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Sexualität und Wahrheit 3: Die Sorge um sich by Michel Foucault, Walter Seitter, Ulrich Raulff
leelulah's review against another edition
1.0
Before I start, I'd like to warn you that there's a NSFW link in this review: it's the one about Sappho.
Foucault analyzes the importance of self discipline when it comes to sexual relationships and marriage, the normalization of heterosexuality through marriage and the condemnation of homosexuality by greek and by some roman thinkers, argues that a lot of it, though it influenced Christianity is not quite at the same level of banning homosexuality and masturbation. He analyzes the medical and philosophical point views and quotes authors, but bases his views on a fundamentally incorrect reading of Church Fathers, to argue that married couples out not to get any kind of pleasure out of sexual acts, which is not what they meant at all. I wonder how interested would Foucault be in Theology of the Body, considering it didn't exist at his time, but probably not much. Or probably a lot... just to trash talk it because it's presented in a friendly way but it's "more repressive stuff from the Church".
I disagree with Foucault, and maybe because of an Augustinian-Renaissance approach, I believe a lot of the common sense of stoics and other virtuous pagan philosophers may have paved the way for Christianity. As a Catholic, of course I believe that Jesus' coming is the fulfilling of Revelation, but I think that, like Celts and Native Americans had mythologies which made it easier for them to accept the new religion, so happened with greeks and romans, so much of their thought had common points with Christians, that Christians learned to appreciate such things and used it in their favor, much like Celtic legends suffered.
Also, he seems disillusioned with the abandonement of the practice of pederasty, which makes it all more repulsive (it's not my job to judge homosexuality, but seriously? Old men chasing teens? No matter your views on homosexuality, that is a justification of pedophilia, so I'll pass). The interesting aspect of this book is that he recognizes that this self-discipline could be also applied in the education of a politician, and that is indeed useful.
It also helped me to understand stoics a bit better. So, as a closer, it's less preachy than the first volume, and less blatantly pro-male homosexuality than the second volume, but still kind of gross, because he gets on the justificactions for homosexuality, and one of them is that "women wear makeup to hide their ugliness, so basically women are liars". I'm not new to this argument, and I know it's not like he invented it, he's after all, just quoting Greek pagan people. But, just because men didn't bother to understand women back then, it didn't meant that we were uninteresting, and liars while at that.
I have survived 17 years with no makeup. I see how it could be necessary for a woman who seeks to hide a disease of the skin, or the mark of an accident, be it scar from burning, scratching, etc. I still like wearing it, I have been doing it for 6 years now, and I don't think a woman could fool a man just because she has an unnatural color in her hair for her age or genetics, extremely red lips, weirdly colored eyelids, prominent eyelashes and perfectly rosy cheeks, among with weirdly colored nails. It's just an emulation, and sometimes exaggeration of traits men like in women: youth and beauty. Basically, the greeks' argument was that women are shallow.
I don't see how Foucault is this "inclusive defensor of minorities, especially queers", if women are often looked with disdain and left out of his dissertations, the marginal allusions to lesbianism (though, I think I should say female same sex-attraction: lesbian is a political term and based loosely on opinions about Sappho), because greeks looked down on it, or at least Plato and a bunch of greek ancient doctors did, is inexcusable.
Sappho and all the myths surrounding her, would be interesting for a start, but I guess that by getting into radical feminist theory, I could get an idea of that. And radical feminists do hate his look on male homosexuality as much as I do, though for different reasons.
I agree with the idea that "hetero" and "homosexual" naming of human sexual and romantic relationships is unfortunate. For different reasons, rather than the fact that greeks did not make a distinction for it. The problem is that it allows people to tag others according to sexual "preference" or "orientation", and define them by such. I believe the use of expressions such as same-sex attraction is less aggressive. And even people who have opposite sex attraction can experience same-sex attraction. You don't get to define them by "orientations", but recognize the fact that they feel attracted (whether romantically or sexually, but those distinctions concern gender theorists more, I guess... though sexual attraction without a romantic attraction would be no less than a desire for prostitution in my opinion). You could also feel an attraction you don't want to feel, much like intrusive thoughts, so I'm also opposed to the terms "preference" and "orientation".
As always, I don't agree with Foucault, but it has been thought provoking. Not his best, though.
Foucault analyzes the importance of self discipline when it comes to sexual relationships and marriage, the normalization of heterosexuality through marriage and the condemnation of homosexuality by greek and by some roman thinkers, argues that a lot of it, though it influenced Christianity is not quite at the same level of banning homosexuality and masturbation. He analyzes the medical and philosophical point views and quotes authors, but bases his views on a fundamentally incorrect reading of Church Fathers, to argue that married couples out not to get any kind of pleasure out of sexual acts, which is not what they meant at all. I wonder how interested would Foucault be in Theology of the Body, considering it didn't exist at his time, but probably not much. Or probably a lot... just to trash talk it because it's presented in a friendly way but it's "more repressive stuff from the Church".
I disagree with Foucault, and maybe because of an Augustinian-Renaissance approach, I believe a lot of the common sense of stoics and other virtuous pagan philosophers may have paved the way for Christianity. As a Catholic, of course I believe that Jesus' coming is the fulfilling of Revelation, but I think that, like Celts and Native Americans had mythologies which made it easier for them to accept the new religion, so happened with greeks and romans, so much of their thought had common points with Christians, that Christians learned to appreciate such things and used it in their favor, much like Celtic legends suffered.
Also, he seems disillusioned with the abandonement of the practice of pederasty, which makes it all more repulsive (it's not my job to judge homosexuality, but seriously? Old men chasing teens? No matter your views on homosexuality, that is a justification of pedophilia, so I'll pass). The interesting aspect of this book is that he recognizes that this self-discipline could be also applied in the education of a politician, and that is indeed useful.
It also helped me to understand stoics a bit better. So, as a closer, it's less preachy than the first volume, and less blatantly pro-male homosexuality than the second volume, but still kind of gross, because he gets on the justificactions for homosexuality, and one of them is that "women wear makeup to hide their ugliness, so basically women are liars". I'm not new to this argument, and I know it's not like he invented it, he's after all, just quoting Greek pagan people. But, just because men didn't bother to understand women back then, it didn't meant that we were uninteresting, and liars while at that.
I have survived 17 years with no makeup. I see how it could be necessary for a woman who seeks to hide a disease of the skin, or the mark of an accident, be it scar from burning, scratching, etc. I still like wearing it, I have been doing it for 6 years now, and I don't think a woman could fool a man just because she has an unnatural color in her hair for her age or genetics, extremely red lips, weirdly colored eyelids, prominent eyelashes and perfectly rosy cheeks, among with weirdly colored nails. It's just an emulation, and sometimes exaggeration of traits men like in women: youth and beauty. Basically, the greeks' argument was that women are shallow.
I don't see how Foucault is this "inclusive defensor of minorities, especially queers", if women are often looked with disdain and left out of his dissertations, the marginal allusions to lesbianism (though, I think I should say female same sex-attraction: lesbian is a political term and based loosely on opinions about Sappho), because greeks looked down on it, or at least Plato and a bunch of greek ancient doctors did, is inexcusable.
Sappho and all the myths surrounding her, would be interesting for a start, but I guess that by getting into radical feminist theory, I could get an idea of that. And radical feminists do hate his look on male homosexuality as much as I do, though for different reasons.
I agree with the idea that "hetero" and "homosexual" naming of human sexual and romantic relationships is unfortunate. For different reasons, rather than the fact that greeks did not make a distinction for it. The problem is that it allows people to tag others according to sexual "preference" or "orientation", and define them by such. I believe the use of expressions such as same-sex attraction is less aggressive. And even people who have opposite sex attraction can experience same-sex attraction. You don't get to define them by "orientations", but recognize the fact that they feel attracted (whether romantically or sexually, but those distinctions concern gender theorists more, I guess... though sexual attraction without a romantic attraction would be no less than a desire for prostitution in my opinion). You could also feel an attraction you don't want to feel, much like intrusive thoughts, so I'm also opposed to the terms "preference" and "orientation".
As always, I don't agree with Foucault, but it has been thought provoking. Not his best, though.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
Apt qu'il est arrivé au sujet de la Rome antique dans le volume qu'il a intitulé après « souci de soi ».
tdwightdavis's review against another edition
4.0
Much like volume 2, this is a true history of sexuality and has little theory. Foucault, interestingly, doesn't focus as much on the concept of power in volumes 2 and 3 of his sexuality trilogy. Here we get the shifting focus in the first centuries of the common era to a care of the self in sexual ethics. An interesting read.
jakebittle's review against another edition
The Plutarch chapter alone is worth the price of admission.
cetian's review against another edition
4.0
Neste último volume, Foucault liga toda a história que escreveu até aqui à modernidade, à criação da sexualidade e sexologia - algo que tomamos como certo mas que também é cultural (os termos são muito recentes na história humana).
Surpreende-nos com uma inesperada ligação (feita numa longa e tortuosa transição). A discursificação do cristianismo, que foi tratanto o sexo no confessionário através dos pecados rigorosamente catalogados, onde já as palavra pederastia e pederasta tinham sido herdadas dos gregos ganhando contornos malignos deu lugar às patologias da sexologia.
Antes ainda de Freud, a obsessão em descobrir parafilias e patologias sexuais deu-nos a fauna classificativa que ainda hoje usamos e muita que abandonámos visto que hoje seria considerada insultuosa ou cientificamente aberrante. Invertido era palavra usada quer por clérigos quer por sexólogos. Quando os psicanalistas começam a sentar as pessoas no divã é com a ideia de que os pacientes se devem libertar das ideias negativas, das leis que a o cristianismo criou, associando o sexo ao pecado, e com a culpa impedindo o prazer sexual de ser experimentado na sua plenitude. Era uma ideia utópica, que foi reinventado de muitas maneiras, de que libertando da culpa as pessoas, a sexualidade seria melhor. A ideia surpreendente, que Foucault traz é que o método da psicanálise foi precisamente o de criar discurso, apresentando esta discursificação específica alguma continuidade ou pelo menos pontos de contacto com o cristianismo. Foi, mais uma vez, fazer as pessoas confessar. Escutá-las, fazê-las dizer o que tinham feito, com quem. Ainda que não no sentido de se sentirem culpadas, mas no sentido oposto, de que as pessoas deixassem de se sentir-se culpadas.
Nunca mais a sexualidade no ocidente deixaria, até hoje, de ser vivida como um discurso de si.
Esta obra imensa de Foucault, estes três volumes, são uma obra de história do pensamento, como o autor avisa no início. Abre horizontes e dá imensa bibliografia para percebermos de onde vêm as limitações da nossa cultura - com isso também perceber pistas para nos superarmos. É um trabalho muito bem fundamentado, rigoroso e, felizmente, muito bem escrito. É um prazer ler Foucault.
Esta é a nossa história, a da cultura ocidental (à falta de melhor palavra). Fico com uma ideia de que houve outros percursos. A moral foi uma moral masculina, as relações de poder foram desiguais. O sexo foi sobretudo discurso. E acabámos por nos interessar sobretudo pela sua patologia. Quando nos interessámos finalmente pelo sexo, inventámos-lhe uma sexualidade e uma sexologia. O que Foucault chama de "scientia sexualis". Noutras culturas, como a indiana, a chinesa e a árabe (até há uns séculos atrás, a cultura árabe que produziu o Jardins Perfumados) inventou-se o que Foucault chamou de Ars Erotica. Nessas culturas, o importante não foi descobrir patologias, invertidos. Foi escrever manuais sobre como o sexo, vê-lo como uma forma de arte e, em alguns momentos, como uma forma de transcendência e algo de espiritual.
Para mim, um exemplo onde se nota a cristalização da nossa cultura de "sexualidade" e "discursificação" é na produção obsessiva de discurso sobre pontos erógenos. Que continua na discussão sobre, por exemplo, o ponto G. Sobre se existe, não existe. Tudo isto, sempre, como discurso, "conversa", "tema", algo "académico", "conselhos". Ao ponto de de discutir que pressão coloca falar-se spobre algo que assume contornos de mito, que novas expectativas coloca sobre a mulher, o casal, a "relação sexual", o "prazer", o "sexo". E entretanto dizendo a frase sacramental da sexualidade ocidental, o enorme paradoxo:
"O maior ponto erógeno é o cérebro".
A contrastar a esta imprecisão obsessiva do discurso da "scientia sexualis" ocidental, a ars erotica oriental tem uma imprecisão serena, que é notória por exemplo no kama sutra. As posições sexuais sugeridas em ilustraçoes antigas. A irrealidade que por vezes assumem, são uma delícia. Não interessa nenhuma noção de rigor anatómico. Estimulam a imaginação. Existe uma ideia de arte erótica, que serve como forma de estimular a líbido. E é isso que se procura fazer, de forma prática e directa: estimular quem vai ter sexo. Numa analogia, se houvesse um conselho como, existe um ponto (chamemos-lhe o ponto da manga, já que por exemplo os genitais são por vezes comparados a frutos) que é bom estimular, não é dado como sexologia. Como um conselho médico, de anatomia. É dado como um conselho de um guru do prazer. E ao ser lido, já é lido com prazer. O próprio texto já se aproxima do erótico. A ideia de ficar ansioso por ler o kama sutra ou por receber conselhos para o prazer não faz sentido.
O Zizek diz que hoje ao contrário do que acontecia no tempo de Freud, os psicanalistas dizem aos seus pacientes que são livres de dizerem que não têm prazer. Que se não são felizes, que se não estão a ter prazer a toda a hora, isso é normal, e podem expressá-lo livremente. Porque existe uma pressão enorme para o gozo.
Tempos estranhos.
As traduções da Relógio d' Água são excelentes.
Surpreende-nos com uma inesperada ligação (feita numa longa e tortuosa transição). A discursificação do cristianismo, que foi tratanto o sexo no confessionário através dos pecados rigorosamente catalogados, onde já as palavra pederastia e pederasta tinham sido herdadas dos gregos ganhando contornos malignos deu lugar às patologias da sexologia.
Antes ainda de Freud, a obsessão em descobrir parafilias e patologias sexuais deu-nos a fauna classificativa que ainda hoje usamos e muita que abandonámos visto que hoje seria considerada insultuosa ou cientificamente aberrante. Invertido era palavra usada quer por clérigos quer por sexólogos. Quando os psicanalistas começam a sentar as pessoas no divã é com a ideia de que os pacientes se devem libertar das ideias negativas, das leis que a o cristianismo criou, associando o sexo ao pecado, e com a culpa impedindo o prazer sexual de ser experimentado na sua plenitude. Era uma ideia utópica, que foi reinventado de muitas maneiras, de que libertando da culpa as pessoas, a sexualidade seria melhor. A ideia surpreendente, que Foucault traz é que o método da psicanálise foi precisamente o de criar discurso, apresentando esta discursificação específica alguma continuidade ou pelo menos pontos de contacto com o cristianismo. Foi, mais uma vez, fazer as pessoas confessar. Escutá-las, fazê-las dizer o que tinham feito, com quem. Ainda que não no sentido de se sentirem culpadas, mas no sentido oposto, de que as pessoas deixassem de se sentir-se culpadas.
Nunca mais a sexualidade no ocidente deixaria, até hoje, de ser vivida como um discurso de si.
Esta obra imensa de Foucault, estes três volumes, são uma obra de história do pensamento, como o autor avisa no início. Abre horizontes e dá imensa bibliografia para percebermos de onde vêm as limitações da nossa cultura - com isso também perceber pistas para nos superarmos. É um trabalho muito bem fundamentado, rigoroso e, felizmente, muito bem escrito. É um prazer ler Foucault.
Esta é a nossa história, a da cultura ocidental (à falta de melhor palavra). Fico com uma ideia de que houve outros percursos. A moral foi uma moral masculina, as relações de poder foram desiguais. O sexo foi sobretudo discurso. E acabámos por nos interessar sobretudo pela sua patologia. Quando nos interessámos finalmente pelo sexo, inventámos-lhe uma sexualidade e uma sexologia. O que Foucault chama de "scientia sexualis". Noutras culturas, como a indiana, a chinesa e a árabe (até há uns séculos atrás, a cultura árabe que produziu o Jardins Perfumados) inventou-se o que Foucault chamou de Ars Erotica. Nessas culturas, o importante não foi descobrir patologias, invertidos. Foi escrever manuais sobre como o sexo, vê-lo como uma forma de arte e, em alguns momentos, como uma forma de transcendência e algo de espiritual.
Para mim, um exemplo onde se nota a cristalização da nossa cultura de "sexualidade" e "discursificação" é na produção obsessiva de discurso sobre pontos erógenos. Que continua na discussão sobre, por exemplo, o ponto G. Sobre se existe, não existe. Tudo isto, sempre, como discurso, "conversa", "tema", algo "académico", "conselhos". Ao ponto de de discutir que pressão coloca falar-se spobre algo que assume contornos de mito, que novas expectativas coloca sobre a mulher, o casal, a "relação sexual", o "prazer", o "sexo". E entretanto dizendo a frase sacramental da sexualidade ocidental, o enorme paradoxo:
"O maior ponto erógeno é o cérebro".
A contrastar a esta imprecisão obsessiva do discurso da "scientia sexualis" ocidental, a ars erotica oriental tem uma imprecisão serena, que é notória por exemplo no kama sutra. As posições sexuais sugeridas em ilustraçoes antigas. A irrealidade que por vezes assumem, são uma delícia. Não interessa nenhuma noção de rigor anatómico. Estimulam a imaginação. Existe uma ideia de arte erótica, que serve como forma de estimular a líbido. E é isso que se procura fazer, de forma prática e directa: estimular quem vai ter sexo. Numa analogia, se houvesse um conselho como, existe um ponto (chamemos-lhe o ponto da manga, já que por exemplo os genitais são por vezes comparados a frutos) que é bom estimular, não é dado como sexologia. Como um conselho médico, de anatomia. É dado como um conselho de um guru do prazer. E ao ser lido, já é lido com prazer. O próprio texto já se aproxima do erótico. A ideia de ficar ansioso por ler o kama sutra ou por receber conselhos para o prazer não faz sentido.
O Zizek diz que hoje ao contrário do que acontecia no tempo de Freud, os psicanalistas dizem aos seus pacientes que são livres de dizerem que não têm prazer. Que se não são felizes, que se não estão a ter prazer a toda a hora, isso é normal, e podem expressá-lo livremente. Porque existe uma pressão enorme para o gozo.
Tempos estranhos.
As traduções da Relógio d' Água são excelentes.
inept_scholar's review against another edition
4.0
So I am actually glad that I read the entire three volumes of History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault. And though I enjoyed reading Foucault's dissemination of the discourse on sexuality through ancient Greek texts, God only knows how much I actually understood! Also would it be weird if I said that the second and third books felt many times like a self-help book? But in a manner of speaking, this is exactly the sort of idea of the self that Foucault examines through Aristotelian and Platonic texts. .
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Perceiving the care of the self as one that is to be achieved through abstinence from physical desires/ aphrodisia, this view is further extended by Foucault to show how this model behavior was considered an ideal for those men responsible for management of a household or a city, as well as framing of different kinds of relationships such as through marriage or through the pursuit of one's male lover. With this view, Foucault also argues that later discourses on sexuality after the spread of Christianity sought to associate it with sin and to construct new categories of the self, that sought to contain as well as to expose 'deviant' variations of sexuality in order to define and control these repurposed ideas of sexuality.
.
.
A lot of these ideas on construct of the self, power and surveillance, are frequent themes in Foucault's book. The first book in the volume is short but utterly intriguing to read. But you do feel bogged down by the time you reach the third! And sometimes there is just too much repetition and excessive verbosity that tends to make Foucault's works a little hard to digest. Still I would say, it is definitely worth reading more than once, since these are those kind of books where you learn something new every time you go back them.
#michelfoucault #historyofsexuality #threevolumes #ancientgreektexts #readinglistforhistory #readinglist2019
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Perceiving the care of the self as one that is to be achieved through abstinence from physical desires/ aphrodisia, this view is further extended by Foucault to show how this model behavior was considered an ideal for those men responsible for management of a household or a city, as well as framing of different kinds of relationships such as through marriage or through the pursuit of one's male lover. With this view, Foucault also argues that later discourses on sexuality after the spread of Christianity sought to associate it with sin and to construct new categories of the self, that sought to contain as well as to expose 'deviant' variations of sexuality in order to define and control these repurposed ideas of sexuality.
.
.
A lot of these ideas on construct of the self, power and surveillance, are frequent themes in Foucault's book. The first book in the volume is short but utterly intriguing to read. But you do feel bogged down by the time you reach the third! And sometimes there is just too much repetition and excessive verbosity that tends to make Foucault's works a little hard to digest. Still I would say, it is definitely worth reading more than once, since these are those kind of books where you learn something new every time you go back them.
#michelfoucault #historyofsexuality #threevolumes #ancientgreektexts #readinglistforhistory #readinglist2019
andreaschari's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
relaxing
slow-paced
4.0
teelock's review against another edition
5.0
Michel Foucault describes in Care of the Self the techniques of [[epimelia]] used in ancient Greece and Rome, which included dieting, exercise, sexual abstinence, contemplation, prayer and confession—some of which also became important practices within different branches of Christianity.
Foucault's first biographer, Didier Eribon, described the philosopher as "a complex, many-sided character", and that "under one mask there is always another". He also noted that he exhibited an "enormous capacity for work". At the ENS, Foucault's classmates unanimously summed him up as a figure who was both "disconcerting and strange" and "a passionate worker". As he aged, his personality changed: Eribon noted that while he was a "tortured adolescent", post-1960, he had become "a radiant man, relaxed and cheerful", even being described by those who worked with him as a dandy. He noted that in 1969, Foucault embodied the idea of "the militant intellectual".
Foucault was an atheist. He loved classical music, particularly enjoying the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and became known for wearing turtleneck sweaters. After his death, Foucault's friend Georges Dumézil described him as having possessed "a profound kindness and goodness", also exhibiting an "intelligence [that] literally knew no bounds." His life-partner Daniel Defert inherited his estate.
Foucault's first biographer, Didier Eribon, described the philosopher as "a complex, many-sided character", and that "under one mask there is always another". He also noted that he exhibited an "enormous capacity for work". At the ENS, Foucault's classmates unanimously summed him up as a figure who was both "disconcerting and strange" and "a passionate worker". As he aged, his personality changed: Eribon noted that while he was a "tortured adolescent", post-1960, he had become "a radiant man, relaxed and cheerful", even being described by those who worked with him as a dandy. He noted that in 1969, Foucault embodied the idea of "the militant intellectual".
Foucault was an atheist. He loved classical music, particularly enjoying the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and became known for wearing turtleneck sweaters. After his death, Foucault's friend Georges Dumézil described him as having possessed "a profound kindness and goodness", also exhibiting an "intelligence [that] literally knew no bounds." His life-partner Daniel Defert inherited his estate.