Bonita's interest in his work led me in the 90s to read Michel Foucault and about him. I got a sense of where he was going generally but, to be candid, I never could muster the patience to follow his work all the way home. Although what I did manage to work though at the very least provided some cogent reinforcment of my natural suspicion of all institutions.

But there was one Foucault anecdote that has remained with me. In the early 1960s Foucault was teaching at the University of Clermont-Ferrand. The Communist philosopher Roger Garaudy also came to teach there--and he and Foucault ended up at serious loggerheads. I believe they even had physical altercations.

Finally in frustration Garaudy demanded to know the reason for Foucault's animosity. Was it personal?

Foucault replied: "I have nothing against you personally, just against stupidity!"