+
From: Randolph Fritz <randolph@xxxxxxxxxx>
+
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 13:52:46 -0800
Late thoughts on Irigaray . . .
From what little I know about Irigaray, I know that she is a Jungian.
Jungians still believe in those now-deprecated ideas spiritual absolutes.
She's best read in that light, I think; for me the post-modern analysis
misses the point. I don't think her philosophical goal is the will to
power, though her ideas (like most ideas) can probably be made into tools
of that will.
I want to stress, too, that all the analysis in the world doesn't stop your
toe from hurting when you stub it; some realities don't dissolve on close
examination, though ideas about them may. Foucault, at least, acknowledged
this; sometimes I wonder about his students and followers.
That said, I am also not comfortable with Irigaray, for about your reasons.
On the other hand, I believe that she has some insight & is worth the
trouble of study.
On a tangent, I highly recommend Jane Flax's _Thinking Fragments:
Psycholanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary West_
Flax is a working US psychotherapist & brings a very different, pragmatic
view to such ideas.
R.