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>Radical philosophers have been saying for a long time now that everything is a question of power and domination, that anyone pretending otherwise is complicit,
by acoard 6y ago
>Radical philosophers have been saying for a long time now that everything is a question of power and domination, that anyone pretending otherwise is complicit, and that -- in the final analysis -- the mere classification of things is a violent act.
Which philosophers are saying this? I majored in philosophy, still read philosophy (both ancient and modern academic), and have never encountered anyone saying that classification of things is a violent act.
It's true there has always been a struggle, going back to ancient Greece and Thucydides, about whether politics should be about justice (or morality) or power.[0] Between what is right, and who has force. And some, like Chomsky (who some might call a radical), say that everyone living in a modern society is complicit in some way[1]. But I've never seen anyone say that believing in justice/morality instead of power makes one complicit.
[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-intl-relations/#RootRealTrad https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-intl-relations/#R...
[1] https://chomsky.info/200601__/ https://chomsky.info/200601__/
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- leftyted 6y ago> Which philosophers are saying this? I majored in philosophy, still read philosophy (both ancient and modern academic), and have never encountered anyone saying that classification of things is a violent act. Foucault, Irigaray, Rorty, and Butler to name a few. These thinkers believe that distinctions are bad, that the borders between things should be dissolved, that concepts like rational-irrational, true-false, objective-subjective, man-woman are oppressive. Chomsky is not radical in the sense I mean. He's a liberal who believes in progress, responsibility, knowledge, and the possibility of relations between people that are not coercive. He's just pessimistic about human relations as they exist today. There's a Chomsky-Foucault debate on youtube. Chomsky sees a distinction between the responsible-irresponsible use of power and Foucault does not. You can also look up the Habermas-Rorty debates.