Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 12:18:05 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Subject: M-TH: Foucault on polemic


I'm posting this not because I necessarily agree with the position, and
certainly not because I'm innocent of bellicosity, but because I think it's
a position worth talking about. Marxism has been characterized by just this
sort of death-fight mentality, and I wonder if this has something to do
with our political marginalization.

Doug

----

>From Michel Foucault, Remarks on Marx [Semiotext(e), 1991], a series of
interviews with the Italian Communist Duccio Trombadori:

"What is tiresome in ideological arguments is that one is necessarily swept
away by the 'model of war.' That is to say that when you find yourself
facing someone with ideas different from your own, you are always led to
identify that person as an enemy (of your class, your society, etc.). And
we know that it is necessary to wage combat with the enemy until triumphing
over him. This grand theme of ideological struggle has really disturbed me.
First of all because the theoretical coordinates of each of us are often,
no, always, confused and fluctuating, especially if they are observed in
their genesis.
   Furthermore, might not this 'struggle' that one tries to wage against
the 'enemy' only be a way of making a petty dispute without much importance
seem more serious than it really is? I mean, don't certain intellectuals
hope to lend themselves greater political weight with their 'ideological
struggle' than they really have? A book is consumed very quickly you know.
An article, well.... What is more serious: acting out a struggle against
the 'enemy,' or investigating, togetehr or perhaps divergently, the
important problems that are posed? And then I'll tell you: I find this
'model of war' not only a bit ridiculous but also rather dangerous. Because
by virtue of saying or thinking 'I'm fighting against the enemy,' if one
day you find yourself in a position of strength, and in a situation of real
war, in front of this blasted 'enemy,' wouldn't you actually treat him as
one? Taking that route leads directly to oppression, not matter who takes
it; that's the real danger. I understand how pleasing it can be for some
intellectuals to try to be taken seriously by a party or society by acting
out a 'war' against an ideological adversary: but that is disturbing above
all because of what it could provoke. Wouldn't it be much better instead to
think that those with whom you disagree are perhaps mistaken; or perhaps
that you haven't understood what they intended to say?"




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