On Tue, 18 May 1999 Matthew King <making@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On Tue, 18 May 1999 aoliai@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> what was to be admired about Khomeyni?
>
>I don't know. You have the text, I don't; what else does he say? But
>perhaps a certain steadfastness against "the tide of history", a
>willingness to make a "rupture in history", as Foucault says in "Is it
>Useless to Revolt?" Not, for the most part, a good one, as it turns
>out--hence not to be *supported*, but perhaps still to be *admired*.
>
>> Beside it is not just Khomeyni, he believed that Islam will establish
>> democratic institution in the society!
>
>Really? Does he say that? For that matter, was there never a moment
>when
>the Islamic revolutionaries *could have* established democratic
>institutions? Did Puritan revolutionaries not help to establish
>democratic institutions in the UK? (And if those institutions had
>failed
>to take root, would we not now scoff at the idea that they ever could
>have?)
Matthew King raises some interesting questions, which sent me back to
the text. A few notes:
In 1978 and '79, as many of you know, Foucault engaged in a series of
"reportages" in Iran for the Italian newspaper Corriere della sera,
which examined the Iranian revolution as it developed. In sum, he wrote
9 articles for Corriere della sera, as well as four major pieces that
appeared in various French publications and a few brief responses to
critics. (All of these, of course, are available in Dits et Ecrits, vol.
3; only two have been translated into English: "Iran: the spirit of a
world without spirit" L. Kritzman, ed., _Politics, philosophy, culture_
(Routledge, 1988), pp. 211-224, and "Is it useless to revolt?"
_Philosophy and social criticism_ 8:1 (Spring 1981), pp. 1-9. By the
way, I think that these pieces would make for a very interesting small
volume of translations, if they aren't included in the third volume of
the so-called _Essential Foucault_.)=20
Francois Ewald, Foucault's research assistant at the College de France,
notes that MF's interest in Iran illustrates his interest in the history
of the present, of "actualit=E9". (Ewald makes this point in "Foucault
and the contemporary scene" in the latest issue of _Philosophy and
social criticism_ 25:3 (May 1999), pp. 81-91, cf. p. 86.) Foucault says
as much himself in the 8th of his installments for Corriere della sera,
"I don't know how to do the history of the future. And I'm clumsy at
foreseeing the past. Nevertheless, I would like to try to grasp *what
is happening now* (ce qui est en train de passer), because in our day
nothing is set in stone and the dice are still rolling." (DE 3:714) So
he looked to Iran, where "what is happening now" was happening.
What he found was paradoxical: a "perfectly unified collective will"
that rejects the Shah's regime, but the absence of any person, party, or
ideology who was capable of taking the leadership of this popular will.
(The situation seems to me remarkably similar to the state of affairs in
East Germany in the summer and fall of 1989, before the Wall was opened
in November. The opening of the Wall shattered the unity of the popular
will and enabled Kohl to step in and assume the position of leader.)
Foucault found this popular will disconcerting, precisely because it
focused on the depart of the shah, without any vision of what kind of
regime would follow. And so, according to Foucault's analysis, Khomeini
became a mythical figure, an "anti-Shah" if you will, and became the
focal point of this popular will. He was able to take on this mythical,
focusing role, on Foucault's analysis, for 3 reasons: (1) he was not
there -- he was living in exile in France for 15 years and wouldn't
return until the Shah had left; (2) he was saying nothing -- except a
"no" to the shah; and (3) he was not a politician, so "there won't be a
Khomeini party, there won't be a Khomeini government". (all of this from
DE 3:715-716)
(By the way, this article was titled "The mythical leader of the Iranian
revolt", but Foucault had originally proposed the title "The madness of
Iran".)
Unfortunately, all three of these reasons, and especially the third,
ceased to be true within weeks of the Shah's fall. I think Foucault was
right to find the situation that led to the mythification of Khomeini
"disconcerting" =8B=8B as its subsequent consequences made clear =8B=8B and=
I
hope that we can extract a lesson from this for any Foucauldian ethical
or political analysis. I would frame the lesson as follows:
"Transgression" of or "resistance" to a state of domination is not in
and of itself sufficient. Rather, the process of resistance itself must
look forward and try to imagine possibilities that can be achieved, so
that the resistance can be aimed toward some goal or improvement (even
if this goal, too, is imperfect, dangerous), lest it discover after the
fact that the resistance has only created a vacuum filled by a greater
evil than the one resisted.
To bring all this back to our current ongoing discussion of Kosovo, I
would say only that it seems to me that NATO needs to be sure to heed
this lesson.
Richard
Richard A. Lynch =20
Dept. of Philosophy
Boston College
Chestnut HIll, MA 02467 USA
lynchrb@xxxxxx
>On Tue, 18 May 1999 aoliai@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> what was to be admired about Khomeyni?
>
>I don't know. You have the text, I don't; what else does he say? But
>perhaps a certain steadfastness against "the tide of history", a
>willingness to make a "rupture in history", as Foucault says in "Is it
>Useless to Revolt?" Not, for the most part, a good one, as it turns
>out--hence not to be *supported*, but perhaps still to be *admired*.
>
>> Beside it is not just Khomeyni, he believed that Islam will establish
>> democratic institution in the society!
>
>Really? Does he say that? For that matter, was there never a moment
>when
>the Islamic revolutionaries *could have* established democratic
>institutions? Did Puritan revolutionaries not help to establish
>democratic institutions in the UK? (And if those institutions had
>failed
>to take root, would we not now scoff at the idea that they ever could
>have?)
Matthew King raises some interesting questions, which sent me back to
the text. A few notes:
In 1978 and '79, as many of you know, Foucault engaged in a series of
"reportages" in Iran for the Italian newspaper Corriere della sera,
which examined the Iranian revolution as it developed. In sum, he wrote
9 articles for Corriere della sera, as well as four major pieces that
appeared in various French publications and a few brief responses to
critics. (All of these, of course, are available in Dits et Ecrits, vol.
3; only two have been translated into English: "Iran: the spirit of a
world without spirit" L. Kritzman, ed., _Politics, philosophy, culture_
(Routledge, 1988), pp. 211-224, and "Is it useless to revolt?"
_Philosophy and social criticism_ 8:1 (Spring 1981), pp. 1-9. By the
way, I think that these pieces would make for a very interesting small
volume of translations, if they aren't included in the third volume of
the so-called _Essential Foucault_.)=20
Francois Ewald, Foucault's research assistant at the College de France,
notes that MF's interest in Iran illustrates his interest in the history
of the present, of "actualit=E9". (Ewald makes this point in "Foucault
and the contemporary scene" in the latest issue of _Philosophy and
social criticism_ 25:3 (May 1999), pp. 81-91, cf. p. 86.) Foucault says
as much himself in the 8th of his installments for Corriere della sera,
"I don't know how to do the history of the future. And I'm clumsy at
foreseeing the past. Nevertheless, I would like to try to grasp *what
is happening now* (ce qui est en train de passer), because in our day
nothing is set in stone and the dice are still rolling." (DE 3:714) So
he looked to Iran, where "what is happening now" was happening.
What he found was paradoxical: a "perfectly unified collective will"
that rejects the Shah's regime, but the absence of any person, party, or
ideology who was capable of taking the leadership of this popular will.
(The situation seems to me remarkably similar to the state of affairs in
East Germany in the summer and fall of 1989, before the Wall was opened
in November. The opening of the Wall shattered the unity of the popular
will and enabled Kohl to step in and assume the position of leader.)
Foucault found this popular will disconcerting, precisely because it
focused on the depart of the shah, without any vision of what kind of
regime would follow. And so, according to Foucault's analysis, Khomeini
became a mythical figure, an "anti-Shah" if you will, and became the
focal point of this popular will. He was able to take on this mythical,
focusing role, on Foucault's analysis, for 3 reasons: (1) he was not
there -- he was living in exile in France for 15 years and wouldn't
return until the Shah had left; (2) he was saying nothing -- except a
"no" to the shah; and (3) he was not a politician, so "there won't be a
Khomeini party, there won't be a Khomeini government". (all of this from
DE 3:715-716)
(By the way, this article was titled "The mythical leader of the Iranian
revolt", but Foucault had originally proposed the title "The madness of
Iran".)
Unfortunately, all three of these reasons, and especially the third,
ceased to be true within weeks of the Shah's fall. I think Foucault was
right to find the situation that led to the mythification of Khomeini
"disconcerting" =8B=8B as its subsequent consequences made clear =8B=8B and=
I
hope that we can extract a lesson from this for any Foucauldian ethical
or political analysis. I would frame the lesson as follows:
"Transgression" of or "resistance" to a state of domination is not in
and of itself sufficient. Rather, the process of resistance itself must
look forward and try to imagine possibilities that can be achieved, so
that the resistance can be aimed toward some goal or improvement (even
if this goal, too, is imperfect, dangerous), lest it discover after the
fact that the resistance has only created a vacuum filled by a greater
evil than the one resisted.
To bring all this back to our current ongoing discussion of Kosovo, I
would say only that it seems to me that NATO needs to be sure to heed
this lesson.
Richard
Richard A. Lynch =20
Dept. of Philosophy
Boston College
Chestnut HIll, MA 02467 USA
lynchrb@xxxxxx