This is actually my response to last week's reading that I never got around to posting...

Genealogy of Ethics:

I found this week’s reading particularly interesting in the context of my own current project, an analysis of 18thc European and American constructions of virtue. This week I’ve been exploring (and trying to create some sense of) the works of Locke and Rousseau, specifically. Foucault’s discussion about the origins of ethics, especially as it pertains to sex and morality, sheds some light on a few of the more confusing concepts I encountered in the writings of these Enlightenment intellectuals.

Locke’s “Principle of Virtue” states that virtue is self-denial, the ability to quell or ignore your passions. Similarly, Rousseau argues, in his First Discourse on the arts and sciences, that “luxury is diametrically opposed to virtue,” and that those who cannot resist the desire for luxury are immoral. He also argues that the new interest in the arts and sciences will lead to vice – vanity, further desire for luxuries and wealth instead of simplicity, and other “effeminate” behaviors are the result of the renewed interest in the arts and sciences.

What does this have to do with Foucault? I don’t know. It made sense when I was reading it. But I can try to forge some connection anyway –

Foucault says that in antiquity, sex was considered “activity,” whereas, for the Christians, it was considered “passivity,” and he cites this as one of the reasons why Christianity sees sex as sinful. Both Locke and Rousseau characterize passivity as feminine – women are not strong enough to silence their passions, and are therefore less virtuous than men. Men, on the other hand, are active, and those that are passive and unable to engage in Locke’s “self-denial” are considered effeminate. Similarly, Rousseau uses feminine epithets to rail against the desire for wealth and luxury. Either way, it seems that an appetite or desire satisfied means femininity triumphs over masculinity and vice triumphs over virtue.

I also found Foucault’s discussion about desire and pleasure useful, and I would like to discuss it further tomorrow morning (which was last week...ohhhhwell).

- Heather

What is Foucault's definition of the modern self?

While I found Foucault's analysis of the Greek, Christian, and Renaissance 'self' intriguing, I kept wondering throughout--what would Foucault define as the modern self? What are modern ethics? Perhaps I missed something here... but I seem to recall the interviewer at one point asking him to define the modern self and instead of answering the question Foucault lapses into discussing Greek/Christian notions of 'self' again. Here, I think the answer may reside somewhere in the discussion at the end about Descartes' notion of self (oneself as a subject capable of thinking for oneself) but I wonder how this idea of 'self' changes with the proliferation of institutions in the 19th century which seek to control self as individual. For instance, there seems to have been a rise in the anxiety surrounding notions of free will--people recognize themselves as individuals with a free will and therefore must be controlled. (Foucault elaborates on the relationship between individuals and the state in another essay I read, claiming that the state only uses individuals insofar as it strengthens the state.) So, there seems to be a presumption that the modern self must somehow recognize itself as an individual -- and I think this is also what Foucault is getting at when he discusses how the Greeks only recognized self by the eye of others.

The most compelling and fascinating portion of the interview--and for which I wish he had provided a specific example--was his discussion of the anxiety people wrote about in diaries when they discovered this modern 'self' as individual and how it may not have been easy to write about. I take it for granted today that I can say or compose something that describes how I feel or experience something in some sort of supposedly unique way--something that is interior to myself and not dependent on another's eye or on God. And yet, at the same time, in my daily life I feel I am controlled or molded by certain ideals of 'normalcy' based on certain morals and ethics of our society. Should this disturb/alert me or does the fact that I have recognized this simply confirm me as a 'normal' modern self, if I even know what that is?

Finally, to avoid thoroughly confusing myself and everyone else, I'll end with questions. What is the relationship of ethics to desire/pleasure? What is the relationship of sex to desire/pleasure? How does this change over time and what is the relationship today? I'm not as clear on the differences here, so maybe we can map those out more explicitly.


~Amanda

Society - Ethics

There's a lot to chew on in these interviews. I want to point out just one element that I found particularly interesting. Foucault makes a direct causal link between the form of Greek society (hierarchical, patriarchal, slave-owning) and its ethics (techniques of the self based on aesthetics and/or on being worthy of citizenship.) Since the first few interviews here often jump to the present and allude to the liberation movements of the 70s (as well as "Californianism" [!]), it's intriguing to me to consider "our" ethics in terms of the political and social composition of the US. By this, I mean our shared belief in democracy: we may think that there are serious problems with America and the world, but our implicit assumptions informing our sense of injustice is that things are insufficiently democratic. It would be really interesting to speculate about American ethics (plural) in these terms: do we believe in pluralism because of our democratic convictions, or did universalisms about human rights and so on "logically" lead to pluralism? And, since Foucault's discussions here were about sex, do present notions of mutually-pleasurable sexual indulgence arise out of pluralism, too?

-Chris

Foucault's Genealogy of History

I found this week's reading to be particularly enlightening in directly telling us the theory behind the genealogies of history he has constructed. His discussion of "effective" history versus "traditional" history gives us numerous ideas for constructing a non-linear historical narrative or, rather, how one would break out of that mold. I actually don't think most people have methodologically applied Foucault very well. For instance, how many historians acknowledge that there are absolutely no constants in history--including the body itself (87)? I'm not saying there haven't been attempts to look at how the body is an unstable site, but I can't think of a historian who actually applies this method to his or her work besides Foucault... maybe somebody else can enlighten the rest of us.

The German words are a bit confusing and I also am having difficult with the idea of descent (Herkunft). If I had to guess as to what he's getting at, I would say that he finds descent ultimately rooted in and a major part of varying articulations of the body (at different times and places)--articulations that can somehow be identified at different points when they change. Those changes are related to various emergences (Entstehung). We should discuss what he means by the descent as being part of the "dissociation of identity" (94) and recognizing "all of those discontinuities that cross us" (95). I'm not quite sure I understand what he means by this.

Finally, if we have time, I'd like to discuss the importance of knowledge in "effective" history; both as power/domination, as the basis for creating a meaningful world, and in relation to the line I'm most unclear about: "the critique of the injustices of the past by a truth held by men in the present becomes the destruction of the man who maintains knowledge by the injustice proper to the will to knowledge" (97). What does he mean by "the injustice proper to the will to knowledge"?

~Amanda

Attempted Definitions

Obviously, Nietzsche, Genealogy, History is the most difficult reading we've done so far. Here are a few attempted definitions:

Herkunft: a kind of broken family tree of an idea and its “inscription on the body.” (84) This is a difficult concept to grasp; perhaps the moment at which an identifiable religious or cultural tradition coalesces would be an example?

Entstehung: when an idea crystallized in the midst of struggle (“Emergence is thus the entry of forces; it is the eruption, the leap from the wings to center stage…” [84]) Much easier to grasp - Foucault's whole idea of the disciplinary society coming together around the time of the French Revolution is an example.

Also, a nicely concise summary of his idea of the function of law: “humanity installs each of its violences in a system of rules and thus proceeds from domination to domination.” (85)

Obviously, the most fruitful discussion for us is going to be his idea of the proper (or, at least, useful) role of the historian. What strikes me re-reading that part is that what he describes, the restless historian eschewing metanarratives and being suspicious of lofty concepts, is precisely what we see in a lot of contemporary history. These kind of ideas have taken root among practicing historians. Given when Foucault died, I doubt he really got to see that come to fruition; I wonder what he would have to say at this point.

-Chris

Spatial vs. Temporal Metaphors

The most intriguing part of this discussion (Foucault vs. the geographers) for me was the geograpers' point that Foucault is very precise about temporal shifts and very murky about spatial shifts. I think that's accurate, especially in Discipline and Punish. What Foucault goes on to suggest is that spatial metaphors are very useful, if not in fact necessary, in describing power relations. Thinking of power in terms of space (i.e. power radiating out from points, coalescing at other points, being dispersed over fields, etc.) is precisely how Foucault describes it. I'd like to discuss what we think about the issue.

Another intriguing point: Foucault ends up thanking the geographers for pointing out that it was geography that mapped, literally and figuratively, everything he describes in terms of the growth of panoptism in the 19th century. This reminds me of an article I read recently about colonialism, that the appropriate set of metaphors for discussing the colonial project surround cartography, because cartography is the inscribing of spaces, types, and differences.

-Chris