You tell 'em, Foucault!

[akashiver]

"In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates."

Huh. Huh? Huh.

I'm not quite sure what "espionage takes the place of adventure" means. I suppose it's part of the whole escapist tendancy of heterotopias. Anyway, I kind of want to use this quote in relation to Mieville's The Scar. It seems like it owuld be productive.

Comments

i will again point out that Foucault resembles Christopher Lloyd from the <i>Addams Family</i> films

[petrovnik.livejournal.com]

but here is my two cents:

...you will understand why the boat has not only been for our civilization, from the sixteenth century until the present, the great instrument of economic development (I have not been speaking of that today), but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates.

from what little of the essay i have skimmed, it seems to me Foucault is stressing the important psychological role that these outside spaces play for a society. it reflects some of Frederick Jackson Turner's argument about the impact of the frontier on U.S. history. frontiers (or heterotopias) provide a partially imagined, partially real free space where a society may project imagination, ambition, and creativity that would not be possible in the confines of existing borders. while this approach is clearly escapist, there is also a productive element at work. the specific section you pull out argues that, in the absence of these heterotopic spaces (ships apparently being Foucault's quintessential example), societies would necessarily be forced to turn inward. thus, a sense of adventure is not projected out into an exotic, distant world (predominantly imagined, of course), but turned inward, with harmful/stifling effects.

then again, i don't exactly adore Foucault (and haven't read the whole thing), so i could be off base.

Re: i will again point out that Foucault resembles Christopher Lloyd from the <i>Addams Family</i> f

[akashiver.livejournal.com]

No, I think you're right. That was more-or-less how I'd decided to interpret that particular passage. I hadn't thought about connecting it to Turner, though.

Re: i will again point out that Foucault resembles Christopher Lloyd from the <i>Addams Family</i> f

[petrovnik.livejournal.com]

as historians, we are trained to flee from theory, or curl up in a tight ball in the corner.

or in this case, make it about something other than Foucault as quickly as possible :)

Re: i will again point out that Foucault resembles Christopher Lloyd from the <i>Addams Family</i> f

[lyceum-arabica.livejournal.com]

I'd add something personally... the tone of espionage and police is pretty negative... I'd guess that the purpose of the heterotopic area isn't just as an outlet for "creativity" but also agression, suspicion, scapegoats. As long as our soldiers are hunting pirates, they're not bored and looking for people to hunt at home. As long as our diplomats and gallants are concerned with foriegn relations, they're not as occupied by political scheming at home. Same theory with sending Europe's Medeival standing armies down to fight in the crusades to keep them from causing trouble at home.


(disclaimer: I'm just a computer science grad student ;-)... )