Michel Foucault (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

A Bitter Conversation

 

“Well, well, Michel. You are Michel Foucault, are you not?”

“Mais oui. And you, monsieur, are …?”

“I am a retired teacher from Ohio. I just happen to be taking a few courses at this university. I heard you were on campus here to visit an old friend, but I didn’t expect to run into you. When I recognized you, I just had to say ‘hello’. I disagree with your worldview completely, by the way. I have read your book, Madness and Civilization, and parts of three of the others. You are pretty hard to pin down. As I read, I often asked myself, ‘What is he trying to get us to conclude here?’, but I got no answers. But you’re very popular and have a lot of disciples.”

“You still have not told me your name, mon ami.”

“It’s William. Guillaume, in French. Actually, can you pause to talk for a few minutes? On this bench, here? That is very kind, sir. I may never see you again, and I have longed for years to say some things to you.”

“I find that I am curious enough to wish to let you continue. I have no events to attend until this evening and I have nothing to do. Continue, if you like. I would only be bored with this time if I did not have someone to talk to.”

“Thank you. But I warn you that you may find some of the things I have to say uncomfortable.”

“Well …continue, nevertheless. Do you find my accent difficult?”

“Not at all on the accent part. But to get on with it. Okay. You seem to me to be saying that all key concepts like madness, and criminality, and sexuality change so much from era to era and country to country that the only conclusion we can come to is that whatever is controlling human cultural evolution, it is too complex for humans to ever understand. Or worse yet, chaos is driving our history. There is no order to it. You sometimes even seem to be dedicating your life to smashing values and concepts in your own culture in France, and in every country that you can in any way influence. You smile and nod. I’m sorry, but the truth is that I don’t find this amusing.”

“There is nothing to do but laugh, mon ami. Life is absurd.”

“Okay, I’ll be even more honest. So far, I find you pleasant as a man, but the approach to life you offer in your writings is offensive to me. If you really are that disillusioned with the human condition, why don’t you do what Camus challenges us to do. Commit to bringing some sort of meaning to your life, even if it is just meaningful for you, or get out of it. Why don’t you just end it?”

“You are a talkative and aggressive one, aren’t you? I don’t even know you, sir. But alright, I will give you my best honest answer. I enjoy what you Americans call ‘messing with people’s heads'. I like making them feel lost in a baffling ocean of concepts and arguments. It’s fun. And I believe it is good for them and their society if they do feel continually shaken up. Then, they drop their pretenses. Then, society changes. For better? Not always. But it is so filled with hypocrisy now. It needs to be shaken out of its delusions. Are you content with that answer?”

“Absolutely not. I loathe the cowardice of it. The …what’s the word …smugness of it. You are in this life. You have your existence in which you eat, drink, shit, feel, breathe, copulate, and so on. You feel it. It is not a matter of indifference to you. If you broke through the ice on a frozen lake, you would claw at the sides of the hole you were freezing in with all the same panic and desperation as I would. Or anyone would. So don’t pretend that you are indifferent and casual about your own pain and your own life. You aren’t. Period. No one is.”

“Ah, but mon ami, the thoughts and behaviors that I might succumb to in a moment of desperation are beyond my control. I am not interested in them. I care about the actions that I choose. Deliberately. The rest are just boring.”

“Do you think these words might be revealing of something deeper?”

“Not at all.”

“See to me, all this talk is just games. Posing. Banter for adolescents. Here’s a leap. Tell me this: are you familiar with the writings of de Man and Derrida?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know the men personally?”

“No. I know their works, not the men themselves.”

“So you …”

“But I agree with much of what they have written. Not all, by any means, but deconstruction is sometimes a useful tool.”

“I am going to be blunt with you now and point out a few simple facts that may or may not weigh as arguments with you. You were 18 when World War Two ended, is that right?”

“Is there some relevance to this line of questioning?”

“Just answer. You’ve gotten out of being properly confronted for too long.”

“Alright. For the sake of amusement, yes, I was 18 when the war ended.”

“Did you ever serve in any French forces or the Resistance?”

“No.”

“Did any of the men in your family serve?”

“No …this is becoming personal ... and ridiculous.”

“Were any of your family collaborators with the occupiers? The Germans?”

“No. That is …not as far as I know.”

“Did Paul de Man ever serve?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“In fact, he collaborated with the Nazis in Belgium for years, is that not so?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do too! You know he did. Stop the evasions!”

“What is your point, here, sir?”

“And Derrida. Did he ever serve?”

“What is your point, sir? Tell me, or I will walk away right now.”

“Alright, here’s what I really think. Smart people are subject to rationalization and confirmation bias just as much as any other people, sir. You and your cohorts have been trying to justify your anemic response to the Nazis since you first began to write. Deep inside, you are all ashamed that you yielded to the Nazis, crawled into bed with Nazis. And turned whichever way they told you to turn. The Allies eventually defeating those Nazis was very inconvenient to the collaborators of the occupied countries. Surprise. Whatever meaning is behind the history of those times, they were not shaped by the ubermensch of Nietzsche's dark vision. Nietzsche is just a wailing sociopath with a big vocabulary …no, let me say it all. In simple terms, every person in Nietzsche’s ideological band is fucked up. And deep inside …I feel very certain …you and the others in your coterie have been ashamed ever since 1945. But you can’t acknowledge that. So you make up complicated excuses, guarded by big vocabularies and ad hoc concepts. To me - just to me, okay - you’re a shame on the honor of your nations. Continental nations. Nations that got overwhelmed. And lost the fight in round 2. But France had friends who did – in time – prevail over the Nazis. No, don’t interrupt me! Let me finish, sir!”

“Rant on, rant on.”

“France had friends who didn’t succumb to the Nazis, not because they were somehow superior in character to the French. Just geographical accidents. The deep corruptions of France’s national character during World War Two could have happened to any nation under the wrong circumstances. Almost no ordinary folk blame France for caving to the Nazis. But deep down, the French themselves do. And the smartest of these can’t admit how ashamed they are. They repress the matter, and it comes out in rationalizations. Too many European intellectuals generally have contrived long-winded excuses that obliquely deal with that failure. And some non-philosophical Frenchmen have grasped at those straws of rhetoric because they need to. In Vichy times, some men fought on one side and some on the other. They killed each other. You know all this is true. Now most wish just to put the war behind them. But a few write and write works full of excuses and evasion. And big vocabularies and vacuous concepts. Rationalizations.”

“Are you quite done, sir? I did not fly six thousand miles to be insulted by a nobody.”

“You’re right. We are incompatible. I hate your whole intellectual viewpoint. I guess I just thought you and I could talk as men. But …no. The intellectual is too personal to us both for that to happen. Ah, good day to you, Monsieur! Enjoy your stay in Massachusetts.”

                                        Jacques Derrida (credit: Wikipedia)