The French Poisoned the Damn Wine

The Other McCain found a jewel, and printed it while mentioning Foucault (while spitting.)  The entire post is worthwhile, as he points to BOTH of Foucault's problems, but we'll stick with the philosophical one, accompanied by a critique of the views of Derrida and Deleuze.

... I want to offer my apologies, on behalf of the French, for giving birth to French Theory (which in turn gave birth to the worst of all ideological monstrosities: wokism).

We gave the world Descartes, Pascal, Tocqueville. And then, in the intellectual ruins of post-1968, we gave Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Three brilliant men who forged, in the elegance of our language, the ideological weapon that today paralyzes the West.

We must understand what they did. Foucault taught that truth does not exist, that there are only power relations disguised as knowledge. That science, reason, justice, the medical institution, the school, the prison, sexuality — everything is merely a staging of domination. Derrida taught that texts have no stable meaning, that every signifier slips away, that every reading is a betrayal, that the author is dead and the reader reigns supreme. Deleuze taught that we should prefer the rhizome to the tree, the nomad to the sedentary, desire to the law, becoming to being, difference to identity.

Taken individually, these are debatable theses. Combined, exported, and popularized, they form a system. And that system is a poison.  --quoting Brivael Le Pogram

 Actually, they are not "debatable" theses.  Each is wrong, or wrong-headed.  (Foucault 'thought' with his little head, not the big one.)

The perceptive reader will note that the Democrat Party lives by Foucault's rule and that the US Courts have been plagued by members who believe Derrida was absolutely correct.  In another sphere, many church leaders have subscribed to the teachings of Deleuze. (See, e.g., the conclusions of Group #9 at the recent Vatican synodality meet-up.)

Is this a mess?

Yes.  More from Le Pogram:

... It’s shit for one simple reason, and it must be stated calmly. A civilization stands on three pillars: the belief that there exists a truth accessible to reason, the belief that there exists a good distinct from evil, the belief that there exists a heritage to be transmitted. French Theory set out to dynamite all three. Not out of malice. Out of intellectual play, fascination with suspicion, hatred of the bourgeoisie that had nurtured them. But the result is there. An entire generation learned to deconstruct and never learned to build. An entire generation knows how to suspect and no longer knows how to admire. An entire generation sees power everywhere and beauty nowhere....

Pray harder.