What does Foucault mean at the end of the chapter that modern society is "really" perverse?
A useful suggestion (from Nicolae): compare it to Canguilhem's claim about the shift in the relation between the normal and the pathological. While pathology used to be defined off of, or over and against, normality, now normality is defined as the absence of pathology, such that pathology is the more central notion, the more forceful 'reality'. Perhaps a similar claim is at work with Foucault on normal and abnormal sexuality. Perhaps the perversions come first for us now, such that normal sexuality (heteronormativity) is a function or effect of the reality of the perversions. This is just a thought, and I find it very helpful (hopefully I'm not butchering Nicolae's point).
What does Foucault mean at the end of the chapter that modern society is "really" perverse?
ReplyDeleteA useful suggestion (from Nicolae): compare it to Canguilhem's claim about the shift in the relation between the normal and the pathological. While pathology used to be defined off of, or over and against, normality, now normality is defined as the absence of pathology, such that pathology is the more central notion, the more forceful 'reality'. Perhaps a similar claim is at work with Foucault on normal and abnormal sexuality. Perhaps the perversions come first for us now, such that normal sexuality (heteronormativity) is a function or effect of the reality of the perversions. This is just a thought, and I find it very helpful (hopefully I'm not butchering Nicolae's point).