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

[ninja-turbo.livejournal.com]

That quote, without context, does sound very interesting to apply to the governments/societies of Armada and New Crobuzon.

As for the 'espionage>adventure' thing, I might guess that there might be a location and movement angle, with adventure being something that happens 'out there' and espionage is something that happens 'here' perhaps? It might also be an overt/covert dichotymy, with adventure being something that happens in public, and espionage is a 'behind closed doors' kind of deal.

From what text does this quote come? I can always use more books to add to my stupidly large queue of academitexts to read.

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.