Foucault's Eurocentrism

Arne Raeithel (raeithel who-is-at informatik.uni-hamburg.de)
Wed, 24 Apr 1996 08:44:34 +0200

At 23:56 23.4.1996, Jay Lemke wrote:
>... schools ..., along with prisons,
>armies, factory floors, madhouses, hospitals, church pews,
>and the other institutions that European society developed
>in about the same period and presumably from the basis of the
>same fundamental model of how the few could control the many?

Oh, Jay, you still go about that business of Euro-Bashing, it seems.
As if these institutions weren't developed elsewhere and elsewhen.
Schools, armies, manufacture shops, temples, places for the mad
all unknown before 1400 in Asia, America, Africa ?? How about
looking into Chinese history for exquisite bureaucratic cruelty ??

=46oucault's view seems to me just another variant of the euro-centered
foundation myths. A sinister (yet important, to be sure) variant of
the myth of Greek philosophic democracy so dear to the Germans=20
of the early and middle last century... They also nearly totally
forgot the Asian philosophies, e.g. Taoism, and the anarchistic
principles embodied in some of its variants...

=46oucaults research and thesis sure was necessary to dispell all=20
other euro-centered myths about states and institutions doing it=20
all for the common welfare and wealth. It remains important to
look at the history of violence, repression, self-control,
Sorge um sich, etc.

Those who read German could also look at Mario Erdheim's "Die
gesellschaftliche Produktion von Unbewusstheit. Eine Einf=FChrung
in den ethnopsychoanalytischen Prozess". Other author's of the
Zurich School of Ethnopsychoanalysis are Paul Parin and Maja Nadig.
And of course there is George D=E9v=E9reux...

Maybe someone out there knows of English sources of this stuff?=20

Arne.