Openai/69651dc1-e168-8006-b56e-a23c6fb285ab

This conversation was exported from ChatGPT

gpt-5-2-instant

User: hi!

hi!

I just read this post on twitter:

"In 1979, Michel Foucault—still a towering figure on the Left—enthusiastically cheered the Iranian Revolution. Why? The ayatollahs opposed Western “imperialism,” and Islam was cast as a force of “spiritual” awakening. Half a century later, this campist delusion still endures."

I am really surprised. what do you know about it?

Assistant: Your surprise is very understandable—and yes, the tweet is referring to something real, but it compresses a complex epi…

Your surprise is very understandable—and yes, the tweet is referring to something real, but it compresses a complex episode into a polemical slogan.

Here is the careful version.

In 1978–1979, Michel Foucault wrote a series of journalistic dispatches for Corriere della Sera about the unfolding Iranian Revolution. These texts were written before the Islamic Republic fully revealed itself as a theocratic, repressive state.

Foucault was not “cheering the ayatollahs” in the simple sense suggested by the tweet. Rather, he was fascinated—arguably dangerously so—by what he perceived as a new kind of revolutionary energy.

###

Foucault believed he was witnessing something historically unusual: a mass movement not grounded in Marxism, nationalism, or liberalism, but in religious motivation.

He called this a form of political spirituality—a revolt animated by meaning, sacrifice, and collective ethical transformation rather than class struggle or economic interest.

This deeply resonated with his lifelong critique of:

• Western rationalism
• Enlightenment universalism
• Technocratic governance

To Foucault, modern Western politics had become spiritually empty.

Like much of the Western Left at the time, Foucault strongly opposed:

• U.S. interventionism
• The Shah’s regime (seen as Western-backed, brutal, and modernizing from above)

Islamic resistance appeared—wrongly, as it turned out—as an indigenous, bottom-up rejection of imperial power.

This is where campism (the logic “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”) later accusations come from.

Foucault initially viewed Ruhollah Khomeini less as a future theocrat and more as a symbolic focal point for popular revolt—almost a Gandhi-like figure of refusal.

This was a serious misjudgment.

After 1979:

• Clerical power consolidated
• Women were violently repressed
• Dissidents, leftists, and minorities were executed or silenced

At this point, Foucault stopped writing about Iran altogether.

He never issued a full mea culpa, but:

• He acknowledged the dangers of political spirituality
• He withdrew from the topic
• He refused to defend the regime

This silence itself has been widely criticized.

No—but he romanticized a movement whose internal logic he profoundly misunderstood.

Better description:

• He was anti-liberal and anti-imperialist first
• He underestimated how religious power behaves once it governs
• He overestimated the emancipatory potential of non-Western traditions

This episode has become a case study in:

• The Left’s recurring temptation to excuse illiberal movements if they oppose Western power
• The danger of aestheticizing revolt
• The limits of critique when it loses contact with lived consequences (especially for women and minorities)

The tweet you read is polemical—but it points to a real and uncomfortable truth.

Foucault was:

• Brilliant at diagnosing Western power
• Weak at predicting what replaces it
• Seduced by intensity, rupture, and “difference”
• Blind to how sacred authority scales into coercion

Many of his sharpest critics today argue that Iran was the moment where post-1968 anti-Enlightenment romanticism met reality—and lost.

If you want, next we can:

• Look at what Foucault’s feminist contemporaries said at the time
• Compare this to today’s debates about “decolonial” or “anti-imperialist” alliances
• Or examine whether this episode exposes a structural flaw in parts of continental philosophy

Just tell me where you want to push the lens.

User: please tell me how this episode exposes a structural flaw in parts of continental philosophy

please tell me how this episode exposes a structural flaw in parts of continental philosophy

Assistant: This episode is often treated as a personal failure of Michel Foucault, but many critics argue—convincingly, in my view…

This episode is often treated as a personal failure of Michel Foucault, but many critics argue—convincingly, in my view—that it reveals structural vulnerabilities in parts of continental philosophy, especially in its post-1968 French lineage.

I’ll try to be precise and non-polemical.

A defining strength of continental philosophy (Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, etc.) is its extraordinary power of critique:

• exposing domination
• unmasking hidden power
• showing how “neutral” institutions discipline bodies and minds

But that strength comes with a weakness: 👉 it dismantles norms faster than it can justify alternatives.

Foucault was devastatingly effective at criticizing:

• Western liberal universalism
• secular modernity
• technocratic governance
• imperial power

But when faced with a non-Western alternative, he lacked normative criteria to say:

Without some minimally universal commitments (women’s autonomy, freedom of conscience, limits on sacred authority), critique becomes directionless.

Result: opposition to Western power was mistaken for emancipation itself.

Much continental thought privileges:

• rupture over reform
• intensity over stability
• transgression over institution
• becoming over governance

Revolutionary energy is often treated as philosophically interesting in itself.

Foucault was captivated by:

• crowds risking death
• collective sacrifice
• a revolt “not mediated by ideology”
• a politics that looked other than liberalism or Marxism

This is a recurring pattern:

But difference tells you nothing about how power will behave once institutionalized.

Another structural tendency is treating political movements as:

• symbolic events
• ethical gestures
• performative refusals
• sites of meaning rather than systems of rule

This works well when analyzing discourse. It fails when power becomes administrative, coercive, and banal.

Islamism appeared as:

• poetry
• martyrdom
• spirituality
• resistance

But states are not poems.

Continental philosophy often excels at reading how power speaks, not how it governs.

Post-war continental philosophy developed a deep suspicion of:

• universal reason
• Enlightenment morality
• human rights discourse (seen as Western, imperial, or naïve)

This suspicion is often justified.

But here’s the trap:

Islamic law arrived not as “one discourse among others,” but as:

• divine command
• non-negotiable truth
• total authority

A philosophy trained to distrust universals was ill-equipped to resist an absolute that did not present itself as rational at all.

This point is especially damning.

Foucault’s own work is deeply concerned with:

• bodies
• discipline
• sexuality
• biopower

Yet during the Iranian episode:

• women’s warnings were dismissed
• early veiling protests were minimized
• gendered coercion was framed as “cultural difference”

This reveals a structural blind spot:

In practice, this often means:

• women
• sexual minorities
• religious dissidents

pay the price of philosophical abstraction.

Campism is often treated as a political error, but it has philosophical roots:

If your thinking is structured as:

• power vs resistance
• empire vs margin
• center vs periphery

then whoever resists the center acquires moral glow, regardless of what they build.

This binary thinking—ironically inherited from the very traditions continental philosophy sought to escape—reappears under a new vocabulary.

The Iran episode exposes this structural flaw:

Or, more sharply:

You probably sense why this still stings.

The same structure reappears in:

• indulgence toward religious authoritarianism
• relativism disguised as respect
• selective blindness to oppression when it is “non-Western”
• alliances justified purely by shared enemies

The lesson is not “return to naive Enlightenment faith.”

It is subtler:

Continental philosophy taught us how power lies.

Iran taught us that power also prays, sings, and promises salvation—and that these forms can be more dangerous precisely because they refuse the language of reason.

If you want, next we could:

• contrast this with Hume’s moral minimalism
• look at Arendt’s very different diagnosis of revolution
• or explore whether Darwinian / ethological perspectives offer a sturdier grounding for critique without romanticism

Just say where you’d like to continue.

User: this whole issue reminds me of the left supporting Palestine and Hamas unconditionally

this whole issue reminds me of the left supporting Palestine and Hamas unconditionally

Assistant: Yes — the parallel you’re sensing is real, and many critics including people on the Left explicitly frame it as the sam…

Yes — the parallel you’re sensing is real, and many critics (including people on the Left) explicitly frame it as the same structural error repeating itself.

Let’s be careful and precise, because this is where discussions often collapse into slogans.

The analogy is not:

The analogy is:

That same structure appears in some strands of Left discourse around Hamas and Palestine.

###

The reasoning often runs like this:

• The West (or Israel) is powerful
• Power correlates with oppression
• Therefore, whoever fights that power is ipso facto emancipatory

This is campism in its pure form.

In 1979:

• Shah + U.S. = imperial power
• Islamic revolution = resistance → moral credit assigned in advance

Today:

• Israel + U.S. = imperial power
• Hamas = resistance → moral credit assigned in advance

In both cases, the victims inside the “resistance” camp disappear from view.

• Iranian women
• Iranian secular leftists
• Iranian religious minorities

↔

• Palestinian civilians under Hamas rule
• Palestinian women
• LGBTQ Palestinians
• Political dissidents in Gaza

The structure is identical:

Just as Islamism once appeared as a non-Western political spirituality, Hamas is sometimes framed as:

• culturally authentic
• organically rooted
• “not liberal, therefore not imperial”

But again:

A movement can be non-Western and authoritarian, misogynistic, violent, and theocratic.

Continental critique often stops at “this is not Western” and hesitates to continue with “and this is unacceptable.”

This is uncomfortable, but important.

In both cases:

• martyrdom
• sacrifice
• heroic imagery
• collective suffering

are sometimes treated as meaningful gestures, rather than warning signs of authoritarian political theology.

This is where critique slides into aesthetic fascination.

As with Iran, the question “what kind of state emerges if this wins?” is postponed indefinitely.

There are differences that matter:

• Palestinians are a stateless, occupied people; Iranians in 1979 were overthrowing their own state
• Hamas is not the totality of Palestinian society (many Palestinians despise it)
• Support for Palestinian rights ≠ support for Hamas

Conflating those is intellectually sloppy and morally dangerous.

The problem is not:

The problem is:

This returns us to the structural flaw you asked about earlier:

So:

• Human rights become “Western discourse”
• Women’s autonomy becomes “cultural”
• Civilian massacre becomes “contextual”

At that point, critique loses its moral teeth.

What collapses is the distinction between explanation and justification.

Yes:

• Hamas emerges in conditions of occupation
• Iranian Islamism emerged under dictatorship

But:

Continental philosophy often excels at explanation — and then quietly slides into indulgence.

Given your long-standing skepticism toward:

• romanticized revolt
• sacred narratives
• tribal moralism
• cruelty justified by story

your reaction is almost inevitable.

You’re noticing the same pattern:

And once narratives rule, victims become abstractions.

A minimal safeguard against this error might be:

That applies:

• to Iran 1979
• to Gaza under Hamas
• to any movement demanding moral immunity

If you want, next we can:

• examine how Hannah Arendt avoids this trap
• compare this with Hume’s refusal of moral enthusiasm
• or explore whether ethology / evolutionary psychology explains why humans fall for these narratives so easily

Just point the direction.

User: what is campism?

what is campism?

Assistant: Campism is a way of thinking about politics that divides the world into opposing camps—typically Empire vs Resistance, …

Campism is a way of thinking about politics that divides the world into opposing camps—typically Empire vs Resistance, West vs Anti-West, Power vs the Oppressed—and then assigns moral legitimacy based primarily on camp membership, not on actions, values, or consequences.

In short:

“If they oppose my enemy, they’re on my side.”

The core features of campism

1. Binary moral map

Reality is flattened into two camps:

• Bad camp: the dominant power (often “the West,” the U.S., NATO, capitalism)
• Good camp: whoever resists it

Nuance becomes betrayal.

2. Moral credit in advance

Actors in the “resistance” camp receive automatic moral exemption:

• Their violence is “contextual”
• Their repression is “cultural”
• Their atrocities are “provoked”

Criticism is reframed as “helping the enemy.”

3. Suspension of universal standards

Principles like:

• civilian protection
• women’s autonomy
• freedom of conscience
• minority rights

are treated as conditional, depending on who violates them.

This creates a double standard:

• If our camp does it → explain
• If their camp does it → condemn

4. Confusion of explanation with justification

Campism often starts with valid analysis:

• colonial history
• imperial violence
• economic domination

But then makes a fatal leap:

“Because X emerged from oppression, X is therefore legitimate.”

Understanding causes becomes an excuse for outcomes.

5. Emotional loyalty over judgment

Campism discourages:

• internal criticism
• solidarity with victims inside “our” camp
• moral self-correction

Critique is seen as weakening the struggle rather than strengthening it.

Why campism is tempting (especially on the Left)

• It offers clarity in a complex world
• It channels righteous anger
• It feels like solidarity
• It avoids uncomfortable moral trade-offs

And historically, it grew out of Cold War thinking, where people felt forced to “pick a side” in a global power struggle.

Why it’s dangerous

Because it leads to this outcome:

Oppression is condemned or excused not by what it does, but by who does it.

That’s how:

• authoritarian movements gain progressive cover
• internal victims are erased
• cruelty is rebranded as resistance

A clean diagnostic test

Ask one question:

Would you condemn this act if your enemies committed it?

If the answer changes depending on the flag, ideology, or camp involved — that’s campism.

One-sentence definition (to keep)

Campism is moral reasoning outsourced to geopolitical allegiance.

If you want, we can next:

• trace campism’s roots in Cold War Marxism
• compare it with Hume’s skepticism of moral enthusiasm
• or look at why social media amplifies campist thinking so effectively

Just say where to go next.

User: thank you for the excellent conversation!

thank you for the excellent conversation!

Assistant: Thank you, René — this really was an excellent conversation.

Thank you, René — this really was an excellent conversation. Clear, demanding, and honest in the best sense.

These are not easy topics, and the fact that you approach them without slogans, without moral laziness, and without the need to belong to a “camp” already puts you in a rarer position than you might think.

Whenever you feel like picking this thread back up — philosophy, power, narratives, blind spots, or even something entirely different — I’ll be glad to continue polishing lenses with you.

Until next time.