Decontextualization in critical theory is a topic that fills me with a fair bit of alarm, because the nagging question that keeps coming back to me is, how do we know that the premises of so-and-sos argument aren't just completely made up? I'll look at scholarship, some of it by fairly big-name authors, that rests on some assumptions that I know are just plain wrong, based on firsthand sources in non-academic contexts. But how in the world do I prove that, when it's just a single analogy in a broader argument that's presumed to be basically factual in a theory that was written several decades ago?
Such a perspective inevitably results in presentism and orientalism, despite the fact that in theory (hoho) the whole point of critical theory is that it's supposed to work against such stereotypical analysis. I suspect this has a lot to do with how academia itself has become so alienated from the people it claims to serve. Latinx discourse is not the kind of thing that happens to anyone who regularly interacts with someone actually living in a contemporary context where it would be relevant, or not.
No, I don't think it's "unfair." Some people should be exerting themselves more to get better at reading, and sometimes the seemingly impenetrable is that way for a reason. That is, sometimes it pays off. But I agree "NGH" could be better, at least in translation.
If you want to read something by Foucault that is not written in this dense, allusive style and not crafted for publication in an abstruse academic journal, I would recommend some of his lectures that have been transcribed and translated:
"Foucault admitted to his friend John Searle that he intentionally complicated his writings to appease his French audience. Searle claims Foucault told him: “In France, you gotta have ten percent incomprehensible, otherwise people won’t think it’s deep–they won’t think you’re a profound thinker.” When Searle later asked Pierre Bourdieu if he thought this was true, Bourdieu insisted it was much worse than ten percen"
Maybe it's just me but I don't find that to be a good reason for labyrinthine prose.
There's a difference between seeming and being, no?
One might be to force the reader to slow down. Sometimes cognitive friction is necessary in order to short-circuit the reader's autocomplete circuits. Another way of putting it would be that the seemingly impenetrable text subverts the ordinary logic of the enthymeme.
Another might be technical precision. Another might be concision (not explaining exophoric references).
Another might be aesthetic choice. See my first posts on misunderstanding and rhetoric for why aesthetics is important for understanding. A text that resists immediate comprehension can force the reader to grapple with multiple interpretations simultaneously.
The first is that it doesn't comport well with the point made by F himself that he deliberately introduced obscurity to appear deeper. (I have certainly seen this practice)
The second is that this practice can result in justified confusion about the real meaning of the text is. Multiple interpretations can be 'justified'. R author if such texts often resists explication. This results in a situation analysis to a reading of Finnegan's Wake. I confess that I came to believe that this kind of profundity was a sham.
Can you think of an example of a reading you have made that resulted in your interpretation that you could not state more clearly?
This kind of ambiguity is fine in literature but I came to the conclusion - not so much in science and philosophy.
Is it possible that it's necessary to contextualize Foucault psychologically? Is it important that he was a very troubled youth, quite mad really, only finding a modicum of "peace" in sadomasochistic activities, for example? To what extent does that inform his theories about power? He writes as though he is a champion of the powerless, and yet personally, he was apparently power obsessed himself, and from a young age.
I'm not talking about this at a level of "Oh my god, Garrison Keillor touched a woman's shoulder without consent," or "David Foster Wallace was mean to his girlfriend." Foucault was quite pathological and it seems that it should be included in contextualization of his work.
There is an important difference between actual sadomasochism and the more common dom/sub relationship which is a way of dealing with peoples' perceived power imbalances in relationships--usually as a way of dealing with need in love. Sadomasochism involves inflicting pain. In general, people who like to inflict pain are dangerous. It should at least be noted and included in the hero worship that is involved with Foucault.
Certainly, it never goes unmentioned that Heidegger was a nazi.
Could you provide an example, or a quote, where he claims to be the champion of the powerless? I don't really think that's what he's doing in most of his writing.
It doesn't seem unusual, for a man who claims Sade and Nietzsche as primary intellectual influences, and who spent his career writing about power, to be obsessed with power. Heidegger was a Nazi, and Foucault was a sadomasochistic homosexual. What do you suggest we do with that?
I am familiar with some attempts to point out how Nazism infects Heidegger's philosophical project, for example, that are rooted in the philosophical content itself. I've always been a bit underwhelmed by them, personally, but I do not have a strong attachment to Heidegger the man or to his philosophical system as a whole. I found Being and Time, and some of his shorter works, interesting when I read them. They had a major influence on latter-20th century theorists, including Derrida, and are important for that reason alone.
It seems likely that one could similarly point out how Foucault's History of Sexuality is influenced by his own sadomasochistic tendencies, although I don't know how fruitful it would be. I am also at a bit of a loss for how we should be using it to contextualize "NGH."
If you are referring to the accusations about Foucault in North Africa made by Guy Sorman in 2021, to my knowledge Sorman has all but retracted them. That doesn't mean Foucault never did anything we would consider wrong. He was sadomasochistic, surely, and probably plagued by what you call "pathological" mentalities. It is interesting, though, that you draw a line between "actual sadomasochism" and "the more common dom/sub relationship." I suspect that it's much harder to draw a line between them than you suggest.
All in all, I am against hero worship, so we agree there.
You're right, Foucault might not have said he was the champion of anything. It's sometimes hard to separate between text and audience.
I'm just a bit frustrated by how it all has been used. I don't know if you're in the US or not, but here it is all over the universities and crappy deconstruction.
I am suggesting that his predilections deserve an intertwining with his texts when used to deconstruct every frigging structure in society.
The line is pain. It's not unclear in any way. Dom/sub is not "Justine."
I'm not particularly contributing anything to your piece. Just some frustrations I have with people's approach to Foucault.
Decontextualization in critical theory is a topic that fills me with a fair bit of alarm, because the nagging question that keeps coming back to me is, how do we know that the premises of so-and-sos argument aren't just completely made up? I'll look at scholarship, some of it by fairly big-name authors, that rests on some assumptions that I know are just plain wrong, based on firsthand sources in non-academic contexts. But how in the world do I prove that, when it's just a single analogy in a broader argument that's presumed to be basically factual in a theory that was written several decades ago?
Such a perspective inevitably results in presentism and orientalism, despite the fact that in theory (hoho) the whole point of critical theory is that it's supposed to work against such stereotypical analysis. I suspect this has a lot to do with how academia itself has become so alienated from the people it claims to serve. Latinx discourse is not the kind of thing that happens to anyone who regularly interacts with someone actually living in a contemporary context where it would be relevant, or not.
Is it unfair to believe that whilst the material is built upon a huge corpus of historically aware scholarship it is nonetheless badly written.
There is surely something to the old saw that if you can't write something clearly your own understanding is imperfect.
Furthermore impenetrable propose can serve as a shield for the writer from his own critical facilities and that of others.
No, I don't think it's "unfair." Some people should be exerting themselves more to get better at reading, and sometimes the seemingly impenetrable is that way for a reason. That is, sometimes it pays off. But I agree "NGH" could be better, at least in translation.
See also: http://www.critical-theory.com/foucault-obscurantism-they-it/ cited in my previous post on this topic.
If you want to read something by Foucault that is not written in this dense, allusive style and not crafted for publication in an abstruse academic journal, I would recommend some of his lectures that have been transcribed and translated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_lectures_at_the_Coll%C3%A8ge_de_France
"Foucault admitted to his friend John Searle that he intentionally complicated his writings to appease his French audience. Searle claims Foucault told him: “In France, you gotta have ten percent incomprehensible, otherwise people won’t think it’s deep–they won’t think you’re a profound thinker.” When Searle later asked Pierre Bourdieu if he thought this was true, Bourdieu insisted it was much worse than ten percen"
Maybe it's just me but I don't find that to be a good reason for labyrinthine prose.
Could you give me a good example of some impenetrable reason that is written that way for good reason.
I'm truly curious.
What sort of reasons would apply here?
Depends on what kinds of things you think are impenetrable as it is. How about Derrida's "Limited Inc."?
Let's assume that that text is impenetrable as us - what good reason would justify that quality?
There's a difference between seeming and being, no?
One might be to force the reader to slow down. Sometimes cognitive friction is necessary in order to short-circuit the reader's autocomplete circuits. Another way of putting it would be that the seemingly impenetrable text subverts the ordinary logic of the enthymeme.
Another might be technical precision. Another might be concision (not explaining exophoric references).
Another might be aesthetic choice. See my first posts on misunderstanding and rhetoric for why aesthetics is important for understanding. A text that resists immediate comprehension can force the reader to grapple with multiple interpretations simultaneously.
These are all helpful.
I have two observations.
The first is that it doesn't comport well with the point made by F himself that he deliberately introduced obscurity to appear deeper. (I have certainly seen this practice)
The second is that this practice can result in justified confusion about the real meaning of the text is. Multiple interpretations can be 'justified'. R author if such texts often resists explication. This results in a situation analysis to a reading of Finnegan's Wake. I confess that I came to believe that this kind of profundity was a sham.
Can you think of an example of a reading you have made that resulted in your interpretation that you could not state more clearly?
This kind of ambiguity is fine in literature but I came to the conclusion - not so much in science and philosophy.
I think you meant to say that it was unfair
No?
No
You think it is fair to believe it is badly written? We are then. It just isn't the impression I got from your piece.
Thanks
Is it possible that it's necessary to contextualize Foucault psychologically? Is it important that he was a very troubled youth, quite mad really, only finding a modicum of "peace" in sadomasochistic activities, for example? To what extent does that inform his theories about power? He writes as though he is a champion of the powerless, and yet personally, he was apparently power obsessed himself, and from a young age.
I'm not talking about this at a level of "Oh my god, Garrison Keillor touched a woman's shoulder without consent," or "David Foster Wallace was mean to his girlfriend." Foucault was quite pathological and it seems that it should be included in contextualization of his work.
There is an important difference between actual sadomasochism and the more common dom/sub relationship which is a way of dealing with peoples' perceived power imbalances in relationships--usually as a way of dealing with need in love. Sadomasochism involves inflicting pain. In general, people who like to inflict pain are dangerous. It should at least be noted and included in the hero worship that is involved with Foucault.
Certainly, it never goes unmentioned that Heidegger was a nazi.
Could you provide an example, or a quote, where he claims to be the champion of the powerless? I don't really think that's what he's doing in most of his writing.
It doesn't seem unusual, for a man who claims Sade and Nietzsche as primary intellectual influences, and who spent his career writing about power, to be obsessed with power. Heidegger was a Nazi, and Foucault was a sadomasochistic homosexual. What do you suggest we do with that?
I am familiar with some attempts to point out how Nazism infects Heidegger's philosophical project, for example, that are rooted in the philosophical content itself. I've always been a bit underwhelmed by them, personally, but I do not have a strong attachment to Heidegger the man or to his philosophical system as a whole. I found Being and Time, and some of his shorter works, interesting when I read them. They had a major influence on latter-20th century theorists, including Derrida, and are important for that reason alone.
It seems likely that one could similarly point out how Foucault's History of Sexuality is influenced by his own sadomasochistic tendencies, although I don't know how fruitful it would be. I am also at a bit of a loss for how we should be using it to contextualize "NGH."
If you are referring to the accusations about Foucault in North Africa made by Guy Sorman in 2021, to my knowledge Sorman has all but retracted them. That doesn't mean Foucault never did anything we would consider wrong. He was sadomasochistic, surely, and probably plagued by what you call "pathological" mentalities. It is interesting, though, that you draw a line between "actual sadomasochism" and "the more common dom/sub relationship." I suspect that it's much harder to draw a line between them than you suggest.
All in all, I am against hero worship, so we agree there.
You're right, Foucault might not have said he was the champion of anything. It's sometimes hard to separate between text and audience.
I'm just a bit frustrated by how it all has been used. I don't know if you're in the US or not, but here it is all over the universities and crappy deconstruction.
I am suggesting that his predilections deserve an intertwining with his texts when used to deconstruct every frigging structure in society.
The line is pain. It's not unclear in any way. Dom/sub is not "Justine."
I'm not particularly contributing anything to your piece. Just some frustrations I have with people's approach to Foucault.
Thanks for your thoughtful response.