Michel Foucault would have had a blast if he ever lived to see Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, etc.

[L.A.P.]

had this idea when I was stoned, who else agrees?

[Os Cangaceiros]

There were certain versions of those people (celebrity doctors) back in Foucault's day, right? Like Dr. Spock?

[campesino]

I think Dr.Spock was an unwilling celebrity, his publisher told him to write about about parenting, and he didn't know too much about parenting, so he wrote that parents should just trust their instinct and relax.

[blake 3:17]

Dr. Spock was more than OK. He was pretty crucial in helping end corporal punishment in Anglo North America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Spock#Claims_that_Spock.27s_books_led_to_ the_Anti_Vietnam_War_movement_and_Permissiveness


I think Dr. Phil is alright. He`s no lefty, but reasonably progressive on a bunch of pragmatic issues. I read Dr. Oz in the paper and he`s sorta OK if flakey.

I`m not sure how Foucault would`ve found them so funny. The general Oprahish & The Secret ideology is a way to embrace a self fulfilling alienation that Foucault wouldn`t have believed in...

[L.A.P.]

it wasn't about finding them funny, Foucault probably would have had a lot of fun with analyzing the discursive formations that make up Dr. Phil's and Dr. Oz's pseudo-science

[Raúl Duke]

I'm not so familiar with these doctors...

But I feel they're a part of the discourse set about from the whole "self-help" scene.
To me, the epitome of self-help discourse is in the book "the secret."

"Will-power alone can accomplish everything"
"be happy all the time, you got the power"
"if things go wrong/not the way you like, it's your fault alone"

It's really stupid, if you look at it, but this discourse is very pervasive in usual society. You mention say you got depressive moods, feel power-less/help-less, etc and the usual response people tend to give you is "oh be happy, change the things you don't like" basically in line with the assumption (which the whole self-help discourse holds) that with will-power alone you can change everything (like external causes/sources don't exist).

PS: That's the usual reply I get for my despairing moods. But other amusing replies have been "don't worry comrade, the revolution is coming and we'll fight together at the barricades" kind of sentiment or, and this one I found hilarious and the person didn't really mean much wrong ill-will towards me, but another response was "stop worrying about it dude, you're a white straight male; you got that white male privilege, I don't see what you got to be worrying about."

[blake 3:17]

it wasn't about finding them funny, Foucault probably would have had a lot of fun with analyzing the discursive formations that make up Dr. Phil's and Dr. Oz's pseudo-science


When did Foucault get so pro-science? He was a liberal for the last ten years of his life. I tend to think he'd probably actually have liked them. He loved American culture, and in some ways this is kind of the best of it.

[Marxaveli]

I like some of Foucault's theories (in particular his writings on language in relation to truth and power), although the vast majority of it isn't that useful for understanding or solving class antagonisms. He is one of the more interesting non-Marxist thinkers to read for sure, along with Rawls.

[L.A.P.]

When did Foucault get so pro-science? He was a liberal for the last ten years of his life. I tend to think he'd probably actually have liked them. He loved American culture, and in some ways this is kind of the best of it.

I think positing the dichotomy that analyzing the discursive formations of a pseudo-science means being vehemently 'pro-science' (don't know what this is supposed to really mean. like the 'scientism' prevalent in analytic philosophy or something?) is in disagreeance with his own work. He writes in The Archaeology of Knowledge responding to the hypothetical question of why he focused on certain disciplines over others-why he preferred studying stuff like psychopathology and political economy-was because they specifically were pseudo-sciences though his methods aren't necessarily meant for just pseudo-science. I don't know about being a liberal with a fetish for American culture, I know he was into the BDSM scene in California, opposed the Eastern Bloc, and sympathised with the Iranian Revolution but I wouldn't say liberal.

[o well this is ok I guess]

I like some of Foucault's theories (in particular his writings on language in relation to truth and power), although the vast majority of it isn't that useful for understanding or solving class antagonisms. He is one of the more interesting non-Marxist thinkers to read for sure, along with Rawls. That's because Foucault wasn't interested in simply class relations. Power relations can exist without class.

[blake 3:17]

There's a good biography of him called The Passion of Michel Foucault which starts with the question of whether Foucault deliberately spread AIDS.

He was very enamored with certain parts of American life -- he loved hamburgers and fries.

And, for the record, he was extremely pro-Israel. While it was disguised by an argument about the Red Army Faction, his falling out with Deleuze and Guattari was essentially on the question of Israel.