The Arts in NYC

I strongly agree with Andrew. I also think that Foucault was a person who had great thoughts, but this should not include him in the list of greats. I feel that we all have great ideas, but does it mean that we are all geniuses? No. I also agree with Andrew on the fact that society seems to accept anything that is passed on. This, although different from calculus and physics, seems to be a “chain rule,” meaning one thing, if passed on to another, unfortunately, becomes, in a sense, an absolute truth.

-Nihir S.

lols. i don’t think you’re reading a picture book is the only reason people were giving you strange looks xP
my teacher once told me that people don’t get mad. only dogs get mad. people only get angry.
- Lillian H.

I think people use the word “gay” in the same way they use the word “mad.” Like if someone finds something stupid, they say it’s “gay.” What ever happened to when “gay” was used to mean that someone was feeling happy? How did it go from there to denoting homosexuality and now to stupidity? How language evolves is really interesting… Maybe in the next decade, “gay” will come to mean something entirely different.
As for your musings on what defines normalcy, I mused the same about the laws that govern this world. On whose ethics were these laws based on? And how can we really saw something is unlawful or not?
- Lillian H.

I totally agree. I was watching ABDC (America’s Best Dance Crew) a few months back and that lady judge kept saying “That was sick, dawg”. I had no idea what she meant. I thought she was saying their performance sucked but apparently, my sister told me that “sick” meant good. “bad” means good, “sick” means good, “ill” means good. What means “bad” anymore? (I think the work “wack” is also starting to mean ‘good’)

-Steven

I believe that you(Andrew) are somewhat correct. Foucault’s concepts may seem like common knowledge to some of us, but it is plausible that today’s society may not have these ideas if Foucault never published his findings. So what may be common knowledge to us may not be common to the people of Foucault’s time. So, in essence, Foucault may be a genius of his time. Also, we only read Foucault for beginners so we should not judge until we have read some other works.

- Philip L.

Going back to Andrew’s main discussion, I don’t know how serious of a philosopher Foucault was, but remember that this book was just a compiled summary of his works by a third person. Foucault might have went much deeper into the subject. It takes a pretty intense mind to describe the way humans think and work. But yeah, I don’t think he was a genius by any means. At least not from what I’ve read.

-Steven

I understand we can’t really judge until we read everything in dept and understand what he writes fully but I am just saying my thoughts from what I have read so far. Time is of something that effects everything as well, so if you think of it the way Phil says, he may be a “genius of that era.” But in our time, he is nothing but a great mind. Many of us have never even heard of Foucault and still have these thoughts as well. So, it is just a matter of how deeply one goes into the subject I guess as Steve said.

-Andrew