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Noam Chomsky called Foucault a morally bankrupt phony. I think Chomsky was being kind.

idontknowtech 2y ago
Foucault is the primary intellectual force behind the contemporary social science trend of seeing everything through a power relationships lens. His influence cannot be overstated, at least in the American academy. It's bizarre.
- slowhadoken 2y ago
  I’ve read Foucault. I’m familiar with western and continental philosophy. I studied psychology, sociology, and political science too. Foucault‘s influence, as well as French existentialism and post-structuralism in general, are to blame for the current state of social science. Boiling everything down to a cultural power struggle is a pyramid scheme, a cult that infiltrated American academia. It’s certainly not a moral philosophy and Foucault’s life reflects that.
  - Karrot_Kream 2y ago
    With the problems of modernism apparent in the philosophical academy, continental and especially leftist philosophy had a huge void of ideas. Post-structuralism took root precisely because it shrugged the idea of having An Answer but also explained many of the problems with modernism and salvaged the ideas of the Left as best as it could without having to exhume Hegel viz Marx. Rational critiques of post-structuralism remain as lurid as ever but I still see a huge void in modern western philosophy that post-structuralism dances in the ashes of. If anyone is aware of other non-rationalist western philosophies, I'd be curious as I'm only aware of the Lacanian schools and then more standard post-structuralist stuff like Foucault and Deleuze. I'd also be careful of trying to read a philosopher's life inside their ideas. Deleuze led a very bog-standard life for a white man in the postwar era in Europe despite advocating for fairly radical philosophies. It's the ideas that take root and shape the academy and then society. If you wish to push back on post-structuralism, criticize the idea, not the people. Foucault himself may have been depraved, but others certainly weren't.
    - Der_Einzige 2y ago
      The very fact that Max Stirner, and anything from anyone with some notion of "Anarchism" in their ideological descriptions is explicitly not something you're aware of is very telling of how the main stream academy has unjustly left Egoism and related ideas to languish in obscurity. Stirner was prophectic in calling out Hegel's and Marx's bullshit, and the way that his work triggered Marx so hard that Marx felt the need to write an entire book calling him a doo-doo head (The German Ideology) shows that he was subversive in the best way possible - he got under the skin of a thinker whose legacy is hundreds of millions of people dead. I suggest giving him a read, as he has a truly non-rationalist philosophy which is very different from any that you've read before. Re: Deleuze being "bog standard". You think that doing tons of LSD with his homie Guattari while they wrote Anti-oedipus was "normal"? One of them even killed themselves by throwing themself out of a window (supposedly due to "chronic pain" but who the heck knows with their literal schizoanalytical ideas)
    - slowhadoken 2y ago
      You can analyze the philosopher and their work. Socrates' system of thought can be understood without knowing he fought in the Peloponnesian War, that he was beloved, and that his wife was a shrew. But his philosophy makes even more sense when you know those personal details because context matters. For instance David Hume was an empiricist but accounts of his life make little to no sense. Besides motivations, personal details usually illustrate the limitations to a philosophy. That being said I don't think of Foucault as a philosopher, I think of him as a rhetorician and charlatan.
  - jancsika 2y ago
    It's bizarre to see you argue on the one hand that he negatively impacted the quality of social science research, then on the other hand declare by fiat that his personal life counts as data point against the quality of the same work! Foucault's writing is problematic because the conclusions he makes are too broad and are backed up by too much conjecture. So were a lot of other writers of the time, many of whom Sokal covered in his book "Fashionable Nonsense."
    - slowhadoken 2y ago
      I'm saying he used for moral relativism as a way to rationalize his immorality. Foucault's "Fashionable Nonsense" was problematic because it rationalized things like pedophilia which he also strongly advocated for in public along with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
  - idontknowtech 2y ago
    Couldn't agree more fully. It's a shallow lens that's not very good at prediction.
vinteruggla 2y ago
Why? Any context or reference?
- dcre 2y ago
  You can watch Foucault and Chomsky debate! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8
- slowhadoken 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ggm 2y ago
    Who arbitrated which is best and which is worst?
    - makerdiety 2y ago
      According to the moral nihilists and atheists that are Christians, it was God who dictated what is objectively good, bad, ethical, and sociopathic cultural destruction. So social conservatives are just upset that their authoritative God being is dead. Harsh but true.
      - slowhadoken 2y ago
        That's pure melodrama. There is no God, so he can not die. Good and bad, right and wrong, are usually pretty obvious but people are greedy, weak, and stupid. 16% of the population can't comprehend morality and 50% struggle with the idea. After that it's context, willpower, and virtue. In a game theory sense most people are going to tend towards selfishness and pretend it's self-preservation. It's human behavior.
slowhadoken 2y ago
[flagged]
- rvense 2y ago
  It is not true.
  - slowhadoken 2y ago
    It is true. After his debate with Foucault, Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral".
    - rvense 2y ago
      But that's not calling him a "morally bankrupt phony" at all.
      - slowhadoken 2y ago
        [flagged]
        rvense 2y ago
        Stop putting words in Chomsky's mouth. He never said these things. (Also, are there still people who think that "died of AIDS" is an insult?!)
        slowhadoken 2y ago
        [flagged]
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973077>
viccis 2y ago
Was that before or after Foucault cooked him in the debate?
- paulpauper 2y ago
  it is wrong. Chomsky said no such thing about him as a person. He was referring to Foucalt's belief system as being amoral
  - slowhadoken 2y ago
    Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral". Chomsky doesn't consider post-structuralism, and by extension Foucault system of thought, to be a philosophy. Foucault is a rhetorician.
- rvense 2y ago
  I think it was after they met for the debate. I don't remember Chomsky calling Foucault a phony. The quote I remember is Chomsky calling him "amoral". The debate is a fun thing. Some people hear Foucault make no sense, others see him slicing Chomsky up into so many pieces he appears to not even notice.
- slowhadoken 2y ago
  I guess if you're a 16 year old with an IQ of 85 and are stoned out of your mind Foucault cooked Chomsky, sure why not. lmfao. get out of here.
  - daseiner1 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - slowhadoken 2y ago
      [flagged]
- nchmy 2y ago
paulpauper 2y ago
No. He said his philosophy was amoral. He had nothing bad to say about him as a person. the opposite actually.
- slowhadoken 2y ago
  Incorrect. After their debate Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral". Chomsky doesn't think Foucault has a philosophy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y&t=263s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y&t=263s
  - paulpauper 2y ago
    full quote "He struck me as completely amoral, id never met anyone who was so totally amoral" ... "I mean, I liked him personally, it's just that I couldn't make sense of him. It's as if he was from a different species, or something." this is a far cry from calling him a morally bankrupt person
    - slowhadoken 2y ago
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y

Foucault is the primary intellectual force behind the contemporary social science trend of seeing everything through a power relationships lens. His influence cannot be overstated, at least in the American academy. It's bizarre.

slowhadoken 2y ago
I’ve read Foucault. I’m familiar with western and continental philosophy. I studied psychology, sociology, and political science too. Foucault‘s influence, as well as French existentialism and post-structuralism in general, are to blame for the current state of social science. Boiling everything down to a cultural power struggle is a pyramid scheme, a cult that infiltrated American academia. It’s certainly not a moral philosophy and Foucault’s life reflects that.
- Karrot_Kream 2y ago
  With the problems of modernism apparent in the philosophical academy, continental and especially leftist philosophy had a huge void of ideas. Post-structuralism took root precisely because it shrugged the idea of having An Answer but also explained many of the problems with modernism and salvaged the ideas of the Left as best as it could without having to exhume Hegel viz Marx. Rational critiques of post-structuralism remain as lurid as ever but I still see a huge void in modern western philosophy that post-structuralism dances in the ashes of. If anyone is aware of other non-rationalist western philosophies, I'd be curious as I'm only aware of the Lacanian schools and then more standard post-structuralist stuff like Foucault and Deleuze. I'd also be careful of trying to read a philosopher's life inside their ideas. Deleuze led a very bog-standard life for a white man in the postwar era in Europe despite advocating for fairly radical philosophies. It's the ideas that take root and shape the academy and then society. If you wish to push back on post-structuralism, criticize the idea, not the people. Foucault himself may have been depraved, but others certainly weren't.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    The very fact that Max Stirner, and anything from anyone with some notion of "Anarchism" in their ideological descriptions is explicitly not something you're aware of is very telling of how the main stream academy has unjustly left Egoism and related ideas to languish in obscurity. Stirner was prophectic in calling out Hegel's and Marx's bullshit, and the way that his work triggered Marx so hard that Marx felt the need to write an entire book calling him a doo-doo head (The German Ideology) shows that he was subversive in the best way possible - he got under the skin of a thinker whose legacy is hundreds of millions of people dead. I suggest giving him a read, as he has a truly non-rationalist philosophy which is very different from any that you've read before. Re: Deleuze being "bog standard". You think that doing tons of LSD with his homie Guattari while they wrote Anti-oedipus was "normal"? One of them even killed themselves by throwing themself out of a window (supposedly due to "chronic pain" but who the heck knows with their literal schizoanalytical ideas)
  - slowhadoken 2y ago
    You can analyze the philosopher and their work. Socrates' system of thought can be understood without knowing he fought in the Peloponnesian War, that he was beloved, and that his wife was a shrew. But his philosophy makes even more sense when you know those personal details because context matters. For instance David Hume was an empiricist but accounts of his life make little to no sense. Besides motivations, personal details usually illustrate the limitations to a philosophy. That being said I don't think of Foucault as a philosopher, I think of him as a rhetorician and charlatan.
- jancsika 2y ago
  It's bizarre to see you argue on the one hand that he negatively impacted the quality of social science research, then on the other hand declare by fiat that his personal life counts as data point against the quality of the same work! Foucault's writing is problematic because the conclusions he makes are too broad and are backed up by too much conjecture. So were a lot of other writers of the time, many of whom Sokal covered in his book "Fashionable Nonsense."
  - slowhadoken 2y ago
    I'm saying he used for moral relativism as a way to rationalize his immorality. Foucault's "Fashionable Nonsense" was problematic because it rationalized things like pedophilia which he also strongly advocated for in public along with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
- idontknowtech 2y ago
  Couldn't agree more fully. It's a shallow lens that's not very good at prediction.

vinteruggla 2y ago

Why? Any context or reference?

dcre 2y ago
You can watch Foucault and Chomsky debate! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8
slowhadoken 2y ago
[flagged]
- ggm 2y ago
  Who arbitrated which is best and which is worst?
  - makerdiety 2y ago
    According to the moral nihilists and atheists that are Christians, it was God who dictated what is objectively good, bad, ethical, and sociopathic cultural destruction. So social conservatives are just upset that their authoritative God being is dead. Harsh but true.
    - slowhadoken 2y ago
      That's pure melodrama. There is no God, so he can not die. Good and bad, right and wrong, are usually pretty obvious but people are greedy, weak, and stupid. 16% of the population can't comprehend morality and 50% struggle with the idea. After that it's context, willpower, and virtue. In a game theory sense most people are going to tend towards selfishness and pretend it's self-preservation. It's human behavior.

slowhadoken 2y ago

[flagged]

rvense 2y ago
It is not true.
- slowhadoken 2y ago
  It is true. After his debate with Foucault, Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral".
  - rvense 2y ago
    But that's not calling him a "morally bankrupt phony" at all.
    - slowhadoken 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - rvense 2y ago
        Stop putting words in Chomsky's mouth. He never said these things. (Also, are there still people who think that "died of AIDS" is an insult?!)
        slowhadoken 2y ago
        [flagged]
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973077>

viccis 2y ago

Was that before or after Foucault cooked him in the debate?

paulpauper 2y ago
it is wrong. Chomsky said no such thing about him as a person. He was referring to Foucalt's belief system as being amoral
- slowhadoken 2y ago
  Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral". Chomsky doesn't consider post-structuralism, and by extension Foucault system of thought, to be a philosophy. Foucault is a rhetorician.
rvense 2y ago
I think it was after they met for the debate. I don't remember Chomsky calling Foucault a phony. The quote I remember is Chomsky calling him "amoral". The debate is a fun thing. Some people hear Foucault make no sense, others see him slicing Chomsky up into so many pieces he appears to not even notice.
slowhadoken 2y ago
I guess if you're a 16 year old with an IQ of 85 and are stoned out of your mind Foucault cooked Chomsky, sure why not. lmfao. get out of here.
- daseiner1 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - slowhadoken 2y ago
    [flagged]
nchmy 2y ago

paulpauper 2y ago

No. He said his philosophy was amoral. He had nothing bad to say about him as a person. the opposite actually.

slowhadoken 2y ago
Incorrect. After their debate Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral". Chomsky doesn't think Foucault has a philosophy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y&t=263s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y&t=263s
- paulpauper 2y ago
  full quote "He struck me as completely amoral, id never met anyone who was so totally amoral" ... "I mean, I liked him personally, it's just that I couldn't make sense of him. It's as if he was from a different species, or something." this is a far cry from calling him a morally bankrupt person
  - slowhadoken 2y ago
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y