#fearless speech

[starry-skiesabove]

The one who uses parrhesia, the parrhesiates, is someone who says everything he has in mind: he does not hide anything, but opens his heart and mind completely to other people through his discourse.

Fearless Speech, Michael Foucalt

[starry-skiesabove]

Whereas rhetoric provides the speaker with technical devices to help him prevail upon the minds of his audience (regardless of the rhetorician's own opinion concerning what he says), in parrhesia, the parrhesiates acts on other people's minds by showing them as directly as possible what he actually believes.

Fearless Speech, Michael Foucalt

[shrinkrants]

“My intention was not to deal with the problem of truth, but with the problem of the truth-teller, or of truth-telling as an activity: … who is able to tell the truth, about what, with what consequences, and with what relations to power … . [W]ith the question of the importance of telling the truth, knowing who is able to tell the truth, and knowing why we should tell the truth, we have the roots of what we could call the ‘critical’ tradition in the West.”

- Michel Foucault

quoted in the front matter of Fearless Speech, an compilation, edited by Joseph Pearson, of his six lectures in English at the University of California at Berkeley in 1983. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).

With the Trump phenomenon, the critical tradition seems to have been eclipsed. Let’s work to make it shine again.

[s-hayashi]

Michel Foucault : Discours et vérité. Précédé de La Parrêsia

Vrin (Feb 2016)

À l’automne 1983, Michel Foucault prononce, à l’Université de Californie à Berkeley, un cycle de six conférences intitulé Discours et vérité, dont on trouvera ici, pour la première fois, l’édition complète et critique. Dans ces conférences, la richesse de la notion de parrêsia et son rôle stratégique pour la réflexion éthique et politique de Foucault émergent de manière évidente. Foucault retrace notamment les transformations de cette notion dans le monde antique : d’abord droit politique du citoyen athénien, la parrêsia devient, avec Socrate, l’un des traits essentiels du discours philosophique puis, avec les cyniques, de la vie philosophique elle-même dans ce qu’elle peut avoir de provoquant et même de scandaleux; enfin, aux premiers siècles de l’Empire, la parrêsia apparaît au fondement des relations entre le maître et le disciple dans la culture de soi. En faisant l’analyse de la notion de parrêsia, Foucault poursuit en même temps son projet d’une histoire du présent et pose des jalons pour une généalogie de l’attitude critique dans nos sociétés modernes et contemporaines. Ce volume contient également la transcription d’une conférence prononcée par Foucault en mai 1982 à l’université de Grenoble, devant un public de spécialistes de la philosophie antique, qui présente un état antérieur et différent de sa réflexion sur la parrêsia.

Édition et apparat critique établis par H.-P. Fruchaud et D. Lorenzini. Introduction par F. Gros.

Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech (published in English)

[ivyswifts]

Taylor Swift Fearless Tour Speech

To me, “FEARLESS” is not the absence of fear. It’s not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though you’ve been hurt before. FEARLESS is walking into your freshmen year of high school at fifteen. FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again… even though every time you’ve tried before, you’ve lost. It’s FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change. FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you can’t breathe without them. I think it’s FEARLESS to fall for your best friend, even though he’s in love with someone else. And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they’ll never stop doing, I think it’s FEARLESS to stop believing them. It’s FEARLESS to say “you’re NOT sorry”, and walk away. I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is FEARLESS. Letting go is FEARLESS. Then, moving on and being alright…That’sFEARLESS too. But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. That’s why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS.

[irwonder]

My intention is not to deal with the problem of truth, but the problem with the truth-teller, or a truth-telling as an activity:...who is able to tell the truth, about what, with what consequences, and with what relations to power.... [W]ith the question of the importance of telling the truth, knowing who is able to tell the truth, we have the roots of what we could call the 'critical' tradition in the West.

Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech