A few years ago a classmate of mine wrote an email to Chomsky about a philosophy debate he had with Foucault. To his surprise, Chomsky wrote a detailed reply, which was shared with the class.

So you agree he's as batsh** crazy as a guy who pooped on a police car. WE AGREE ON SOMETHING!

>> ^quantumushroom:

Is he less sane than the occupooper who pooped on a cop car?
>> ^Kofi:
At least I know now that this guy is truly insane rather than just a political agitator.
Foucault would have a field day with this guy.

Is he less sane than the occupooper who pooped on a cop car?

>> ^Kofi:

At least I know now that this guy is truly insane rather than just a political agitator.
Foucault would have a field day with this guy.

At least I know now that this guy is truly insane rather than just a political agitator.

Foucault would have a field day with this guy.

>> ^enoch:

>> ^Enzoblue:
Everyone whose ever been tempted by conspiracy theories should read Foucault's Pendulum. It's mandatory reading. Changed me from a potential sheep to an amused observer. Man's a genius.

this is the first time i have heard of this man.
maybe he brings insight to such things as exposing humanities penchant for buying into conspiracy theories but i have to say i wholeheartedly disagree with his take on love,the power of love and passionate creative force it can be in regards to life.
what he is speaking of concerning "love",is ego-love,which is a want/desire and is a purely selfish animal and has the tendency to slip in to hatred quite easily.
of course i am basing my opinion solely on this interview which is not really fair at all.
i am surprised i never heard of him considering i am quite fascinated with symbology.
methinks this man deserves a bit of investigating.


The book doesn't really expose the penchant for buying into conspiracy theories, it delves deep into the penchant for creating them and techniques involved, (and when I say deep, I mean deep). As far as ego-love, I struggle with this myself and, (if intellectually honest), can't really place my finger on any love that isn't ego-love.

Edit: Egads wait, lemme rephrase. I guess love of nature doesn't apply.... Nor does love of siblings/children. In personal relationships, (the kind that make me sick to my stomach in love), I'm crazy possessive though. I guess I need to work on this.

If you are fascinated with semiotics/symbology I would really recommend his book The Name of the Rose. It's an amazing read.>> ^enoch:

>> ^Enzoblue:
Everyone whose ever been tempted by conspiracy theories should read Foucault's Pendulum. It's mandatory reading. Changed me from a potential sheep to an amused observer. Man's a genius.

this is the first time i have heard of this man.
maybe he brings insight to such things as exposing humanities penchant for buying into conspiracy theories but i have to say i wholeheartedly disagree with his take on love,the power of love and passionate creative force it can be in regards to life.
what he is speaking of concerning "love",is ego-love,which is a want/desire and is a purely selfish animal and has the tendency to slip in to hatred quite easily.
of course i am basing my opinion solely on this interview which is not really fair at all.
i am surprised i never heard of him considering i am quite fascinated with symbology.
methinks this man deserves a bit of investigating.

>> ^Enzoblue:

Everyone whose ever been tempted by conspiracy theories should read Foucault's Pendulum. It's mandatory reading. Changed me from a potential sheep to an amused observer. Man's a genius.


this is the first time i have heard of this man.
maybe he brings insight to such things as exposing humanities penchant for buying into conspiracy theories but i have to say i wholeheartedly disagree with his take on love,the power of love and passionate creative force it can be in regards to life.
what he is speaking of concerning "love",is ego-love,which is a want/desire and is a purely selfish animal and has the tendency to slip in to hatred quite easily.
of course i am basing my opinion solely on this interview which is not really fair at all.
i am surprised i never heard of him considering i am quite fascinated with symbology.
methinks this man deserves a bit of investigating.

Everyone whose ever been tempted by conspiracy theories should read Foucault's Pendulum. It's mandatory reading. Changed me from a potential sheep to an amused observer. Man's a genius.

No, not like Spiral Dynamics.

More like Sartre or Foucault, oriented towards a psychology of science.

"Phenomenology of Perception"
or
"Structure of Behavior"
are good places to start, although the latter is quite dense.

Also, "Sense and Nonsense" is worth reading for those interested in a thoughtful conceptualization of the arts, ideas, and politics.

>> ^enoch:

In reply to this comment by Trancecoach:
This has been part of the psychological literature since the early days of psychology (late 1800s), but did not capture the mainstream attention in the ways that psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and experimental psychology has seemed to.
For anyone interested in the culminating work of the scientific investigation of these kinds of phenomena should check out Maurice Merleu-Ponty's work, especially the Structure of Behavior (circa early 1940s).
>> ^enoch:
this is a great talk but i find it interesting how western psychology is just now beginning to address this in a substantive way because this is NOT a new concept or philosophy.
WTG psychologists!!! 3000 yrs later and just NOW you are starting to get it!
woohoo!

awesome.gonna check out ponty's work.
would it be along the same line as spiral dynamics?

I hear ya, NR. But I recently commented on a Carlin video, and this generally gets to my problem with Carlin, though I do like him. I feel that Carlin often falls victim to a bleak outlook that tends to incapacitate any conversation about HOW WE ARE TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST TYRANNY.

Let's take a little recent example. As it stands, there is no such thing in this society as the RIGHT to healthcare. And yet, part of what the Obama administration is trying to do is give us that right. Can you not
imagine an America without that right?

I get what Carlin and you are saying. It reminds me of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who talks about the reality of internment camps in the same way. His thinking goes somethign like this (in "homo sacer"): if a state can issue a 'state of emergency' at any one time, then we never have any REAL rights, since they are always subject to being stripped from us. And Agamben (and Foucault) were saying this WELL before Carlin was.

BUT... the problem with this thinking, in my opinion, is that it can tend to a kind of quietist attitude: a way of FORGETTING the more LOCAL struggles that, in fact, DO have solutions. Just because rights are historically TEMPORARY, one might argue, does not make them any more important to seek out.

Anyway, that is my thinking on this (for the moment). interested to hear what you think.

>> ^NordlichReiter:

griefer_queafer, I've been around the sift for a long time, I would have remembered a video like this. Just read my comment history you may find that at one point I was prone to believing outlandish conspiracies.
But the one in this video I can believe.
My question is this, if the Government uses force to get what they want (police, military, etc) how are the people to effectively air their grievances? Oh wait, who is that I hear? Carlin? What did you say?

Ha! I started reading the novel of the same name last week. "Foucault's Pendulum" from Umberto Eco. Fantastic book by a master writer.

>> ^doogle:
I can see how this would work if the pendulum was on the north or south poles, but instead if anywhere else, why would it shift around?

It's true that it would not shift around if it were situated on the equator, but this is not an either/or question. At any latitude in between, it will still shift around, but it will take a longer time to complete a rotation than if it were situated on one of the poles. There is actually a quite simple equation describing how fast it will rotate at a latitude φ:

α = 360° sin(φ)

where α is the angular velocity measured in degrees per day. If you want some in-depth mathematical analysis, check the Wikipedia article. It has some highly illuminating animations as well.

Raargh, Foucault.. my nemesis.

Find out what bin Laden was doing in Sarajevo?

A tough crossword puzzle.
Reading Foucault's Madness and Civilization.
Getting a shave at the local barbershop.
Eating a ham sandwich.
Destroying the infidels.
Researching for his next role in the film, "The Bush Doctrine 2: Rise of the Palinators."

Hey Johnny! Thanks for your comments, and not least for saving Montaigne from the discard bin (it's published now). I went back to fix the Chomsky/Foucault video you flagged, but somebody had already fixed it, but now with an even shorter version! Oh well...




In reply to this comment by jonny:
btw - thanks for the de Botton posts. I loved that series, but didn't get to see them all until you put them up here. Montaigne was awesome.