Hi Michel! Are you free to talk?
You know, I don’t believe in free talk…
But what’s up?
The other day we spoke about power. Today,
I thought we should have a conversation on
freedom. Power seemed such a packed, if not
overwhelming concept. If the ultimate goal
of bio-power is to organize and manage life
in entire populations, if it gets under our
skin, turns us inside out, no freedom seems
to be left.
I apologize for deceiving you again. I know
it sounds paradoxical, but I am convinced
that there is only freedom when and where
there is power.
Most people have it the other way around:
Where power reigns, no freedom is left…
I know but that does not take the actual
complexity into account. First of all, “power
is exercised only over free subjects, and
only insofar they are ‘free’.”
This really is a conceptual requirement. The notion
of power implies the idea of individual or
collective subjects situated in a field of
possibilities in which several kinds of conduct,
several ways of reacting and modes of behavior
are available. “Where the determining factors
are exhaustive, there is no relationship of
power.”
I am not sure I understand.
Well, consider a somewhat simple example. Take
slavery. In my understanding, slavery is not
a power relation because human beings are
in chains. This is a matter of a physical
relationship of constraint. Power is only
at stake, when humans can move around and
eventually even escape. In other words, there
are no face-to-face confrontations of power
and freedom as mutually exclusive facts. Freedom
does not simply disappear when power is exercised.
There is a much more complicated interplay
between the two.
Isn’t this a bit pedantic? I can see the
conceptual point, but it tells me little to
nothing about the power of freedom! Authentic
freedom should be much more than a Kantian
condition allowing for multiple forms of reactions
and relations… Don’t forget that people
around the world are oppressed and fight for
their rights, including more freedom!
That brings me to my second point. In my reading,
freedom is neither a natural gift nor a God-given
value. I take it to be a historical phenomenon.
That is, it is always relative to a certain
situation. What we call freedom was referred
to by Marxists and Liberals, by Catholics
and Nazis. Today, nationalist capitalists
such as Trump and Bolsonaro cherish the values
of liberty and autonomy. I don’t want to
say that we have to get rid of what is called
freedom. Rather, we have to understand the
limited nature of this notion…
So, in fact you are not against people fighting
for their freedom or their human rights? Despite
the fact you were often labeled as anti-humanist.
Exactly. The only thing I am trying to highlight
is that liberation is not a straightforward,
self-evident thing. “I’ve always been
a little distrustful of the general theme
of liberation, to the extent that, if one
does not treat it with a certain number of
safeguards and within certain limits, there
is the danger that it will refer back to the
idea that there does exist a nature of a human
foundation […].” And if you accept this
idea of human nature, you run the danger of
thinking that, as a result of a certain number
of historical, social, or economic processes,
this nature is concealed, alienated or imprisoned
in and by some repressive mechanism.
That sounds very conceptual again. Your point
could also be that human nature and human
rights were mainly defined by philosophers
such as Locke, Rousseau and Kant – who basically
were wealthy European white heterosexuals.
And you could underscore that, as a consequence,
women, non-Europeans, workers and others were
not granted the status of full members of
humanity…
That’s certainly true.
So, how about the yearning for freedom that
we see in a lot of these marginalized and
oppressed groups? What can they do right now,
how can they resist the power structures in
a given society? How can I resist and gain
more freedom? I have a hard time accepting
that I am always entangled in power relations…
Well, you are. But you could try a creative
and active relationship to yourself and your
environment. Try critical reflections on both
sides and challenge “all phenomena of domination
at whatever level or under whatever form they
present themselves – political, economic,
social, sexual, institutional, and so on.”
Follow the Socratic imperative: “Be concerned
with yourself, i.e. ground yourself in liberty,
through the mastery of self.”
Come on, Michel, this sounds completely outdated
– like some advice given by a tenured white
male professor of philosophy 50 years ago…
It might sound outdated, but to all of those
who, in one way or another, were confronted
with the violence of European Fascism and
its devastating politics, it does remain a
vital principle. Perhaps this is the most
important lesson I learned from my academic
mentor, Georges Canguilhem, who was a militant
member of the Résistance.
But still…
And don’t forget, it’s the puppet that
speaks. I told you from the start, I don’t
believe in free talk. I give you answers that
you expect – even when you’re not expecting
them. The answers are more in your hand than
in mine. But once you leave, I may come up with
completely different kinds of words and things.
Perhaps this is my way of liberating myself.
I guess I have to think about that…. Thank
you.
Feel free to get back to me, whenever you
like…
