Foucault's distinctly french and distinctly intellectual. The two are definitely touching the same elephant, and if you like Foucault you'll probably find something in Illich, but Illich appeals to a less intellectual and more American (religious?) audience that would turned off by -- or simply never get past the first page of -- Foucault.
Religious fundamentalist homeschoolers will read Illich and get something out of it, but would probably not have the patience/reading comprehension level to engage with Foucault. Or, if they did, would burn it.
So, both have their place.
That said, I wish Foucault had provided a more thorough treatment of schooling, though. I think his reaction to schooling was something like "yeah that's so transparently a factory floor look-alike and so transparently training compliant factory workers that I'm not even sure it's worth saying much else".
"intellectual" sounding but certainly not actually "intellectual".
Foucault's explanation for why leprosy disappeared from Europe is pure psudoscience, along with the entirety of psychoanalysis (which he accepted at least partially). I don't like scholars who take the likes of Lacan as being serious instead of charlatans
Foucault had some good ideas in works like Discipline and Punish or A history of Sexuality but filtering between the noise and signal is extremely tough with him...
Totally, and French intellectuals don't usually go over well with the average reader of HN. But, if anyone finds the discussion in this comment section resonates strongly with them, just reading about Foucault's ideas would be a good place to start. Why limit ourselves to school. :) This is fertile ground for thought and I'm glad to see discussion here.
> I wish Foucault had provided a more thorough treatment of schooling, though
Agreed. I think most schools were just broadly more authoritarian when he was writing. There's certainly more room to discuss the ways in which schooling has changed as we've shifted from the factory to service and knowledge economies.
throwawaygh|5 years ago
Religious fundamentalist homeschoolers will read Illich and get something out of it, but would probably not have the patience/reading comprehension level to engage with Foucault. Or, if they did, would burn it.
So, both have their place.
That said, I wish Foucault had provided a more thorough treatment of schooling, though. I think his reaction to schooling was something like "yeah that's so transparently a factory floor look-alike and so transparently training compliant factory workers that I'm not even sure it's worth saying much else".
Der_Einzige|5 years ago
Foucault's explanation for why leprosy disappeared from Europe is pure psudoscience, along with the entirety of psychoanalysis (which he accepted at least partially). I don't like scholars who take the likes of Lacan as being serious instead of charlatans
Foucault had some good ideas in works like Discipline and Punish or A history of Sexuality but filtering between the noise and signal is extremely tough with him...
deleuze|5 years ago
> I wish Foucault had provided a more thorough treatment of schooling, though
Agreed. I think most schools were just broadly more authoritarian when he was writing. There's certainly more room to discuss the ways in which schooling has changed as we've shifted from the factory to service and knowledge economies.