{"id":29402,"date":"2026-07-10T08:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T07:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=29402"},"modified":"2026-07-10T08:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T07:42:15","slug":"philosophy-foucault-chomsky-1971","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=29402","title":{"rendered":"PHiLOSOPHY: Foucault & Chomsky, 1971"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I just watched a short and very interesting video of a discussion between Foucault and Chomsky<\/a>, apparently from 1971, presumably somewhere in France. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a former student of Art & Art History at Goldsmiths College, during the early 1990s, I was subjected to a veritable barrage of what might simplistically be called Postmodern propaganda: Foucault, Barthes, Derrida, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My exposure to Chomsky ever so slightly predated all this, via a documentary called Manufacturing Consent<\/em>. I loved that film so much that when at university I blagged an interview with Chomsky, for a putative \u2018zine, or magazine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching this now, many years later, I\u2019m struck – as I was at the time, albeit perhaps with a little more clarity (if less energy) now – by a polarity. Chomsky is simpler, clearer, and more positive, than Foucault. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chomsky\u2019s essential MO is active and engaged. He mentions civil disobedience and its risks. Foucault, by contrast, is slightly more florid, verbose, and entirely negative. His is a position of critique and destruction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time I was exposed to what I\u2019m going to call, rather monolithically, postmodern discourse (eugh\u2026 involuntary shudder just using the verbiage!), I found it disturbing and destructive. Yes, there were\/are important insights – Barthes essays were amongst the pithiest – but it seemed to lead into an academic navel-gazing echo-chamber. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chomsky\u2019s entire approach, in striking contrast – whilst undoubtedly having a foot firmly planted in academia – is far more future-building oriented, and active out there in the real (non university) world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just watched a short and very interesting video of a discussion between Foucault and Chomsky, apparently from 1971, presumably somewhere in France. As a former student of Art & Art History at Goldsmiths College, during the early 1990s, I was subjected to a veritable barrage of what might simplistically be called Postmodern propaganda: Foucault, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “PHiLOSOPHY: Foucault & Chomsky, 1971”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-7Ee","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29402"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}