I was a chomskyite anarcho-syndicalist during the "awakening" phase of my life. I will say, reading people like Foucault and his teacher Althusser gave me several insights about things I used to overlook - namely, the power of ideology and how much multiple institutions control us - things I wish my comrades would take into consideration more often. Wonderful interview.
Foucault and Althusser are almost like fire and water. Foucault rejected marxism and became an anti-communist quite early in his life. Even in his most famous and early book "History of madness" he praised progress made by early capitalism of XIXth century. Later in his life he embraced radical free-market views (read "The birth of biopolitics").
" Even in his most famous and early book "History of madness" he praised progress made by early capitalism of XIXth century." As Marx did also. "Later in his life he embraced radical free-market views (read "The birth of biopolitics")." Do elaborate, because in those lectures I don't see him embracing neo-liberalism, but just analysing it. Painting Foucault as a free market thinker, or a pro-capitalist philosopher is really painting a picture of him with very broad strokes. Even his attacks on the French communist party or direct attacks on marxism were attacks grounded on epistemological grounds. He attacked the french communists because of their reluctants to see power as anything else than just a class struggle, and his attacks on marxism in general were based on it being to tied up in the episteme of the 19th century. On an another point looking a Foucault the way you presented him is obviously missing a huge influence of marxism in his work and missing some obovius references he makes to marxism in his work without fully embracing it (he rejects Althussers "economic in the last instance", marxism as a totalizing discourse, ideology as a useful concept for analysing power, power as inherently repressive and negative, etc.).
I've been learning french for 6 months and I could understand him very well without reading the subtitles, I can't describe how excited I feel. Hopefully one day I'll be able to read his books as they were written.
Do you need to see the person who impersonates the author function to realize that the subject of the author serves certain functions and i/has been constituted by certain discourses (and should no longer be considered important)? Or what part of Foucault's writing do you understand better after seeing him?
Medical trauma is the reason Foucault appealed to me initially. And he has kept me from making myself the bitch of institutional medicine in a subsequent effort to address the possible effects of this trauma. When I absolutely have to go to the doctor for something, I take him with me. And some providers become visibly uncomfortable.
Foucault was discussed in my classes, and some of my colleagues read him for pleasure as well. He made many great philosophical contributions that were integrated into the theory of psychology, especially for family therapy. You might be surprised how many therapists are quite familiar with (and fans of) Foucault.
You're most welcome Dylan! I appreciate your comment. I feel similarly about the introductory value of this short video of the interview--the rest of it published as "Freedom and Knowledge" is I believe even more helpful...
Disappearance of Leprosy created a void.....and there was a new 'truth' that was discovered and then gradually accepted by the society.....the madmen most be confined and let's put them in those empty leprosy homes......the world matures, society moves on and the new bad boy in town is no longer a lepper but a madman
Wonderfully clear. Foucault is the key out of ideological stereotypes into the root of the essential problem we are in: the exaltation of the individual by our capitalist society versus the freedom of relational understanding of life; how all our knowledge comes out of violent repression of difference. He asks what kind of knowledge would we have otherwise? It's worth imagining.
Well there's this idea roaming around called "decolonization of the mind". Basically it tells you to no longer suppress or exclude anything but do the opposite and try to learn from there. The knowledge is very different, open about individuality, respect for individual expression, in general quite the opposite of what Foucault is saying here. It's more inclusive and relies on others to be faithful to their experience rather than having this dominant force extracting the knowledge and power.
Jesus Christ espoused a faith of a brotherhood of sovereign individuals 2000 years ago, before capitalism was invented. Stop appropriating ideas to your cause that are products of a world you clearly don't understand
Foucault terrifies me, not because I think he was wrong or that his assertions are dangerous in and of themselves, but for the fact that he was absolutely correct and society at large will never come to terms with the implications thereof.
Since he's correct... and ostensibly it's good for people to believe correct things... Believers in Foucault ought to be busy "disciplining" others to believe in his teachings, no?
Thank you for sharing this video. I very much appreciate how Foucault frankly discusses his life's intellectual project and the assumptions which he uses to explain his project. This interview should be included in any introductory material for trying to understand the knowledge of Foucault.
@@csabour9 Well the last part of the interview ("and so i don't say the things I say because they are etc..." to the end) is way more understandable than this "aphorism". In my opinion, but I obviously may be wrong, Foucault try to study the "discursive regularity" in our society which very very roughly means what is thought to be true or not in our society. Or, in other words, what are the "fundamental bricks" that we use to construct our thought (and the way we use them) in different field and even in the common life, how did we get there, what are the corollaries of that and how we could change it if we want to. I think the last part of the interview is about "breaking those bricks", and the part about subjectivity at the very end of the interview would be about destroying the wall you built with those bricks about your identity as an individual (in the opposite direction of "saying the truth about yourself"). You can use this "metaphor" when he talks about humanism or whatever subjects he studied. When he talks about Maoism, in this metaphor you could say "when all the fundamental bricks will be broken, what will be possible to build in our thought?", and there is no answer to that because when you destroy a brick you give birth to a new one which will evolve with time and live a unique life so you will never have break everything. That's why, I think, he prefers to use the word "positivity" instead of constraints because you can't build a wall without bricks and without a minimum of methods to bring this bricks together to form the wall. So, obviously you are enclosed to use those fundamental bricks but at the same time it is the only way to build a thought, so at the end you are not enclosed at all, it is just a necessity if you want to create a knowledge BUT then this knowledge will necessarily have the mark of the fundamental bricks and will not be "absolute" or "transcendent" or "better than another" or "true"...
FYI a slightly longer (than the one mentioned in the description above) and free downloadable book extract of "Freedom and Knowledge" where the whole interview can be read is available here: egs.academia.edu/LionelClaris To buy the book go here: fonselders.eu/eu/FS_standard.php?Pid=66&Jmp=IT159
Belated response to a lost comment: I think the most important question at stake in the important comment in question is to do with Foucault and the use of language to subvert thinking. Allow me to explain: Seven months ago somebody with the Google pseudonym of “MarieLubie" wrote an interesting and fair comment. I’ve been meaning to respond for a long time and today finally got to it. My apologies to Marie Lubie for not having done so earlier. Her comment, however, has disappeared, making it impossible to respond directly (Google does not allow me to write to her). So instead I’m including below first her comment as it appeared verbatim, as well as my response below. I’m hoping it is helpful to others and I’m also hoping that she will get to read this one way or another: MarieLubie’s comment: “Oh, .. oh!!!. It seems that there is an … .. the translation in the film says '' I say things because I do not think them anymore''.. this is not his point. He says that he says them to stop thinking about them. The very end explains this idea, (destruction) It is a hard concept, and not an easy translation, but even without an explanation, the error is obvious for a francophone. The idea is that he says them to stop, not because he has stopped thinking before telling them. Tell me, if I can help you, and what I can specifically do! Did you translate the video or does it come from a larger source?.. it would be worth checking it because it gives a wrong idea of his idea!.. I mean, do not only rely on me, check it with others.. and let me know!” My response: Thank you for your feedback, I very much appreciate it. The lines that you are referring to actually happen to be my favorites in the whole interview (not just in this 15 min video excerpt), but out of the whole interview itself published as a book under the title of “Freedom & Knowledge”, which is in part a translation of an interview that was actually a little over an hour long. For me the lines in question are also important because in Lynne Huffer’s wonderful introduction to this interview in the book, they are unfortunately not taken up. You seem to assume I need help with the French. To be clear, however, I am a native French speaker! Not that it means my French is always perfect, but it is better than what you probably had in mind. I actually went through many revisions of these lines before settling down on this translation that you find problematic. I even wrote about it in my dissertation; about how hard it was for me to translate it, because of all that’s at stake. I will only mention a couple of things here. The first thing I’d say is that what you quote as being my translation is actually incorrect. It doesn’t say in the video “I say things because I do not think them anymore”. It says something similar but with an important difference: “I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think…”. Either way, for you this is a mistranslation, it seems, because it doesn’t say that what Foucault actually means is that he wants to “stop” thinking them. However, please note that this is your word (“stop”), not Foucault’s. Indeed, in the French he says: “Je ne dis pas les choses parce que je les pense, je dis les choses pour ne plus les penser.” So he doesn’t actually use any word to express the notion of actively stopping those thoughts. He doesn’t even use the word “arrêter”, which as you know is a synonym of “stopper” that is very common in French. So much so, by the way, that in Quebec the stop signs on the roads usually say “Arrêt” and not “Stop” as it does in France! The very important thing when translating Foucault here it seems to me is that what we might refer to with a Derridean term as the “deconstruction” of thought or belief in question, is not just, or even primarily, the result of will. In fact, it is arguably when it is forced by will that quite unwittingly the very belief or thought is reaffirmed. My assumption is that Foucault is well aware of this paradox here, and that is in part why he is not using a direct word like “stop”. In fact, we hear Foucault in the video again just a minute later, concluding with the same point, and still not exactly using the notion of stopping: “And so I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, but rather I say them with the end in mind of self-destruction, precisely to make sure they are no longer what I think.” In the original French: “Et je ne dis donc pas les choses parce que je les pense, je les dis plutôt dans une fin d’autodestruction, pour ne plus les penser.” It seems here the key word is “autodestruction” (self-destruction). Indeed, the wonderful thing about Foucault’s use of this word, especially in French, is that it gets better into the not-fully volitional nature of the destruction of the attachment to thought or belief that he seems to be after. He wants to position himself in the direction of such deconstruction, but once again, he recognizes that doing so too volitionally would defeat the purpose. Building on Foucault, the question for me is about this practice of freedom from the self generally, and from thoughts and beliefs more specifically. More interesting still is what Foucault says right after: “Pour être bien sûr que, désormais, hors de moi, elles vont vivre une vie ou mourir une mort, où je n’aurai pas à me reconnaître.” In English: “To be really certain that from now on, outside of me, they are going to live a life or die in such a way that I will not have to recognize myself in them.” Here again, I think it is clear that the point for Foucault is not to actively stop “the things I say” but on the contrary to let them live and die, to let them be in a certain sense. For Foucault this would appear to require a different use of language (as he goes into a little earlier in the recording): not self-expression as a way to reinforce the self, but the expression of oneself in such a way--with less self-assurance--as to become witness to the deconstruction always already at work within language. One last thing to consider is Elder’s quoted comment to me in my written introduction to the video: “Translating Foucault is a very difficult task because his style of thinking serves two opposite aims: to express and to hide simultaneously.” With that in mind, the goal in translating, of course, should be to be clear enough so that the words that are translated are understood. However, it's not the only goal, especially when dealing with Foucault. Indeed, when the goal of clarity actually renders unintelligible the more subtle point in what is being communicated, we must resist using words that are too direct, like “stop”, especially when they’re not even used in the first place in the original text! In any case, the final words shouldn’t be mine but that of people out there who can be the true judges of my translation. Some people at least seem to relate to it, as is evident from the comments. For example, one says: “ ‘I don't say these things because they are what I think, I say them so that they no longer are what i think’..so simple and profound.” Thank you again so much for writing and for questioning the accuracy of my translation. I appreciate the opportunity to try to clarify. Hopefully this message will have made its way to you and will have been helpful to your understanding why I translated the lines the way I did, and maybe even it will have shown you another side to what Foucault seems to be after.
This is a great explanation, but I was still very much surprised (when I watched the video) by the translation on the screen, which clearly and strongly implies that he (now, at the time of speech) believes that what he's saying is untrue or out of date. I say this as a native English speaker - the chosen translation has this implication. My French isn't perfect, by any stretch, but what he says is much closer to something like: I say this things so / in order that I don't have to think about them any more. As in, by speaking, he releases the idea from his mind so that he can focus on a new idea. The translation in general is outstanding, really far above the standard set by for instance French TV shows with English subtitles, but even after reading your explanation I think that one line is wrong and very misleading.
The only thing I can derive from these statements, “And so I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, but rather I say them with the end in mind of self-destruction, precisely to make sure they are no longer what I think.” and, “To be really certain that from now on, outside of me, they are going to live a life or die in such a way that I will not have to recognize myself in them.” is that he wants these methods of though (what he appears to consider the traditional western ways of thinking) to be destroyed. Foucault seems to feel that by noting what he calls "Western Structuralism" he hopes that it will be purged and that he feels that the whole reason for western culture is oppression and if people hear what he is saying they will realize he is correct and abolish these practices forthwith. At least that is what I got from the part of the interview shown.
You really have done a very fine job, translating this interview so attentively, and thank you for putting it online. But I must agree with @alexwoods4825 below, that that line is wrong and misleading. "Je dis les choses pour ne plus les penser": "I say these things in order to no longer think them". That's basically the sense in which it should be translated. Quite in the spirit of what you say about auto-destruction, implying a release from the attachment to that thought or belief, as you put it, which is also a release of thought that would take on another life, or not, if it is to eventually disappear with the figure of man...
It just occurred to me that, ironically enough, it seems likely this is the first time a Foucault interview has ever been first published in English (see the book “Freedom and Knowledge”). This is perhaps a testimony to the international influence Foucault’s thought has continued to gain. Not surprisingly, this appears to be particularly the case in the humanities, especially if the study used in the March 26th 2009 Times of Higher Education-which has Foucault as “the most cited [author] of books in the humanities, 2007”-is any indication.
Has not there been many interviews of Foucault published in English? Or, do you mean, is this the first non-English interview to be translated into English and then published?
Benjamin Levin Yes, I mean the latter. That it seems this is probably the first Foucault interview in French to be first published in English before being available in French. This is just a supposition, however, as I have not done research to check the voracity of this claim. Thank you for your question.
dutch person here, the part where the subtitles said "talking about where foucault lived in paris", Fons Elders was actually talking about foucaults structuralism
That's interesting and good to know. Thank you. That is what Fons Elders himself had told me to write. I do not speak dutch. If you don't mind, go ahead and translate it. I can add it to the description up above. Thank you again either way.
That ending. Mind blown. I'm researching Foucault for my senior thesis on showing the similarities between how Foucault and his predecessors view the world and how modern libertarians do. This was a great interview. Post-structuralism's dedication to questioning the world and deconstructing everything certainly leads to more intellectual progress than the kind of egoistic proselytizing that other philosophies try to sell us about some structure of society that will save us all from the evils of capitalism, socialism, or whatever evil is to that philosopher.
You have to dig deep in western philosophy to find such things Foucault says in the end. The destruction of the illusion of the self if you wish to. Sometimes I feel it is the one thing many influencive authors try to hold on to very hard. The picture of self and the universal identity of the subject. I am working on Foucault right now and even in his books I didn't found it clearly expressed. It fascinate me that I found the thing I was looking for in a youtube video. (one western philosoper who stand up clearly and rise the thought of the illusion of ego) Thank you Manus
It's ironic that a man so predoccupied with critically examining the environment in which ideas are formed thought biographical questions were unnecessary to understand his ideas.
@@mitjellk2186 thank you as an artist I also share a similar feeling, I desire for the viewers to focus on my art and what they experience and what I'm communicating. Of course I'm not comparing myself to the great Foucault just to clear that up lol
It seems that this self-destructive part of his philosophy is rather an escape from a life in which Foucault felt chained, uncomfortable, and not at home. He seems to have longed for the void behind the determinations of difference and thus knowledge. Hence his emphasis on ego-dissolution and avoidance of biographical life-details. In doing this, one eventually just becomes a nobody, a living dead. I think there is a middle ground, whereby there exists a constant movement between determinations and their satirical destruction by the void. Destroy yourself, empty yourself, sure; but one must be sure to include the other into the space thats left behind, lest one becomes just that: an empty space left behind.
lol he is the new Jesus lol...how pathetic all these brainless people that blindly follow freaks that are responsible for destroying Western civilization....
He says that he wants to destroy individuality. What a horrible idea. He also says he does not believe in language as a mean of self expression and that "I dont say it because that's what I think - I say it so I don't have to think it" - huge paradox there, let me save you the trouble: you say it because you think it, and it's your individual right for self-expression which you communicate to us through the use of language.
"I don't believe in the virtue of using language for self expression. The language that interests me is the one that can actually destroy all the circular, enclosed, narcissistic forms of the subject and of oneself. And what I mean by the end of man is deep down the end of all these forms of individuality, of subjectivity, of consciousness, of the ego on which we built and from which we have tried to build and to constitute knowledge. This is one of the forms of this limitation, of these exclusions, of these rejections that I was talking about. The west has tried to build the figure of man in this way, and this image is in the process of disappearing... and so I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, but rather I say them with the end in mind of self-desrruction, precisely to make sure they are no longer what I think. To be really certain that from now on, outside of me, they are going to live a life or die in such a way that I will not have to recognize myself in them." Foucault No words for how profound this is
"Je ne dis pas les choses parce que je les pense, je les dis plutôt dans une fin d'autodestruction, pour ne plus les penser, pour être bien sûr désormais hors de moi, elles vont vivre ou mourir une mort où je n'aurais pas à me reconnaître"
Michel Foucault est un très bon philosophe. Sa grandeur repose sur le fait qu’il fut aussi un bon professeur au Collège de France où la polémique contre Sartre fut très vive. Mais ce qui est ,avec le temps,le plus évident,c’est l’incroyable beauté de sa parole et de son style. Proche de Nietzsche,qu’il admirait,c’est ce brin de folie qu’on retient de lui. Indispensable dans sa bibliothèque. Merci.
the power of words, the chains behind them, the denial of other words in order to keep it's meaning. what i have gained from Foucault (not in an abstracted sense): we as humans are fucked, not because we have done something wrong (we did) but not because of that we are all fucked. no, but rather because of doing the act of "being" in itself. being a human in itself reveal an ideology behind it, in order to "be" you have to create your own ideology (most of the times we are unaware of it). when we eat other animals, when we enroll our selves in society and culture, when we read and spread our own ideas, when we speak and deny, when we confirm and believe. the right and the wrong, our manners and ethics they are all a part of your own ideology in order to say "i think and therefor i am doing my "being"".
no no no, he is not talking about humanity, what he does is precisely the criticism of "universals" as he calls them, and "humanity" is one of them, if it's not "the" universal.
Like most others on this thread, I was overwhelmed by Foucault's thought, but now years later I see it for what it is. It needs to be bypassed because it has nothing positive or real to contribute to solving the world's problems.
System has been trying to push the dissolution, so now dissolution is not creative, but self-destructive, the "unconcious" is like the God or God-like structure of the leftists, it's some sort of ever-positive invisible but undoubtful truth, they rely on. It's just another dead-end
Thank you for your comment! Fons Elders, whose voice it is and with whom I worked on this never said anything about that! I don't speak Dutch, you see. Can you write here in English what it is that it says? Thank you again either way.
Translating from 6:10 onwards. A busy shopping street in Paris. Vaugirard street. Number 285 allows access to a courtyard accessible by different apartment buildings. This is where foucault lives, in a modest apartment on the 8th floor of the last building. Our relation to reality is according to Foucault controlled by unconscious rules. These rules control the different fields of knowledge. Each field of knowledge or science consists of a changing pattern of elements between which there are fixed relations. Foucault is interested in the analysis of these fixed relations. This is one of the reasons why Foucault is called a structuralist. There is a second reason why Foucault is called a structuralist. By seeing the human as nothing more than part of the total reality an attack is made on the supreme reign of the individual and humankind as the centre of the cosmos. Foucault himself denies he is a structuralist. But like with Foucault, for a structuralist reality consists of different wholes, of which the basis is formed by unconscious structures. The elements of which a whole like this consist are unimportant for a structuralist. What is important are the fixed relations between these elements. Even if the elements change, the relations and the underlying structure stay the same. Foucault himself gives an example of this. (now Foucault starts talking about a photograph)
I'm new to the works of Michel Foucault (currently reading Discipline and Punish). So Foucault here briefly touches on his views of humanistic models of self-liberarion by the exaltation of the individual, which he believes to function as a form of man's imprisonment in a particular mould, as opposed to liberation. He mentions the likes of exclusion, subjection as problems that may lead to current issues within the justice system. From what I understand so far, Foucault's views in this video paint a picture of individuality which is likely to result in an inevitable exclusion in one's own sovereignity. This seems to me a view like what Carl Rogers deemed the "ideal self". On the other hand, exalted individuality resulting in attaining knowledge of the "actual self" (as per Roger's description) may result in uncovering unconscious thought and behaviour patterns, allowing one to RESPOND as opposed to REACT, eventually resulting in the removal of social barriers due to the ability to exchange perspectives. As someone who isn't familiar with Foucault's view on the individual, can anyone recommend further material as a lucid introduction on the matter? Thanks Marko
Marko Csokasi Discipline and Punish is a great book and it was published only 4 years after this interview, which itself may be said to be placed right in between the early and middle period of Foucault’s thought. His next book published in 1976 is much shorter and it is where his theory of power came together in a mature way. It is also probably Foucault’s most influential book: « Histoire de la Sexualité 1 : La Volonté de Savoir ».The latter part of the title is important: « The Will to Knowledge » which unfortunately the title in the US rendered all-too- reductively as « An Introduction ». The British edition, however, does not make this mistake. I am not sure I understand the connection you are making to Carl Rogers but I will say the following about Foucault’s treatment of the self. At the time of this video he is controversially critical of humanism and what he calls there « the virtues of self-expression ». That is in line with his position on the subject (the individual) from the early to the middle period of his work in which he was interested in analyzing the forces that shape society and the subjects living within it. He would eventually, however, become interested in almost the opposite question-« technologies of the self »-how the subject might still have agency despite the influence of power (this is not, however, the Foucault that is most known). To help you navigate these complex and evolving ideas all throughout his work, I recommend the book by Johanna Oksala (How to Read Foucault-that series is very good, in particular because it uses actual passages from the thinker in question and helps the reader unpack them. In my view this is a more authentic way to introduce the ideas of a philosopher). For an accessible and a sort of culmination of Foucault’s thought at the moment of his untimely death, his book « Fearless Speech » (one of his last lecture series and maybe the last he gave in English). Finally, also about his critique of « self-expression », I invite you to read another response on a UA-cam comment I wrote called « Belated Response to A Lost Comment ». Hope this helps. Thank you for writing!
@@lionelclaris5858 Thank you Lionel. I'm getting a copy of Oksala as we speak. The explanation of willful deconstruction of thought in your "belated response" as a reaffirmation of the thought itself is also incredibly helpful. When we consider what Foucault's desired position of deconstruction may be without too much volition, a lecture on Greek alchemy by Marie Louise-Franz springs to mind in which she speaks of how identification with a profound, novel thought results in the inflation of the Ego, and so one must strive to not credit the self with the expressed observations explicitly. Von-Franz's view seems to encapsulate Foucault's approach here as "hidden expression". In terms of my very hasty and clumsy Rogers reference, I might've completely misunderstood the context in which Foucault spoke. You mention that Foucault at this point of his thought was heavily critical of humanism. Since self-actualization is rooted in potential, it seems to imply - resulting in frequent presumptions, myself included - a process of growth becomes the "best", highest self. However, I understand the journey to the highest self to be the ability to continuously expand one's perspectives by the gradual dissolution of the self-image (through understanding one's predisposed thought patterns and behaviours in a way which one can allow new perspectives to be understood and integrated). What I understand virtues of authentic expression to be are ones that fit under this process of dissolution. Am I right to assume that this is what Foucault might've become interested in later on in his life as the technologies of the self? To dissolve itself? Excited to dig further. I'm a psychology undergraduate and this is a mere side-hustle for now, but so far I find Foucault fascinating. Thanks again.
Thanks so much for this -- Foucault is such a powerful thinker, and his thought seems to be getting more and more relevant with each passing year. I think that later in his short life he gave up the idea that we could get beyond our interpellation as individuals and subjects within ideological institutions, and he seemed to advocate for the creation of new institutions, groups, collective entities that would allow us to create ourselves as different individuals who would be free of the yoke of bourgeois capitalism (see the interviews in the second part of __Dits et écrits__). It's a shame he died so young. By the way, I love his hand gestures and his turtlenecks -- see the interview from 1966 about __Les mots et les choses __ on UA-cam, in which he gets a little dig in at Sartre, who is "sans doute un homme du 19e siècle".
Very enlightening summary. Postmodernists wrongly interpreted the situation of capitalism through the lenses of modernism that they were all against in one sense or another. The most famous one, Foucoult, once said that if he had read the Frankfurt School, he would not have written 90% of his works. I say in my book "Digitalism vs. Capitalism" that if he had read McLuhan, he wouldn't bother to write the remaining 10%. The real basis for their wrongness is that technology determines everything. In fact, what they refer to as social determination is nonsense. because without technological infrastructure, society could not survive. Read Harold Innis. To the questions, "Where is capitalism coming and going? Going to its graveyard?" I have a hopeful answer, which is highlighted in my book: Digitalism is killing capitalism. A novel perspective, a suggestion first in the world! “Digitalism vs. Capitalism: The New Ecumenical World Order: The Dimensions of State in Digitalism” by Veysel Batmaz is available for sale on the Internet.
Adam Curtis's new film Hypernormalisation takes its starting point at 1975, with the New York Bond issue and Austerity imposed by the Wall Street Bankers on that City, this contrasted with Assad in Syria and his percieved betrayal by Henry Kissinger and US foriegn policy in the Middel East. This Interview with Focault contrasts well with and provides an alternative starting point for Adam Curtis´s argument that Self referential infotainment is fed on line to pacify the egotistical narcissistic angst of the Bourgoisee. The starting point at 1968 perhaps gives the lie that all protest and resistence is futile and neutered. letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/09/bourgeois-resolution-poem-in-three.html Curtis's Film is limited by its isolation of the limited historicity of its time reference, This interview and also Curtis's other films, Centruy of Self The Mayfair Set and Bitter Lake are essential viewing to give the necessary historical context to Curtis´s latest work. My short critique of Hyper Normalisation. I found it all rather bourgoise. Not one of his better efforts. The chattering classes will be outraged and enchanted by it in equal measure an ironic reflection of curtisiss central point that Media content presented through Googles algorithms tailors content to a viewers predelictictions. The Bourgoise bit is Curtisis´s condescension that the power of the powerful is all encompassing and all fall before it realising their impotence. Worth watching although with highly skeptical and critical alerts fully operational, the antedote is of course discussion and seeking alternative viewpoints, curtisis´s genius may be just that, he provokes thought in many of us who have perhaps forgotten how that feels. letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/09/bourgeois-resolution-poem-in-three.html heres a link for a download for those who do not have i player or can not access it for anty reason. coretorrents.com/BBC-Adam-Curtis-HyperNormalisation-WebRip-x264-MCTV-torrent-8356104.html Transmission or U Torrent are good torrent clients for those who do not use torrents.
Le génie de Foucault est de démontrer dans un exposé méticuleux le ressenti vis à vis de la société occidentale/capitaliste. Il l'éclaire. J' ai souvent des débats houleux avec mon mari. J' espère que Foucault lui fera comprendre un peu mon point de vue et peut être le fera un peu évoluer .
@@lionelclaris5858 thank you very much, shall i put any specific reference or the way it is written here under the video? i can send you the work, if you like.
@@kristynakoprivova8675 If you use the video only you can use the UA-cam reference. If you use the book (which has the whole interview and not just the 15 min here), you can use this reference: Michel Foucault, Freedom and Knowledge, eds. Fons Elders and Lionel Claris (Amsterdam: Elders Special Production BV, 2013), 25-47. Yes, would love to read how you are using it... Hope this helps. Thank you!
Foucault is the king of interpretive-interrogative non-sequitur who defined the rhetorical strategies used by would-be gatekeepers of truth in the most ironic intellectual power grab in history. Or maybe I’m just marginalizing him in my pretense to know and understand him. If you take him seriously, then the truth depends on who’s in power, nothing more. The one valuable thing emphasized by postmodernism is that everyone can tell a story. The mistake is thinking this makes truth an illusion, something only sheltered children can afford to believe at a safe distance from reality and consequence. Still, it’s good to engage with Foucault. He was brilliant.
Madness is a difficult area. I realise that mental hospitals have been very cruel but so has so-called "community care". I am not sure that I know the answer.
Ironically, this "destruction of the subject" sounds all too religious for my tastes. I can hear the ghost of Galatians 2:20 in the background "My old self has been crucified. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." How does one get rid of the subject if one is still speaking?
Maybe it's amnesia or having been triggered by religion, but I can only recommend staying the hell away from the bible for several years. Then you will forget it, and you can actually hear Foucault.
@@faithfulbright3829 Foucault and Freud are the high priests of the church of reason... How are ya'll doing with the reason religion so far (hint: 53% increase in suicide rates in the last 10 years alone)...I prefer to be brainwashed by the Bible that gave me life, hope and joy than by Freud and Foucault who are responsible for the current madness we live today, a decadent society without common sense, boundaries, or moral order....good job Foucault? How is France doing these days? I heard the French they are no longer reproducing and the whole nation, society and civilization are being taken over by Islam lol ...Good luck with that
“I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think.” So Foucault doesn't want us to know what he thinks? What is he afraid of? Or, he means that he mean he's not capable of expressing himself? If language is not for one's expression, and in return reconstruct 'reality', why would he bother to talk? Is't all the game for him, a linguistic name to borrow from Wittgenstein? Yet, "life goes on", as Frost recalled.
I think what he means is less abstract and more practical. I understand it as this: everything he 'says', that is writes about in his books, refers to actual conditions of existence (e.g. see imprisonment) seen under a different view, that is deconstructed. He simply writes about them, in a 3rd person perspective if you like, as a witnessing, a witnessing exposing these concepts for what they truly are, Imprisonment, power, sovereignity, all these concepts he describes, are not what he thinks, he can never support them.
@@waveology8552 I see your uninformed on Michel Foucault, how many books have you read of his? Even if you had read some it is obvious you didnt comprehend what he was expressing at all, later.
is he talking about drugs in general, or is there evidence that he was referring to specific drugs like marijuana, amphetamines, LSD, psilocybin, etc. ?
How applicable could the first five minutes be to an individual looking inward? Rather than as a function of societal understanding, does the inner self bypass the "formality" of society in any way, and thus allow inner peace and gain of knowledge without personal sacrifice? Could someone more learned please point me in the right direction with a source or hypothesis?
What does he mean when he says: "I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no langer are what I think" ?
Thank you for your question. My response today would be similar to the one I gave to someone who had written here about 6 years ago. Even though you can find it below, here it is again for your ease--it is the one called "Belated response to a lost comment". I wish I had the time to elaborate further, but hopefully this will answer most of your question: Belated response to a lost comment: I think the most important question at stake in the important comment in question is to do with Foucault and the use of language to subvert thinking. Allow me to explain: Seven months ago somebody with the Google pseudonym of “MarieLubie" wrote an interesting and fair comment. I’ve been meaning to respond for a long time and today finally got to it. My apologies to Marie Lubie for not having done so earlier. Her comment, however, has disappeared, making it impossible to respond directly (Google does not allow me to write to her). So instead I’m including below first her comment as it appeared verbatim, as well as my response below. I’m hoping it is helpful to others and I’m also hoping that she will get to read this one way or another: MarieLubie’s comment: “Oh, .. oh!!!. It seems that there is an … .. the translation in the film says '' I say things because I do not think them anymore''.. this is not his point. He says that he says them to stop thinking about them. The very end explains this idea, (destruction) It is a hard concept, and not an easy translation, but even without an explanation, the error is obvious for a francophone. The idea is that he says them to stop, not because he has stopped thinking before telling them. Tell me, if I can help you, and what I can specifically do! Did you translate the video or does it come from a larger source?.. it would be worth checking it because it gives a wrong idea of his idea!.. I mean, do not only rely on me, check it with others.. and let me know!” My response: Thank you for your feedback, I very much appreciate it. The lines that you are referring to actually happen to be my favorites in the whole interview (not just in this 15 min video excerpt), but out of the whole interview itself published as a book under the title of “Freedom & Knowledge”, which is in part a translation of an interview that was actually a little over an hour long. For me the lines in question are also important because in Lynne Huffer’s wonderful introduction to this interview in the book, they are unfortunately not taken up. You seem to assume I need help with the French. To be clear, however, I am a native French speaker! Not that it means my French is always perfect, but it is better than what you probably had in mind. I actually went through many revisions of these lines before settling down on this translation that you find problematic. I even wrote about it in my dissertation; about how hard it was for me to translate it, because of all that’s at stake. I will only mention a couple of things here. The first thing I’d say is that what you quote as being my translation is actually incorrect. It doesn’t say in the video “I say things because I do not think them anymore”. It says something similar but with an important difference: “I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think…”. Either way, for you this is a mistranslation, it seems, because it doesn’t say that what Foucault actually means is that he wants to “stop” thinking them. However, please note that this is your word (“stop”), not Foucault’s. Indeed, in the French he says: “Je ne dis pas les choses parce que je les pense, je dis les choses pour ne plus les penser.” So he doesn’t actually use any word to express the notion of actively stopping those thoughts. He doesn’t even use the word “arrêter”, which as you know is a synonym of “stopper” that is very common in French. So much so, by the way, that in Quebec the stop signs on the roads usually say “Arrêt” and not “Stop” as it does in France! The very important thing when translating Foucault here it seems to me is that what we might refer to with a Derridean term as the “deconstruction” of thought or belief in question, is not just, or even primarily, the result of will. In fact, it is arguably when it is forced by will that quite unwittingly the very belief or thought is reaffirmed. My assumption is that Foucault is well aware of this paradox here, and that is in part why he is not using a direct word like “stop”. In fact, we hear Foucault in the video again just a minute later, concluding with the same point, and still not exactly using the notion of stopping: “And so I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, but rather I say them with the end in mind of self-destruction, precisely to make sure they are no longer what I think.” In the original French: “Et je ne dis donc pas les choses parce que je les pense, je les dis plutôt dans une fin d’autodestruction, pour ne plus les penser.” It seems here the key word is “autodestruction” (self-destruction). Indeed, the wonderful thing about Foucault’s use of this word, especially in French, is that it gets better into the not-fully volitional nature of the destruction of the attachment to thought or belief that he seems to be after. He wants to position himself in the direction of such deconstruction, but once again, he recognizes that doing so too volitionally would defeat the purpose. Building on Foucault, the question for me is about this practice of freedom from the self generally, and from thoughts and beliefs more specifically. More interesting still is what Foucault says right after: “Pour être bien sûr que, désormais, hors de moi, elles vont vivre une vie ou mourir une mort, où je n’aurai pas à me reconnaître.” In English: “To be really certain that from now on, outside of me, they are going to live a life or die in such a way that I will not have to recognize myself in them.” Here again, I think it is clear that the point for Foucault is not to actively stop “the things I say” but on the contrary to let them live and die, to let them be in a certain sense. For Foucault this would appear to require a different use of language (as he goes into a little earlier in the recording): not self-expression as a way to reinforce the self, but the expression of oneself in such a way--with less self-assurance--as to become witness to the deconstruction always already at work within language. One last thing to consider is Elder’s quoted comment to me in my written introduction to the video: “Translating Foucault is a very difficult task because his style of thinking serves two opposite aims: to express and to hide simultaneously.” With that in mind, the goal in translating, of course, should be to be clear enough so that the words that are translated are understood. However, it's not the only goal, especially when dealing with Foucault. Indeed, when the goal of clarity actually renders unintelligible the more subtle point in what is being communicated, we must resist using words that are too direct, like “stop”, especially when they’re not even used in the first place in the original text! In any case, the final words shouldn’t be mine but that of people out there who can be the true judges of my translation. Some people at least seem to relate to it, as is evident from the comments. For example, one says: “ ‘I don't say these things because they are what I think, I say them so that they no longer are what i think’..so simple and profound.” Thank you again so much for writing and for questioning the accuracy of my translation. I appreciate the opportunity to try to clarify. Hopefully this message will have made its way to you and will have been helpful to your understanding why I translated the lines the way I did, and maybe even it will have shown you another side to what Foucault seems to be after.
we should do a survey for citizens around the world with questions on basic moral and humane answers throw a few trump view choices in multi choice answers ,and do a poll on citizens morality it be very interesting to see the numbers ,include mainstream reporters and politicians ,that could be entertaining,just a thought
anyone else feels like the "end of man" is a self-indulgent journey of Foucault's to desperately come up with a radical statement such as Nietcshe's "death of God" ?
No. It's not self-indulgent at all. It's one of the first times I felt seen. He understands subjection and has been tremendously helpful to plenty of disabled and neurodivergent folks, the incarcerated, etc.
Michel Foucault has been accused of pedophilia, particularly regarding his time in Tunisia in the late 1960s. These allegations were brought to light by French-American professor Guy Sorman, who claimed that Foucault engaged in sexual abuse of young boys while living in Tunisia. Allegations by Guy Sorman: Sorman accused Foucault of being a "pedophile rapist" in an interview with The Sunday Times. He claimed to have witnessed Foucault's behavior and heard stories from local children about Foucault's actions. Historical Context: The accusations relate to the period when Foucault was living in Tunisia during the late 1960s. Public and Scholarly Reaction: These claims have sparked significant controversy and debate within academic and public spheres, with discussions about Foucault's legacy and the ethical implications of his alleged actions. Foucault is a prominent figure in philosophy and social theory, known for his work on power, knowledge, and sexuality. These allegations complicate his legacy and raise questions about how to reconcile his intellectual contributions with these serious accusations.
Perhaps this can shed some light about the apparently unfounded accusations by Guy Sorman: www.reddit.com/r/CriticalTheory/comments/msmece/the_black_masses_of_michel_foucault_the_bullshit/
the knowledge really sets a ideal or negation (or more precisely, the relation) to the model of what man 'ought to be'. I think as long as you talk about liberty and to complaints about our society, it is because we had set up an ideal/model of what our society ought to be. That is, to eliminate a certain character by setting a relationship just like the institutions of the 'ideal type'. That's why foucault is against the liberals/humanists about their stance of he subjectivity, and to destroy that, is what frees human. But to destroy that, no knowledge can be certain within the society.
Do you go the video without the English subtitles? I would like to show it to my friends, and we are all Dutch, so the original subtitles work better for us.
That was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. He is in the middle of spinning his silly narrative about questioning the substance of structural relationships, then the phone rings, and he gets up and answers the phone. I almost dropped dead from the concentration of irony. Maybe he should have sat there and contemplated how many people had NOT called him that day, instead?
one question: what makes him, marx, derrida or any other intellectual capable of seeing what others dont? how do you criticize ideology when there is no way of knowing if your critique is influenced by ideology or not?
The conclusion does seem to be characteristic of post-structuralists. This modality of self-erasure so as to be beyond critique. A sort of vanishing sublime master. It is an interesting move. Yes, the violence that enforces ideology is relevant. "Hermeneutics of the Subject" was recommended as well as his lectures on Soverignty.
Sorry the subtitles are not helpful to you. Do you really not get ANYTHING he's saying? How familiar are you with Foucault's work? If you are new to it, perhaps you want to start with a book like "Foucault: A Very Short Introduction" by Gary Gutting. Good luck with it all. Thanks for the feedback.
Weierstrass Thank you all for writing. I had to make an executive decision when I added the English subtitles. At the time the kind provided by UA-cam as "captions" wouldn't appear properly in English because of the Dutch ones in the background. So I went with iMovie, which did a great job showing the English, alas at the expense of the Dutch. So, no, you cannot get rid of the English subtitles. Sorry about that. At least you can hear Fons Elders speak in Dutch for a long while later in the video... If the Dutch subtitles are very important to you, we could consider uploading a "Dutch version"..., though I can't promise. Let me know.
![Debate Noam Chomsky & Michel Foucault - On human nature [Subtitled]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3wfNl2L0Gf8/mqdefault.jpg)
I was a chomskyite anarcho-syndicalist during the "awakening" phase of my life. I will say, reading people like Foucault and his teacher Althusser gave me several insights about things I used to overlook - namely, the power of ideology and how much multiple institutions control us - things I wish my comrades would take into consideration more often. Wonderful interview.
***** Lol, ok. Watch Foucault vs Chomsky if you can. It is an hour long and sort of the Part 2 of this video you are watching!
Foucault and Althusser are almost like fire and water. Foucault rejected marxism and became an anti-communist quite early in his life. Even in his most famous and early book "History of madness" he praised progress made by early capitalism of XIXth century. Later in his life he embraced radical free-market views (read "The birth of biopolitics").
" Even in his most famous and early book "History of madness" he praised progress made by early capitalism of XIXth century."
As Marx did also.
"Later in his life he embraced radical free-market views (read "The birth of biopolitics")."
Do elaborate, because in those lectures I don't see him embracing neo-liberalism, but just analysing it.
Painting Foucault as a free market thinker, or a pro-capitalist philosopher is really painting a picture of him with very broad strokes. Even his attacks on the French communist party or direct attacks on marxism were attacks grounded on epistemological grounds. He attacked the french communists because of their reluctants to see power as anything else than just a class struggle, and his attacks on marxism in general were based on it being to tied up in the episteme of the 19th century.
On an another point looking a Foucault the way you presented him is obviously missing a huge influence of marxism in his work and missing some obovius references he makes to marxism in his work without fully embracing it (he rejects Althussers "economic in the last instance", marxism as a totalizing discourse, ideology as a useful concept for analysing power, power as inherently repressive and negative, etc.).
lol and wow
VSSP you'll like zizek
I've been learning french for 6 months and I could understand him very well without reading the subtitles, I can't describe how excited I feel. Hopefully one day I'll be able to read his books as they were written.
I hope you've learned a lot by now!
Oh man I'm learning French and it's my dream to read his books in French haha
To be honest sometimes it is easier to understand scholars because they speak a bit more slowly and more coherently.
Foucault's accent is soothing and velvety. Notice how clear his "savoir" sounds.
@@selimgure I'm glad that it is not only me who noticed it!
Listening to him talk and watching his gestures, feeling the emotion behind his statements, is useful for understanding him better.
Martin Lukac Thanks for your comment. I'm glad you find it helpful.
Do you need to see the person who impersonates the author function to realize that the subject of the author serves certain functions and i/has been constituted by certain discourses (and should no longer be considered important)?
Or what part of Foucault's writing do you understand better after seeing him?
It's made it harder to settle on a single diagnosis.
Why would you want to understand him?
He is ignored by virtually all of science and philosophy.
@@googleuser2609 he wasnt a scientist, so what does he have to do with science, psychology is not a science
Foucault has been one of my biggest philosophical influences. His method of doing philosophy is so intriguing to me!
After reading disciple and punish for the first time I was very tempted to tell my therapist "ok, I think we're done here..."
You should’ve
Maybe you should of gave your therapist a copy of this book educate the therapists
Medical trauma is the reason Foucault appealed to me initially. And he has kept me from making myself the bitch of institutional medicine in a subsequent effort to address the possible effects of this trauma. When I absolutely have to go to the doctor for something, I take him with me. And some providers become visibly uncomfortable.
How profound. I wanted to tell the therapist the same thing. 😂
Foucault was discussed in my classes, and some of my colleagues read him for pleasure as well. He made many great philosophical contributions that were integrated into the theory of psychology, especially for family therapy. You might be surprised how many therapists are quite familiar with (and fans of) Foucault.
Thanks for sharing; so much said in just 15 minutes.
Kawabamba ! You're welcome! Thanks for writing. Glad you found it interesting.
What a great interview! This is more informative than any introductory material I've ever read on Mr. Foucault. Thank you Lionel!
You're most welcome Dylan! I appreciate your comment. I feel similarly about the introductory value of this short video of the interview--the rest of it published as "Freedom and Knowledge" is I believe even more helpful...
Awesome! Thanks!
I have just come across this and it has served to rekindle my interest in Foucault. Interviews like this are of huge cultural value. Thanks!
Much gratitude for posting this remarkable interview.
"I don't say these things because they are what I think, I say them so that they no longer are what i think"..so simple and profound.
¨I don´t say things because I think them, I say them to not have to think them anymore¨
Disappearance of Leprosy created a void.....and there was a new 'truth' that was discovered and then gradually accepted by the society.....the madmen most be confined and let's put them in those empty leprosy homes......the world matures, society moves on and the new bad boy in town is no longer a lepper but a madman
@@lucadobable for me, he is arguing that because of his belief that "strutures" are more important than ppl who are nuts and bolts in the society
That is simply what any old protester believes.
Wonderfully clear. Foucault is the key out of ideological stereotypes into the root of the essential problem we are in: the exaltation of the individual by our capitalist society versus the freedom of relational understanding of life; how all our knowledge comes out of violent repression of difference. He asks what kind of knowledge would we have otherwise? It's worth imagining.
I'd imagine the only knowledge we would be left with after emptying ourselves is love.
Well there's this idea roaming around called "decolonization of the mind". Basically it tells you to no longer suppress or exclude anything but do the opposite and try to learn from there. The knowledge is very different, open about individuality, respect for individual expression, in general quite the opposite of what Foucault is saying here. It's more inclusive and relies on others to be faithful to their experience rather than having this dominant force extracting the knowledge and power.
drivel
Jesus Christ espoused a faith of a brotherhood of sovereign individuals 2000 years ago, before capitalism was invented. Stop appropriating ideas to your cause that are products of a world you clearly don't understand
You know he was a pro pedophilia advocate, right? And admitted to abusing children as young as four.
Foucault terrifies me, not because I think he was wrong or that his assertions are dangerous in and of themselves, but for the fact that he was absolutely correct and society at large will never come to terms with the implications thereof.
estás en lo correcto. Foucault espanta por el exceso de verdad.
Yes he was correct to be paranoid about being gay. It was a bad time to be gay. Anything else?
He was wrong and his assertions are dangerous for society.
Since he's correct... and ostensibly it's good for people to believe correct things... Believers in Foucault ought to be busy "disciplining" others to believe in his teachings, no?
@@peterm1240 his main focus was on power
Thanks for uploading this interview with English subtitles, Lionel!
Thank you for sharing this video. I very much appreciate how Foucault frankly discusses his life's intellectual project and the assumptions which he uses to explain his project. This interview should be included in any introductory material for trying to understand the knowledge of Foucault.
Agreed!
TO TRULY UNDERSTAND FOUCAULT ,YOU SHOULD CHECK THE WORK HE DID WITH KIDS IN TUNISIA , WONDER WHY THE UPLOADER OF THIS VIDEO DID POST ON IT.
Thank you for uploading this
The fingerprint of Althusser is embedded in his thinking, very fascinating
BTW. Superb yellow subtitles. Kiitos, again.
Kiitos paljon! (hope that's correct Finnish in this context). Either way, you're welcome!
Thanks for the translation / Merci pour la traduction
I am from Haarlem and I needed to link Foucault to the panopticum we have to our city. His reference to Frans Hals was absolutely perfect!
Focualt was so passionate about philosophy, you can tell by how animated he is in all of his interviews.
His comments about authority and police violence starting at 12:40 were scarily on point, especially for what we've experienced in 2020
14:00 Foucault argues:
"Je ne dis pas les choses parce-que je les pense; je les dis pour ne plus les penser."
DEEP
I don’t get it 🤨
@@csabour9 Well the last part of the interview ("and so i don't say the things I say because they are etc..." to the end) is way more understandable than this "aphorism". In my opinion, but I obviously may be wrong, Foucault try to study the "discursive regularity" in our society which very very roughly means what is thought to be true or not in our society. Or, in other words, what are the "fundamental bricks" that we use to construct our thought (and the way we use them) in different field and even in the common life, how did we get there, what are the corollaries of that and how we could change it if we want to. I think the last part of the interview is about "breaking those bricks", and the part about subjectivity at the very end of the interview would be about destroying the wall you built with those bricks about your identity as an individual (in the opposite direction of "saying the truth about yourself"). You can use this "metaphor" when he talks about humanism or whatever subjects he studied. When he talks about Maoism, in this metaphor you could say "when all the fundamental bricks will be broken, what will be possible to build in our thought?", and there is no answer to that because when you destroy a brick you give birth to a new one which will evolve with time and live a unique life so you will never have break everything. That's why, I think, he prefers to use the word "positivity" instead of constraints because you can't build a wall without bricks and without a minimum of methods to bring this bricks together to form the wall. So, obviously you are enclosed to use those fundamental bricks but at the same time it is the only way to build a thought, so at the end you are not enclosed at all, it is just a necessity if you want to create a knowledge BUT then this knowledge will necessarily have the mark of the fundamental bricks and will not be "absolute" or "transcendent" or "better than another" or "true"...
@@csabour9 I do not say things because it is what I think. I say things to no longer think about them.
That is the Lacanian Foucault talking
FYI a slightly longer (than the one mentioned in the description above) and free downloadable book extract of "Freedom and Knowledge" where the whole interview can be read is available here:
egs.academia.edu/LionelClaris
To buy the book go here:
fonselders.eu/eu/FS_standard.php?Pid=66&Jmp=IT159
Wonderful. Thank you for posting
Stated at 14:01: “I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think.”
I would translate this as more like: so as to no longer think about them. The translation on the screen is wrong and misleading.
@@alexwoods4825 Thank you for the explanation. That statement was quite confusing.
Fascinating, thank you
His words are music to my ears.Obrigado pela inciativa!!
Belated response to a lost comment:
I think the most important question at stake in the important comment in question is to do with Foucault and the use of language to subvert thinking. Allow me to explain:
Seven months ago somebody with the Google pseudonym of “MarieLubie" wrote an interesting and fair comment. I’ve been meaning to respond for a long time and today finally got to it. My apologies to Marie Lubie for not having done so earlier. Her comment, however, has disappeared, making it impossible to respond directly (Google does not allow me to write to her). So instead I’m including below first her comment as it appeared verbatim, as well as my response below. I’m hoping it is helpful to others and I’m also hoping that she will get to read this one way or another:
MarieLubie’s comment:
“Oh, .. oh!!!. It seems that there is an … .. the translation in the film says '' I say things because I do not think them anymore''.. this is not his point. He says that he says them to stop thinking about them. The very end explains this idea, (destruction) It is a hard concept, and not an easy translation, but even without an explanation, the error is obvious for a francophone.
The idea is that he says them to stop, not because he has stopped thinking before telling them. Tell me, if I can help you, and what I can specifically do! Did you translate the video or does it come from a larger source?.. it would be worth checking it because it gives a wrong idea of his idea!.. I mean, do not only rely on me, check it with others.. and let me know!”
My response:
Thank you for your feedback, I very much appreciate it. The lines that you are referring to actually happen to be my favorites in the whole interview (not just in this 15 min video excerpt), but out of the whole interview itself published as a book under the title of “Freedom & Knowledge”, which is in part a translation of an interview that was actually a little over an hour long. For me the lines in question are also important because in Lynne Huffer’s wonderful introduction to this interview in the book, they are unfortunately not taken up.
You seem to assume I need help with the French. To be clear, however, I am a native French speaker! Not that it means my French is always perfect, but it is better than what you probably had in mind. I actually went through many revisions of these lines before settling down on this translation that you find problematic. I even wrote about it in my dissertation; about how hard it was for me to translate it, because of all that’s at stake. I will only mention a couple of things here.
The first thing I’d say is that what you quote as being my translation is actually incorrect. It doesn’t say in the video “I say things because I do not think them anymore”. It says something similar but with an important difference: “I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think…”. Either way, for you this is a mistranslation, it seems, because it doesn’t say that what Foucault actually means is that he wants to “stop” thinking them. However, please note that this is your word (“stop”), not Foucault’s. Indeed, in the French he says: “Je ne dis pas les choses parce que je les pense, je dis les choses pour ne plus les penser.” So he doesn’t actually use any word to express the notion of actively stopping those thoughts. He doesn’t even use the word “arrêter”, which as you know is a synonym of “stopper” that is very common in French. So much so, by the way, that in Quebec the stop signs on the roads usually say “Arrêt” and not “Stop” as it does in France!
The very important thing when translating Foucault here it seems to me is that what we might refer to with a Derridean term as the “deconstruction” of thought or belief in question, is not just, or even primarily, the result of will. In fact, it is arguably when it is forced by will that quite unwittingly the very belief or thought is reaffirmed. My assumption is that Foucault is well aware of this paradox here, and that is in part why he is not using a direct word like “stop”. In fact, we hear Foucault in the video again just a minute later, concluding with the same point, and still not exactly using the notion of stopping:
“And so I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, but rather I say them with the end in mind of self-destruction, precisely to make sure they are no longer what I think.”
In the original French:
“Et je ne dis donc pas les choses parce que je les pense, je les dis plutôt dans une fin d’autodestruction, pour ne plus les penser.”
It seems here the key word is “autodestruction” (self-destruction). Indeed, the wonderful thing about Foucault’s use of this word, especially in French, is that it gets better into the not-fully volitional nature of the destruction of the attachment to thought or belief that he seems to be after. He wants to position himself in the direction of such deconstruction, but once again, he recognizes that doing so too volitionally would defeat the purpose. Building on Foucault, the question for me is about this practice of freedom from the self generally, and from thoughts and beliefs more specifically.
More interesting still is what Foucault says right after: “Pour être bien sûr que, désormais, hors de moi, elles vont vivre une vie ou mourir une mort, où je n’aurai pas à me reconnaître.” In English:
“To be really certain that from now on, outside of me, they are going to live a life or die in such a way that I will not have to recognize myself in them.”
Here again, I think it is clear that the point for Foucault is not to actively stop “the things I say” but on the contrary to let them live and die, to let them be in a certain sense. For Foucault this would appear to require a different use of language (as he goes into a little earlier in the recording): not self-expression as a way to reinforce the self, but the expression of oneself in such a way--with less self-assurance--as to become witness to the deconstruction always already at work within language.
One last thing to consider is Elder’s quoted comment to me in my written introduction to the video: “Translating Foucault is a very difficult task because his style of thinking serves two opposite aims: to express and to hide simultaneously.”
With that in mind, the goal in translating, of course, should be to be clear enough so that the words that are translated are understood. However, it's not the only goal, especially when dealing with Foucault. Indeed, when the goal of clarity actually renders unintelligible the more subtle point in what is being communicated, we must resist using words that are too direct, like “stop”, especially when they’re not even used in the first place in the original text! In any case, the final words shouldn’t be mine but that of people out there who can be the true judges of my translation. Some people at least seem to relate to it, as is evident from the comments. For example, one says:
“ ‘I don't say these things because they are what I think, I say them so that they no longer are what i think’..so simple and profound.”
Thank you again so much for writing and for questioning the accuracy of my translation. I appreciate the opportunity to try to clarify. Hopefully this message will have made its way to you and will have been helpful to your understanding why I translated the lines the way I did, and maybe even it will have shown you another side to what Foucault seems to be after.
This is a great explanation, but I was still very much surprised (when I watched the video) by the translation on the screen, which clearly and strongly implies that he (now, at the time of speech) believes that what he's saying is untrue or out of date. I say this as a native English speaker - the chosen translation has this implication. My French isn't perfect, by any stretch, but what he says is much closer to something like: I say this things so / in order that I don't have to think about them any more. As in, by speaking, he releases the idea from his mind so that he can focus on a new idea.
The translation in general is outstanding, really far above the standard set by for instance French TV shows with English subtitles, but even after reading your explanation I think that one line is wrong and very misleading.
The only thing I can derive from these statements, “And so I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, but rather I say them with the end in mind of self-destruction, precisely to make sure they are no longer what I think.” and, “To be really certain that from now on, outside of me, they are going to live a life or die in such a way that I will not have to recognize myself in them.” is that he wants these methods of though (what he appears to consider the traditional western ways of thinking) to be destroyed. Foucault seems to feel that by noting what he calls "Western Structuralism" he hopes that it will be purged and that he feels that the whole reason for western culture is oppression and if people hear what he is saying they will realize he is correct and abolish these practices forthwith. At least that is what I got from the part of the interview shown.
You really have done a very fine job, translating this interview so attentively, and thank you for putting it online. But I must agree with @alexwoods4825 below, that that line is wrong and misleading. "Je dis les choses pour ne plus les penser": "I say these things in order to no longer think them". That's basically the sense in which it should be translated. Quite in the spirit of what you say about auto-destruction, implying a release from the attachment to that thought or belief, as you put it, which is also a release of thought that would take on another life, or not, if it is to eventually disappear with the figure of man...
He really gets to the heart of things in just a short time here. Thanks for this.
It just occurred to me that, ironically enough, it seems likely this is the first time a Foucault interview has ever been first published in English (see the book “Freedom and Knowledge”). This is perhaps a testimony to the international influence Foucault’s thought has continued to gain. Not surprisingly, this appears to be particularly the case in the humanities, especially if the study used in the March 26th 2009 Times of Higher Education-which has Foucault as “the most cited [author] of books in the humanities, 2007”-is any indication.
Has not there been many interviews of Foucault published in English? Or, do you mean, is this the first non-English interview to be translated into English and then published?
Benjamin Levin Yes, I mean the latter. That it seems this is probably the first Foucault interview in French to be first published in English before being available in French. This is just a supposition, however, as I have not done research to check the voracity of this claim. Thank you for your question.
dutch person here, the part where the subtitles said "talking about where foucault lived in paris", Fons Elders was actually talking about foucaults structuralism
That's interesting and good to know. Thank you. That is what Fons Elders himself had told me to write. I do not speak dutch. If you don't mind, go ahead and translate it. I can add it to the description up above. Thank you again either way.
That ending. Mind blown. I'm researching Foucault for my senior thesis on showing the similarities between how Foucault and his predecessors view the world and how modern libertarians do. This was a great interview. Post-structuralism's dedication to questioning the world and deconstructing everything certainly leads to more intellectual progress than the kind of egoistic proselytizing that other philosophies try to sell us about some structure of society that will save us all from the evils of capitalism, socialism, or whatever evil is to that philosopher.
Foucault was about power. Libertarians only about state power, they have nothing against capitalism and corporations
foucault’s critique of the soverignty of the subject in analysis leaves libertarianism in ashes
I love the stuff he says towards the end
+Julian F can't figure out what half of it means, myself.
That ending...just wow.
Znakomity wywiad!
Fabulous interview, thank you!
AYo thanks for the upload Lionel. Big plays.
You have to dig deep in western philosophy to find such things Foucault says in the end. The destruction of the illusion of the self if you wish to. Sometimes I feel it is the one thing many influencive authors try to hold on to very hard. The picture of self and the universal identity of the subject. I am working on Foucault right now and even in his books I didn't found it clearly expressed.
It fascinate me that I found the thing I was looking for in a youtube video. (one western philosoper who stand up clearly and rise the thought of the illusion of ego)
Thank you
Manus
Incredible! And a very psychedelic message. Goes all the way back to the Greeks. Beautiful message
Thanx!!!
This dialogue is reminiscent of a book called 'shamans through time - 500 years on the path to knowledge' by Jeremy Narby
It's ironic that a man so predoccupied with critically examining the environment in which ideas are formed thought biographical questions were unnecessary to understand his ideas.
It's precisely because he doesn't want to feed into the idea of the individual being the predominant source of ideas
Just like bourdieu, doesn't sound ironic at all to me.
@@mitjellk2186 thank you as an artist I also share a similar feeling, I desire for the viewers to focus on my art and what they experience and what I'm communicating. Of course I'm not comparing myself to the great Foucault just to clear that up lol
He's trying to pretend he's objective, which he never was.
It seems that this self-destructive part of his philosophy is rather an escape from a life in which Foucault felt chained, uncomfortable, and not at home. He seems to have longed for the void behind the determinations of difference and thus knowledge. Hence his emphasis on ego-dissolution and avoidance of biographical life-details. In doing this, one eventually just becomes a nobody, a living dead.
I think there is a middle ground, whereby there exists a constant movement between determinations and their satirical destruction by the void. Destroy yourself, empty yourself, sure; but one must be sure to include the other into the space thats left behind, lest one becomes just that: an empty space left behind.
Being served by Michel Foucault himself. That's legendary.
lol he is the new Jesus lol...how pathetic all these brainless people that blindly follow freaks that are responsible for destroying Western civilization....
What an interview and what a thought!
the video is lovely surreal
He says that he wants to destroy individuality. What a horrible idea. He also says he does not believe in language as a mean of self expression and that "I dont say it because that's what I think - I say it so I don't have to think it" - huge paradox there, let me save you the trouble: you say it because you think it, and it's your individual right for self-expression which you communicate to us through the use of language.
What an enlightenment, but there is no paradox, the thoughts he makes reference to are not self expression.
"I don't believe in the virtue of using language for self expression. The language that interests me is the one that can actually destroy all the circular, enclosed, narcissistic forms of the subject and of oneself. And what I mean by the end of man is deep down the end of all these forms of individuality, of subjectivity, of consciousness, of the ego on which we built and from which we have tried to build and to constitute knowledge. This is one of the forms of this limitation, of these exclusions, of these rejections that I was talking about. The west has tried to build the figure of man in this way, and this image is in the process of disappearing... and so I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, but rather I say them with the end in mind of self-desrruction, precisely to make sure they are no longer what I think. To be really certain that from now on, outside of me, they are going to live a life or die in such a way that I will not have to recognize myself in them."
Foucault
No words for how profound this is
He just burst my intellectual virginity! What a holistic and clear mind.
same!! It was euphoric!!
The subtitles at 6:15 onwards... I suspect they didn't capture all the spoken Dutch :P
"Je ne dis pas les choses parce que je les pense, je les dis plutôt dans une fin d'autodestruction, pour ne plus les penser, pour être bien sûr désormais hors de moi, elles vont vivre ou mourir une mort où je n'aurais pas à me reconnaître"
Fuck yeah dude, gay rights
excelente material.
Michel Foucault est un très bon philosophe. Sa grandeur repose sur le fait qu’il fut aussi un bon professeur au Collège de France où la polémique contre Sartre fut très vive. Mais ce qui est ,avec le temps,le plus évident,c’est l’incroyable beauté de sa parole et de son style. Proche de Nietzsche,qu’il admirait,c’est ce brin de folie qu’on retient de lui. Indispensable dans sa bibliothèque. Merci.
The dutch talking, starting at 6:10 was about him being a scructuralist or not and his view on the individual
Very helpful. Thank you very much!
the power of words, the chains behind them, the denial of other words in order to keep it's meaning.
what i have gained from Foucault (not in an abstracted sense): we as humans are fucked, not because we have done something wrong (we did) but not because of that we are all fucked. no, but rather because of doing the act of "being" in itself.
being a human in itself reveal an ideology behind it, in order to "be" you have to create your own ideology (most of the times we are unaware of it).
when we eat other animals, when we enroll our selves in society and culture, when we read and spread our own ideas, when we speak and deny, when we confirm and believe.
the right and the wrong, our manners and ethics they are all a part of your own ideology in order to say "i think and therefor i am doing my "being"".
no no no, he is not talking about humanity, what he does is precisely the criticism of "universals" as he calls them, and "humanity" is one of them, if it's not "the" universal.
okay this is epic
Kiitos
Like most others on this thread, I was overwhelmed by Foucault's thought, but now years later I see it for what it is. It needs to be bypassed because it has nothing positive or real to contribute to solving the world's problems.
System has been trying to push the dissolution, so now dissolution is not creative, but self-destructive, the "unconcious" is like the God or God-like structure of the leftists, it's some sort of ever-positive invisible but undoubtful truth, they rely on. It's just another dead-end
At 7:00 the subtitle is false. They are not talking about Foucault's residence but about structuralism...
Thank you for your comment! Fons Elders, whose voice it is and with whom I worked on this never said anything about that! I don't speak Dutch, you see. Can you write here in English what it is that it says? Thank you again either way.
Translating from 6:10 onwards. A busy shopping street in Paris. Vaugirard street. Number 285 allows access to a courtyard accessible by different apartment buildings. This is where foucault lives, in a modest apartment on the 8th floor of the last building. Our relation to reality is according to Foucault controlled by unconscious rules. These rules control the different fields of knowledge. Each field of knowledge or science consists of a changing pattern of elements between which there are fixed relations. Foucault is interested in the analysis of these fixed relations. This is one of the reasons why Foucault is called a structuralist. There is a second reason why Foucault is called a structuralist. By seeing the human as nothing more than part of the total reality an attack is made on the supreme reign of the individual and humankind as the centre of the cosmos. Foucault himself denies he is a structuralist. But like with Foucault, for a structuralist reality consists of different wholes, of which the basis is formed by unconscious structures. The elements of which a whole like this consist are unimportant for a structuralist. What is important are the fixed relations between these elements. Even if the elements change, the relations and the underlying structure stay the same. Foucault himself gives an example of this. (now Foucault starts talking about a photograph)
...I say these words so I won't have to think them any more or even recognize myself in them. It's like he's shitting rationality. It's a purgative.
Merci et bravo pour la publication de cette vidéo. Le son est malheureusement très bas !
I'm new to the works of Michel Foucault (currently reading Discipline and Punish).
So Foucault here briefly touches on his views of humanistic models of self-liberarion by the exaltation of the individual, which he believes to function as a form of man's imprisonment in a particular mould, as opposed to liberation. He mentions the likes of exclusion, subjection as problems that may lead to current issues within the justice system.
From what I understand so far, Foucault's views in this video paint a picture of individuality which is likely to result in an inevitable exclusion in one's own sovereignity. This seems to me a view like what Carl Rogers deemed the "ideal self". On the other hand, exalted individuality resulting in attaining knowledge of the "actual self" (as per Roger's description) may result in uncovering unconscious thought and behaviour patterns, allowing one to RESPOND as opposed to REACT, eventually resulting in the removal of social barriers due to the ability to exchange perspectives.
As someone who isn't familiar with Foucault's view on the individual, can anyone recommend further material as a lucid introduction on the matter?
Thanks
Marko
Marko Csokasi
Discipline and Punish is a great book and it was published only 4 years after this interview, which itself may be said to be placed right in between the early and middle period of Foucault’s thought. His next book published in 1976 is much shorter and it is where his theory of power came together in a mature way. It is also probably Foucault’s most influential book: « Histoire de la Sexualité 1 : La Volonté de Savoir ».The latter part of the title is important: « The Will to Knowledge » which unfortunately the title in the US rendered all-too- reductively as « An Introduction ». The British edition, however, does not make this mistake.
I am not sure I understand the connection you are making to Carl Rogers but I will say the following about Foucault’s treatment of the self. At the time of this video he is controversially critical of humanism and what he calls there « the virtues of self-expression ». That is in line with his position on the subject (the individual) from the early to the middle period of his work in which he was interested in analyzing the forces that shape society and the subjects living within it. He would eventually, however, become interested in almost the opposite question-« technologies of the self »-how the subject might still have agency despite the influence of power (this is not, however, the Foucault that is most known).
To help you navigate these complex and evolving ideas all throughout his work, I recommend the book by Johanna Oksala (How to Read Foucault-that series is very good, in particular because it uses actual passages from the thinker in question and helps the reader unpack them. In my view this is a more authentic way to introduce the ideas of a philosopher).
For an accessible and a sort of culmination of Foucault’s thought at the moment of his untimely death, his book « Fearless Speech » (one of his last lecture series and maybe the last he gave in English).
Finally, also about his critique of « self-expression », I invite you to read another response on a UA-cam comment I wrote called « Belated Response to A Lost Comment ».
Hope this helps. Thank you for writing!
@@lionelclaris5858 Thank you Lionel. I'm getting a copy of Oksala as we speak.
The explanation of willful deconstruction of thought in your "belated response" as a reaffirmation of the thought itself is also incredibly helpful. When we consider what Foucault's desired position of deconstruction may be without too much volition, a lecture on Greek alchemy by Marie Louise-Franz springs to mind in which she speaks of how identification with a profound, novel thought results in the inflation of the Ego, and so one must strive to not credit the self with the expressed observations explicitly. Von-Franz's view seems to encapsulate Foucault's approach here as "hidden expression".
In terms of my very hasty and clumsy Rogers reference, I might've completely misunderstood the context in which Foucault spoke. You mention that Foucault at this point of his thought was heavily critical of humanism. Since self-actualization is rooted in potential, it seems to imply - resulting in frequent presumptions, myself included - a process of growth becomes the "best", highest self. However, I understand the journey to the highest self to be the ability to continuously expand one's perspectives by the gradual dissolution of the self-image (through understanding one's predisposed thought patterns and behaviours in a way which one can allow new perspectives to be understood and integrated). What I understand virtues of authentic expression to be are ones that fit under this process of dissolution. Am I right to assume that this is what Foucault might've become interested in later on in his life as the technologies of the self? To dissolve itself?
Excited to dig further. I'm a psychology undergraduate and this is a mere side-hustle for now, but so far I find Foucault fascinating.
Thanks again.
Thanks so much for this -- Foucault is such a powerful thinker, and his thought seems to be getting more and more relevant with each passing year. I think that later in his short life he gave up the idea that we could get beyond our interpellation as individuals and subjects within ideological institutions, and he seemed to advocate for the creation of new institutions, groups, collective entities that would allow us to create ourselves as different individuals who would be free of the yoke of bourgeois capitalism (see the interviews in the second part of __Dits et écrits__). It's a shame he died so young. By the way, I love his hand gestures and his turtlenecks -- see the interview from 1966 about __Les mots et les choses __ on UA-cam, in which he gets a little dig in at Sartre, who is "sans doute un homme du 19e siècle".
The great Foucault! 🙌🏿
Very enlightening summary. Postmodernists wrongly interpreted the situation of capitalism through the lenses of modernism that they were all against in one sense or another. The most famous one, Foucoult, once said that if he had read the Frankfurt School, he would not have written 90% of his works. I say in my book "Digitalism vs. Capitalism" that if he had read McLuhan, he wouldn't bother to write the remaining 10%. The real basis for their wrongness is that technology determines everything. In fact, what they refer to as social determination is nonsense. because without technological infrastructure, society could not survive. Read Harold Innis. To the questions, "Where is capitalism coming and going? Going to its graveyard?" I have a hopeful answer, which is highlighted in my book: Digitalism is killing capitalism. A novel perspective, a suggestion first in the world! “Digitalism vs. Capitalism: The New Ecumenical World Order: The Dimensions of State in Digitalism” by Veysel Batmaz is available for sale on the Internet.
Nice information.....
"8 year olds Dude" - quote from the Big Lebowski .
.
Adam Curtis's new film Hypernormalisation takes its starting point at 1975, with the New York Bond issue and Austerity imposed by the Wall Street Bankers on that City, this contrasted with Assad in Syria and his percieved betrayal by Henry Kissinger and US foriegn policy in the Middel East. This Interview with Focault contrasts well with and provides an alternative starting point for Adam Curtis´s argument that Self referential infotainment is fed on line to pacify the egotistical narcissistic angst of the Bourgoisee. The starting point at 1968 perhaps gives the lie that all protest and resistence is futile and neutered.
letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/09/bourgeois-resolution-poem-in-three.html
Curtis's Film is limited by its isolation of the limited historicity of its time reference, This interview and also Curtis's other films, Centruy of Self The Mayfair Set and Bitter Lake are essential viewing to give the necessary historical context to Curtis´s latest work.
My short critique of Hyper Normalisation.
I found it all rather bourgoise. Not one of his better efforts. The chattering classes will be outraged and enchanted by it in equal measure an ironic reflection of curtisiss central point that Media content presented through Googles algorithms tailors content to a viewers predelictictions. The Bourgoise bit is Curtisis´s condescension that the power of the powerful is all encompassing and all fall before it realising their impotence. Worth watching although with highly skeptical and critical alerts fully operational, the antedote is of course discussion and seeking alternative viewpoints, curtisis´s genius may be just that, he provokes thought in many of us who have perhaps forgotten how that feels.
letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/09/bourgeois-resolution-poem-in-three.html
heres a link for a download for those who do not have i player or can not access it for anty reason.
coretorrents.com/BBC-Adam-Curtis-HyperNormalisation-WebRip-x264-MCTV-torrent-8356104.html
Transmission or U Torrent are good torrent clients for those who do not use torrents.
Le génie de Foucault est de démontrer dans un exposé méticuleux le ressenti vis à vis de la société occidentale/capitaliste. Il l'éclaire. J' ai souvent des débats houleux avec mon mari. J' espère que Foucault lui fera comprendre un peu mon point de vue et peut être le fera un peu évoluer .
dear lionel, may i use a few seconds of this video in an academic essay (with reference, of course)?
Yes, by all means, thank you for asking. Would love to read how you use the content of the video once you've used it if you want to share. Be well.
@@lionelclaris5858 thank you very much, shall i put any specific reference or the way it is written here under the video? i can send you the work, if you like.
@@kristynakoprivova8675 If you use the video only you can use the UA-cam reference. If you use the book (which has the whole interview and not just the 15 min here), you can use this reference: Michel Foucault, Freedom and Knowledge, eds. Fons Elders and Lionel Claris (Amsterdam: Elders Special Production BV, 2013), 25-47. Yes, would love to read how you are using it... Hope this helps. Thank you!
@@lionelclaris5858 thank you, please, give me your email so that i can share it with you.
Europe miss so much such a brain as Foucault was...
My reaction to Foucault's idea is to focus more of my energies toward self-gratification. What are some of people's other reactions?
Foucault is the king of interpretive-interrogative non-sequitur who defined the rhetorical strategies used by would-be gatekeepers of truth in the most ironic intellectual power grab in history. Or maybe I’m just marginalizing him in my pretense to know and understand him. If you take him seriously, then the truth depends on who’s in power, nothing more. The one valuable thing emphasized by postmodernism is that everyone can tell a story. The mistake is thinking this makes truth an illusion, something only sheltered children can afford to believe at a safe distance from reality and consequence. Still, it’s good to engage with Foucault. He was brilliant.
Genius Foucalt...Period
Madness is a difficult area. I realise that mental hospitals have been very cruel but so has so-called "community care". I am not sure that I know the answer.
ua-cam.com/video/lvhCLz2oJrs/v-deo.html
Please see Jacques Donzelot, The Policing of Families.
Foucault, you beast
Ironically, this "destruction of the subject" sounds all too religious for my tastes. I can hear the ghost of Galatians 2:20 in the background "My old self has been crucified. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." How does one get rid of the subject if one is still speaking?
Postestructuralism will give faith a new golden age
Maybe it's amnesia or having been triggered by religion, but I can only recommend staying the hell away from the bible for several years. Then you will forget it, and you can actually hear Foucault.
@@faithfulbright3829 Foucault and Freud are the high priests of the church of reason... How are ya'll doing with the reason religion so far (hint: 53% increase in suicide rates in the last 10 years alone)...I prefer to be brainwashed by the Bible that gave me life, hope and joy than by Freud and Foucault who are responsible for the current madness we live today, a decadent society without common sense, boundaries, or moral order....good job Foucault? How is France doing these days? I heard the French they are no longer reproducing and the whole nation, society and civilization are being taken over by Islam lol ...Good luck with that
“I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think.” So Foucault doesn't want us to know what he thinks? What is he afraid of? Or, he means that he mean he's not capable of expressing himself? If language is not for one's expression, and in return reconstruct 'reality', why would he bother to talk? Is't all the game for him, a linguistic name to borrow from Wittgenstein? Yet, "life goes on", as Frost recalled.
I think what he means is less abstract and more practical. I understand it as this: everything he 'says', that is writes about in his books, refers to actual conditions of existence (e.g. see imprisonment) seen under a different view, that is deconstructed. He simply writes about them, in a 3rd person perspective if you like, as a witnessing, a witnessing exposing these concepts for what they truly are, Imprisonment, power, sovereignity, all these concepts he describes, are not what he thinks, he can never support them.
In other words: he writes book so that we, including Foucault, can reflect on their content and perhaps cause change?
That just means that he didn't have to be obsessed with the thing he thinked after writing them, and could be able to move on an other problematic.
That last statement remind me of Borges.
Understanding Foucault is like trying to understand Jung - it may take years.
Colleen Haynes Yeah, but I think Jung actually said something, whereas Foucault may have just been raving on LSD.
@@waveology8552 More of this needless hate instead of reading and thinking.
@@waveology8552 I see your uninformed on Michel Foucault, how many books have you read of his? Even if you had read some it is obvious you didnt comprehend what he was expressing at all, later.
Does anyone know the book @ 12:21?
is he talking about drugs in general, or is there evidence that he was referring to specific drugs like marijuana, amphetamines, LSD, psilocybin, etc. ?
VasDeferens psilocybin, LSD
Polarpenguinthe the psychedelyc one's
+VasDeferens and I have heard is said, jokingly, I presume, that his books with Guattari or Deluze or whoever was just them getting high together.
How applicable could the first five minutes be to an individual looking inward? Rather than as a function of societal understanding, does the inner self bypass the "formality" of society in any way, and thus allow inner peace and gain of knowledge without personal sacrifice?
Could someone more learned please point me in the right direction with a source or hypothesis?
Who made the artwork in the opening shot?
Was thinking the same thing we may never find out
I think they're by Maxime Defert.
Master.
So he is talking about societal molds in Wich individuals are inprisoned within?
Do anyone know who did the music heard in this documentary?Thanks;)
Sorry, I have no idea. But perhaps Fons Elders knows. You can contact him directly on his web page: www.fonselders.eu/.
thank you anyway and thx for the info I'll try to find out;)
What does he mean when he says: "I don't say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no langer are what I think" ?
Thank you for your question. My response today would be similar to the one I gave to someone who had written here about 6 years ago. Even though you can find it below, here it is again for your ease--it is the one called "Belated response to a lost comment". I wish I had the time to elaborate further, but hopefully this will answer most of your question:
Belated response to a lost comment:
I think the most important question at stake in the important comment in question is to do with Foucault and the use of language to subvert thinking. Allow me to explain:
Seven months ago somebody with the Google pseudonym of “MarieLubie" wrote an interesting and fair comment. I’ve been meaning to respond for a long time and today finally got to it. My apologies to Marie Lubie for not having done so earlier. Her comment, however, has disappeared, making it impossible to respond directly (Google does not allow me to write to her). So instead I’m including below first her comment as it appeared verbatim, as well as my response below. I’m hoping it is helpful to others and I’m also hoping that she will get to read this one way or another:
MarieLubie’s comment:
“Oh, .. oh!!!. It seems that there is an … .. the translation in the film says '' I say things because I do not think them anymore''.. this is not his point. He says that he says them to stop thinking about them. The very end explains this idea, (destruction) It is a hard concept, and not an easy translation, but even without an explanation, the error is obvious for a francophone.
The idea is that he says them to stop, not because he has stopped thinking before telling them. Tell me, if I can help you, and what I can specifically do! Did you translate the video or does it come from a larger source?.. it would be worth checking it because it gives a wrong idea of his idea!.. I mean, do not only rely on me, check it with others.. and let me know!”
My response:
Thank you for your feedback, I very much appreciate it. The lines that you are referring to actually happen to be my favorites in the whole interview (not just in this 15 min video excerpt), but out of the whole interview itself published as a book under the title of “Freedom & Knowledge”, which is in part a translation of an interview that was actually a little over an hour long. For me the lines in question are also important because in Lynne Huffer’s wonderful introduction to this interview in the book, they are unfortunately not taken up.
You seem to assume I need help with the French. To be clear, however, I am a native French speaker! Not that it means my French is always perfect, but it is better than what you probably had in mind. I actually went through many revisions of these lines before settling down on this translation that you find problematic. I even wrote about it in my dissertation; about how hard it was for me to translate it, because of all that’s at stake. I will only mention a couple of things here.
The first thing I’d say is that what you quote as being my translation is actually incorrect. It doesn’t say in the video “I say things because I do not think them anymore”. It says something similar but with an important difference: “I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, I say them as a way to make sure they no longer are what I think…”. Either way, for you this is a mistranslation, it seems, because it doesn’t say that what Foucault actually means is that he wants to “stop” thinking them. However, please note that this is your word (“stop”), not Foucault’s. Indeed, in the French he says: “Je ne dis pas les choses parce que je les pense, je dis les choses pour ne plus les penser.” So he doesn’t actually use any word to express the notion of actively stopping those thoughts. He doesn’t even use the word “arrêter”, which as you know is a synonym of “stopper” that is very common in French. So much so, by the way, that in Quebec the stop signs on the roads usually say “Arrêt” and not “Stop” as it does in France!
The very important thing when translating Foucault here it seems to me is that what we might refer to with a Derridean term as the “deconstruction” of thought or belief in question, is not just, or even primarily, the result of will. In fact, it is arguably when it is forced by will that quite unwittingly the very belief or thought is reaffirmed. My assumption is that Foucault is well aware of this paradox here, and that is in part why he is not using a direct word like “stop”. In fact, we hear Foucault in the video again just a minute later, concluding with the same point, and still not exactly using the notion of stopping:
“And so I don’t say the things I say because they are what I think, but rather I say them with the end in mind of self-destruction, precisely to make sure they are no longer what I think.”
In the original French:
“Et je ne dis donc pas les choses parce que je les pense, je les dis plutôt dans une fin d’autodestruction, pour ne plus les penser.”
It seems here the key word is “autodestruction” (self-destruction). Indeed, the wonderful thing about Foucault’s use of this word, especially in French, is that it gets better into the not-fully volitional nature of the destruction of the attachment to thought or belief that he seems to be after. He wants to position himself in the direction of such deconstruction, but once again, he recognizes that doing so too volitionally would defeat the purpose. Building on Foucault, the question for me is about this practice of freedom from the self generally, and from thoughts and beliefs more specifically.
More interesting still is what Foucault says right after: “Pour être bien sûr que, désormais, hors de moi, elles vont vivre une vie ou mourir une mort, où je n’aurai pas à me reconnaître.” In English:
“To be really certain that from now on, outside of me, they are going to live a life or die in such a way that I will not have to recognize myself in them.”
Here again, I think it is clear that the point for Foucault is not to actively stop “the things I say” but on the contrary to let them live and die, to let them be in a certain sense. For Foucault this would appear to require a different use of language (as he goes into a little earlier in the recording): not self-expression as a way to reinforce the self, but the expression of oneself in such a way--with less self-assurance--as to become witness to the deconstruction always already at work within language.
One last thing to consider is Elder’s quoted comment to me in my written introduction to the video: “Translating Foucault is a very difficult task because his style of thinking serves two opposite aims: to express and to hide simultaneously.”
With that in mind, the goal in translating, of course, should be to be clear enough so that the words that are translated are understood. However, it's not the only goal, especially when dealing with Foucault. Indeed, when the goal of clarity actually renders unintelligible the more subtle point in what is being communicated, we must resist using words that are too direct, like “stop”, especially when they’re not even used in the first place in the original text! In any case, the final words shouldn’t be mine but that of people out there who can be the true judges of my translation. Some people at least seem to relate to it, as is evident from the comments. For example, one says:
“ ‘I don't say these things because they are what I think, I say them so that they no longer are what i think’..so simple and profound.”
Thank you again so much for writing and for questioning the accuracy of my translation. I appreciate the opportunity to try to clarify. Hopefully this message will have made its way to you and will have been helpful to your understanding why I translated the lines the way I did, and maybe even it will have shown you another side to what Foucault seems to be after.
@@lionelclaris5858 please do correct the translation of that line, it is confusing to many.
we should do a survey for citizens around the world with questions on basic moral and humane answers throw a few trump view choices in multi choice answers ,and do a poll on citizens morality it be very interesting to see the numbers ,include mainstream reporters and politicians ,that could be entertaining,just a thought
Is there a (download) link to the interview without the English subs (so only the dutch subs). Imo: the English subs go a bit too fast sometimes
Dries H There isn't, I'm afraid. Thanks for writing.
Hi, could i please use a segment of this interview in a film I'm making? I'm an architecture student in the uk. Thank You, Mo
I was wrong about foucault
anyone else feels like the "end of man" is a self-indulgent journey of Foucault's to desperately come up with a radical statement such as Nietcshe's "death of God" ?
No. It's not self-indulgent at all. It's one of the first times I felt seen. He understands subjection and has been tremendously helpful to plenty of disabled and neurodivergent folks, the incarcerated, etc.
keep blur the boundary until one day it dies
Michel Foucault has been accused of pedophilia, particularly regarding his time in Tunisia in the late 1960s. These allegations were brought to light by French-American professor Guy Sorman, who claimed that Foucault engaged in sexual abuse of young boys while living in Tunisia.
Allegations by Guy Sorman: Sorman accused Foucault of being a "pedophile rapist" in an interview with The Sunday Times. He claimed to have witnessed Foucault's behavior and heard stories from local children about Foucault's actions.
Historical Context: The accusations relate to the period when Foucault was living in Tunisia during the late 1960s.
Public and Scholarly Reaction: These claims have sparked significant controversy and debate within academic and public spheres, with discussions about Foucault's legacy and the ethical implications of his alleged actions.
Foucault is a prominent figure in philosophy and social theory, known for his work on power, knowledge, and sexuality. These allegations complicate his legacy and raise questions about how to reconcile his intellectual contributions with these serious accusations.
Perhaps this can shed some light about the apparently unfounded accusations by Guy Sorman: www.reddit.com/r/CriticalTheory/comments/msmece/the_black_masses_of_michel_foucault_the_bullshit/
the knowledge really sets a ideal or negation (or more precisely, the relation) to the model of what man 'ought to be'. I think as long as you talk about liberty and to complaints about our society, it is because we had set up an ideal/model of what our society ought to be. That is, to eliminate a certain character by setting a relationship just like the institutions of the 'ideal type'. That's why foucault is against the liberals/humanists about their stance of he subjectivity, and to destroy that, is what frees human. But to destroy that, no knowledge can be certain within the society.
Do you go the video without the English subtitles? I would like to show it to my friends, and we are all Dutch, so the original subtitles work better for us.
Thanks for writing! Unfortunately there's no easy way for me to do that at the moment. Maybe in the future...? Sorry about that.
finge sehr luschtig, dass di username hoi hallo isch- i däm sinn: hoi! hallo! :)
That was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. He is in the middle of spinning his silly narrative about questioning the substance of structural relationships, then the phone rings, and he gets up and answers the phone. I almost dropped dead from the concentration of irony. Maybe he should have sat there and contemplated how many people had NOT called him that day, instead?
Haha, I had the same thought. It's like one of those 'saved by the bell' moments, only with an incredibly ironic ring to it.
There is a little misunderstanding, that's structural relations he speak about, not structural relationships^^
one question: what makes him, marx, derrida or any other intellectual capable of seeing what others dont? how do you criticize ideology when there is no way of knowing if your critique is influenced by ideology or not?
Can anyone tell me what are those two paintings shown at the very beginning are? And who are they by? Thanks!
If you find out please let me know!
After all this time I think I've finally found out. I think they are by Maxime Defert.
if you think Foucault was a revolutionary then you haven't heard of UG Krishnamurti (not Jiddu K)
The conclusion does seem to be characteristic of post-structuralists. This modality of self-erasure so as to be beyond critique. A sort of vanishing sublime master. It is an interesting move. Yes, the violence that enforces ideology is relevant. "Hermeneutics of the Subject" was recommended as well as his lectures on Soverignty.
The subtitles are terrible !!! I don't get anything he's saying !!
Sorry the subtitles are not helpful to you. Do you really not get ANYTHING he's saying? How familiar are you with Foucault's work? If you are new to it, perhaps you want to start with a book like "Foucault: A Very Short Introduction" by Gary Gutting. Good luck with it all. Thanks for the feedback.
Bullshit! The subtitles are wonderful, my sincere thanks Lionel!
Lionel Claris I'm Dutch, as are the original subtitles, now made invisible by the yellow subtitles. Is there a way to get rid of them?
Kratylos Ephesus No there isn't; they're part of the video.. Captions would be better.
Weierstrass Thank you all for writing. I had to make an executive decision when I added the English subtitles. At the time the kind provided by UA-cam as "captions" wouldn't appear properly in English because of the Dutch ones in the background. So I went with iMovie, which did a great job showing the English, alas at the expense of the Dutch. So, no, you cannot get rid of the English subtitles. Sorry about that. At least you can hear Fons Elders speak in Dutch for a long while later in the video... If the Dutch subtitles are very important to you, we could consider uploading a "Dutch version"..., though I can't promise. Let me know.