FouCault

The bald man - probably the most dazzling philospher of his generation. At least the most radical in terms of renewing (or challenging) how the social studies are approached. His methods / approaches / theories apply to a wide range of disciplines - from history, literature, sociology, psychology -


Quick thoughts on foucault -


The author is dead -


deny "common sense" - look instead for the "constructedness" of systems - that appear natural - speech, routines, classifications - are the manifestation of power relations - of power seeking to systemise, to "naturalise" inequalities.


Crime - reform is a meaner more subtle form of subjugation. The Law, a tyranny not only of the body but enjoining the mind and the soul to be subservient to a politics that erases its traces by defining criminal and outlaw through the structures of language.


Madness - the shadowland of sanity is hardened - made distinct - drawn apart - with the overlaps occulded. Therapy - manacles over the being -


The individual - don't privilege it. Don't believe you exist primarily as yourself - but examine the forces that constitute your being. If there is to be freedom to be found - the consciousness of the how we are contructed is a semblance of freedom.


THeory is practice. Theory that ceases / is not relevant does not even enter into the world.


Discourse - dug / found - rooted in historicity. A fascination with how structures imbue themselves with reflexivity and order. The historicity of truth is part of its being - situated truth makes plainer where the appropirations exist -


"The indignity of speaking for others"


"soemthing essential is taking place : ... the tracking down of all varieties of facism, from the enormous ones that surround and crush us to the petty ones that constitute the tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives".


Who sings for those who once knew the Spirit?