The New SPACE (The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education)
presents:
Foucault and the Iranian Revolution
A Talk by Kevin B. Anderson
Wednesday, October 25 at 7:00 pm
Suggested Donation: $7 - $10
Beginning in 1978, Michel Foucault covered the mass unrest against the
Shah in Iran as a journalist for Italian and French publications. He paid
particular attention to the Islamic wing of the Iranian Revolution, which
he rightly identified as a major new force in world politics. His search
for an alternative to Western liberal democracy led him to favorably judge
the first major victory of radical Islam as a new "political spirituality."
His support for this movement raises an important question
about how Foucault, a major theorist of modern power, could have
overlooked the repressive nature of Khomeini's movement.
I can't claim to be an expert on Foucault, or on the post-modern
approach in general, but it seems to me that this school has a lot in
common with "romanticism." The latter school can be very critical of
capitalism, but instead of trying to look forward to try to build
socialism, it looks backward to the "good old days" before capitalism.
Socialism tries to combine the benefits of industrialization with
those of community and democracy, while romanticism wants to scuttle
industrialization in the name of community, often forgetting
democracy. If this is an accurate analysis, it fits with the fact that
Foucault didn't see the authoritarianism of Khomeini's movement.
This isn't just a problem for post-modernists. As I understand it, the
former Marxist Eugene Genovese ended up falling in love with the
community ethos represented by the pre-bellum U.S. south.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
BTW, what newspaper is Eustonian? Is that "News & Letters"? They side
with the attempted US conquest of Iraq?
--
Jim Devine / "it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at
present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists,
ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it
arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict
with the powers that be." -- KM
