Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death] Quotes

“Grass is very hard to come by in Paris, but I smoke hash whenever I can get hold of some. We have been in good supply recently, thanks to Noam Chomsky.'
'How did that happen?' I asked.
'I appeared with Chomsky on TV in Amsterdam, and after the show the sponsors of the program asked me what kind of remuneration I would like. I told them that I would like some hashish, and happily they complied with my wish with a large block of the stuff. My students and I refer to it as the Chomsky hash, not because Chomsky himself had anything to do with it but because he occasioned it.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“I love California,' he reiterated many times. 'You live in one of the choice places on earth.' He continually stressed how much he liked the variety and experimentation in lifestyles, as well as the marvelous climate, which allows people to stay in touch with the body, to literally see the body.
'And you have such intellectual freedom and vitality here,' he said. 'Ideological dogma and partisanship are still so rampant in France that compared to California we live in France under an intellectual reign of terror.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“What was it like for you before the gay movement?' the young gay student asked.
'You might not believe this.' Foucault replied, 'but I actually liked the scene before the gay liberation, when everything was more covert. It was like an underground fraternity, exciting and a bit dangerous. Friendship meant a lot, it meant a lot of trust, we protected each other, we related to each other by secret codes.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Just a few nights ago the roaring fire prompted a conversation about Gaston Bachelard's Psychoanalysis of Fire,' I said to Foucault. 'Did you by any chance know Bachelard?'
'Yes, I did,' Foucault responded. 'He was my teacher and exerted a great influence upon me.'
'I can just visualize Bachelard musing before his hearth and devising the startling thesis that mankind tamed fire to stimulate his daydreaming, that man is fundamentally the dreaming animal.'
'Not really,' Foucault blurted out. 'Bachelard probably never saw a fireplace or ever listened to water streaming down a mountainside. With him it was all a dream. He lived very ascetically in a cramped two-room flat he shared with his sister.'
'I have read somewhere that he was a gourmet and would shop every day in the street markets to get the freshest produce for his dinner.'
'Well, he undoubtedly shopped in the outdoor markets,' Foucault responded impatiently, 'but his cuisine, like his regimen, was very plain. He led a simple life and existed in his dream.'
'Do you shop in the outdoor markets in Paris?' Jake asked Michel.
'No,' Foucault laughed, 'I just go to the supermarket down the street from where I live.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“I now see the intellectual as something of a functionary. There are so many different types of intellectuals today. Some university intellectuals collaborate with business types, and there are other kind of intellectuals who sit on committees dealing with community problems. The intellectual is a toolmaker, and he cannot dictate or even foreknow how the tools he creates will be used by the people. Even in this respect the intellectual is not a prophet.'
'So you reject the whole Leninist-Lukács notion of the avant-garde, the party intellectuals who perceive the truth the masses can't see,' Call concluded.'
'Absolutely.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Don't you think the Golden Gate Bridge looks to the East in the same way the Statue of Liberty faces Europe, the Old World?' Mike now asked. 'That the Bridge and the Statue face in opposite directions, the Bridge is the end whereas the Statue is the beginning?'
'The Golden Gate Bridge should be understood symbolically,' Foucault responded, 'in the sense that it does not go from America back to America but that it should be something that could possibly open up out of America.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Do you think Americans are just too open and outgoing for their own good? Do Europeans still make fun of Americans on this count?' David asked.
Foucault replied, 'Yes, I have heard Europeans scoff at American friendliness, the American way of 'being nice', but they are mistaken. We spend a lot of time with strangers, so why not enjoy it? We probably spend at least three-fourths of our time in very short encounters with people, in chance encounters. This way of relating to people, then, is very important. Why buy hostility with your groceries? Be friendly with the checker and the stock clerk! Antagonism against each other only saps the energy that could and should be directed against the systems of power that oppress us.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Another book out of Mexico which interests me is Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society. Do you know it?' I inquired.
'Yes, and I too have a high opinion of the thesis of the book. Illich is a man with one good idea. I see you have here Deleuze's Proust and Signs. What do you think of it?'
'I consider it the best book about Proust I have ever read.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Actually, Deleuze wouldn't strike you as being all that unusual,' Foucault replied. 'He appears completely conventional. He is married and has two children.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Lévi-Strauss is a very conservative man,' Foucault avowed. 'And sometimes he behaves very badly . He writes too many books, which keeps him enclosed in his study. Consequently, he doesn't know the world. Scholars make a great mistake in endeavoring to write and publish all they have to say. We should write only a few good books and leave it to our students to complete the tasks we have begun. Otherwise the scholar spends too little time int the world and does not get to know the world.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Duchamp,' I said, 'thought that after the original excitement of discovery, psychedelic mushrooms and similar kinds of plants would be used sparingly like liqueurs.'
'At last I understand the meaning of Lowry's Under the Volcano,' Foucault declared. 'The Consul's mescal served as a drug that filtered his perception in a manner similar to a hallucinogen. The only thing I can compare this experience to in my life is sex with a stranger. Contact with a strange body affords an experience of Truth similar to what I am experiencing now.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“You have to be lost as a young man,' Michel replied, 'You are not really trying unless you are lost. That is a good sign. I was lost as a young man too.'
'Should I take chances with my life?' Jake continued.
'By all means! Take risks, go out on a limb.'
'But I yearn for solutions.'
'There are no solutions.'
'Then at least some answers.'
'There are no answers!”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“The fire petered out so Foucault suggested that he chop some wood. As he walked to the woodpile we could see him from the porch. David warned him about the large rattlesnakes that were around, but this did not deter Foucault in the slightest. After selecting some choice pieces, Foucault chopped the wood with great alacrity. Everybody unabashedly gawked in astonishment, as if to say, How is it that an esteemed Parisian intellectual can learn to chop wood with such dexterity? One could not imagine a Voltaire or Sartre accomplishing such as task so readily.
'But I am just an ordinary man,' I heard Michel say to John, who had gone out to help him. Subsequently, the Bear Canyon bad called him Country Joe Foucault, referring, I suppose, to his down-to-earth manner and skills.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“But don't you think that Nietzsche believed that it is important to try to feel the will that you have within yourself as a person?'
'No, I don't think Nietzsche was saying that. Nietzsche was using the power of the individual as an instrument to combat the moral order that had been established, but he does not belong in any way to the tradition of individualism, which establishes the individual man as the important one in the historical context.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Look at the diners,' Foucault observed. 'They are all dressed alike, talking about the same things in the same manner, eating the same kinds of food. Why is there so much sameness in America? The consumption of patterns in America are so limited, so homogeneous.'
'Is there anywhere you see difference in America?' Mike asked.
'Yes, the universities. If you do not spend time in the universities, you would think everyone in America is the same. At least if a college student were dining here he would likely be wearing clothes that would set him apart. He wouldn't blend in.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“The coffee shop was located in full view of a fire station, which prompted Foucault to say, 'I have noticed that in America there are so many fire stations. The major myth in America is fire, but in California it is earthquake. Americans really cling to their myths.'
'The earthquake myth is so strong here that some people think California will break off into the Pacific Ocean,' Mike said.
'California would not sink, so it would not be a disaster,' Foucault went on to say. On the contrary, California would become an island and begin floating towards China. It would take thousands of years before it got to China, but it would just be floating along and the people of California would be on it, doing their thing, separated, in a very physical and geographic sense, from the rest of the United States and the whole Western world.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]