Michel Foucault, who described himself as a historian of ideas, or an archeologist of knowing (archéologue des savoirs), entitled his last course at the Collège de France "Le courage de la vérité" - the courage of the truth. It is on governance of self and of others and I suspect it has a lot to say in today's crisis, which is really not a financial crisis. Just as there is hardly such a thing as financial crisis of an institution, is is always a crisis of essence and of pertinence, the world's so-called financial crisis is one of truth and governance. Call it systemic, if that's precise enough.
I have not read (yet) the 1984 course by Foucault, which was published recently, but I can't wait to, except I'm afraid of its demanding character, content and style. Whatever Foucault said about himself, about philosophy and whatever people say about Foucault, I sense he was kind of a prophet, speaking the truth. If I have it right, his explanation for the failure of the old Greek democracy was that truth-speaking was not possible. To me that sounds strangely familiar, as I think of institutions, including churchly ones, and society at large.
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Sounds really interesting.
ReplyDeleteMany of our institutions are so obsessed with control that they forget to allow truth to come in. Without it they are lost.
I understand what you mean about the personal demands of truth telling and acting with integrity - I wonder when institutions seem unable to act with integrity whether it is always possible for individuals within them to act with much integrity ...