Progressivism and parrhesia

For radical progressives, “free speech for me, but not for thee” is not a tactic, but a moral imperative.

"Michel Foucault, painted portrait DDC_7448.jpg" by Abode of Chaos is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I have always had a soft spot for the philosopher Michel Foucault. This may seem strange, given that Foucault is something of a bête noire on the right, to the point of occasionally being blamed for destroying the entire Western philosophical tradition.

In my opinion, the charge is unjust. Such hostility is inevitable, however, given that Foucault’s subject is power and the analysis of power. In democratic societies, no one particularly wants to be told that they have power, especially not power over others. Moreover, there is a disconcerting Gnosticism—a kind of revelation of disturbing secret knowledge—in any attempt to analyze what radical progressives often refer to as “structures of power,” even though the practice goes back at least to Machiavelli and probably Plato.

In other words, people tend to be more comfortable with analyses of power when the subject is other societies, rather than their own. Plato and Aristotle’s analyses of how men ruled over other men in ancient Greek societies or Polybius’ deconstruction of the Roman constitution are, after all, far less disturbing than Foucault’s analysis of how men rule over other men in contemporary Western society.

It is also undeniable that Foucault has had a profound influence on numerous intellectual movements that are, put simply, deplorable. Radical progressives have exploited his ideas to justify almost anything they do, portraying themselves as defenders of justice and morality against unjust and immoral power structures. Consequently, we have encountered such irritating concepts as “decolonizing your mind,” “othering,” and “speaking truth to power,” even when radical progressives themselves wield the power.

1. The pummeling of Noam Chomsky

What makes Foucault particularly fascinating, however, is that he himself acknowledged the absurdity of such pretensions. In fact, the radical progressive embrace of Foucault goes beyond mere vulgarization of his work; it constitutes a profound distortion of his ideas.

Their vulgarization is entirely based on the idea that structures of power of any kind are, by definition, unjust and immoral, and must be fought. The problem is that Foucault did not believe in morality. He took his ideas of structures of power to such an extreme that he felt morality itself was just another structure of power. He was, in other words, a genuine nihilist.

Of course, numerous other intellectuals—such as Marx, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and so on—were also nihilists. But every one of them justified their nihilism on the basis of morality. They all claimed to be fighting for justice in unjust systems and declared repeatedly that they were “speaking truth to power.”

Foucault was, perhaps, the only nihilist intellectual since the Marquis de Sade with the courage of his convictions. That is, he was the only one actually willing to say it. He believed that structures of power simply are, and the question of their justice or legitimacy is irrelevant. People who rebel against power are simply seeking power for themselves. One can support them or not (Foucault had his own sympathies) depending on one’s preferences, but there is no universal standard of “justice” that can “justify” doing so.

Interestingly, Foucault said this outright to Noam Chomsky himself.

The famous 1971 debate between Foucault and Chomsky is something to behold. It is the intellectual equivalent of Mike Tyson’s early fights, with Foucault pummeling Chomsky into a bloody mess while Chomsky hardly lands a blow. Foucault’s most devastating hits are among the most pointed arguments of his career.