Writing Earth Every Day

 

Lyotard+Foucault+Derrida and little bit of Guy Debord = All French Theorists

 Yesterday I took an early morning class with Mehjabeen, Adiba, Zawad, and Ramisa. I was unable to record the session but Ramisa kindly did a recording which she will share with me later this week. After this session I separately called Adiba, Zawad, and Ramisa and asked them to submit their thoughts on the French philosophers. Following three submissions are three different ways that the class can be understood. I mainly used Wiki entry but if anyone MORE intensely interested, can access Stanford University Online Philosophy Encyclopedia for FULL texts.

I am uploading Adiba's text today.

Date: 6/10/2021

Thoughts on Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault

By Adiba Alam

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Our class today was mainly based on three white French male philosophers- Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault.

For Lyotard, we primarily focused on his book: The Postmodern Condition. It mainly talks about the loss of faith in metanarratives, mainly that of science and technology. The word ‘metanarrative’ is new to me and I found its meaning quite interesting. It is the interpretation of events, theories, and discoveries in the past that sets up a pattern and can be used to describe the future. So, it is like a grand, coherent story that describes all. It can be religious scriptures or scientific theories like that provided by Darwin or Freud. Postmodernists seek to reject the metanarratives of science which places science on a much loftier position than it should be and question all theories. I realized that we tend to use metanarratives as well for example, when one dismisses other’s beliefs as superstitions, when a feminist regards the patriarchal system to have always only oppressed women or when someone resorts to a certain drug as a cure for an illness without a second thought. On a broader scale, this can be seen by the influence of the West on world values and can be deemed as unjust because local beliefs, methods and procedures are disregarded. Science seeks to proof all faith systems as false, but itself is a faith system. I had not previously viewed science or religion as this universal scheme, but now I see how it is a metanarrative. I agree with the Postmodernist theory that rather than a grand, all-encompassing theory, we should have smaller, more local narratives because all people are different.

Moving on from Lyotard, we discussed Derrida and Deconstruction. This describes the relation between texts and their meaning. His concept was a little bit difficult for me to grasp. Upon researching online, I found that the definition of Deconstruction itself is complicated because it critiques the very language that is used to define it. I think it is to look into sentences and not take them at face value but rather challenge the sentence and its meaning. The question or challenge need not come from outside but rather from within the sentence itself. It is a bit paradoxical. I think one of Derrida’s quotes, "there is no out-of-context,” means exactly that. Every assumption that we make from a sentence, though not obvious at first, can be derived from that single sentence. There is rarely any definite truth in anything. It all depends on our perception.

Finally, we discussed about Foucault. “I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning” -I found this quote to be quite relevant to our lives. I think it aligns with the popular quote, “it’s not about the destination, and it’s about the journey (or rather how the journey can influence the destination).” Lyotard says we must be content without universal truth and Foucault says life has no fixed destination, both are kind of similar in the sense that there are no set rules that govern life. We also discussed Foucault’s book, ‘Birth of the Clinic’, which describes society’s need to create systems in order to contain revolutionary or ‘peculiar’ ideas. That is how power is exerted. This is done through mental clinics, asylums, jails and even schools where people are streamlined according to society’s laws. Schools participate in the oppressive regime that places the knowledgeable on a higher level than others. This is similar to how metanarrative puts science on a pedestal. Sir’s example of the recent protest in Dhaka and its ineffectiveness at minimizing crime in the long-run holds true and something that I have thought about previously. Punishing the offender is definitely important, but so is questioning the system that created that offender. People are hesitant to do so because it will mean changing a system that has been functioning for a long time. Yet, should we ignore transforming a system for the better just because of our reluctance to restructure?

Overall, I thought that all philosophers have very pessimistic views of the current society. Lyotard questions the pervasive and dominating nature of science, Derrida asks about the need to challenge meaning and Foucault makes one wonder about the effectiveness of the systems in place. I have been pondering over a lot of questions since our class today. Is society beyond repair at this point? Is it kind of like the climate crisis, where we have already crossed a threshold temperature and now only drastic action can save us? If we were to start implementing philosophies like those discussed today amidst our smaller circles, will it eventually be enough to make a larger social impact? If truth is fragmented and subjective and as we are delving farther away (much like entropy), is it possible to ever return to the absolute truth of something? While, I don’t know the answer to these questions, I realize that having such contrasting ideas, presenting challenges and asking questions is how we can improve ourselves and eventually move forward.

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Above review has been prepared based on the following Notes during the 6/10/21 Class 

·       French speaking white male philosophers (some privileged, some disadvantaged)

·       Lyotard

o   Observation of modern society

o   Lost our faith in the metanarrative

o   Metanarrative

Ø  In the 19^th century, people had faith in science and technology to fix everything

Ø  Religious scriptures give information about past, present and future (apocalypse, judgement day and the happiness achieved after)

Ø  These are metanarratives

o   Science and tech also created metanarratives: Darwin, Freud, Karl Marx

o   Postmodern people and views from the west influence others unjustly

o   Challenges moral, psychological and philosophical views of people

o   Metanarrative is unjust

o   Science is destroying cultures: religious faith system is defective; one is hurting other to help themselves.

o   “There is no single sentence on Earth that is not true.” -paradox

o   Science says all metanarratives or faith systems are false, but itself is one

o   Truth has become fragmented

·       Derrida

o   Deconstruct thoughts, beliefs, sentences only to find they have either no meaning or lots of meaning

o   Darwin’s theory challenged religious scriptures; Freud said man was not always rational (Freudian slip); Karl Marx challenged the belief that people were changing from barbarians to modern civilized society.

o   Bertrand Russell, analytical philosophy

o   Truth is fragmented and subjective

·       Modern Philosophy began in the 17^th century

o   Renee Descartes- Mind and Body Dualism

o   Is the kidney a part of mind or body? Is it external or internal? It is part of body.

·       Foucalt

o   I don’t feel it is necessary to know who I am

o   Where there is power, there is resistance

o   Science has led people to feel superior/inferior

o   Book: Birth of the clinic

Ø  Clinics are created to control opposition in society

Ø  Mental clinics, psychiatric asylums, jails, schools, church

Ø  All revolutionary ideas will be suppressed so that one is streamlined

o   Medical Anthropology: medicine makes an impact on human mind

o   Books: Madness of civilization, Birth of clinic, Discipline and Punishment

o   We punish offender but bigger question is how did the offender come about? What circumstances led them to commit such an act?

Ø  Questioning this will result in questioning the entire system.

Ø  Prisons and schools are used to correct such systems to an extent

Ø  School participates in the suppressive regime that knowledge works in the apex of power

·       So, what is right?

o   Universal systems are wrong

o   All men are different

o   Trigger clock inside a human

o   If one doesn’t like a certain community, they should come out of it and form one of their own

o   We change community as we grow up and build our own families

o   It is true that tech has democratized the knowledge system

o   We are at the threshold of a volatile time

o   All scientific inquiries, thoughts, work are connected to philosophical model