetrical difference is always accompanying its partner as it speaks. But where do we assign privelige? Both sides, of course - and therefore no place, if not in the other at breaking points/ruptures/schisms. Certainly not! we have always already made the privelige in both at once or none at all.

    Let's Begin.

    What, if anything, is Michel Foucault saying (other than words, which he is writing - we haven't heard them being said, so it is an assumption, or a departure, if you will, to talk about what he is saying. we daren't be so pretentious)?

    It is some what of an uphill battle to prove the non-articulation of something that others deem discernable (we are here referring to Miscellaneous Identity #1's assertion that Foucault's work had the expressed intent of helping us bring around social change.). I am concerned with the eternal internment of he and others in the infernal learning leanings and kernals of burning terms all teeming over into error, that's my horror!

    But let's be serious.

    Is Michel Foucault a libertarian? That is the question. Is he like tofu - that is to say, does he take on the aspects of that into which he is being absorbed?

    What does gray matter taste like? Is it substantial and tender, or merely gelatinous and bland?

    Wait, wait, wait ... what we must first ask is, can this be found in his body of work? We must work this out. I am not talking about passing comments at a gym, or about Jim, or even humourous gems. No - Foucault asks this himself: What Is an Author?
    And what is an author; what is it to write and be a writer? Foucault says

    First of all, we can say that today's writing has freed itself from the dimension of expression. Referring only to itself, but without being restricted to the confines of its interiority, writing is identified with its own unfolded exteriority. This means that it is an interplay of signs arranged less according to its signified content than according to the very nature of the signifier. Writing unfolds like a game (jeu) that invariably goes beyond its own rules and transgresses its limits. In writing, the point is not to manifest or exalt the act of writing, nor is it to pin a subject within language; it is, rather, a question of creating a space into which the writing subject constantly disappears. (What Is an Author)

    What does it all mean?

    Writing is a game. Games provide small children with exercise - writing is an exercise, then! Very well. War games are exercises, with no real casualties and only theoretical effects. Role-playing games - these are mental exercises and a form of story-telling, in which the written and the spoken go hand in hand. Yet they do not reflect the real lives of those participating in them/creating the content of them. This terrible fictive insemination of writing. The writing subject disappears! Black magic! Where does intention go? Who can we trust?

    Who???



    "Inside
    I can't stand it at all
    When every word is a lie
    But I go through it all
    Lies are just exercises" (Dag Nasty, "Exercises", from Wig Out At Denko's)

    Let's not get hasty here - "lies"?

    Miscellaneous Identity 2+n advises that Foucault may *not* have circumscribed his life or lifestyle anywhere in his expressed theoretical content *at any time*. Perhaps he did. In any event, can we draw out or privelige either possibilitysee above?
    Does it even matter? Again, we look to the man himself for answers. We look to a combination of signifiers for clues:

    ... I think that, as our society changes, at the very moment when it is in the process of changing, the author function will disappear, and in such a manner that fiction and its polysemous texts will once again function according to another mode, but still within a system of constraint -- one which will no longer be the author, but which will have to be determined or, perhaps, experienced. All discourses, whatever their status, form, value, and whatever the treatment to which they will be subjected, would then develop in the anonymity of a murmer. We would no longer hear the questions that have been rehashed for so long: Who really spoke? Is it really he and not someone else? With what authenticity or originality? And what part of his deepest self did he express in his discourse? Instead, there would be other questions, like these: What are the modes of existence of this discourse? Where has it been used, how can it circulate, and who can appropriate it for himself? What are the places in where there is room for possible subjects? Who can assume these various subject functions? And behind all these questions, we would hear hardly anything, but the stirring of an indifference: What difference does it make who is speaking?(WIaA)


    Foucault downplays the importance of the author


    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: No, I don't think that's what "WiaA?" is about. Or if it is, it was a lapse on his part. Because if that's how he really wanted his books to be treated, there would never have been a point to writing them in the first place. If he really didn't care about sides, he would have answered those questions in the debate *completely* differently.

    selector rewind:

    Is he like tofu - that is to say, does he take on the aspects of that into which he is being absorbed?



    Everyone has a frigging answer, don't they? But some answers are more right then others, apparently. Miscellaneous Identity 2+n swears to God that we do not have a more important reading of Foucault than anyone else; however, we feel that we are right in disagreeing with any absolutist readings of him.

    MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: But that's only for abstract, metaphysical standards. If you believe in some "Good" (like G.E. Moore). What I see in Foucault, and this is his inheritance from Nietzsche, is the emphasis on the aesthetic. No, he never says that forms of power are good or bad. But you've got to read between the lines. His theses are almost always insinuations. It's all about *personal* standards, for oneself, that have little or nothing to do with what other people think.

    ***Having read between the lines, we see paper fibre and a marked lack of ink***


    Now that we have effectively, and with Foucault's blessing, disconnected (as well as made discontinuous) his life from his work*, we will look for this libertarian impulse, indeed, see if it has a pulse, and if it does, perhaps we will nurture it; perhaps we will euthanize it.

    Paul Rabinow:

    Let us follow Foucault in a recent self-characterization in which he says, "the goal of my work during the last twenty years has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects."(Introduction, The Foucault Reader)

    But let's get back on the subject


    How does Foucault characterize the subject/individual? This is an interesting subject - one which I will subject to a quick examination. Now, then. Now. Not then, now: According to MF, the individual is the product of power. The individual is the subject of what Louis Althusser might call Ideological State Apparatuses mtv churches thegap fashiontrends starbucks brandnamefood whitehousepress releases partypoliticalaffilations smalltalkwitholdfriends andanyoneelsewhomaybelistening. They are well oiled machines. we are living within them right now - they are at work on us.


    ~(life equals work). huh? I missed that


    Oh yeah, here's where we were going with this: if Foucault even sees the possibility of resistance or freedom, it is by not engaging in what he identifies as traditional power relations. You can't get away from that; if you are going to assign a coherent, unified identity to yourself then you are inextricably immersing yourself in those parameters. Any definition of identity comes from something that is not YOURS! If you want to get away from it, you have to drop the terminology, all the trappings of your "self". But you can't do that. Get a therapist. See also: the individual as language. You cannot have a functioning language outside of a social setting, because language is a social thing! You can't define anything outside of a definition that has been collectively agreed upon (re: Wittgenstein). Similarly, the individual subject has a social nature because you only define yourself or find yourself through your relations to others, how you identify yourself via those relations and how they ostensibly identify you.

    These are relations of power, since all relations are relations of power

    brisure/rupture/schism

    We have read Foucault again and again and we cannot find any impulse in any direction as far as a socio-political theme or agenda is concerned!


    *Ironically, Foucault has given us the means to delete him from his own writing

    We have even seen Foucault attempting to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of political leanings. We see analysis, geneaology, archaeology and history. We do not see Foucault.

    rollin', rollin', Roland Barthes says:

    We shall therefore star the text, separating, in the manner of a minor earthquake, the blocks of signification of which reading grasps only the smooth surface, imperceptibly soldered by the movement of sentences, the flowing discourse of narration, the "naturalness" of ordinary language. (S/Z)

    We star the text. We do not star in the text, the text does not star us, and we do not use the text to star ourselves - although some of us may be seeing stars. (MISCELLANEOUS IDENTITY #1: Yes fine. But his books are useless if not for use with my opinion! And he knew it. And he liked it.)

    Miscellaneous Identity 2+n: You are attempting to make Foucault say what you want him to say! That is different than applying his writing to your beliefs - you are instead trying to make it look as though he tailor made theories for your use instead of you trying to work with what he wrote. You are trying to superimpose your face over his.


    2002.04.07 at 18:52 Conversationalist Alpha says Look, quite frankly, I've had this same criticism of my Blake paper (that I'm privileging my own reading). I really don't understand what that means. That I shouldn't believe what I'm saying?

    Murder was the case that they gave me. (Calvin Broadus)


    Miscellaneous Identity 2+n would like to thank Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and Paul Rabinow for disappearing into the texts they so graciously provided us with!

    Stage setting: Steal Everything (Six by Six), plus A Conversation Regarding the Work of Michel Foucault


    The content of the 'argument' to follow, is as follows, plus the notion that this is the only form of 'gift' I could produce in your name:

    1. Miscellaneous Identity #1 holds that Foucault's historical analyses (Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, etc.) are sorts of cautionary tales/a call to arms. They are, at the very least indicative of a greater liberatory project.

    2. Miscellaneous Identity #2 holds that this is not so; that, in fact, Foucault's analyses give no indication of such a liberatory project and that to ascribe such a project to these analyses is to superimpose one's one political agenda upon them. As an example of such a superimposition, Miscellaneous Identity #2 cites Charles Taylor's interpretation of Foucault's work.

    3. Between these two Identities was situated a fourth body, whom we might name, not an identity, but a difference, a Miscellaneous Difference #12, that is situated somewhere between the 1 and the 2, but as a border between them, not as a unique identity between them. #12 is only a wave, it is the stillness between the two waves, in perpetual motion, from shore to shore, arrive, arrive: to happen.

    4. It seems that, in the 'end' we weren't aiming at consensus, no that was unsettled, somewhere between the here and the the (not-)here. We were aiming only at a conversation; we edify, we do not found, we do not build, we do not destroy. We read. We let ourselves be read by a what is reading.


    This: neither response, nor admission, neither blame, nor guilt. When I wrote to you that 'i could not bear it any longer', I did not mean to say that you were perpetrating a crime. (Doesn't a crime always involve at least two, a complicit resistance by victim being the one, before the other?) I meant to say: here is my body, it weeps, it weeps from what you have done. Is there, any longer, here, a thing we might call sympathy?

    ...and, for you: here is a protracted conversation about
    Michel Foucault that you and i had with jpl from e2. one
    thing i learned from this is that talking with him made me rea-
    lise that i know enough to speak with him about foucault..or at
    least i can talk like i do to someone that knows something about
    him...

    here is what i will continue to steal from you, because it is not yours



    part one: purloined

    jpl says 1) Find the interview. Get it through the interlibrary loan system of your school's library.
    jpl says 2) You say that my position is that "does see the possibility of liberation by resistance to power." This is not what I said at all. What the heck does "resistance to power" mean, when all resistance is power? You're confusing power (ie., the capacity to get someone do what you want them to do) with domination (ie., the capacity to *force* someone do what you want them to do). Domination is one form of power, but not the only one. Love is power, for example. Furthermore, in the context of the Anti-Oedipus preface, he's not talking about the "individual" as a being, but the individual as a "person" with distinct "feelings" that are part of a regulated world. This world is constituted by power (not just domination -- it also involves emotional coaxing, convincing, etc. on top of threat and fraud). The "multiplication" and "displacement" are psychological self-transformations, part of a new ethic of "care for self" that F. envisions. They are forms of resistance against power, but they ARE power as well -- we can't "oppose" power, we can only oppose undesirable outside power with our own, internal, care-of-self power.
    jpl says 3) What are you saying about the preface? That it doesn't provide any insight to Foucault because he'd lie about the context of his own work as a favour to friends who are talking about completely different from his own work? (And no, I don't think he was getting paid, and in any event even if he was, remember that Deleuze would later go on to write a book about Foucault, so I don't think it's unreasonable to say there is a certain copacetic vibe there.)
    jpl says 4) Find the interview.
    jpl says What did you take Foucault's overall theme as being? Renunciation to the state?


    pt two: identity

    jpl says you know, you've turned me into a paranoid bastard: every time i'm talking to someone who has interests similar to yours or reading something somehow related (apocryphist, cabin fever, etc.), I ask myself at least once, "is this difference?"

    jpl says for instance, Ouroboros says you are jderrida. this was the "metafictional" issues that you consulted me over my Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Teris wu, is it not?

    you said hahaha that would be funny if it was difference i think e2 is ridiculously derridean (you later wrote, and I quote, "* (0.015): Laughter is that disease peculiar to the human condition. Laughter is (or has become) that paralysing fear of one's own death.")

    jpl says I was always skeptical of difference -- I mean, look through his w/u's. There'll be these incredibly cunning "impersonations," and then there'll be something about music or some other fascination of the young

    you laughed

    jpl says Seriously, he had me messed up for a while. I kept /msg'ing the dude, trying to extract hints as to the true nature of his game. Was it Derrida, an old man with bizarre musical tastes? Was it Derrida, with his grandson using the same account? Or was it an amazing impersonation? I needed answers.

    jpl says So one day I figured it out. It's not a secret anymore. He is open about it.

    jpl says You can read his homenode, where he wrote something like this: "I am alternately difference, and others, including myself, who I am not."

    jpl says Who he is, he is many. As his name suggests, his very body is differential, he is only a function that is drawn across multiple bodies. (He is also very repetitive.)

    jpl says So one day I wrote this to him: (and I think he has other plans for this period in our lives so I won't say too much of it today) "You awesome, incredible liar!!! You're all of these people, aren't you? I love it! (You're the only kind of liar I could ever be friends with: the liar-for-fun, found out.)"

    jpl says There were eventually a few disagreements and I particularly disliked his abuse of Nietzsche (which he still does not understand), but things stand, and I suppose we could be called friends, but I know that he would never use that word with a serious face, if only because, in his own words, "he does not have a face for me, he is only fingers, and a keyboard, he has no body. i consecrate you: vapor."

    you said something at this point, but I could not hear you. I was set to blindness. It does not matter what caused this. I am weak, as I have said before, I am frail. A single insult will wreck my heart for months. I am a reimbodiment of one of Kafka's most pathetic.


    pt three: a conversation regarding an extension of the work of michel foucault

    2002.04.26 at 19:00 this one is all from memory

    difference says That last writeup was interesting. Have you read much on the history of writing?

    jpl says No, I haven't. Sounds interesting, though. I myself wouldn't be particularly drawn to that area, mostly because I'm more interested in power in general, of which writing would be only a relatively minor factor (except qua extender of certain forms of other power-effectors -- threat, for example, or exhortation).

    difference says But wouldn't writing also always be a general representation of power, insofar as the very limits of discourse, and of activity even, are defined (at least historically) by the limits writing expresses, by the border of writing, writing as a technology, of course? Wouldn't writing recapitulate in its practical activity the general problems that power already assumes, the punishments that power exerts, the very violences that power forces complicity with?

    jpl says Foucault's power is "power to cause," not necessarily "power over someone." (Seduction and exhortation are forms of power which are not domination.) And we've got to distinguish between the power exerted on a person as they learn to use a medium (classroom discipline), the power of which the medium is the effector or catalyst (the manifesto, the proclamation -- which is in effect a threat), and the power exerted by the medium itself. Now, of course there's lots of power being effected *through* writing (of the threat kind, of the exhortation kind, and to a lesser extent of the seduction kind -- though on TV and the Web seduction is most ubiquitous); but it's not clear to me that writing has a special power proper to itself that is disproportionate with the power of another character (threat, seduction, exhortation) that it is being used to effect. Then again, maybe we are on the same page here.

    difference says ---

    jpl says Yes, I agree. Though of course this is not the "power of writing," but rather the closing of certain evidential flows and the isolation of writing as a privileged medium -- but this is effected through the other forms of power.

    difference says ---

    jpl says No, I mean that writing is a medium of power (because communication is a form of power). But what I mean is that the "power" of writing is not due to its nature, so much as due to what it is used for and how other uses of writing (or the unwriteable) are dealt with.

    difference says But doesn't writing define, legislate, codify, archive, and so completely describe the shapes that power is going to take? That something can or cannot be written is perhaps the greatest form of power (not in Foucault's sense of the term) that could circulate within a relationship -- any relationship, but of course also a relationship that is explicitly political in its transactions. In Latin America, but not only there of course, the question of what can be written teeters on the border between life and death.

    2002.04.26 at 19:19 jpl says What does that mean, that in Latin America "the question of what can be written teeters on the border between life and death?"

    difference says that there is a political economy there concerning the very question of what can be written, of what can be said -- that line, between what can and cannot be written, also reproduces a line between life and death.

    jpl says If you could give me an example of how writing plays a specific tactical role other than extending the range of power, I'd perhaps be better able to follow what you're saying.

    jpl says (These kinds of things are also similar to what Deleuze was interested in -- and I am interested in Deleuze.)

    difference says ---

    jpl says Qua communication, or qua writing?

    difference says As writing, but the distinction is dangerous. Viewing writing as only one species of communication distracts us (doesn't it?) from the noncommunicative aspects of writing, as if writing was always already an attempt to communicate, to impart knowledge, to transmit information, to be a relay between two. Writing can also be private, it can, I dare say against Wittgenstein, logically private.

    jpl says I'm not sure that it's writing itself that is inhibiting or augmenting, so much as other applications of power outside or through writing. Can you give me an example?

    difference say ---

    jpl says Effects are always flowing, yes, though I'd say that this is the result of individual affections of power which do not, themselves, flow. (Just as a magnetic field is created by electronic alignment which is not, itself, magnetic.) But I would say that the technical limits of writing don't have innate effects on power; it is only when there is power outside writing governing how we use writing that these have influence.

    difference What do you mean by 'a power outside writing'?

    jpl says A power outside writing would be where someone influences you to express yourself in writing when you could have done otherwise (in some other medium). An institutional policy to disregard complaints not filed in writing would be an extremely basic example.

    difference says something about writing and iterability, the absence of an original imprint, the reproducibility of all writing, everywhere. (remember: this is all from memory)

    jpl says But the logic of reproducibility has nothing to do with the innate nature of print; it has to do with the consumer's response to print and its alternatives (and different consumers can have different responses)

    jpl says But the auspices under which a technology is developed do not necessarily reflect the different ways in which it can be applied; the "tendencies" exist elsewhere, and have other causes than the appearance of the technology itself. Not all moves are conditioned by writing; only those that must occur in writing, or which must be effected by writing.

    difference says But, But, But. But there is also an extent to which, don't you think so at least?, writing, the technology of writing, of ciphering, or imprinting a mark, but not always as a communicative act, but certainly almost always communicable, that this writing defines, codifies, legislates, normalizes, and archives the very space in which a 'move' can be made, determine in advance what could count as a move. Now this may not have always been the case -- and this is perhaps where there is a fissure between our views, and it is what I should have told you before, before I reprint it here, reproduce our purloined words here -- but it is certainly the case now. And it is total today, this power of writing, the extent to which writing is the only technology of legislation, jurisprudence, but also memory, evidence, and truth (which is perhaps the most serious example right now). That writing is this very totality means only that whenever you speak (but you did not speak, jpl, you wrote) of power, of submission, of white space, or of anything else, you are first of all constricted, determined, delimited, bordered on all sides by this technology. The very presence that are your hands, the very facticity of your having hands, of mouths, of a voice, is circumscribed (Jacques Derrida would have here said circumcised) by this: called writing.

    jpl says Codification, legislation, distribution, and normalization all occurred before writing even existed (whether or not archiving did is up for debate -- eg., wampum) And they are tools for the deployment of further power beyond writing.

    difference: (now): this is where the conversation came to an end. Perhaps it did, perhaps it did not. But this is all that I have recorded, this is the archive, this represents the limit, the border, at which we could write to each other on that day, jpl. I remembered this conversation, through an archive, but mostly through my body, because I do not have an archive of what I wrote to you on that day, of my half of the discussion -- perhaps you can be such a providence, perhaps not. I write now, writing what I wish I would have written on the day. We already knew in advance that our differences were few, which is inspiring, but also at the same time deadening, because our very names (not mine more than yours however) name differences, desire differences.
    You wrote to me only today of a theory of desire, of representations of desire, of the different economies that desire may come to inhabit, to inhibit, to circulate within in, but also to define the circulation for. Previously, jpl says "In economics, desire was always characterized negatively. Desire was want, as in, you wanted something you didn't have and you acted to make the desire go away. In psychology, desire was something that was teased out by circumstances, and then repressed back against itself, because oh golly gee, it's just all too titillating. Well, you've read Foucault, right? But Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari totally revised the theory of desire, using the idea of a Body without Organs as a controlling metaphor. Foucault's as anti-psychoanalytic as Deleuze & Guattari. Their stuff represents criticism of the methods, perspective and content of psychoanalysis."
    Yet what about me, jpl, the body whose breath whispers its name before you, now, forever, in the past, but above all right now? My name: right now. What would a desire of difference constitute, what would the desire to fracture one's own self, to split my very being between many sites, to delocalize myself, to delocate myself, to untrace the borders of my body be like? (I ask this question as one who was weened by Wittgenstein, but forced away from him by Derrida. Still, my teeth brought some of the Austrian with me. I will never be entirely French.) Reading over this conversation now, I only have two desires. The one I was just writing of, but to write it again: that the conversation would have been between more, that there would have been more of you and more of me writing to each other, that I would have been divided in advance, a true difference, différance, that there would have been the 1, 2, 3, 12, of us there, writing, without site, without sight. The other desire is only that we would have found a better way to resolve, to learn from each other, but this is perhaps part of my more general desire, or pragmatics, of communication, that communication does not always need to be in aim of agreement (a form of argument), which is exactly what the philosphical tradition has always insisted. Instead, I wish we could have cultivated our difference. No longer agreement, but disagreement. No longer consensus, but dissensus: a différance of sense, a different apprehension, which is always already there, is it not?


    pt four: the pragmatics of argument, of winning

    you said: * (1.00000034): I will relent. I'm convinced by (his)(its?) argument. The reason I've struck all the laughter from this "record" (awful contractual) is because of laughters explosive disregard for the argumentative style. What can laughter mean in a debate? Doesn't it automatically render any appeal to rationality absurd? Or at least, absurd within the range of the laughter itself. Importantly: the range (band-breadth) of this laughter multiplies itself out of all control if it finds a 'permanent' home (dwelling) on the internet. Thus: if I leave the traces of this once-original laughter to remain here, am I not already invalidating the possible seriousness of the questions that may (or may not)(more likely the 'may not') follow. More on this later.... back to the breaks.

    difference says You relent, but you do not want to. It is not that you don't want him to 'win' the argument, it is that you want their to be no argument, which their isn't, or at least their shouldn't be. Isn't this something that Nietzsche should have said (quote "foucault is not nietzsche")? You want to laugh, you want to roar, but you strike yourself through, you inhibit yourself, you desire someone other than yourself. Why? Why is this? It is not a fault, I also desire to be someone who I am not, but also to be, at the same time, who I am. Still, I think we are different, don't you? You, after all, are the one who wrote, "separate existences, at no cost."

    you said: laughter i suppose. that was my argument though so i win! muahah haha ...

    jpl said: Why don't you find a point where he directly denies something that I've said. Editorial incision("People like me?" This is becoming not fun anymore.)Editorial decision "

    difference says This is what I meant.

    you said: this got blown up...annullling the point of an argument. Against making points = beautiful irony. Why does there need to be a point?

    difference says: "admin says I read the Klaproth msg's ... I read the responses to them. I talk to dozens of you a day. 'On Certain Species of Writing' is interesting ... but I fail to see how it really applies here. You think your 'verbal diarrhea' writeup was deleted as a statement of power? To reign you in? I still fail to see, reading your node there, how on earth I could apply it to actually change anything." Of course, admin misread my usage of power, and admin also sounds a little too certain for my tastes, the whole conversation was a little too close to the edge of anger, to the borders of hatred for me to really enjoy being in it. 'dozens of you a day', 'how on earth' are figures betryaing a tropic insensitivity, a lack of sympathy (which is, above all, the total landslide represented by the pragmatics of an argument in argument, the total loss which argument (staked as a desire situating agreement) is a figure for). there were other tropes and figures in this conversation, but above all there was, admin, a tone of distrust, a lack of care for my owning these fingers, and a not-very-uncertain unwillingness to lay yourself before me, as i lay myself before you, then, and also again now.


    pt six: being right

    jpl says: 2002.04.07 at 18:51 jpl says I'm not "privileging" my own reading -- I believe that other interpretations aren't supported by evidence.

    difference says that is a bizarre thing to believe in the possibility of, you can't possibly trick me into believing this, and certainly not yourself either. Why did you write it then? Why did you desire, so badly, to believe in a theory situating an interpretation that does not also presuppose the parellel theory which would situate the evidence in advance?

    jpl says: 2002.04.07 at 18:52 jpl says Look, quite frankly, I've had this same criticism of my Blake paper (that I'm privileging my own reading). I really don't understand what that means. That I shouldn't believe what I'm saying?

    difference says No, that there is difference, that decision is never permanent, that there is always violence in certainty, that certainty is itself a violent state, it permits the exclusion of everything that is dubitable, it permits the priority of that about which we are certain. Today we are all so afraid to be ambiguous, to be in a state of restlessness, to not have always already decided, to be split within ourselves. We desire confidence, determination, to be settled, to be comfortable -- and so we develop elaborate systems justifying the exploitation of the third world by the first world, the excuses are pathetic, their circulation is propagandistic to the very outer extremes. We never desire to hang our heads, to be in sorrow, to accept blame, to be at fault. We have so completely worn out Catholicism that fault, that guilt, is no longer desirous, but contemptuous, that very thing against which we are always guarding ourselves. So when you read, it is not that there must be the reading that you give, or the interpretation that you give, but that there is a community in which you could let yourself be read, there is a severe state of indecision which is graceful, blissful. I think perhaps this is what I mean when I say: writing.

    jpl says I don't know what to do about this. It's looking less and less like it's about Foucault, and more and more like it's supposed to be a mission to teach me humility.

    difference whispers, "No, on the contrary, it's about Foucault through and through, if any of us need humility it is all of us. I said to you (read this very carefull), to repeat myself, 'that you simultaneously want to win the argument and lose the argument'. But this would not be possible. I wanted to try to situate this entire reproduction (this facsimile) within the context of a pragmatics of conversation, but a pragmatics that wasn't teleologically inspired, that wasn't serving some sort of justification in the end, some sort of consensus. Why do we always have to agree? Why can we not just share the warmth of each other's smiles? Of course, this is so much the harder for jpl and I, because (as I remarked to anthropod, we have no faces, we are only fingers), and this is, I feel, a difficult mask to wear, before each other, whom we know so well, without knowing, in fact, at all.


    pt seven, clo-
    (fis)-
    sure

    Where is the closure, now? Where is that which you sought? Why is it SURE? Must it close with certainity, the very demon unleased by Descartes?

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