MANDOSIO , Jean-Marc. The Longevity of an Imposture: Michel Foucault. Rio de Janeiro: Achiamé, 2011.
A Critique of Michel Foucault and his Imposture
Nildo Viana
Jean-Marc Mandosio is a controversial and critical author. In his recently released book on Foucault, containing two essays, one bearing the title of the book, The Longevity of an Imposture: Michel Foucault and the other Foucófilos and Foucólatras , make a devastating criticism and nothing "politically correct" (also criticized in a passage by the author) of the French philosopher. For an author who does not spare even the situationists (especially Vaneigen, but the Situationist International as a whole), in this work he makes a synthetic balance of Foucault's work and presents several critical considerations about it, as well as about Foucault .
The author targets the conceptions and practices of Michel Foucault and the Foucaultians . His criticism of Michel Foucault has two aspects: one is about his conceptions and the other about his practices, which are complementary elements. Mandosio says that the criticism that he knows about Foucault's work, George Steiner, Jean Baudrillard, Jaime Semprun , José Guilherme Merquior , Ian McLean, among others, were ignorad the s by academia and by Foucault. He refutes the theory of historical epistemes contained in the works of Foucault considered structuralist, his "genealogy" and "archeology", especially The Order of Things (1987 a ) and Archeology of Knowledge (1987b) . The s inconsistency s of "age" invented by Foucault in the first work above is explained by Mandosio and a Foucault presentation and others, including acknowledging its irrelevance to the concrete historical process, lay hold of the work of the "Master", which, moreover, recalls m the character infinitely repeated this wor r n the film Dracula , Dead but Happy (Mel Brooks, USA, 1995) .
After criticizing Foucault's ideas, Mandosio moves on to what he calls “the adventures of practice”, which is a moment in the book where criticism and comedy come together, not only because of the author's ironies, but also because of the laughable character of Foucault's evolution. Mandosio shows that the claim of “marginalized” by the French philosopher is an invention, as he has always been very well positioned in French institutions, from universities to state structures. According to Mandosio, “before May 1968, the only marginal thing about Foucault is his homosexuality , and he is mainly concerned with his university career” (Mandosio, 2011, p. 40). Mandosio reveals his links with Gaullism and even his participation in the elaboration of the Fouchet plan for university reform, one of the triggers of the student rebellion of May 1968. It would be unnecessary to list all the adventures of Foucault revealed by Mandosio, as well as his approach to the Maoists (and structuralist 'Marxist', linked to s group s Althusserian and Lacanian) and academic activities effected under his direction in this period, such as a course on "the materialistic dialectics and raising pigs" ... No doubt, too periods are also portrayed and shows how Foucault walked according to the flavor of fashions (Foucault's originality is also questioned by Mandosio), showing his ideological and practical zigzags , moving on to post-structuralism (or “postmodernism” ) and his juggling until his death in 1984, including his claim to get a position in the government of the French Socialist Party, in coalition with the French Communist Party ies, previously rejected by the ideologist of the “ microphysics of power ” .
To end this part, a comical fact (from a dramatic event in real life, a rape and murder of a girl) is enough, in which Foucault took part in the trial of a notary public accused of being the criminal from his observations of the place where the girl was found, a hedge, of carpinos (and not of thorns, as some have said , corrects Foucault ... ) , " very tall, cut right in front of the place where the body was found" ( Foucault, apud, Mandosio , p. 49) and from there came the brilliant conclusion that the notary was responsible for the crime. Mandosio ironic the investigation of the “Sherlock Holmes” of French philosophy, with his “unexpected botanical precision” , enough to define who was the murderer. Mandosio continues to mock: “let us remember that this unfortunate investigator is supposedly not only a great philosopher, but also an eminent specialist in judicial and criminal 'device'” (Mandosio, 2011, p. 50).
Mandosio performs an interesting critique of the ideology of the "specific intellectual", the "expert scientist" and resumes Sempru critical n on May 1968 on the recovery of criticism this time by post-structuralist. Undoubtedly, at that moment Mandosio could have developed the analysis further and came to understand the preventive cultural counterrevolution process after May 1968, carried out in the world of art and sciences under the name of “postmodernism” (Viana, 2009) , but despite his critical remarks, he moves on to Foucault's involvement with the “New Philosophers”, a conservative group whose greatest exponent was André Glucksmann, ex-Maoist after the student and conservative rebellion assumed shortly thereafter.
Mandosio also offers interesting critical notes on Foucault's microphysics of power and other works and ideas, present mainly in the collection of power (Foucault, 1989 ) and his book envelopes the prisons (Foucault, 1983 ). He focuses his criticism on the terms “governmentality” and “biopolitics” , “two excellent examples of conceptual proliferation ”, which today are used “left and right to give an appearance of philosophical depth to speeches that are cruelly lacking” (Mandosio, 2011, p. 66). Mandosio criticizes the use of these terms and the reason why they are usable, their imprecision and even confusion between the two terms.
It would not be possible to present the other criticisms addressed to Foucault by Mandosio, such as his position in the face of the Iranian revolution, his various contradictions, and conceptions, such as "subjectification process", among others. We can end with the following sentence: “ Foucault's main talent will undoubtedly have been to give a philosophical and literary form to the common places of an era” (Mandosio, 2011, p. 76). This is precisely the role that Marx (1988) attributed to ideologues: to transform illusory everyday representations into ideology, giving it systematicity.
We will also refrain from his criticism of foucó phyla and foucólatras, in which shows that if the master of the errors are laughable, the s mistakes of the disciples are elevated to the cube. Foucault's apology has no sense of ridicule, as in the statement that he would have a “left-wing body”, which is explained in this excerpt by filmmaker René Allio quoted by Mandosio : “with all his being, he tends to resemble, culminating with his shaved head, an erect sex; and with all its penetrating intelligence ” (Mandosio, 2011, p. 89). And Mandosio concludes, ironically and, affirming that it is, then, literally, a “ headstrong ”, making a pun in French language whose meaning will not be revealed here by excess of modesty and to instigate the reading of the book, where the explanation is found in a footnote.
Anyway, Mandosio's book is an essential reading for anyone who wants to get to know Foucault's life and work better, despite being extremely synthetic (and quick and pleasant reading, with good “humorous” moments). In criticizing Foucault's ideas, some already realized and other innovative and shows r contradictions in practice and between discourse and practice, Mandosio shows Foucault " flesh and blood ", making it the best known in its concreteness and not the figure the idol of fashion-worshipers and apologists for ideologues in evidence. In this sense, the work of Mandosio is essential for those who want one of the most famous ideologists of today , besides being very divertid to .
On the other hand, we cannot apologize for Mandosio either. We have not done any in-depth research on its production in general and that is why we can expose only our conclusions regarding this work specifically. The criticisms of Foucault's conceptions are correct in almost all points. However, it would be important to develop and deepen some of them and carry out a deeper and more global criticism of this philosopher. Perhaps Mandosio does this in another work. His analysis of Foucault's practices is an extremely important moment in the work, because it is at that moment that Foucault and his ties to power (not in the abstract and ideological sense that he provides to the term, but relative to state power and power relations in university institutions he passed through) , making it clear that the power critic is an ally of the power and, therefore, his criticism is that of an ally and not a real opponent and, therefore, is a pseudo-criticism. He is thus an official critic, a “consecrated marginal”, Adorno's term taken up by Michel Suárez in the preface. Another important moment of the work is when, without going any further, it shows Foucault's links with the preventive cultural counterrevolution after May 1968.
Of course, despite d critical right of Mandosio , this does not mean that nothing in Foucault's work has importance. Every ideology has "moments of truth" (Viana, 2010), and although Foucault is an ideologue (Viana 200 0 ), there are elements in his work that are assimilable by a true conception mind criticism. However, it is only possible to recognize the moments of truth in Foucault's work if one recognizes its essence and totality formed by a false conscience, that is, its predominant moments of falsehood. And this is where Mandosio's work contributes, mainly showing its social roots by placing its practices, relationships, positions , despite the lack of a perception of the totality of the time, which would enrich the criticism and give a deeper explanatory character. For those who are not French, here is a work that brings a set of materials that are difficult to access, alongside those that are more accessible .
Anyway, Mandosio's work should be read by all Foucault's scholars and also those who have a commitment to the truth and not to fads, that is, those who are not only interested in their career , but with the issues social and human destiny.
References
FOUCAULT, Michel . The Archeology of Knowledge. 3rd ed. Rio de Janeiro: Forense, 1987 b .
__________ , Michel. The words and things. 4th ed. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1987a .
__________ , M ichel . Microphysics of Power. 8th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1989.
__________ , M ichel . Watch and Punish. 2nd ed., Petrópolis, Vozes, 1983,
MANDOSIO, Jean-Marc. The Longevity of an Imposture: Michel Foucault . Rio de Janeiro: Achiamé, 2011.
MARX, K arl . The capital. Vol. 1, 3rd ed., São Paulo: Nova cultural. 1988.
VIANA , Nildo. Brain and Ideology . Jundiaí, Paco Editorial, 2010.
______ , Nildo. Foucault: Philosophy or Fetishism? In: Philosophy and its Shadow . Goiânia, Germinal Editions, 2000.
______ , Nildo. Capitalism in the Age of Integral Accumulation . São Paulo, Ideias e Letras, 2009.