Unresisted paleonymy turns radical critique into liberal infrastructure management
Evidence
Why should the burden of paleonymy be resisted? Because if not, the enthusiasm of the Foucauldian can come to resemble the flip side of a concern for “our social infrastructure” in the interest of “quality of life, peace of mind, and the economic future.” This of course is precisely the element of Foucault that a Rorty would admire. And the resemblance emerges when Hoy, after emphasizing the important point that power in Foucault is productive as well as repressive, then divides the necessary results into thoroughly valorized “positive” and “negative” effects. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1182
Categorization
- XREF: The warning that a concept kept under its old name risks becoming the flip side of liberal reform is the same collapse the reader fears for strategic essentialism sliding into genuine essentialism. — connects to: Historical knowledge gets co-opted for administrative manipulation; Progressives must build long-term discursive infrastructure instead of reacting — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1697; Failed pragmatic sprawl fixes drove advocates toward radical property critique — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 574