Michel Foucault - The Culture of the Self, First Lecture, Part 1 of 7

[TeasingTreshold]

Think, this is a very important lecture to shed a new light on the western tradition of "wisdom" in the sense that it is not so much about 'individuals' having to adapt to ideas, society, economy or religion, etc. but rather that there is a way to learn to "CARE FOR ONESELF" as a basis for any ethical as well as meaningful human living.

This is being presented as an everyday life practice at the heart of all great teachers of the west (Plato, Socrates, Epiktet, Epikur, Seneca, Plutarch etc.)

[grrrantw]

I think Foucault is the greatest at speaking about a subject and, saying it in such a way no one will ever be able to understand it without thinking on their own.

[thepostnihilist]

@grrrantw

well said

[lambovsatan225]

Oh my god. Apoloxias. You're my new Youtube hero.

[johnvile]

@crud4 I'm scratching mine and Ive not even watched it yet. Thats the Power!

[schematalist]

2.34 intro guff ends.

[BechTalent]

Dunno why but I thought it was John Malkowich who introduced him... just from his first sentence ;)

[defensafinancial]

Foucault was brilliant, weird, but brilliant nevertheless. I think his eccentricity stems a great deal from being a French and gay man. He took it to the next level. 

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@defensafinancial Gay people, yes, gay people are weird and French people are also weird.

I attended Foucault classes in Paris and you have no idea of all the gay and frenchy stuffs he did.

A fag. Yep, just another fag.

You can see that he speaks in the most faggy way.

And, of course, too frenchy!

lol

[defensafinancial]

@AnaLimaLuiza

Again his ideas were no comprehensible to idiots.

[dlkarpay]

What is he saying @8:56? It seems important, but he fumbled the microphone or something...

[matcooz]

Metaphysics? How? This is very much grounded in historical realities, and historical truths at play at the times he describes. Further, concerning his analyses of post-industrial revolution matters, Foucault acknowledges the necessity of a marxist interpretation of political economy (Security, Territory, Population, chp. 4 I believe).

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@matcooz Exactly!

[jumpnjza2]

More Foucaultian metaphysical bullshit, a checklist of existential oppressions. Blah blah blah. Go read some Marx, kids.

[TheUndertakerSaysRIP]

@jumpnjza2 blah blah blah... after reading Marx, go murder each other, kids. 

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@jumpnjza2 lol You really don't understand anything. Existential oppression? He was a psychologist but soon gave up and wrote "History of Madness".

Keep reading Marx, only Marx.

It is amazing how Marxism make some people totally alienated.

[histrion00]

Thank you very much for this video

[familliaraver]

I found his book "this is not a pipe" when I was 16 and have spent the rest of my life trying to figure out what the fuck this man is talking about. And I'm a better person for it.

[S2Cents]

@familliaraver Honest question: Could you comment on anyway this search has made you better? Again, I'm sincerely interested in your comment.

[MrShayneOneill]

@familliaraver Deleuze and guatarris "thousand plateus" had that effect on me. I had no idea what the fuck it was talking about, but it fascinated me so much that it launched a long and occasionally mind boggling journey through the wierd and wonderful world of french thinkers trying to piece it together. Its definately helped me understand my role in the world and what I can do to improve it. And the book still bamboozles me 2 decades later.

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@MrShayneOneill Deleuze and Guatarri created a lot of new words to sustain his concepts but once you understand some of them it becomes easy.

And as they touch many issues it is rich for those who are a little patient.

Maybe the Anti-Oedipus is the only one that is not worthy paying too much attention.

:)

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@familliaraver Read Charles Sanders Pierce. "Collected Papers"

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@familliaraver What didn't you understand? Seriously. Do you know Magritte's work? This tiny book is crystal clear.

I can explain it to you if you leave your doubts.

[MPeloquin1]

Thank you for the time and effort to make this material available.

[TheF86Sabre]

@IbnNero idiot, Go suck your dads cock, you know you want to!

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@TheF86Sabre 99% of offenses tells more about the offender than the one who is the object of the gratuity of simple words.

[TheF86Sabre]

@AnaLimaLuiza Sorry, I don't read gibberish.

[chezzaOkay]

I guess he just likes being spoken to as a child

[Hamking1]

This guy talks like a fag, and his shit's all retarded.

[naggers123]

@Hamking1 seriously why the hell did you even watch this?

[Hamking1]

@naggers123 because I have to write a paper on him in my English class! :P

[jwinskowski]

Derrida says explicitly that "to deconstruct does not mean to destroy," so rip apart isn't really the right description. Reveal self-contradictions is more accurate. Illustrating how the philosophical assumptions that a concept or philosophy take for granted are actually questionable might also be a helpful way of understanding it. Also, you're right, Deconstruction as philosophy also tends toward deconstruction. Derrida explains that, and the Derridean tradition focuses on it as well.

[SollicitationisC]

Crimen Sollicitationis

[charvisioku]

Scary looking bastard, that Foucault.

[anteracmacash]

look, it's Voldemort

[carlo88moe]

@anteracmacash except this wanted to give potter aids...

[f1ghtclub2k3]

havent read foculaut yet I have a bunch of books of his however I have read derrida heidegger nietzsche kant hegel husserl etc etc you get the point do you guys think Ill hvae trouble understanding focault?

[sweenith]

@f1ghtclub2k3 Shouldn't have any trouble. From my experience, many continentals obfuscate the meaning of their text & use unnecessarily provocative or ambiguous phrasing to appear profound & original (eg: Badiou, Marion, Chretien, and especially Derrida). Foucault, in contrast, writes clearly, with the aim of being understood by the reader. Not for everyone I suppose: intelligibility is only desirable when one has something to say (which may account for the disparity in their writing-styles).

[carlo88moe]

@sweenith thats certainly the position of those who support the intellectual structures like the university,the position of those academics whom have a vested interest to reproach Derrida bc its he who is their subverter.But my take,call it the deflection of an admirer,is that hes necessarily complex bc his prose is the only type of sprawling&evasive approach that begets those complex messages.Derrida's message isnt amenable to a lucid sentence. but1thing4sure,ud have to be masochist to like him

[sweenith]

@carlo88moe Even Nietzsche (a subverter if there ever was one) said "Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, but whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep: it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water." Now maybe that's true of Derrida, maybe not.

[carlo88moe]

@sweenith oh heres an axiom im starting: anyone who denies derrida is an alternative "no bullshit man" twat, any who defend are bigger twats, haha,

[sweenith]

@carlo88moe Lol yeah, regarding most continental philosophy I suppose I'd be something of a 'no bullshit man'. But on the other extreme, many analytics philosophers (the positivist and physicalist-inclined, in particular) would consider my views as extravagant, perhaps even a bit ontologically promiscuous (as Quine says "It offends the aesthetic sense of us who have a taste for desert landscapes"). I myself don't care much for deserts, nor for ambiguously-deep swamps. Somewhere in between.

[cvvemuri]

@sweenith

Nietzsche also said one writes in order not to be understood. Even "lack of clarity" is not so simple.

Derrida's work isn't anymore or less obscure than that of many other philosophers, be they continental or not. Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche (to an extent), Bergson, Husserl, Heidegger and (gasp) Witggenstein are all notoriously difficult to read.

[Hamking1]

@cvvemuri "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."

— Albert Einstein

[S2Cents]

@Hamking1 I'd like to have an example of Einstein really explaining General Relativity to a six yr old.

[y34r]

@S2Cents lol good one

[cvvemuri]

@Hamking1

I believe S2Cents put it well. it's easy to peddle around pointless assumptions about clarity vs obscurantism to hide the fact that you are clueless on what you're talking about. Maybe you need to get out of high school to figure that out.

[CROCEX]

@cvvemuri dude, could you tell me where does Niezsche said that? I am curious

[sweenith]

@carlo88moe Moreover, if you're right, then any account of Derrida's view which is stated more clearly than Derrida's own words would have to be a misrepresentation, right? Does that mean it's impossible to for anyone to explain what Derrida is saying (without simply quoting him)? Personally I tend to think that if you can say it, you can say it clearly ("wovon mann nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen").

[carlo88moe]

@sweenith hmm, i dont totally discount those dicta, but im not persuaded by them...hm, no i dont think theyd be misrepresentation, i think derrida himself would look kindly of them in the sort of way that he made that dense text accessible to many interpretations, many truths( deconstruction??lol), but if justified by logic and evidence....id think thats the 'summum bonum' so to speak of deconstruction; to be ripped apart and for it to contradict itself.... anyhow, thanks for answering :)

[sweenith]

@carlo88moe Just to clarify, you say the end of deconstruction is to rip apart and reveal self-contradictions: you mean it aims to do this with respect to positions which appeal to logic and evidence, right? (not that it aims to do this to deconstruction itself?) I don't know Derrida's work all that well, but my suspicion is that if he had given a concise, positive statement of what deconstruction is, perhaps it would be subject to the same supposed dismantling that he employs on other views?

[cvvemuri]

@sweenith

Deconstruction is not a method but a concept of what texts do to themselves. And just because a text deconstructs itself or can be deconstructed by others does not render it meaningless or without value. What becomes "apparent" in a deconstruction are the tensions, philosophic traditions and presupposed questions that consciously or unconsciously guide a work or make it possible. This is related to Heidegger's notion of "destruktion" or to Freud's psychoanalysis.

[sweenith]

@cvvemuri Again, you'll have to excuse my lack of familiarity with Derrida's work, but I thought it was his view that there is no meaning of a text - wouldn't that make them semantically meaningless? (not sure what you mean by 'value').

And as for revealing a text's assumptions, its historical orientation, etc, that sounds like the aims of philosophical analysis in general, not just decon. Isn't there more to it than that? I thought it had some serious implications for the decon. texts

[cvvemuri]

@sweenith

No, that is a distortion of Derrida's views on texts and meaning. Perhaps you should pick up some introductory work by people who actually know their shit like Arthur Bradley. Derrida's notion of "deconstruction" is but one aspect of his larger work which is a critical engagement with the phenomenological tradition. Deconstruction is a concept, rather than a method you put into action. It's more about the text's internal paradoxes and how they help generate a text's meaning.

[cvvemuri]

@sweenith

If you want more details, go read more for yourself. Sorry if I sounded rude but I am a little sick of the impact of "pop-deconstruction" on the reading public's perception of Derrida's work. I blame the Yale English dept and their literary approach to Derrida that made him popular in the states in the first place.

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@cvvemuri It seems that in America Derrida and... Chomsky :o) are the "philosophers".

Derrida is being read by some who are not studying philosophy.

[S2Cents]

@AnaLimaLuiza Chomsky is mainly of interest as a genius critic of hypocritical, corrupt U.S. elites and their class war and morally bankrupt behavior ("foreign policy") towards the world.

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@S2Cents Just like Alex Jones. I don't like Alex Jones that much but he says the same Chomsky do and reaches those who are not elite.

Chomsky was good in creating his generative grammar but people forgot it.

Strange.

[S2Cents]

@AnaLimaLuiza he's a step up from alex jones. seriously that isn't a fair comparison

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@S2Cents Totally agree. Surely Chomsky belongs to another group.

The only problem is the way some Americans see him as a genius when he is not.

He did some good alerts in the past but now, and I have checked with serious Americans scholars, he is not doing a god job and sometimes is helping the system.

[S2Cents]

@AnaLimaLuiza I disagree that Chomsky is helping the system even IF the case can be made that his activism and/or his analysis doesn't totally add up in every way

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@S2Cents He is helping US government when he believes in "humanitarian aid" in countries of the north of Africa.

Look for his ideas about what is happening in Libya. He also don't question the official version of the committee that came up to the conclusion that 9/11 was Al-Qaeda.

Two examples.

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@AnaLimaLuiza Denying Libya's invasion, bloodshed, tortures, massacres numerous crimes against humanity that are being committed in Libya is helps what is being done in Syria.

What is happening in Syria, and of course you have to search and not be informed by mainstream media, is the same that happened in Libya.

There we go again!

WW3 is just around the corner.

[thepostnihilist]

@AnaLimaLuiza

And the sheep continue to sleep until war knocks on their door.

[S2Cents]

@AnaLimaLuiza What precisely has he said about Libya? Source? He's always dismissed 'humanitarian aid' as it's called by US gov. as propaganda. 9-11? Well let's just say I think some pissed off Muslims did it so I guess Im part of the conspiracy or just another fooled sheep. But whatever because the government used the tragedy as a way of forwarding its policies domestically and overseas in such a way as to make it look (to some people) like the cynical bastards could be behind it

[Peteromich]

@AnaLimaLuiza I don't think people see him so much as a genius as highly reliable and professional in his journalism.

And Alex Jones isn't even close to Chomsky. Jones stirs up and feeds and peoples fears and modern anxiety. He is more like entertainment than a serious journalist.

[MrShayneOneill]

@AnaLimaLuiza Chomskys value is not so much as a philosopher (outside perhaps of linguistics), but a brilliant journalist of the corruption of big power. Derrida is actually a really interesting dude, with a lot of very clever insights , as long as you can figure out what the fuck he's talking about. The french, alas, are a bit prone to flowery prose.

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@MrShayneOneill Yes, I just don't understand why Chomsky agrees with the official version of what happened and is happening in Libya.

It was all humanitarian aid.

He also believes the final report of 9/11 commission which is not accepted by many thinkers.

What do you mean by "flowery prose"? If you read Charles Sanders Pierce and many other Americans thinkers maybe you'll find them "flowery" too.

The work of a thinker is not the work of a journalist. Derrida is overrated in some countries.

[cvvemuri]

I really am sorry

[cvvemuri]

@sweenith

Furthermore, Derrida himself situates his own work as being within a tradition and not immune to deconstructability, but this would not result in the problems that you seemingly have in mind.

[AnaLimaLuiza]

@f1ghtclub2k3 afer reaing al ths phisopher no way u ha prbl undsing foculaut.

hegel an kant enog fo lifeme.

[MatuHueSoan]

thanks a lot for sharing this incredible, inspirational material... when will there be the second lecture -or is it not on the tape? Are there any written/printed documentations to these late lectures?

cheers so far,

and thanks again,

m.