4.25

Como siempre, leer a Foucault es un placer
Tratar de hacer una reseña de un libro de esta magnitud, es algo que me queda grande, así que no voy ni a gastarme en tratar. Puedo decir que, para alguien que le interese saber como es que se originó la forma de ver el mundo actual, siendo la sexualidad parte clave para poder comprender las relaciones de poder, esto es algo imprescindible.

La fin d’une longue saga de lecture commencée il y a 5 ans avec le volume I. Le plus lisible de la série ou alors je me suis aguerri en affrontant la prose et l’érudition de Foucault. L’analyse s’arrête à l’émergence de la morale chrétienne et on voit bien les emprunts qu’elle fera à la philosophie classique grecque et romaine, et la divergence radicale qu’elle adoptera en considérant le plaisir sexuel comme le mal et ne l’excusera, sans jamais en faire une vertu, que dans le cadre matrimonial et de la reproduction. Jusqu’à devenir en ce début du 21ème siècle, un ensemble de règles obsolètes dans un monde occidental où la morale individuelle, plus libre dans ses formes mais souvent non exempte d’ambitions vertueuses, a pris le pas sur la morale institutionnelle de l’Église imposée pendant 2000 ans…

Oh Foucault, you make me so fervently wary. Like delayed orgasms, I want to stop but I also want to go on, reach that peak and think 'crap, it could've been better. Oh well, next time.' My creative juices are drained right now, but I know this is the best time to talk about Foucault or talk to Foucault, had he been alive and accessible outside the celebrity pedestal that France placed its intellectuals on. You need, no, I need my mind to be sufficiently clouded if I am to benefit from my experience of reading these volumes on sexuality even though the books are very academic in nature and Foucault probably peered into ancient texts with the dexterity of a squirrel that accidentally ate a psychedelic mushroom and has been frantically looking for a special nut ever since. Like that squirrel from the ice age series, you know. I'm fairly certain it was perpetually high. Maybe all squirrels are. How are they so energetic all the time, everywhere?

This volume is just Foucault dissecting a lot of texts on sexual health and practices, love of women and love of boys (ahem, no women's love for girls unfortunately) written by dudes (probably why there is next to nothing on lesbianism, damn those ancient patriarchs) who ceased to exist long before Foucault himself came into this world and so are of little relevance to me now. It was also the most boring of the first three books, but I appreciate the number of hours Foucault must have spent on researching and writing this. He was nothing if not a chronic nerd.

يتحدث فوكو عن مبدأ الانهمام بالذات كممارسة عقلانية تجاه الذات والمجتمع والسلطة السياسية، كطريقة للعيش بتجاوب مع العالم وفي نفس الوقت لخلق حياة ناشطة منظمة.

تمت الرحلة..الحمدلله على السلامة و الإياب..ودّعنا فوكو القلِق،المتوتر،الوسواسي،العرِق.ولذلك تخليت عن أجندة البدايات التي أبرمتها في جزء إرادة العرفان "الأول" ثم صرت أحتفي وأحتفل بأي شيء من عادات اليونان وأحاديثهم ونقاشاتهم في البيت و التغذية و الطب و الزواج ومواضيعه -وهو المتن هنا- متخليا عن توجيهات فوكو وتأطيراته.. إلا وإلا..
__متعة هذا الجزء بالنسبة لي كانت في مجالس غالينوس و أرتيمدر العابر و ريفوس و أريتي...ولأبكتيتوس و الرواقية حظ ولكن على مهل...الطبعة و الترجمة حوت أخطاءا كثيرة زهدتني في كثير من أهدافي من قراءة السلسلة ولولا سرد فوكو العجيب لأيام اليونان و الرومان لانقطعت عن الوصول.

_
أحسب أنه من العسير ترجمة فوكو،إلى الأبد. الموسوس هو وبتلر.

The Care of the Self is the penultimate volume of The History of Sexuality; the last published during Foucault's lifetime. The series underwent multiple revisions, both in structure and in subject matter. At some point, the Frenchman had plans for a total of six installments. As his life, owing to a libertine lifestyle, was cut short, we only got four (including the last, posthumous one). A real shame; but it nonetheless makes me appreciate what managed to see the light of day even more.

The Care of the Self progresses from the previous volume in a chronological manner, towards Greece of the Hellenistic era and towards Rome in its Imperial days. According to some rather harsh assessments, this passage of time meant deterioration of moral and societal standards. On the contrary, the discourse on sexuality and love became more refined, even though it started shifting towards the neuroticism of Judeo-Christian morality.

And yet, as Foucault deliberates on the pages of the Care of the Self, it would be wrong to posit an unbreakable bond and some form of continuity between ancient and Christian philosophies of the body. Certain elements overlap: a growing importance of conjugal bonds, precepts advising moderation, virginity and fidelity as virtues. It all paints a picture that is increasingly different from what we usually think about the cradles of the Western world, with their licentiousness and depravity alleviated only thanks to the expansive influence of a certain Jewish sect.

And yet the two are not equal. Christianity labelled sexuality as evil, it attributed the inherent sinfulness of the human being to the Fall, it tried to codify sexual conduct through progressively stricter lawmaking. The ancient philosophers and writers didn't operate by using the same categories. Yes, chastity was healthy, but so was being abstemious in culinary matters. Excess related to any bodily function was harmful, but desire was a force of nature and could not be evil in itself.

This is not to say that Christian ideas about morality and sex appeared in a vacuum. Both the Greeks and the Romans can be blamed for inspiring many inhumane rules interpreted through the lens of a prejudiced, theological framework. What would Christianity be without Platonism? How would it, how could it develop without Thomas Aquinas finding inspiration in Aristotle? As far as sexual matters are concerned, Foucault points out a blatant case of Clement of Alexandria plagiarizing certain ideas from the stoic Musonius. But there is no continuity, as the paradigm shift from the world of petty, ancient deities towards an omniscient, omnipotent, monotheistic riddle was just too big.

And yet, all these sages from the days of yore seem to have been onto something. Unlike the organized religions, the ancient philosophers only wanted to construct and disseminate good advice. Some of it did not stand the test of time, and some of it is as accurate as it was two thousand years ago. None of it was a question of religious servitude, though. In his perhaps most approachable volume of THoS, Foucault ensures that we remember the distinction.

Amen na kubik.

Good thesis but too academic for a layperson looking for an interesting read

Very interesting

Really thought provoking and highly original examination of a very important topic. I like the detailed and deep reading of the classics. The conclusions throw light on present day values and are well balanced.

Foucault is, actually, surprisingly neutral given his position on the direction the dominant morality of his time took towards sexuality. This is an incredibly rich, truly interdisciplinary work - which becomes all the more clear, the further one progresses along the volumes. Although I might very well need a break from ‘The History of Sexuality’, I am definitely looking forward to reading (and, admittedly, buying) the fourth and final volume. I am keen to read how Foucault rounds this project off in ‘Confessions of the Flesh’, all the more so because it is about double the size of the average amount of pages for the first three volumes. If about half of that work consists of the address of a topic as all the former three have done (which will likely be the long-awaited topic of the approach to sexuality as held in christianity, and (philosophical) ground thereof), that would mean the other half would likely be spent on a synergy of all four parts. To me, that sounds like an absolute treat.

Truly exhilarating to come to realise not only the extent to which sexuality (in)forms our outward identity, but even more so the extent to which sexuality can be seen as a practice of the inner self. This way, it stresses how identity really is not much more than the outer layer of our personality, the layer of veneer that is shown and shaped in interaction with others, of which we can wonder if it is even connected to the self at all, and not rather a mask of sorts. It opens possibilities to distinguish the discrepancies between self and identity that are so prevalent in humanity, especially in our current societal blueprints. Additionally, note how this opens the way to various other incarnations of 'The History of...' - if this goes for sexuality, why not for the discussed dietetics (understood as that which we consume as to best suit our individual bodies)? Or of friendship? Or affectionality, intellectuality, sensuality?

If there is one thing to take away from these series, it is that none of us are exactly the same, although we might have been wrought from the same matter.

Before I start, I'd like to warn you that there's a NSFW link in this review: it's the one about Sappho.

Foucault analyzes the importance of self discipline when it comes to sexual relationships and marriage, the normalization of heterosexuality through marriage and the condemnation of homosexuality by greek and by some roman thinkers, argues that a lot of it, though it influenced Christianity is not quite at the same level of banning homosexuality and masturbation. He analyzes the medical and philosophical point views and quotes authors, but bases his views on a fundamentally incorrect reading of Church Fathers, to argue that married couples out not to get any kind of pleasure out of sexual acts, which is not what they meant at all. I wonder how interested would Foucault be in Theology of the Body, considering it didn't exist at his time, but probably not much. Or probably a lot... just to trash talk it because it's presented in a friendly way but it's "more repressive stuff from the Church".

I disagree with Foucault, and maybe because of an Augustinian-Renaissance approach, I believe a lot of the common sense of stoics and other virtuous pagan philosophers may have paved the way for Christianity. As a Catholic, of course I believe that Jesus' coming is the fulfilling of Revelation, but I think that, like Celts and Native Americans had mythologies which made it easier for them to accept the new religion, so happened with greeks and romans, so much of their thought had common points with Christians, that Christians learned to appreciate such things and used it in their favor, much like Celtic legends suffered.

Also, he seems disillusioned with the abandonement of the practice of pederasty, which makes it all more repulsive (it's not my job to judge homosexuality, but seriously? Old men chasing teens? No matter your views on homosexuality, that is a justification of pedophilia, so I'll pass). The interesting aspect of this book is that he recognizes that this self-discipline could be also applied in the education of a politician, and that is indeed useful.

It also helped me to understand stoics a bit better. So, as a closer, it's less preachy than the first volume, and less blatantly pro-male homosexuality than the second volume, but still kind of gross, because he gets on the justificactions for homosexuality, and one of them is that "women wear makeup to hide their ugliness, so basically women are liars". I'm not new to this argument, and I know it's not like he invented it, he's after all, just quoting Greek pagan people. But, just because men didn't bother to understand women back then, it didn't meant that we were uninteresting, and liars while at that.

I have survived 17 years with no makeup. I see how it could be necessary for a woman who seeks to hide a disease of the skin, or the mark of an accident, be it scar from burning, scratching, etc. I still like wearing it, I have been doing it for 6 years now, and I don't think a woman could fool a man just because she has an unnatural color in her hair for her age or genetics, extremely red lips, weirdly colored eyelids, prominent eyelashes and perfectly rosy cheeks, among with weirdly colored nails. It's just an emulation, and sometimes exaggeration of traits men like in women: youth and beauty. Basically, the greeks' argument was that women are shallow.

I don't see how Foucault is this "inclusive defensor of minorities, especially queers", if women are often looked with disdain and left out of his dissertations, the marginal allusions to lesbianism (though, I think I should say female same sex-attraction: lesbian is a political term and based loosely on opinions about Sappho), because greeks looked down on it, or at least Plato and a bunch of greek ancient doctors did, is inexcusable.

Sappho and all the myths surrounding her, would be interesting for a start, but I guess that by getting into radical feminist theory, I could get an idea of that. And radical feminists do hate his look on male homosexuality as much as I do, though for different reasons.

I agree with the idea that "hetero" and "homosexual" naming of human sexual and romantic relationships is unfortunate. For different reasons, rather than the fact that greeks did not make a distinction for it. The problem is that it allows people to tag others according to sexual "preference" or "orientation", and define them by such. I believe the use of expressions such as same-sex attraction is less aggressive. And even people who have opposite sex attraction can experience same-sex attraction. You don't get to define them by "orientations", but recognize the fact that they feel attracted (whether romantically or sexually, but those distinctions concern gender theorists more, I guess... though sexual attraction without a romantic attraction would be no less than a desire for prostitution in my opinion). You could also feel an attraction you don't want to feel, much like intrusive thoughts, so I'm also opposed to the terms "preference" and "orientation".

As always, I don't agree with Foucault, but it has been thought provoking. Not his best, though.