I heard about this project from Jen who I think must have read about it and actually still plans on starting it but we don’t have a decent camera so she put it off for now. I am not sure if she is not cross with me for starting on her project before she does but I think we can both find our own numbers. It’s a fun project I thought at first and it would give an excuse to pay more attention to my environment when moving about. I may have been concerned with the bloggwriting at first but now I know I need not worry. Sequencing numbers will not be jumping at me every fifteen minutes. This may well bea lifelong project. A couple of weeks have passed since took this shot and number two is still nowhere to be seen…
Number one. I believe there can be nothing more fascinating than this book spine. Ok, perhaps this is an overstatement but this ‘one’ tells so many things in a nutshell, on a book spine that to explain all would fill a book rather than a blog entry. But jokes aside, and leaving clichés out too, Foucault has become a bit of a starting point in recent. For me at least.
The irony is that I have never read anything directly written by him, and probably never will. There are texts that will turn my brain into mush but will not unfold meaning; such as raw philosophy and metaphysics not related to motorcycle maintenance. And I haven’t managed to find a very short introduction to Foucault yet either. Even if those books are a bit of a cheat anyway, for they might be small but they have many pages and the text within is tiny. One could still be a good starting point. And I seem to refuse acknowledging Wikipedia as a useful resource for anything other than finding out when is the next season of The Walking Dead will start airing (which I actually haven’t done so far for sheer joy of anticipation).
Close to this book, or maybe physically placed rather far away I found an introduction to Foucault which seems a lot like a very short one would be except that the format is much larger. Consequently, it’s gonna be an easy read.
But enough procrastination. Why this book spine as number one?
It is volume one.
For years I have been gravitating this direction, as mentioned before. A gradual shift with its stages. I think Marxism has had to do with it. And an interpretation or particular variety of Marxism through Weber perhaps. Spiced with an Existentialist’s attitude (especially the kind so severely disregarded by the Eastern Block states) and the revolutionary organisation of Guevara. Not sure about this last though. Habermas gave a kick somewhere along the way but ironically the whole journey was perhaps started by Baudrillard which of course was initiated by the then ever standing cult movie – now completely forgotten, especially that it is really lame to have liked it so much: The Matrix. So here, homage is given to Matrix, not sure how I relate to this… should stop talking
So the postmodern. When getting that introduction to Foucault out of the library another book jumped in my hand as well, one about the revolutionary educational ideals of Freire and Guevara. The author of the book really doesn’t like those pesky postmodernists. They just smear everything, when power and structures of power relations become ever more subtle and invisible, and when possible even more so than we would ever wonder to wonder about it, résistance and revolution becomes impossible. Futile, and in some sense impossible. This written by a Marxist, who thinks little of all the postisms, post-colonialists, post-thisis post-thatis and post modernism in general, followers of such notions in return probably think little of him.
Warning: the following is not a comprehensive and detailed description of Foucaultian thought.
So our interpretations of reality is something that exist on a common ground. We do read the same text. We chose to exist within the same context. Those who don’t, usually are branded mad. Those who have difficulties need counselling (at least in some incenses, in others, counselling is the appropriate norm).
When someone argues from a truly different interpretation of the real, he or she exists in a different text and therefore will be incapable of communication with the other. True dialogue cannot take place for there are no means to understand one another. This is where Habermas falls out the equasion for me when thinking how to overcome this problem. Darker still, that in this understanding all the different viewpoints are in fact not truly different. Rebelling against the global capitalist system for instance requires to be part of that system. Without understanding it, being part of it, being in the same text communicating is not possible therefore providing alternative is not possible either only through creating an entirely different understanding of reality. In which instance the possibility to negotiate, communicate becomes impossible.
Marxist wouldn’t like this for this means that Marxism cannot exist without capitalism.
But I am being vague. Of course there are other issues such as the structure of power being invisible and omnipotent in some sense therefore unchallengeable. Which than would also bring some difficulties. (but this fits with what is written above). And I only so far have read the introduction of the introduction and the numerous references that I have come across in the last couple of years.
So Foucault is interesting reading in times of depressions… or global crisis. Leaving all nonsense behind, but on a sidenote I wonder how much the overwhelming nature of contemporary discourse does contribute to breakdown of relationships, to people losing their minds. Ok, this sounds clichéd.
But power struggles there are. So the question from the above briefly described Foucaultian perspective would be: what’s the point in resisting when even resistance is part of the structure?
Number one turns out rather dark, it seems, and I am wondering how to turn it brighter. So I am almost tempted to turn to spiritualism. There, it will always be fine at the end!
