From: Secret Squirrel <nobody@secret.squirrel.owl.de>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 19:45:40 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Seeing Both Sides
Message-ID: <a0c766cd7eac94b862b5202e12d07b45@squirrel>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Bob Hettinga wrote:
>But then, logic, much less independent thinking, was never 
>Foucault's strong point.

I took this statement at face value, but out of curiousity I decided to find
out who this guy Foucault was.  The things I read about him lead me to 
believe otherwise.

Some quotes from Michel Foucault:

 "The judges of normality are present everywhere.  We are in
  the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the 
  educator-judge, the 'social worker'-judge."

 "Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work
  begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each
  individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline."

How quick we are to condemn those who step out of the "norm", no?  As soon 
as someone says something even slightly controversial, our inner censors 
rush in to separate ourselves from that person, to chastise him, to condemn 
him, regardless of the relationship we have developed with him in the past.

There is this unfortunate property in man that leads him to disassociate 
himself from the ideas he holds true if it is convenient, and especially if 
it will allow him to avoid the ridicule, hatred and disdain of others.  In 
the never ending "pursuit of happiness" we seek to make our lives so 
comfortable that we will give up that which we hold dearest.

 "The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political 
  will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in 
  his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to 
  shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate
  conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and 
  institutions and...to participate in the formation of a 
  political will (where he has his role as citizen to play)."

In other words, to make people think.  This is the goal of the intellectual. 
To subtly influence the mass of humanity by appealing to their minds, their 
reason, instead of their base instincts and emotions.  Tolerance and 
acceptance are results brought about in us by communion with the mind, that 
which is greatest in us.  Hatred, persecution, violence are what we fall 
back upon when we cease to live to our fullest potential.  We degenerate 
into the animals we once were.

Once again, Bob wrote:
>The world's foremost pseudomystical relativist cited to support an
>absolutist position. The logic escapes me. But then, logic, much less
>independent thinking, was never Foucault's strong point.

Perhaps one way of looking at it is that if you can't see the black and
the white, you're missing the whole picture.

After all, who would think that one would need to use an anonymous remailer
and a pseudonym to express oneself in a free and open society such as ours?

Nerthus

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