Foucault - the intellectual godfather of "Woke" was an abuser.

29-03-2021 12:15PM #1

It has been known for some time that Michel Foucault behaved badly during his life and had some very bad ideas for which he has not been properly condemned. Yet he is the most cited scholar in the world.
THE. MOST. CITED. SCHOLAR.
EVER. IN THE WORLD. Think about that.

The intellectual movement of which he was a main founder is the dominant ideology in academia today - postmodernism. It has infiltrated everything.

Yesterday the UK Times piblished an article on Guy Sorman's recent allegations about Foucault raping young boys in Tunisia in the late 1960s.
It is here. I will link at the end to a reddit transcription so you can read past the paywall.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/french-philosopher-michel-foucault-abused-boys-in-tunisia-6t5sj7jvw

Personally I believe that intellectuals / creators/ anyone's work cannot be divided from their lives when it comes to honest appraisal, especially if such work is influential. Yeats wrote about the choice people have to make - the perfection of the life or of the work. I think he was trying to excuse himself his own foibles, pretending it was not possible to be both intellectually a star and morally a good person. I disagree. If one cannot walk the talk the talk is fundamentally diminished. Whether you are Osho preaching enlightenment but hopping off the anxiety meds or Jung preaching exacting self awareness but hoping off the addled young ones who were his patients, or Foucault, pretending to intellectual brilliance but just looking for solipsistic ways to justify ones own vile decrepitude.

What do ya reckon?

Full copy of text a few posts down on this reddit thread

https://amp.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/mfbdnv/french_philosopher_michel_foucault_sexually/

CtevenSrowder · 29-03-2021 12:24PM

If you are going to preach, then you need to practice what you preach. Otherwise you best shut up and others should ignore. Though if your work is of scientific value, then it is imperative it is not ignored, regardless of who has conducted the research. I don't believe Folcault would meet this criteria however, as he was a philosopher.

I don't really get what is supposed to be so brilliant about Folcault, but I'm no expert on him either.

Wibbs · 29-03-2021 12:34PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Personally I believe that intellectuals / creators/ anyone's work cannot be divided from their lives when it comes to honest appraisal, especially if such work is influential.

I would disagree. The list of those who have positively influenced civilisation throughout history and who were complete dickheads in their lives is a very long one. Never mind how attitudes to certain things shift over time and what was once seen as an accepted truth may not be any more. We can't always reject someone's overall philosophies or works because some don't conform to our current ones. Aristotle was a giant of western civilisation and influential for a couple of thousand years, yet he saw women as inferior and defended slavery as an institution. Charles Darwin because of the era he grew up in considered women inferior and the White race as the favoured one. Pretty much every one of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment would be seen as unrepentant racists today. Ancient Greek civilisation has had a massive influence on Modern Europe and the western world and yet that society was extremely sexist, slave owning and considered non Greeks to be largely little better than savages. If Hitler wrote "the sky is blue" would it make it any less true?

PS I consider some aspects of postmodernism to be valuable, though very few of them were novel ideas, and it has been taken too far as a way to frame a worldview.

29-03-2021 12:39PM

CtevenSrowder wrote: »

If you are going to preach, then you need to practice what you preach. Otherwise you best shut up and others should ignore. Though if your work is of scientific value, then it is imperative it is not ignored, regardless of who has conducted the research. I don't believe Folcault would meet this criteria however, as he was a philosopher.

I don't really get what is supposed to be so brilliant about Folcault, but I'm no expert on him either.

I agree. And I am no expert on him either. But almost any modern approved philosopher these days has been heavily influenced by him, so one does not need to directly know his work. Especially his influence is in identity politics.

It is a good point re scientists. They can be decrepit personally but if the empirical results of their findings can be repeated objectively then their personal lives cannot detract from that factuality. Philosophy though - how we think - that is subjective.
I am seeing intelligent people who liked Foucault looking for ways to detach his work from his practices. I think that is untenable. Our thoughts are very much products of our character.

But I have seen the same in religious cults where beloved gurus turned out to be raping the children - otherwise good and sane people just cannot let go of their blind attachment for the teacher and will twist reason and deny what is in front of them rather than change or condemn.

Mike Murdock · 29-03-2021 12:42PM

Most adherents to the woke ideology will not have even heard of Michel Foucault so this will change nothing.

29-03-2021 12:44PM

Wibbs wrote: »

I would disagree. The list of those who have positively influenced civilisation throughout history and who were complete dickheads in their lives is a very long one. Never mind how attitudes to certain things shift over time and what was once seen as an accepted truth may not be any more. We can't always reject someone's overall philosophies or works because some don't conform to our current ones. Aristotle was a giant of western civilisation and influential for a couple of thousand years, yet he saw women as inferior and defended slavery as an institution. Charles Darwin because of the era he grew up in considered women inferior and the White race as the favoured one. Pretty much every one of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment would be seen as unrepentant racists today. Ancient Greek civilisation has had a massive influence on Modern Europe and the western world and yet that society was extremely sexist, slave owning and considered non Greeks to be largely little better than savages. If Hitler wrote "the sky is blue" would it make it any less true?

PS I consider some aspects of postmodernism to be valuable, though very few of them were novel ideas, and it has been taken too far as a way to frame a worldview.

You are not comparing like with like. Foucault died in 1984. He is not an ancient philosopher or a Victorian. We all knew in the 1980s as now that raping kids is bad. We knew then that casually infecting people with AIDS was bad. Regardless he was and is rampantly acclaimed.

TomTomTim · 29-03-2021 12:55PM

The poet, Allen Ginsberg, was once loved by the left too. He's was openly pro pedophilia most of his life, and was a big supporter of The North American Man/Boy Love Association

Wibbs · 29-03-2021 12:58PM

Deleted User wrote: »

You are not comparing like with like. Foucault died in 1984. He is not an ancient philosopher or a Victorian. We all knew in the 1980s as now that raping kids is bad. We knew then that casually infecting people with AIDS was bad. Regardless he was and is rampantly acclaimed.

The distance of time has some impact, but little enough in my humble. Victorian times wasn't so long ago and even within those times there were some people who would have considered say Darwin's attitudes to women and other races incorrect. It again for me comes down to can his works stand on their own. Are they arguable? Have they real world applications. And at least for some of them they clearly do. Postmodernism has tended to be taken by both the "left" and "right" on face value and used as a ball to kick between them, with few enough of either persuasion having actually read much on the notions contained with the philosophy itself. IIRC he was a driver of the notion of poststructuralism, something that you find little enough of in "woke" thought. Bugger all of the "woke" or "anti woke" would even know what it was or what it meant.

silverharp · 29-03-2021 01:10PM

If the contribution was Science or Music then one can distance the person from their output. Philosophy or Politics less so, a deeply morally debauched individual isnt likely to develop the perfect system to advance mankind, probably the opposite it will be a system that excuses their behavior in some fashion. A child rapist writing about power dynamics.......

29-03-2021 01:23PM

Wibbs wrote: »

The distance of time has some impact, but little enough in my humble. Victorian times wasn't so long ago and even within those times there were some people who would have considered say Darwin's attitudes to women and other races incorrect. It again for me comes down to can his works stand on their own. Are they arguable? Have they real world applications. And at least for some of them they clearly do. Postmodernism has tended to be taken by both the "left" and "right" on face value and used as a ball to kick between them, with few enough of either persuasion having actually read much on the notions contained with the philosophy itself. IIRC he was a driver of the notion of poststructuralism, something that you find little enough of in "woke" thought. Bugger all of the "woke" or "anti woke" would even know what it was or what it meant.

People's character does effect the way I think about their work as I have grown older. Their subjective work. Even their objective work to be honest, but at least objective science results are replicable so can be accepted as objectively true.
But modes of thought are subjective.
I was mad about Jung for decades and then I realised his thought is completely imbued by his own narcissism, selfishness and delusion. It colours everything about it, even his motivation for pursuing his studies. It made me question everything I had accepted from his work as arguable or applicable in the ''real'' world.
Unless something from the world of philosophy and ideas can be experienced personally and replicated now I have suspicions / skepticism of it. Or at least I know fully if I accept it then it is an emotionally driven acceptance on my behalf and not something that can be imposed upon the external world.

Foucault considered himself the disciple of Georges Bataille who in turn considered himself a follower of de Sade. These are the influences on his theories of transgression. I find these people including Foucault remind me very much of Aleister Crowley and they seem to have inspired similar cult followings. Luckily most people out grow Crowley by the time they have sense and influence in the world - but Foucault's ideas get to be implemented in real time, in say gender theory or this wave feminism or critical race theory which is really playing out to its inherent idiocy in the US right now.

Given that ''power'' and the wielding of it was so central to his analyses of history for me personally it is undermining of his credentials that he was wielding his own physical power and his status as a visiting honorary person to be raping 8 year old North African children while so preaching.

29-03-2021 01:58PM

For anyone who wants a simple outline of the influence of Foucault in present times Helen Pluckrose made that outline here -

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-enduring-legacy-of-michel-foucault/

Earthhorse · 29-03-2021 02:12PM

Is an idea responsible for the people who believe it or beholden to the people who came up with it? I don't think so. If a surgeon comes up with a brilliant surgical technique do we stop using that technique when we find out he was a pedophile? Of course not.

Some are making the distinction that because these are philosophical or political ideas the source is more important but that holds little water; the idea should be supported or debunked on its merit. Part of that merit should be its practical application in the real world which should by no means be limited to that of its progenitor.

I know little enough about Foucault's life and whether these allegations are true but if they are the time to bring him to justice was when he was alive and the time to bring comfort to his victims was during their lives. There's little enough interest in that it seems though we do appear to be getting marginally better at it.

29-03-2021 02:36PM

Earthhorse wrote: »

Is an idea responsible for the people who believe it or beholden to the people who came up with it? I don't think so. If a surgeon comes up with a brilliant surgical technique do we stop using that technique when we find out he was a pedophile? Of course not.

Some are making the distinction that because these are philosophical or political ideas the source is more important but that holds little water; the idea should be supported or debunked on its merit. Part of that merit should be its practical application in the real world which should by no means be limited to that of its progenitor.

I know little enough about Foucault's life and whether these allegations are true but if they are the time to bring him to justice was when he was alive and the time to bring comfort to his victims was during their lives. There's little enough interest in that it seems though we do appear to be getting marginally better at it.

The brilliant surgeon's technique is an example of an objective truth.

Philosophy is mostly a very long argument people have been having with other people who are a long time dead about the way things are. It is entirely subjective.

I think that people's character's completely imbues and motivates their personal philosophy. Precisely because it is a subjective pursuit.

Foucault raped children and this habit/craving was undoubtedly part of his motivation for analysing history (madness, crime, sexuality, whatever he studied) in a manner that sought to unravel much of the protective foundational elements of society eg he publicly advocated for the age of consent to be abolished.
He was purely motivated by his own desires, derelictions, and depravities to use his undoubtedly formidable intelligence to construct a philosophy that vindicated and facilitated his own predation. I think that his philosophy can be critiqued fully on the basis that it emanated from and was motivated by his own completely amoral character. The idea that the work is not infused by the creator is not tenable to me.
Why he theorised the way he did is not a mystery. It served his ends. That his theories have been so widely embraced by genuine people who are not deviants is a more difficult question. Will people continue to embrace a deviants apologia - probably. Cults are hard to shrug off.

wes · 29-03-2021 03:06PM

The term work was is an AAVE (African American Vernacular English) term, and Foucault is not the intellectual godfather of it ffs:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woke-meaning-origin

Honestly, these "woke" boogie man thread are getting dumber and dumber. It seem we have people just trying to shoe horn the word "woke" into anything and everything for some bizarre reason.

One eyed Jack · 29-03-2021 03:23PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

For anyone who wants a simple outline of the influence of Foucault in present times Helen Pluckrose made that outline here -

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-enduring-legacy-of-michel-foucault/

The author of the article has a point -

If we don’t want Foucault to become another Augustine and direct Western civilization for many years to come, we need to be able to recognise his ideas when we see them and counter them effectively.

It doesn’t matter to me whether or not Foucault becomes another Augustine, I recognise the origins of an idea, and I do think it’s important to be able to counter ideas effectively. Playing the man though, and not the ball, accusing him of being a paedophile with no supporting evidence, that’s not countering his ideas, it’s taking an underhanded pot shot at the person and looks like it’s just more playing dirty identity politics.

I tend to think of it in terms of the preacher preaching against homosexuality, and critics of his ideas instead of arguing against his ideas, out the preacher as a homosexual, and those people opposed to his ideas take a certain glee in his downfall. I won’t call it shadenfraude because it’s more sinister than that and shows them up for the hypocrites they are that they too preach love and tolerance and all the rest of it, but given half the chance they aren’t any different from the people who from their perspective are morally bankrupt.

29-03-2021 03:42PM

One eyed Jack wrote: »

The author of the article has a point -

If we don’t want Foucault to become another Augustine and direct Western civilization for many years to come, we need to be able to recognise his ideas when we see them and counter them effectively.

It doesn’t matter to me whether or not Foucault becomes another Augustine, I recognise the origins of an idea, and I do think it’s important to be able to counter ideas effectively. Playing the man though, and not the ball, accusing him of being a paedophile with no supporting evidence, that’s not countering his ideas, it’s taking an underhanded pot shot at the person and looks like it’s just more playing dirty identity politics.

I tend to think of it in terms of the preacher preaching against homosexuality, and critics of his ideas instead of arguing against his ideas, out the preacher as a homosexual, and those people opposed to his ideas take a certain glee in his downfall. I won’t call it shadenfraude because it’s more sinister than that and shows them up for the hypocrites they are that they too preach love and tolerance and all the rest of it, but given half the chance they aren’t any different from the people who from their perspective are morally bankrupt.

Why are you conflating homosexuality and paedophilia?

29-03-2021 03:47PM

wes wrote: »

The term work was is an AAVE (African American Vernacular English) term, and Foucault is not the intellectual godfather of it ffs:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woke-meaning-origin

Honestly, these "woke" boogie man thread are getting dumber and dumber. It seem we have people just trying to shoe horn the word "woke" into anything and everything for some bizarre reason.

Pop culture, man. Woke is a widely used term now in the lexicon and it is used as a pop culture short hand term in this case so people know the general area referenced . And Foucault is considered a prominent theorist in the field of what is now called wokeness, aka the general area referenced /influenced by his ideas.

Though personally I think woke is used as a cutesie disguise word for often quite sinister things.

One eyed Jack · 29-03-2021 03:52PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why are you conflating homosexuality and paedophilia?

Full marks for interpreting the post as it was intended.

Chips Lovell · 29-03-2021 04:00PM

The culture wars can be so reductive, pervasive, and just tediously predictable. We've long ago reached the point where people's judgement of the crimes or misdeeds of notable figures are governed not so much by the deeds themselves but more by who is doing the accusing and which camp the accused is believed to be associated with. The very people decrying one historical figure will be the same people bemoaning "cancel culture" when it comes to another.

It's almost as if nobody cares about the crimes themselves. They're just grenades to be tossed at the other camp.

Also, I'm assuming "woke" is the latest lingo for "SJW", i.e. derogatory term for "right on" lefty student types that's never actually used by people it purports to describe? If so, I'm not entirely sure Foucault fits into their camp. I've no doubt there's a fair few in that brigade who've cited Foucault on occasion and even pretended to have read him, but there isn't that much crossover, particularly if you consider Foucault's moral relativism and the current vogue for moral absolutism.

Junkyard Tom · 29-03-2021 04:17PM

Is this the latest shite doing the rounds in the reactionary circuit?

29-03-2021 04:29PM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Is this the latest shite doing the rounds in the reactionary circuit?

Awkward, isn't it?

Earthhorse · 29-03-2021 04:50PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Awkward, isn't it?

Unconvincing, more like.

29-03-2021 05:00PM

Earthhorse wrote: »

Unconvincing, more like.

Really? What is unconvincing? That Foucault was a paedophile? Or that his very influential theories are those of a paedophile?

Earthhorse · 29-03-2021 05:02PM

Deleted User wrote: »

That Foucault was a paedophile?

Yes.

Or that his very influential theories are those of a paedophile?

That it matters.

29-03-2021 05:09PM

Earthhorse wrote: »

Yes.

That it matters.

Apparently it was very well known for quite some time. I find it convincing. Especially since he campaigned for abolition of age of consent laws.

In a radio interview in 1978, Michel Foucault argued that children are able to give consent to sexual relations, saying that assuming “that a child is incapable of explaining what happened and was incapable of giving his consent are two abuses that are intolerable, quite unacceptable.

And it matters, because the scholarly world's most cited and famous French paedophile does not sound nearly as wholesome as the world's most cited and famous French philosopher, when one is an aficionado of his school of thought. And yet 'tis true.

James Brown · 29-03-2021 05:12PM

Earthhorse wrote: »

Unconvincing, more like.

Desperate too.

FTA69 · 29-03-2021 05:19PM

Foucault did apparently sign a petition calling for the age of consent to be lowered and stated that children can give consent to sexual relations with adults. Now call me an old fashioned prude, but the idea of grown adults having sex with kids and this being normalised isn’t a good thing at all. A lot of this postmodernist stuff started off about “subverting the dominant narratives around sex and the patriarchy” and ended up in some very strange places in this regard - not just Foucault but other eminent and hugely referred-to people such as Judith Butler.

As I’ve said on other threads in this forum before, this postmodern academic stuff (later expanded upon in American universities) and things like Critical Race Theory and ‘Intersectionality’ have been a massive diversion for the left and those concerned with changing society; bogging us down in cultural w*nk and accentuated division. There’s a reason a lot of this stuff has been entirely co-opted by corporations and political figures invested in the status quo - namely that it presents no challenge to the main material division in society ie who has all the money and power.

29-03-2021 05:25PM

FTA69 wrote: »

Foucault did apparently sign a petition calling for the age of consent to be lowered and stated that children can give consent to sexual relations with adults. Now call me an old fashioned prude, but the idea of grown adults having sex with kids and this being normalised isn’t a good thing at all. A lot of this postmodernist stuff started off about “subverting the dominant narratives around sex and the patriarchy” and ended up in some very strange places in this regard - not just Foucault but other eminent and hugely referred-to people such as Judith Butler.

As I’ve said on other threads in this forum before, this postmodern academic stuff (later expanded upon in American universities) and things like Critical Race Theory and ‘Intersectionality’ have been a massive diversion for the left and those concerned with changing society; bogging us down in cultural w*nk and accentuated division. There’s a reason a lot of this stuff has been entirely co-opted by corporations and political figures invested in the status quo - namely that it presents no challenge to the main material division in society ie who has all the money and power.

Well good to see there are at least 2 others on this site who agree with me

I must also tell Ayaan she is ''desperate''...

https://twitter.com/Ayaan/status/1376544791140331522?s=20

TomTomTim · 29-03-2021 05:28PM

A bare minimum, would be some condemnation, yet there's not one bit of it here from any of the usual suspects. Threads like this certainly don't persuade people against the view that the modern woke/progressive movement is a home for deviants of all stripes.

29-03-2021 05:31PM

Sartre also signed a petition to decriminalise sex with children, and he’s considered second only to Marx for many socialist theorists.

Earthhorse · 29-03-2021 05:32PM

FTA69 wrote: »

Foucault did apparently sign a petition calling for the age of consent to be lowered and stated that children can give consent to sexual relations with adults. Now call me an old fashioned prude, but the idea of grown adults having sex with kids and this being normalised isn’t a good thing at all.

Apparently he didn't sign that petition but did write an open letter which was milder in its argument. Normalising pedophilia is definitely not a good idea but it hasn't been normalised, not by Foucault nor by anyone else.

Foucault - the intellectual godfather of "Woke" was an abuser.

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