We’ve spoken before about how traditionalists can gain wisdom from the most unlikely of sources. In that spirit we’re continuing this series with the great French post-structuralist Michel Foucault, arguably one of the most cited philosophers in western academia. Again, we ask those of a conservative disposition not to dismiss these thoughts based on their source alone. In terms of his lifestyle and politics, Foucault was certainly on the Left yet his writings are consistently nuanced, multifaceted and broad enough to be integrated into various perspectives. Consider that the Frenchman’s work is, in essence, a continuation of Nietzsche’s philosophical project. Whatever one makes of Nietzsche’s politics, he has often been regarded as a thinker of the Right, at least in temperament.

Yet we must address the core objection: How could the philosopher of relativism and deconstruction have any relevance for perennial thought? Firstly, we must dismiss the notion that Foucault was a simple relativist or promoter of ‘anti-truth’, this was not in fact his perspective but rather he saw himself as a historian of power, institutions and discourse. While Foucault would have rejected, or at least been skeptical regarding notions of eternal truths, Perennialists see that in our age of Kali Yuga, while the centre is fixed and eternal, the circumference is contingent, subject to becoming and change, and shaped by patterns of discourse and power. Foucault for us is not articulating a worldview but rather a heuristic to understand modernity. So, where is the use for us in his philosophy?

One answer appears whenever the traditionalist is asked to defend metaphysical truths before a modern audience. We have all found ourselves defending traditional doctrines before interlocutors who dismiss them as superstition or fantasy. Such critics insist that spiritual truths have been refuted by science and materialism, demanding empirical proof for realities that transcend empirical investigation. They may ask us to prove by empiricism and consensus our beliefs as ‘true’ in a sense that satisfies modern prejudices. The biblical injunction not to “cast pearls before swine” may be read here as a warning against accepting the terms of an unproductive exchange. In such cases, one may choose to un-ask the question altogether. Foucault’s outlook offers a clear critique of these prevailing notions of truth (all quotes are taken from Foucault’s lectures):

Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth—that is, the types of discourse it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances that enable one to distinguish true and false statements; the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.

The important thing here, I believe, is that truth isn’t outside power or lacking in power: contrary to a myth whose history and functions would repay further study, truth isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power.

Once higher principles are rejected, modernity inevitably comes to evaluate knowledge according to utility rather than wisdom. Science becomes valuable chiefly insofar as it enables the prediction, control, and transformation of nature. In Foucauldian terms, knowledge and power become inseparable. If spiritual truths are dismissed because they do not produce measurable control over the material world, then modernity should at least acknowledge that its highest criterion is power rather than truth.

Another issue we face in this life is the constant pull towards ideological or dialectical thinking. We are constantly offered to buy into various viewpoints; whether it be the mainstream liberal system or whatever various niche (and in the final analysis useless) ideologies exist on the internet. We may also be tempted to support other world power, such as Russia or China but a thinker like Foucault warns against such an undertaking clearly:

The notion of ideology appears to me to be difficult to make use of, for three reasons. The first is that, like it or not, it always stands in virtual opposition to something else that is supposed to count as truth. Now, I believe that the problem does not consist in drawing the line between that which, in a discourse, falls under the category of scientificity or truth, and that which comes under some other category; rather, it consists in seeing historically how effects of truth are produced within discourses that, in themselves, are neither true nor false.

Foucault is ultimately correct here. Ideological thinking is at root a discourse or tautology which cannot be said to accurately reflect reality as it is. Any perspective we take assumes some basic axioms to be true; people are fundamentally rational individuals, the working class is the subject/object of history, the racial folk must propagate itself etc. Any idea we accept will naturally lead to certain conclusions but not because those ideas are true but because the seed of the conclusion are found in the idea itself. Foucault continues:

The second drawback is that the concept of ideology refers, I think necessarily, to something of the order of a subject.

Though he does not elaborate, the implication is clear that the idea of a knowing subject is being called into question. Before we get sucked into ideological thinking we must ask who it is that is doing the thinking. As Perennialists, we can avoid the major excesses of modernity but maintaining this focus; that we do not exist, there is no you waiting inside to express itself. We are merely thoughts without a thinker and ought not to identify with mere ideas of the intellect, which is the nature of ideology. Finally:

Thirdly, ideology stands in a secondary position relative to something that functions as its infrastructure, as its material, economic determinant, and so on.

Again this is undoubtedly true. The idea of liberal individualism came from the material requirements of capital domination, the idea of nationhood and political racism, from the needs of statecraft and governmental power games. We must always be skeptical of ideology and keep it at a distance and a thinker like Foucault offers precise critiques to articulate such a position.

Finally there is in Foucault’s work a soft critique of modernity. It is not polemical – Foucault is more careful than to make strict judgements given his epistemological grounding- yet we can see a clear thread that looks on the modern world as a Perennialists would:

The modern society that formed at the beginning of the nineteenth century was basically indifferent or relatively indifferent to individuals’ spatial ties: it was not interested in the spatial control of individuals insofar as they belonged to an estate, a locale, but only insofar as it needed people to place their time at its disposal. People’s time had to be offered to the production apparatus; the production apparatus had to be able to use people’s living time, their time of existence. The control was exerted for that reason and in that form. Two things were necessary for industrial society to take shape. First, individuals’ time must be put on the market, offered to those wishing to buy it, and buy it in exchange for a wage; and, second, their time must be transformed into labor time. That is why we find the problem of, and the techniques of, maximum extraction of time in a whole series of institutions.

This is not unlike a sentence Guénon would write; the individual spirit being ground down in the name of quantification and material progress. Overall, what we would like to show in this series is the effectiveness of reading around and delving into thinkers one would normally find suspect. If anything we hope this essay has demonstrated that we can find the most curious alignments across political perspectives and philosophical thoughts, if we are willing to look honestly.