[Editor’s note: The following is a translation by Ibn Warraq and Robert Kerr of Michel Onfray’s L’Art d’Etre Francais (The Art of Being French, Bouquins, 2021), published here for the first time. Part 1 is here.]
It was Michel Foucault who, along with a few other young philosophers of his generation, were lying in wait for the old lion to die, thereupon taking up the torch in the most brutal fashion. Although he was haloed by the structuralist success of Words and Things (1966), a book that professed to eschew History in favor of a metaphysics of structures, he had now come to tell us, thanks to the Iranian revolution, what the truth in politics would henceforth be: a return to theocracy – provided it is not Catholic, of course… In the same way that structuralism was a return to the medieval ontology of essences, in other words, an idealist counter-revolution, Islamo-leftism, which was founded on this occasion, was to be a return to pre-revolutionary theocracy, which constitutes another counter-revolution: a political one this time.
Michel Foucault’s political path was quite sinuous, though not without logic: he embraced the prevailing current of each era, by which he made an an ad hoc career! He was a communist in the early 1950s, and Althusser got him to teach at the École Normale Supérieure; then a Gaullist in the 1960s, he was a member of the ÉNA[1] jury in 1965, also working for the Fauchet university reform commission two years later, and was then offered management positions in the French education system, but his homosexuality was used against him; a leftist after May ’68, a Maoist, to be precise, he became director of the University of Vincennes; appointed to the Collège de France in November 1969, in the years that followed he backed the idea of a bloody proletarian dictatorship. In 1977, he supported the new philosophers alongside Yves Montand, Bernard Kouchner and André Glucksmann, from then on he was in good standing with the socialists. In 1978, he defended the Shiite theocracy and the political Islam of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the whole left applauded; the last Foucault, who turned away from the socialists in the 1980s and moved closer to the neo-liberals, Mitterrand having initiated the left’s demise subsequently celebrating the great European market. Since the famous headline “Vive la crise!” in Libération (February 1984), which loudly applauded the shift to the right of the left, in other words the denial of the left, liberalism had been in fashion. Foucault died on 25 June 1984.
The grandfather of Islamo-leftism is Sartre, who was willing to do anything to ensure that the Judeo-Christian West would burn, that Western Europe, the Europe of freedoms, would be cremated in a world where Eastern Europe, the Europe of barbed wire, was confronting it, assuming that Gaullist France which he equated with fascism, would be incinerated and that a socialist, Marxist – and Muslim – Third World would then shine bright! The steeple, no; the minaret, yes. The pope, no; the ayatollah, yes. The Bible, no; the Qur’an, yes. The Sunday sermon, no; the call of the muezzin, yes. Christian anti-Judaism, no; Muslim anti-Semitism, yes. Catholic misogyny, homophobia and phallocracy, no; patriarchy, the hunting of homosexuals, Arab-Muslim sexual mutilation, yes. Crusades, no; Jihad, yes. The Cross, no; the Crescent, yes. This has become the catechism of nihilistic France. Who could have foreseen such a return of the religious?
To what does Michel Foucault’s plea for this political counter-revolution that restores the full powers of theocracy – the very opposite of democracy –as was the case before pre-1789, resemble?
The answer can be found in a series of journalistic articles that our philosopher published in the Italian daily Corriere della sera. In September 1978, he arrived in Tehran to do a journalist’s job – indeed, he would do a journalist’s job, which is quite the opposite of a philosopher’s job…
The Shah’s regime was not, of course, a democratic model, but it sought to to westernize, modernize, secularize, and industrialize the Iranian people, who lived in a traditional, custom-bound and conservative world. His political police was brutal, his army shot on sight and spilt much blood. The opposition to this regime was carried by the Shiites. If evil is on the Shah’s side, then good must be found on the other side of the barricade! The alumnus of the École normale supérieure, with a degree in philosophy, professor at the Collège de France, the adulated philosopher, arrived on scene under the pretext of pondering reality: he saw only ideas, bipartite dissertations, concepts. He did not believe what he saw; he was rather content to see what he believed.
To prepare for this trip, he had read Henry Corbin[2]. It is not certain that the reflections of this Islamologist on the nature of angels in Islam, on the divine hierarchies, on the archangelic heptad, on apophatic theology, on Avicenna’s[3] angelology or on the phenomenology of the Holy Spirit were the best preparation for seeing reality as it is. Why didn’t he simply read the Qur’an, the hadith and a biography of Mohammed!
It did not occur to the philosopher that perhaps theocracy is not the best way to install democracy in an authoritarian country. Fascinated by negativity alone, without any concern for what might follow, he sided with political Islam.
———-
[1] École Nationale d’Administration.
[2] Henry Corbin [1903-1978] wrote about, and translated works of Shiite gnosis, figures such as Sohrawardi , Molla Sadra Shirazi , Rûzbehân Baqlî Shîrâzî and also the Sufi Ibn Arabi and his Shiite disciple Haydar Amoli.
[3] Avicenna [Ibn Sina] [980-1037], Iranian physician and philosopher.
Walter Sieruk says
Concerning not only the history of the Islamo -leftist alliance ,such a Red / Green alliance is still very active in current times .
As seen those leftist human rights abused affronts and even murders of American patriots in Washington DC on January 6th 2021.
The date this posting is 1/6/22 therefore its exactly one year since .that terrible incident which occurred on January 6th 2021 . That was a leftists set up . Those pro-Trump patriots had been waved into that federal building by smiling politically correct appointed Capital police. Once inside that building the PC appointed police turned violently on them and even murdered one of them , who was totally non–violent. Likewise those Capital “police”even viciously turned violent on the peaceful patriots outside that building . The PC capital “COP’s” even murdered one young women in a nearby tunnel and they severely beat another young peaceful patriot woman , she even held her heads in surrender yet those so -called”police.,” left wingers just continued to beat her savagely without mercy.
This is outrageous, wrong evil and most heinous, PC Capital “police” are a complete disgrace to all genuine decent police officers.
Furthermore the unconscionable behavior of those leftist thugs in police uniforms , Capital police, in Washington DC are much more similar to the Communist State police of North Korea in how they treat people by ignoring their basic human rights than real American police officers
Walter Sieruk says
That despicable fiendish villain who is posing as a real US President ,Joe Biden ,who is so extremely evil that he takes a large part in a heinous cover-up in the blatant murder of Ashli Babbitt, a non-violent ,unarmed peaceful patriot protester who shot and murdered , though a closed door by a US Capital “police officer..” The words “police officer” referring to murderous character, who viciously killed Ashil in cold blood. After she and other American patriots had actually been waved in that Federal government building by some “Capital police officers” . That was a real, actual “set up” in the most horrendous, wicked insidious kind there could possibly be.
Then Biden after he officially entered the Office of the US Presidency abused that power as a Chief Executive to hide that grisly murder of this young patriot from the public, the ,law courts , and helped get that murderous off Scot- free.
This among other hideous unconscionable affront by Joe Biden reveals now more than ever before that Biden is not a genuine US President but an actual criminal.
Hoi Polloi says
Here’s another official effort to build fear of marauding right-wingers:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-police-improperly-faked-radio-chatter-about-proud-boys-as-chop-formed-in-2020-investigation-finds/?utm_source=RC+Investigations+Today&utm_campaign=ab32a5149c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_11_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d042379c8d-ab32a5149c-88592062&mc_cid=ab32a5149c&mc_eid=e3250bd3e1
gravenimage says
Here in the Bay Area it’s been wall-to-wall bs about the “insurrection” anniversary. I finally had to turn it off.
Hoi Polloi says
Ugh. We canceled cable as a result of the relentless efforts at indoctrination. Ads, “news,” casting, rewriting history, and the like. Couldn’t be happier that we’re no longer financially supporting that. My sympathies.
gravenimage says
Thanks–I’m sure this is not the only place,
Walter Sieuuk says
It was the Antifa thugs who had been bused to Washington DC on January 6th who posed in the Patriot rally as “Trump supporters” who created and incited all that mayhem. That scheme that the Antifa Marxists carried out by infuriating the Patriot rally is what is called ‘ ” false flag operation.”
Doomer says
He forgot to say the following about SARTRE:
In 1977, a OPEN LETTER ( in favor of PEDOPHILIA ) or petition was addressed to the French parliament calling for the
abrogation of several articles of the age of consent law
and the decriminalization of all consensual relations between adults and minors below the age of fifteen (the age of consent in France).
69 French intellectuals signed it, like:
Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida,
Louis Aragon, Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes,
Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre,
Alain Robbe-Grillet, and even the FOUNDER of “Doctors without Borders”( BERNARD KOUCHNER )
Doomer says
In January 2021 came out “La Familia Grande”, book by CAMILLE KOUCHNER, daughter of Bernard Kouchner.
He parents divorced and in the book she says that for YEARS she was RAPED by Olivier Duhamel ( a Leftist intellectual ),
her stepfather,and he did the same to her Twin Brother. They were both UNDER 15 years of age.
Hoi Polloi says
Thanks for posting that. I appreciate the reminder. Doctors Without Borders has its own sexual assault history, as I’m sure you know. No coincidence.
Doomer says
Your welcome, and unfortunately now even the POPE is a Leftist.A very evil man who lies.
I have respect for the best of Catholicism, but today,it is Worse than in the Time of the Borgias.
Hoi Polloi says
There’s a noteworthy openness about these evil people; no evident fear of consequences.
gravenimage says
Good point, Doomer. Foucalt argued that children are able give informed consent to sex–saying that assuming “that a child is incapable of explaining what happened and was incapable of giving his consent are two abuses that are intolerable, quite unacceptable.”
So sick–age of consent laws are a bulwark in the protection of children.
No wonder Foucalt loved the Iranian revolution, where children as young as nine could be forced to “marry”.
Hoi Polloi says
I think the hope of a world of pedophilia being opened to them is behind so much of their support for islam. Pretty obvious in that case.
Doomer says
I don’t know how much it is,but I have read child porn is popular. That is why men should quit porn in general,
they become DESENSITIZED over time to adult women,
and so many search for new material.
gravenimage says
Islamo-Leftism (Part 2)
……………………..
I don’t think that Michel Foucault was ever concerned about democracy–he sneered at the whole idea of liberal democracy, calling it an oxymoron.
Foucalt visited Iran right after the Islamic revolution, and he lauded this oppressive savagery–and not just once, but in article after article.