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Original poster

Tavistock staff and Foucault

112 replies

MNadactyl · 05/03/2022 21:30

In the Telegraph. A whistleblower is also quoted:

“The identity politics that is colonising our public services is only causing further division and distrust which I cannot condone.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/05/nhs-child-gender-clinic-forced-u-turn-bombardment-wokery/

"Another series of emails last year saw the Tavistock’s LGBTQI+ staff network write a glowing profile of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, whose theories have underpinned woke ideologies but who posthumously faced allegations he abused boys in Tunisia in the 1960s.
Appearing to dismiss these claims, the Tavistock staff email said: “After his death, Foucault’s life and work were subject to a series of salacious attacks that focused on his sexual preferences."
Queer theory
The group also encouraged Tavistock staff to embrace “queer theory”, including studying identities “in which gender does not follow from sex and those in which the practices of desire do not ‘follow’ from either sex or gender”, as well as “anti-porn politics” and “butch-femme erotics”.
Another profile by the staff group cited the queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s view that "‘many people have their richest mental/emotional involvement with sexual acts that they don't do, or even don't want to do”."

OP posts:
sacredfeminina · 06/03/2022 12:10

I think the bellends and immature people who have not yet grasped life need to step aside and allow mothers to do ther job of protecting children. Let us do our job, you may thank us one day.

sacredfeminina · 06/03/2022 12:08

Ultimately, this is an NHS clinic treating children. It does not need philosophy of any kind, other than basic ethics. It needs to be concerned about data and science.

When a children's service is referencing philosophical theories that even subtlely link to paedophilia, that is a big red flag. It seems Foucault wasn't even that subtle.

Apollo441 · 06/03/2022 11:56

Why do I need to spend 20 years of my life studying Foucault? I don't like where it leads. I haven't read Mein Kamph and if I did it would not result in me seeing the necessity of gassing Jews.
Calling out wankery for what it is.

MidsomerMurmurs · 06/03/2022 11:48

@Lovelyricepudding

Three times Nightwalker you have dismissed Dr Em's pieces without engaging with them. As we are talking about Foucault, let's just focus on him. If you can, please explain how Dr Em's piece is wrong.

Also given Foucalt''s published views on age of consent, what are you basng your dismissal of his paedophilia on?

I’m an “academic” for what that’s worth. There’s a really strong pseud’s corner vibe on this thread…
Signalbox · 06/03/2022 11:08

I don't know much about Foucault but I found Heather Brunskell Evans quite interesting on the subject...

DomesticatedZombie · 06/03/2022 10:43

@Lovelyricepudding

And I don't accept 'it is far too complex for anyone without 20 years of study to understand'. If that is truly your position then you have missed the point.
If this is the case then I will not ever be able to understand any of it. And to be honest, anything that dense and complex is not being well explained.
DomesticatedZombie · 06/03/2022 10:42

newrepublic.com/article/150687/professor-parody

An excellent essay on Butler. I am not someone who has read any of Butler's work, I've briefly tried a couple of times and just found it utter waffle.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 06/03/2022 10:01

*If you want to understand any philosophy or critical theory, my number one advice is to actually read it. Not watch Youtube videos or read non-academic media pieces about it by people who don't really understand it themselves. Just read some of the actual work. It's never been easier to read texts in their original form than it is today with online texts and cheap paperback editions all over the place.

You can read opinion pieces all day long, but you'll never understand the work unless you read it yourself*

I suspect that you are wasting your breath...

Cailleach1 · 06/03/2022 09:57

Foucault - his work is expansive and very complex

Just because something is expansive and very complex, doesn't make it good. Many a load of rubbish is wrapped up in such a way as to appear scholarly and full of insight - whereas it is just drivel and full of flaws. It depends on the reader being impressed by the presentation. Or, academics carrying on with the collusion and pretending it is worthy. Some for in group reasons, some for maybe nefarious reasons.

Lovelyricepudding · 06/03/2022 09:50

And I don't accept 'it is far too complex for anyone without 20 years of study to understand'. If that is truly your position then you have missed the point.

Lovelyricepudding · 06/03/2022 09:38

Three times Nightwalker you have dismissed Dr Em's pieces without engaging with them. As we are talking about Foucault, let's just focus on him. If you can, please explain how Dr Em's piece is wrong.

Also given Foucalt''s published views on age of consent, what are you basng your dismissal of his paedophilia on?

TheMarzipanDildo · 06/03/2022 08:29

“Another profile by the staff group cited the queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s view that "‘many people have their richest mental/emotional involvement with sexual acts that they don't do, or even don't want to do”."”

What the actual fuck Angry

AntithesisOfThis · 06/03/2022 07:18

The other aspect of creating all this has been the internet and social media. That’s really helped superficial to the point of totally missing the point reading of all sorts of concepts to really spread and become the dominant discourse in some areas.

Original poster
MNadactyl · 06/03/2022 07:18

And I thought Dr Em's 4-parter was very good. They're not to be dismissed as just media articles and I think for those who've not studied it, are useful (yes I have studied it in depth).

OP posts:
DoNotTouchTheWater · 06/03/2022 07:16

@nightwakingmoon

Foucault was the founder of a school or a methodology, not of queer theory per se. This is a drastic oversimplification of what queer theory is and not remotely helpful in understanding current identity politics, which draws its roots as much from civil rights movements or aspects of medical biological essentialism (and a range of other theories) as from any part of Foucauldian historicism.

In fact Foucault’s work is actually far closer to a gender critical understanding of the trans phenomenon than anything else. A Foucauldian study of gender ideology would see it as a transient historical phenomenon produced by the medical establishment and social contagion, rather than the reverse.

Eve Sedgwick’s work is also dramatically misrepresented here.

I’m very radfem/gender critical, but this kind of stuff only promotes poor misunderstandings of what are complex forms of thought and often the exact opposite of what is claimed.

Absolutely.

In fact, taking a foucauldian approach, I am increasingly certain that contemporary identity politics is one of the hugely negative side effects of the expansion of higher education since the 90s. That should have been a good thing, but what actually happened was that enormous numbers of people learned just enough to misinterpret and misrepresent a whole range of theory in ways that appear to be extremely well informed. This then feeds into and shapes the whole field in really problematic ways.

Original poster
MNadactyl · 06/03/2022 07:09

The article is not linking trans ideology with Foucault. And I definitely don't need schooling in Foucault.

The point is that critical thinking skills are not being deployed if you're being told at work to promote BLM or pronouns or anything like that.

The further point is that if that a work environment fosters a culture where staff leap to the defence of Foucault at work - and they can't or won't see that doing so is not remotely appropriate given the concerns about child abuse AND a key part of their job is protecting children then that's a ginormous red flag.

It also points to there being much more to those story than is published. It's in the public interest that we all know that safe, evidence based care is being provided. And that we know workplaces are fostering cultures that do the right thing by children and vulnerable adults.

OP posts:
MangyInseam · 06/03/2022 02:44

@DomesticatedZombie

- my point here is about the NHS staff/HCPs using the term 'sexual preference' wrt paedophilia. Foucault's academic theory is really neither here nor there.

Although it would also be interesting to discuss Foucault and postmodernism and queer theory, and hear your perspectives on it. Although I'm not realistically going to dedicate a decade of my life to it ... Perhaps a new thread?

I actually took them to be saying that critics who disapproved of homosexuality were making baseless accusations about him abusing boys.

Which has become a common way that any such claim is dismissed in the last few years. They just say it's a homophobic dog-whistle.

nightscrollingdoom · 05/03/2022 23:25

Sorry just so you know that's me - just name changed to reflect what I currently spend my time doing re Ukraine Grin

nightscrollingdoom · 05/03/2022 23:21

@DontLikeCrumpets also, I've been a historian in this field for 20 years, so I think I'm pretty able to comment on the breadth and depth of knowledge displayed in the footnotes Grin

nightscrollingdoom · 05/03/2022 23:20

[quote DontLikeCrumpets]@nightwakingmoon "Those are just media articles, not academic articles, and they really don't understand much of the actual theory.."

Utter bollocks.You didn't even glance at them. If you did you would know by the depth and breadth of knowledge that the author is highly qualified to comment on this subject, something made even more apparent by the footnotes she provides.[/quote]
I've read them before - they've been posted on here several times.

nightwakingmoon · 05/03/2022 23:19

@WorkingItOutAsIGo

Nightwakingmoon - yes and no. Have you read Foucault or Butler. Not as simple as read them and understand them, is it?
Yes - I've read the vast majority of both of their work. I dislike Butler, who by training is a mediocre Hegelian; but her mid-career work on Greek philosophy and poststructuralism is good. She is, however, a terrible bore in person, and her fashionable gender / performativity work is slight and some of the least good of her output. These days she is a terrible old fraud who is happy to say things that are the direct opposite of her earlier work as long as it keeps her in with the genderists.

Foucault - his work is expansive and very complex. But he is more readable than Butler. Some of the best works to start with are Madness and Civilisation, and Discipline and Punish. Or it might be good to look at a good introductory academic discussion of them - but in a good textbook, not an opinion piece written for the internet. His work has shaped most historical methodology in cultural and intellectual history for the last forty years. He isn't a "queer theorist" and in any case, the "queer theory" of the late 80s to the early 2000s is a very different beast to what is thought of as "queer theory" today (much of it during that period argues pretty much the exact reverse of gender ideology today).

DontLikeCrumpets · 05/03/2022 23:17

@nightwakingmoon "Those are just media articles, not academic articles, and they really don't understand much of the actual theory.."

Utter bollocks.You didn't even glance at them. If you did you would know by the depth and breadth of knowledge that the author is highly qualified to comment on this subject, something made even more apparent by the footnotes she provides.

WorkingItOutAsIGo · 05/03/2022 23:08

Nightwakingmoon - yes and no. Have you read Foucault or Butler. Not as simple as read them and understand them, is it?

nightwakingmoon · 05/03/2022 23:03

@DomesticatedZombie

- my point here is about the NHS staff/HCPs using the term 'sexual preference' wrt paedophilia. Foucault's academic theory is really neither here nor there.

Although it would also be interesting to discuss Foucault and postmodernism and queer theory, and hear your perspectives on it. Although I'm not realistically going to dedicate a decade of my life to it ... Perhaps a new thread?

That dates way back, from early male gay rights activism in the late 60s and throughout the 70s. Stonewall flirted with some of this discourse early on, before abandoning it. But you find this routinely all over current identity politics, mostly originating in the US. (In the 90s, for example, some men interested in bestiality in the US started lobbying to rebrand "zoophilia" as a "sexual preference"!)
nightwakingmoon · 05/03/2022 22:59

If you want to understand any philosophy or critical theory, my number one advice is to actually read it. Not watch Youtube videos or read non-academic media pieces about it by people who don't really understand it themselves. Just read some of the actual work. It's never been easier to read texts in their original form than it is today with online texts and cheap paperback editions all over the place.

You can read opinion pieces all day long, but you'll never understand the work unless you read it yourself.

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