Whats /his/ opinion on his work?
I don't like his depraved philosophy, but he's a very bright thinker and his work is invaluable. I don't know why a lot of people think of him as an obscurantist, he's easily the most lucid postmodern philosopher, he aims to be understood.
>>1244911
i think his work alone has contributed more than the rest of all other post-moderns together
i was born in le wrong generation
>>1244892
The father of gende studies, LGBT propaganda and a truly despicable thinker who embrassed every trendy ideology, left wing or neo-liberal.
>>1245074
Those are some hot opinions
IIRC he didnt like most of his followers
He din du nufin
>>1245074
He certainly saw sexuality and gender as "fluid", but Foucault was actually strongly opposed to identity politics.
If his read more MF instead of circlejerking about meme thinkers like Stirner maybe, just maybe, the next great thinker could come from /his/
>>1245101
You'd have to read more than Foucault to be like him, the guy was not only a prolific reader, he read tons of really obscure works of thought and history.
>>1244892
Based
Surprisingly useful to reactionaries.
>Michel Foucault: "Progress is a myth and all grand narratives should be mistrusted."
>Reactionary: "That's right, so fuck off with liberals and commies and their Right Side of History bullshit."
>MF: "No, no, that wasn't how it was supposed to work, I mean we should reject conservative order and strive for localized, subaltern narratives."
>Reactionary: "You mean like Hyperborean Aryans from Atlantis commanding us to kill non-whites? I love that!"
Or
>Progressive scientist: "So that's how science proves that you are wrong and all rightists are bigots who deserve to die."
>Reactionary: "Hmm, my discourse analysis of your text shows that sciencitic discourse just masquerades your attempt to build political and social power for your class. I prefer my Hyperborean Aryan thesis which strenghtens the biopower of my race."
>>1245167
Why do you think he was sympathetic toward Khomeini?
>>1245172
Power bottom with masochistic leanings.
>>1245172
I doubt he was serious.
The thing we need to understand about that generation of French intellectuals, about Foucault, Debord and Baudrillard, is that they became public intellectuals at a time when it truly seemed that conservatism was invincible. The Golden Age of Capitalism that followed World War II made revolutionary communism unfeasible in the West, the dominance of conservative Gaullism in France further annoyed intellectuals (compare it with UK or the U.S., when progressives had an open avenue for political power so they were less butthurt about "the Establishment"). That's the context of postmodernism and post-structuralism. It was supposed to offer intellectual ammunition against a stable conservative establishment where political and economical arguments had lost credibility against the positive achievements of the government.
Now it has all changed. The conservative establishment, for different reasons depending on the country, was wiped out across the Western world, and the generation that grew reading Deleuze and Guattari is in power. So all these ideas are no longer useful to them. It is useful to reactionaries who want to criticize the current establishment but do not have good political and economical arguments, though.
>>1245232
>I doubt he was serious.
There are ostensibly left-wing intellectuals glorifying the Islamic State and gloating about the Paris Massacres RIGHT NOW.
They praised Che and Lenin and Stalin and Pol Pot and Hezbollah and Ben Laden, why wouldn't they be serious about the others?
What would he think about SJW?
>>1245272
>ostensibly
That is the essence of Foucault. Also zizek, but let's not muddle things. I wouldn't say old fucko was conservative, but there is a certain Hegelian dialectic to the way he presents himself and understanding what his intent was.
>>1244892
I don't know who is but judging from the pic looks like some type of pretentious,modernist manic depressive "philosopher" commie with shit for brains
>>1245287
He would probably call them Victorian prudes, smoke some hash and laugh about it because the opinions of women too ugly to get the dick are suppressed by the cultural hegemony of his cultural hegemony of his hard gay lifestyle. That is, being in a position of power bottom, he controls the knowledge of dick.
>>1245308
He actually triggered communists. Sartre and Beauvoir hated him for his attempt to move "past" Marx, and Foucault said Marx is dead.
>>1245318
Fucking phone. *Cultural hegemony of his suppressed culture
>>1245319
Constantine of course you defend the gay philosopher, you hope he'll liberate you trannies
>>1245318
Let's not forget Foucault said rape should not be considered a sexual crime, just a minor form of physical assault if anything. He thought sex should be completely legally unregulated.
>>1245332
Eh? I'm not a tranny
>>1245342
Yes you are you're a girl who pretends to be male
>>1245337
the absolute madman
>>1245345
Uh, even if that *were* the case, that hardly constitutes being a transsexual if it's solely online and for practical reasons.
>>1245337
Let's Forget Foucault because desire and power are interchangeable and there are better ways to piss off deleuze and guattari.
>>1245349
Foucault also defended madness, suggesting the conception of insanity was oppressive, and that madness is just a type of eccentricity.
>>1245363
the absolute eccentric
So what is the best way to learn Foucault?
>>1245363
There's actually a pride parade for mentally ill people in France. I mean people who spent some time in an institution, not the more benign and socially-accepted forms of mental illness.
>>1245404
Yeah, he wouldn't approve of that though. He would say it was reinforcing madness as something which exists.
>>1245402
Search some videos on youtube or you might get a little lost
Thats what i did
Yeah i now im a pleb
Now i started reading Surveiller et punir
Why is Foucault's ideas always considered 'left'? Why havn't elements of the right taken his ideas?
I find it odd that the idea of the 'systematic oppression' of the right is so prevalent when the very idea of 'systematic oppression' is a systemic oppression from the Left.
>>1245463
There's anti modernist right, and modernist right, but there's not a significant enough postmodern right yet. If there were, they would definitely utilize him.
>>1245463
because fucko was from the good guys and right is the bad guys you sheep
>>1245472
Whatever the fag riding the coattails of gamergate is doing looks pretty postmodern.
>>1245101
>implying the next great thinker isnt already among us
>>1245497
>alt-right is postmodern
Nah
>>1245472
Agreed. But why doesn't the right use postmodernism to take down the 'Postmodern' Left.
To me, the 'Postmodern' left just use postmodernism to attack the meta-narratives of the right, which they quickly substitute with their own. Why is there never a postmodern critique of these meta-narratives?
>>1245504
Where is he? i miss his videos
>>1245463
Because tribal identification is more important than the ideas themselves.
Foucault hanged aroung left-wing intellectuals and his work is filled with Marxist shibboleths, so he is considered part of the left. He did consider himself part of the left too, and his end goal was always "the Revolution", just like with every other left-wing intellectual. He just had different ideas about how to reach this goal.
>Why havn't elements of the right taken his ideas?
Again. Stupidity and tribalism. The right is still masturbating over the Sokal affair, even though Alan Sokal was a leftist himself, and his kind of positivism is way more dangerous to conservative and traditionalism in the long-term than anything the postmodern left can conjure.
>>1245513
According to that book by Stephen Hicks, postmodernism is inherently leftist.
>>1245524
But according to Richard Wolin, postmodernism is actually about reactionary ideas taking over the left. So it can easily "return home" and become accepted by the anti-Enlightenment right, which includes both the alt-right and neoreaction.
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7705.html
> One of the crucial elements underlying this problematic right-left synthesis is a strange chapter in the history of ideas whereby latter-day anti-philosophes such as Nietzsche and Heidegger became the intellectual idols of post-World War II France--above all, for poststructuralists like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze. Paradoxically, a thoroughgoing cynicism about reason and democracy, once the hallmark of reactionary thought, became the stock-in-trade of the postmodern left.7 As observers of the French intellectual scene have frequently noted, although Germany lost on the battlefield, it triumphed in the seminar rooms, bookstores, and cafés of the Latin Quarter. During the 1960s Spenglerian indictments of "Western civilization," once cultivated by leading representatives of the German intellectual right, migrated across the Rhine where they gained a new currency. Ironically, Counter-Enlightenment doctrines that had been taboo in Germany because of their unambiguous association with fascism--after all, Nietzsche had been canonized as the Nazi regime's official philosopher, and for a time Heidegger was its most outspoken philosophical advocate--seemed to best capture the mood of Kulturpessimismus that predominated among French intellectuals during the postwar period. Adding insult to injury, the new assault against philosophie came from the homeland of the Enlightenment itself.
>>1244911
What exactly is his 'depraved' philosophy?
>>1244892
What's the best, most comprehensive book to start with reading Foucault?
>>1245721
His histories are the best. Discipline and Punish or Madness and Civilization. history of sexuality after that. It's really up to you where to start though. Madness and then Birth of the Clinic will give you the best feel for what he is doing, but I like Discipline for the way he applies his particular philosophies. The rest is either shit or wank depending on who you ask.
>>1245363
there's literally nothing wrong with oppression
>>1245504
Sam Hyde was post-alt right when the alt right didn't even start yet.
>>1245818
>opression created marxism so fuck you
too little oppression allows marxism to exist
>>1245818
I assume /lit/ is familiar with alt right.. Post-alt right is what happens after Trump.
>>1245829
where theres oppression there will be a force against oppression
t.michel foucault
>>1245845
you can't react to oppression if you've been oppressed dead
t. unga bunga, inventor of sharp stick
>>1245851
:^)
Go to africa then you fucking mongol
We civilization here
>>1245167
Same for Zizek.
Lots of right wingers read and dig Zizek.
>>1245859
>t. future death camp graduate
>>1245553
This is on par with "nazi's moved to the US to become NASA and thus control America" conspiracy theories.
>>1245355
being a transexual just is identifying as the opposite sex. It doesnt matter if it's online or offline, it's transexualism
>>1246069
Not what he is saying at all.
The argument is that it's odd that the Left has started running with the counter-enlightenment ideas that they used to fight against
