Grad Student Humanist

What "damage" is Foucault responsible for? And the deconstructionists? (Foucault wasn't a deconstructionist, btw.)

August Spies

haha tis true.

sullster

How can you make a statements about someone being "cool" or not? What in tarnations does that mean? That is beyond absurd.

I will admit that the Philosophes of the Englightenment were not rigorous and sytematic philosophers, yet they broke new ground.

The French Revolution was a disaster for the West. It brought on ideological terror and ultimately led to the rise of a self centered dictator who plunged Europe into what should have been called a world war. Its excesses inspired all the blood-soaked revolutions which followed,(Your beloved Lenin, Trotsky,Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot come to mind).

The French Revolution did not start capitalism and democracy. That is nonsense. Concepts of democracy and republican govenment were evident in ancient Greece and political pilosophy in England had more to do with democratic ideas than any slogan from the French. Capitalism is more rooted once again in English history and the Italian Renaissance cities.

The American revolution was a truly democratic one and anti-colonial. The French Revolution was a horrendous mutation which used the slogans of human freedom to kill humans. Hmmm, sounds like Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.


I still say that France is a posturing big zero, which thinks that because it has great wine and a rusty old tower it is a counrty to be reckoned with. Psssshaw! History has passed them by.

sullster

Post-modernism and de-constructionism have caused enormous damage in the academic and legal worlds. We are only now ridding ourselves of its influences. French "philosophers" have been in the lead of those who have advocated that scientific knowledge is more a cultural bias than any true factual knowledge.

Most of the underpinings of a vast assault on the West and its historical experience and ideas have been centered on French thinking from Post WW2.

I feel that the French are trouble-makers and will do and say anything in order to show they are the smartest and the greatest. Psssshaw!

August Spies

Sullster:

Foucault IS cooler than you. (but it was said tongue in cheeck, I think that is obvious)

no. I did not say the philosophers of the nelightenment were not philosophers. I said VOLTAIRE was not a philospoher. He was a intellectual in France, and he contributed to the enlightenment and worte some texts. But he was a not a philosopher. He was not Rousseau or Locke or Hegel. He was like Jefferson or Paine. These people were not philosphers, you won't read them in any philosophy class. They wrote rabble rousing pamphlets and such.

Dont' get me wrong, I love voltaire and paine, but they aren't philosophers.

of course... you are the person who attacked Foucault for being a deconstructualist.

it did in modern europe. yes, some of this had been formulated earlier, but the French Revolutoin is the turning point towards the modern world for the west.



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Okay put your rhethoric and silly attacks aside for a minute. Explain to me why France should not be considered a world power.

It has a perminant seat on the Security Council, it runs the E.U. along with Germany (likewise those two are the powerhouse of european economcis). France is a nuclear power (1 of 5, non?). It has an elite military. Its authors, films and philosophers are top notch in the world and widley read.

So ill grant that France is not as powerful as America or some other near super powers (China) but it is clearly one of the most important countries in Europe. Basically the only powerful countries in Europe (not counting Russia) are Germany, England and France. Seeing as the E.U. could soon become as powerful as the USA in many respects, their power should only be growing.

August Spies

no offense but it sounds like you dont' even know who Foucault is. What texts of his have you studied?

sullster

August,
I want arguments, not an oh-so-cool smiley face for an answer, to why you think that the American Revolution was not the one which furthered human freedom the most.

Your view of the French Revolution's effect on capitalism clearly shows me that you are operating from the tired old Marxist Dialectical Materialism fantasy view of history. Also, your definition of "democratic" is not inclusive of individual freedom within a state but seems to be the old collective concept of freedom in which an individual's freedom is useless and the freedom of a "class" is all which matters. We can't agree on the definitions of our terms.


France has nuclear weapons and detonated them in the atmosphere years after the USA and USSR banned such things.
Since their defeat in WW2 ,they have been obnoxious up-starts and a pain in the ass. They are not a power anymore of any consquence on the world stage and they just won't admit it.

Pin me on my lack of Foucault all you want, but answer my general point about the academic nonsense which came from post-modernism which derived some of it ideologies from him.

Grad Student Humanist

Right, so you haven't actually read any Foucault, have you? I suggest you begin with Discipline and Punish or Vol 1 of his History of Sexuality so you can actually begin to articulate what it is you disagree with.

And, btw, the West isn't some sacrosanct entity which shold be forever immune from criticism. In fact, the West, especially the United States is not criticized enough. Instead a worldview prevails which paints the West as the apex of everything good, paints the rest of the world as an inferior "Other," and justifies everything the West gets away with. Needless to say there are numerous threads on this very forum (and others) which illustrate in spades just why there is ample reason to criticize the West.

Hugo Holbling

Like August and GSH, i'd appreciate your explaining what damage you refer to, how you determined causation, and how "we" have recently escaped this baneful influence.

Perhaps a cursory reading of these philosophers you dismiss would help you understand why bashing straw men only makes you appear foolish?

Dr. Retard

You are so getting off topic.



There.