Author: Ophelia Benson

A little from Foucault himself, since it’s available. Some wisdom and insight from M. Discipline and Punish.

One thing must be clear. By “Islamic government,” nobody in Iran means a political regime in which the clerics would have a role of supervision or control.

Shrewd, ain’t it! Noooo, nobody meant that! Clerics? A role? A role of supervision or control? Oh, hell no! That’s not what anybody meant.

He did go to Iran, right? He wasn’t confused? He didn’t, like, get off the plane a stop or two early? In Marseille or someplace? He didn’t accidentally say ‘Stockholm’ to the ticket clerk when he meant to say ‘Tehran’?

To me, the phrase “Islamic government” seemed to point to two orders of things. “A utopia,” some told me without any pejorative implication. “An ideal,” most of them said to me. At any rate, it is something very old and also very far into the future, a notion of coming back to what Islam was at the time of the Prophet, but also of advancing toward a luminous and distant point where it would be possible to renew fidelity rather than maintain obedience. In pursuit of this ideal, the distrust of legalism seemed to me to be essential, along with a faith in the creativity of Islam.

Very old and also very far into the future – so far that it comes back around and meets itself? Or what. Because that business of coming back to what Islam was at the time of the Prophet – well, let me put it this way, I’ve never learned anything about the 7th century in any part of the world that made me want to live then. Really not. So I have to wonder why Foucault thought that sounded ‘luminous’. And then that crap about fidelity rather than obedience. Oh yeah? Tell that to the women who got beaten up for not concealing themselves thoroughly enough. And then to top it all off, like the rotting fish head on top of the ice cream sundae – ‘faith in the creativity of Islam.’ Right. Three hooray-words, three sexual-arousal words, three mental-shutdown words – faith, creativity, and Islam. Bad idea, Foukers – faith not a good way to go, creativity really beside the point here, and Islam – well, not quite what you seem to have thought.

But one dreams also of another movement, which is the inverse and the converse of the first. This is one that would allow the introduction of a spiritual dimension into political life, in order that it would not be, as always, the obstacle to spirituality, but rather its receptacle, its opportunity, and its ferment…I do not feel comfortable speaking of Islamic government as an “idea” or even as an “ideal.” Rather, it impressed me as a form of “political will.” It impressed me in its effort to politicize structures that are inseparably social and religious in response to current problems. It also impressed me in its attempt to open a spiritual dimension in politics.

One person’s dream is another person’s nightmare.

So Foucault went to Iran in 1979, to see what he could see.

While many liberals and leftists supported the populist uprising that pitted unarmed masses against one of the world’s best-armed regimes, none welcomed the announcement of the growing power of radical Islam with the portentous lyricism that Foucault brought to his brief, and never repeated, foray into journalism…Foucault’s Iranian adventure was a “tragic and farcical error” that fits into a long tradition of ill-informed French intellectuals spouting off about distant revolutions, says James Miller, whose 1993 biography “The Passion of Michel Foucault” contains one of the few previous English-language accounts of the episode. Indeed, Foucault’s search for an alternative that was absolutely other to liberal democracy seems peculiarly reckless in light of political Islam’s subsequent career, and makes for odd reading now as observers search for traditions in Islam that are compatible with liberal democracy.

Yeah. Odd – painful – embarrassing – cringe-making. It’s like watching a putative radical cheering Hitler’s election, or getting misty-eyed while watching ‘Triumph of the Will,’ or putting a lovingly-framed photo of Pol Pot on the wall.

Foucault was virtually alone among Western observers, Anderson and Afary argue, in embracing the specifically Islamist wing of the revolution. Indeed, Foucault pokes fun at the secular leftists who thought they could use the Islamists as a weapon for their own purposes; the Islamists alone, he believed, reflected the “perfectly unified collective will” of the people.

Oh, Christ. How fucking stupid can you get. Especially when you’re someone who’s famous for sniffing out the insidious, non-obvious forms of domination and power. ‘The perfectly unified collective will of the people’ – what the hell would that be? Unless they all happen to be pod people, there is no such thing! You’d think anyone with even the most rudimentary acquaintance with actual human beings, let alone a theorist of power, would be well aware of that. No – what there is is the perfectly unified collective will of some people, which is a terrific instrument for tyrannizing over the rest of the people. The more ‘perfectly unified’ i.e. passionately held, unquestioned and unquestionable, mindless, irrational, fervent it is, the more sharp and thorough an instrument it is. It’s something to be terrified of, not something to rejoice at. Especially – especially (did he miss it because it’s so god damn obvious?) – if the people with the perfectly unified enraged collective will are the stronger part of the people – to wit, the men – the adult men, the straight men, the majority-religion men. Along with the collective will thing, they have sticks and whips and fists.

The Iranian Revolution, Anderson and Afary write, appealed to certain of Foucault’s characteristic preoccupations — with the spontaneous eruption of resistance to established power, the exploration of the limits of rationality, and the creativity unleashed by people willing to risk death…In his articles, Foucault compared the Islamists to Savonarola, the Anabaptists, and Cromwell’s militant Puritans. The comparisons were intended to flatter.

Savonarola! And what did he think Savonarola would have thought of someone like him?! The limits of rationality, the creativity unleashed by people willing to risk death – oh, hell. He pretty much was getting misty-eyed at ‘Triumph of the Will’ then.

“We think of Foucault as this very cool, unsentimental thinker who would be immune to the revolutionary romanticism that has overtaken intellectuals who covered up Stalin’s atrocities or Mao’s…But in this case, he abandoned much of his critical perspective in his intoxication with what he saw in Iran. Here was a great philosopher of difference who looked around him in Iran and everywhere saw unanimity.”

Saw it, and cheered it on. Very clever. Well done.

Foucault, who died in 1984, refused to engage in public mea culpas, despite the fierce debate that broke out in France over his ideas about Iran…Anderson says that the debate over these 25- year-old writings has relevance when some leftists focus more energy on criticizing an administration they scorn than on speaking against a radical Islamist movement that also violates all their cherished ideals.

But, some people think Foucault’s view had some merit.

Other Foucault scholars also see an enduring value in his turn toward political spirituality. James Bernauer, a Jesuit priest who teaches philosophy at Boston College and has written several books on Foucault and theology, sees in the late Foucault’s embrace of spirituality a resource for thinking about how to integrate politics and religion…”Foucault had an ability to see this, to see past the pervasive secularism of French intellectual life, that was quite remarkable.

Ah, a Jesuit priest! Well in that case. No, I’ll stick with that pervasive secularism deal, thanks. The more pervasive the better.

May the god of the atheists shine its everlasting light on Polly Toynbee. Wait. May the – oh never mind, you know what I mean.

At least she hasn’t swapped her brain for a fleece.

It would be entirely reasonable for secular Labour MPs to plead conscience on this, just as the religious are excused the whip on matters that trespass on their faith. This touches on freedom of thought and ideas, with far-reaching consequences for the values of the Enlightenment that are under growing threat from a collective softening of the brain on faith and superstitions of all kinds.

Yep. And you need to watch out for that collective softening of the brain stuff. It can creep up on you and before you know where you are or can say ‘Look at that tortilla, doesn’t that look like St Aloysius the Uninteresting?’ you’ve got religious zealots running the place. It can happen. Don’t you think it can’t. Listen, the US was not such a god-ridden place thirty years ago – not nearly. Then people absent-mindedly voted a ‘born-again’ Christian into the White House, and things have been getting worse ever since. So don’t let down your guard just because Tony Blair doesn’t keep saying ‘God bless you’ during question time – yet.

it is now illegal to describe an ethnic group as feeble-minded. But under this law I couldn’t call Christian believers similarly intellectually challenged without risk of prosecution. This crystallises the difference between racial and religious abuse. Race is something people cannot choose and it defines nothing about them as people. But beliefs are what people choose to identify with: in the rough and tumble of argument to call people stupid for their beliefs is legitimate (if perhaps unwise), but to brand them stupid on account of their race is a mortal insult. The two cannot be blurred into one – which is why the word Islamophobia is a nonsense. And now the Vatican wants the UN to include Christianophobia in its monitoring of discriminations.

Just so. ‘Race’ can’t possibly be stupid, because it doesn’t have any cognitive content anyway. It’s a complete category mistake. One might as well call a pineapple loyal or a Prada bag dyslexic. But beliefs are all about cognitive content – that’s what they are. Believers are always trying to disguise that, trying to pretend that belief is something else – virtue, or a disposition to kindness, or a talent for keeping your pants on, or marital stability combined with fecundity combined with the ability to hang on to a job – but that’s not what it is. It’s inane and meaningless to call red hair stupid (unless it’s the product of a packet of dye, but that’s a special case, and not relevant), it’s not inane and meaningless to call belief in heaven and hell stupid. Rude, possibly, but not meaningless.

…the religious are already getting their way in more insidious ways. For the chilling effect of this law is here now. There is a new nervousness about criticising, let alone mocking, any religious belief, a jumpiness about challenging Islam or Roman Catholicism. This most secular state in the world, with fewest worshippers at any altars, should be a beacon of secularism in a world beset by religious bloodshed. Instead, our politicians twitch nervously in a lily-livered capitulation to unreason. Why? Because this clever blending between race and faith has tied all tongues. This law springs from a cult of phoney racial/religious respect that makes it harder than it ever was to dare to criticise, let alone mock. There is a new caution about “causing offence”. What kind of offence? Not to people’s race but to ideas in their head.

Remember what Stephen Fry said at Hay about the two words that have taken on creepy overtones lately? Remember what the words were? I knew, I knew before he said them – I said the second one aloud before he got it out of his mouth. Everyone knows; it’s obvious. Respect and offence. ‘I’m offended,’ Fry said in a mincing voice. ‘Well so fucking what?!” Exactly. May the god of the atheists shine its everlasting light on Fry and Toynbee – and Atkinson and Rushdie and Hitchens. Bless all articulate atheists, amen.

I’ve been reading a little Orwell lately – prompted partly by my offhand comment in an email to Norm that Orwell was good but Hitchens is better – which itself was prompted by Philip Dodd’s introduction of Hitchens on ‘Night Waves’ in which he quoted someone (someone unnamed, I think) as writing in a review that Hitchens is as good as Orwell, or almost as good as Orwell, or some such. That annoyed me. It is my considered opinion – despite the offhandedness of the comment alluded to above – that Orwell is over-rated as a writer. Really quite seriously over-rated. That his language is very often decidedly tired and uninspired, even banal, and that there is a lot of commonplace thought in it. Phrases like ‘dirty little scoundrel’ come to mind.

But when Harry at Crooked Timber did a post about Fascinating Hitchens in which he quoted Norm quoting me there was a lot of disagreement (along with some agreement) with my relative estimation of the two – which is why I got Orwell off the shelf to check my impression again. And – I still agree with myself. He’s good, he’s interesting, he’s definitely worth reading, but he is not a great writer or stylist or thinker. He’s not as good as Dwight Macdonald, for instance.

That’s just a flat assertion, obviously. It would take extensive quotation to make my case – because he is good, so I can’t just quote a terrible sentence and leave it at that. But if you read a good chunk of him, the flatness and uninspiredness become increasingly noticeable.

But! As I say – he is good. I’m just saying he’s not the best; but he is good. On religion, for example…

It also appears from my correspondent’s letter that even the most central doctrines of the Christian religion don’t have to be accepted in a literal sense. It doesn’t matter, for instance, whether Jesus Christ ever existed…So we arrive at this position: Tribune must not poke fun at the Christian religion, but the existence of Christ, which innumberable people have been burnt for denying, is a matter of indifference.

Now, is this orthodox Catholic doctrine? My impression is that it is not. I can think of passages in the writings of popular Catholic apologists such as Father Woodlock and Father Ronald Knox in which it is stated in the clearest terms that Christian doctrine means what it appears to mean, and is not to be accepted in some wishy-washy metaphorical sense.

There. So yaboosucks. Exactly what I’m always saying – when people start with that ‘Oh but religion doesn’t mean, you know, literally believing in [trailing off vaguely] – it just means a way of feeling, a way of looking at the world, a framework.’ No it doesn’t! A feeling, a way of looking at the world, a framework, is not a religion, it’s something else. Christian doctrine means what it appears to mean, it doesn’t just mean a fondness for daffodils and clouds. Religions do make truth claims about the real world, so don’t tell me they don’t. It ain’t honest.

If you talk to a thoughtful Christian, Catholic or Anglican, you often find yourself laughed at for being so ignorant as to suppose that anyone ever took the doctrines of the Church literally. These doctrines have, you are told, a quite other meaning which you are too crude to understand…Thus the Catholic intellectual is able, for controversial purposes, to play a sort of handy-pandy game, repeating the articles of the Creed in exactly the same terms as his forefathers, while defending himself from the charge of superstition by explaining that he is speaking in parables.

Bingo. Exactly. A handy-pandy game for controversial purposes. Parable, nothing. If it’s all just a parable, then what is all the fuss about? If it’s all a parable, atheists and theists are the same thing and can stop arguing – and all those people rioting at theatres, and threatening MPs and writers and BBC producers, and sticking knives in people – they’re all just confused, they’re taking literally what everyone else means metaphorically. Yeah right.

So – I still say Orwell is way down the list of best essayists I know of, but he’s nowhere near the bottom.

That by the way was an As I Please, from 3 March 1944.