SEMIOTEXT(E) FOREIGN AGENTS SERIES

Jim Fleming & Sylvere Lotri,iger, Editors

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SILENT MAJORITIES, lean Baudrillard

NOMADOLOGY: THE W AR MACHINE, Gil/es Deleuze & Félix Guattari
DRIFTWORKS. Jean-Frant¡ois Lyotard
POPULAR DEFENSE ANO ECOLOGICAL STRUGGLES, Paul Virilio
SIMULATIONS, Jean Baudrillard
THE SOCIAL FACTORY, Toni Negri & Mario Tronti
PURE W AR, Paul Virilio & Sylvere 1-'otri,,ger
LOOKING Bi\CK ON THE END OF THE WORLD. lean Baz,drillard et al
FOUCAULT LIVE, Michel Foucau/t
FORGET FOUCAULT, Jean Baudrillard
BEHOLD METATRON~ THE RECORDING ANGEL, Sol Yurick
BOLO'BOLO, P.M.
SPEED ANO POLITICS, Paul Virilio
ON THE LTNE, Gil/es Deleuze & Félix Guattari
SADNESS AT LEA VING, Erje Ayden
•
REMARKS ON MARX, Micl,el Foucault Conversat· .
69 W A YS TO SINO THE BLUES, Jürg Laederach •
INTERVENTIONS, Michel Ji'oucault ce
ASSASSfNATION Rl--IAPSODYDerek Pell1

THE ECSTASY ·OF C()MMUNICATION, Jea,1. Baudrillard

COMMUNTSTS LIKE US 1·011iNegri & Félix Guattari
1

GERMANlA, Heiner Miiller

SEMIOTEXT(E) NATIVE AGENTS SERIES

Chris Kra11s& Sylvere I.Jotringer,Editors
Translated by R. James Goldstein
and James Casca·to
NOT ME. Eilee,, Myles •

HANNIBAL LECTER, MY FATHER, Katl,y Acker

IF YOU'RE A GIRL, A1in Rower
W ALKING THROUGH CLEAR WATER, Cookie Mueller
SICK BURN CUT, Deran Ludd
ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES, Barbara Barg IOTEXT(E

•
 questions ·s present in the conversations with
Foucault .that I 1·eproduce in these pages with the
sole 1·egret tl1at I did _not have the opportunity to
elaborate, on tl1e level of criticism and contents,
as much as I would have lilced. Nonetheless, the
ou line of an un usual intellec ual biography clearly
en1erges here, grounded in the historical and
cultural landscape of contemporary France, where
the figures of Bata ·ille, Klossowski, Bachelard,
and Lévi-Strauss stand out among others. And
then there is always present Foucault's confron-
tation with the ''theoretical humanism'' of the
•

existential·sts (witl1 Sartre leading the way, who

is pole1nically alluded to in a n1oving reference to owan
the events in Czechoslovak· a in 1968); and 111s •
pole1nic wi .th the ''Marxisn1'' of the Frankfu t ' e· e ce .. '
School. To conclude, I would draw attention to r
Foucault 's prelitninary obse1vations concerning
the relation between truth and experience in h1s
works, where the theme of language retu11:1s / ,,,l c·io T,--ombadori: I think one could explain
powerfully, as well as the ''instru1nental'' and the interest which h.as been concentrated on
''drea1nlike'' cl1a1·acterthat compels him to write tl1e results of your thought, espec1ally in re-
bool<.s ''in order to change myself and no longer cent times, in this way: there are few people,
to think the san1e thing as befare."+ . notwithstanding the different ideological
'languages''orpointsofview, whowouldnot

24
 •
) )
REMARKS ON MARX 1111◄ 'EXPERIENCE-BOOK'

be willing to recognize the progressive and 1 , 1tly thought. In addition, the books I writ e . 1

disconc rting dissociation between ''words'' · , t1.·t1tute an experience forme that I' d like to
and ''thir1gs'' in the contetnporary world. This I· -,,s rich as p·ossible. An e.xperience is sorne-
also justifies the meaning of our discussion: ¡ · ·· • . , you collle out of changed. lf I had to
an atte111pt to understand better the leaps · · 1 itc a book to conununicate what .I have
you 've IUade in the course of your investiga- l1 ·1dy thought, I 'd ne ver have the courage to
tions and research, the changes of field in 1 , in it. I write precisely because I don 't
your analysis, and the acquisition of new · •· 1l<)w yet what to think about a subject that
th ·eo1..etical understa .ndings. Frotn your stud- ·1lt1 acts lllY interest. In so doing, the book
ies of ''originary (originaire) experience'' in 11,t11sf onns n1e, changes what I think. As a
The History o.f Madness to the theses n1ore "()11 equence, each new work profoundly
recently presented in The 1-listory of Sexual- .1l1anges the terms of thinking which I had
ity, it seems that you proceed by leaps, by 1· '"ached with the previous work.
shifting the levels of investigation. 17 If I In this sense I consider tnyself more an
wanted to charactenze your thought in order · .,,.· , perilllenter than a theorist; I don 't develop
to revea! its essential and continuous charac- tlcductive systems to apply unifornily in dif-
ter, I could begin by asking: in the light of 1~ rent fields of research. When I write, I do it
your most recent research on ''powe1--''and the ~1bove,all to change myself and not to think the
''w1ll to knowledge," what do you think you saine thing as bef ore.
have surpassed in your earlier wo1·k?
ccio Trombadori: The idea of a work as ''ex-
>1L
Michel Foucault: Many things have certainly perience'' .should in any case suggest a meth-
been surpassed. I'm perfectly aware of hav- odological point of reference, Or, if nothing
ing continuousl y made shifts both in the things else, it should per1nit the possibility of ex _-
that have interested me and in what I havve tracting the directions taken in a n1.ethod,
•

26 27
 EMA ··KS ON MARX 'I 11 ◄ 'EXPERIENCE-BOOK'

within the 1~e1ationship between the tneans t1i h can help me define other possible ob-
employed and the results obtained in the J 1s of investigation. If you want an image,
investigation f 1 111k of a network of scaffolding that functions
;,. · a point of relay between a project being
Michel Foucault: I never know at the beginning ~<11cluded and a new one.
of a project what I'll think at its conclusion.
1
rfhus I don 't construct a general rnethod of
Thus it is difficult to indicate clearly what the , 1~1initive value for niyselfor forothers. What
:method is which I employ. Each of rny books 1 wr-ite does not prescribe anything, neither to
1s a way of dismantling an object, and of 11yself nor to others. At most, its character is
constructing a method of analysis toward that i11 ·tru~~ntal and visionary or dream-like.
,.,. ,, 14 .. u o
re:
·, E
• L
/

end. Once a work is finished, I can of cou1-se,

II1ore or less through hindsight, deduce a I 11 ·,·irJ Trombadori: What you 're saying con-
methodology from the completed experience. ¡·¡1·1nsthe eccentricity of your position; and in
And thus I happen to write alternatively what ·, certain sen .se it explains the difficulties
'd call books of exploratio ,n and books of r1countered by critics, corninentators, and
method. Books of exp ·oration: The History o._f 1 terpreters in the attempt to locate or to
Madness, The Birth of the Clinic-, etc. Books 1tt1·ibute to you a precise place within con-
of method: The Order ofThings, The Arche- te111p,orary philosophical thought.
ology of Knowledge. And now, after having
finished Discipline and Punish and while ,, ·J,el F ouc'ault: But I don 't consider myself a
waiting to finish The H istory of Sexuality, I am (Jhilosopher. ,at I do is neither a way of
setting down certain thoughts in articles, in- loing philosophy nora way of suggesting to
terviews, etc. ()thers not to do it. As far as I'Ill concerned, the
There' s no fixed, definite rule, but a series 111ost1mportant authors who have - I won 't
of precise considerations of completed works say fo1111edme - but who have enabled me

28 29
 V "' ,r--_,-
~

REMARKS O MARX
•

to move away fro111tny original university · ·¡, --etof daily, lived experience in its transi-
ducation, are: Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges 11y türm, in order to grasp its meaning.
Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Klossow- r ·~i .t zsche, B ,ataille, and Blanchot, on the con-
ski. All of them people who were not ''phi- , ·1ry, try through experience to reach that
losophers'' in the strict, institutional sense of 111,i11tof l'fe which lies as close as possible to.....r--7
the term. at most struck and f ascinated file 1 , i1 possibility of iving, which lies at th~ ,---
about the1n is the fact that they didn 't have the i 111ít or extre me. 18 They attempt to gather the
• problem of constructing systems, but ofhaving ;1 · 11 um aITiount of intensity and impossi-
direct, personal experiences. At the university, > 1i t y at tl1e satne tin1e. The work of the
1
howeve1·, I had been instructed to atte01pt to ,¡ .110111enologis t, however, essentially con-
. understand those great philosophical Illonu-
•
·.. t.' of unfolding the entire field of poss1bili-
111ents, which when I was a student were 1<. · o nected to daily experience.
~ called Hegelianism, phenornenology .... Moreover, phenomenology tries to grasp
1 < ·ignifican ce of daily experience in order
Duccio Trombadori: You speak of phenon1enol- .,,tffirm the fundamental character of the
ogy: but all phenomenological thought i · 11jcct, of the self, of its transcendental func-
•
centered on the problem of experience, ir1 1 >11.•• On the contrary, experience according
whicl1 these thinkers place their trust in ord 1 t .> N ietz che, Blanchot, and Bataille has rather
to delineate the tl1eoretical horizon of thei, · · t t¡1sk of ''tearing'' the subject from itself in
philosophy. In what sense, then, do you di · 1 l1 ,t way that it is no longer the subject as

tinguish yourself from the phenomenologist ·· • 1 or that it 1s coITipletely ''other'' than

.
{ 11so t at it may arrive at its ann1hilation,
Michel Foitcault: The phenomenologist's exp , ti¡ sociation .
rience is basically a way of organizing tl ..,.
·,,., l ts this de-subjectifying undertaking, the
conscious perception (regard réflexij) of- t · (>f a. ''limit-experience'' that tears the
..
Q P,lll b ',

30
 l . lJ

subject fro1n itself, wl1ich is the fundamental 1 1 (>n. t1-ation, proof by means of historical
•
lesson that I 've learned frorn these authors . > t1111entation, quoting other texts, referral
And no 1natte h9w boring and erudite n1y
• 1 ...
1,, ,llt l1oritative comITients, the relationship
· resulting books have been, this..·Íesson has lw en ideas and facts, the proposal of ·ex-
always allowed me to conceive the1n as direct 1 :111atorypatten1s, etc. There 's nothing origi-
experie .nces to ''tear'' me from 1nyself, to 11:11 in that . From this point of view, whatever
prevent me from always being the san1e. 1 ; ssert in ITIY writing can be verified or
l~uted as in any other history book.
Ditcczo Trombado,~i: Work as a continually un- Despite that, people who read tne, even
folding experience, the extreme relativity of l1 )se who appreciate what Ido, often say to
method, a de-subjectify1ng tension: these are 1tc, laughing : ''but in the end you realize that

three essential aspects of yot1r attitude toward tl1 things you say are nothing but fictions!'' I
thought, as I understand it. Starting with ,lways reply: who ever thought he was writ-
these aspects taken together, one wonders • 1< anything but fiction?
1 19

what certa111ty there could be in the results of If, for example, I had wanted to write the
such research. what would be the definitive .
istory of psychiatric institutions in Europe
''criterion of truth'' which follows from cer- . · t1).tween the seventeenth and nineteenth cen-
tain premises of your way of thinking? t 1ries, I'd certainly neverhave written a book
1i e The History ofMadne~~s. But the problem
Mic'hel Foucault: The problem of the truth of isn't that of humoring the professional histo-
what I say is very difficult for n1e, and it 'salso ~Llns.Rather, I aim at having an experience
the central proble1n. It's essentially the ques- 111yself- by passing through a determinate x1
tion which up to now I have never answered. 1 istorical coñtenr-·. . Tan éXperience of what
In the course of IllYworks, I utilize meth- wc are toda y, of what is not only our past but
ods that are par of the classic repertory: ( lso ,our present. And I invite others to share

<ª ..
32
 R A HE 'EXPERIENCE .-B001~'

the experience. That is, an experience of our '111ity. Look at the fate of The History oj-
1nodernity that might perlllit us to e:merge . 1<1clness:as soon as it was published, it was
·frorn it transformed. Which means that at the 1y well received in sanie literary circles
·· conclusion of the book we can establish new t~lanchot, Roland Barthes); consídered with
relationships with what was at issue; for in- · ,~iosity at first by psychiatrists; totally ig-
stance, mad11ess, its constitution, its history in r1<lrcd by historians who didn't consider it
the modero world. . , 1 resting, etc. Then, after a few rnonths~ the
l · l of hostility was raised to the point that
Duc·czo Trombadori: 'The efficacy of your d1s- t I book was judged a direct attack against
course comes into play completely in the · t 1, ,dern psychiatry and a n1anif esto of anti-
balance between the force of the den1onstra- .· 1, ychiatry. This was absolutely not tny inten-
1

tion and the capacity to refer toan experi ence

1

1(>11 for at least two reasons: first, when I

that n1ight lead to a transformat1on of the 1(lte the book in Poland in 1958, anti-psy-
cultural horizons within which we judge and 1 1,ltry didn't exist (Laing himself was little
experience our present. I still don 't under- · l. r <lwn); second,itwasn'tatnatterinanycase
stand how, in your opin1on, this process is .. 1· él direct attack on contemporary psychia-
- .

related to what we called before the ''criterion ·. t ,1 .Y, because it stopped at analyzing facts and
of truth." That is.to say, to what extent are the ._ r1ts which took place no later than the
transf orrr1ations which you are talking about 1 r111ningof the nineteenth century. And so
in a r·elationship to truth; or how do they . t,y did people insist on seeing in that work
produce ''truth-effects ''? , 1ir et .attack on contetnporary psy .chiatry?
l 111 convinced that the reason 1s th1s: the book
1

Michel Fou ,cault: There is a peculiar relation ,11\,tituted for tne - and for tho .se who read
between the thi .ngs I've written and the effects 1 11sed it - a transfonnation of the relation
they have produced. I 'In not saying this out of · ·. r ,,1-r·ked historically, theoretically, and also

34 35
 REMA · KS ON MARX

froni the ethical point of view) which Wt ..· . , ,,.,·,J11ilJadori:This ''difficultrelation with
'

ourselves have with madness, the institutio11 · · .. 1l1 ·: is ita constant that accompanies your
of p ychiatry, and the ''truth '' of that di · 8 ·. ·
, < ·11·cl1, and which may also be recognized
course. 1 11! series of your works that followed The
' .

So here is a book that functions as a11 · : ·~y of

J ,. ·t1>1 Madness?
experience, 1nuch more than as the de111on'""· .
stration of a historical truth. Thus I return t<l : · · /1, l ,,,l.>ucault: The sarne thing could be said
the discourse on ''tnith'': it is evide11t that in ,1 ) 11 D,~scipline and Pi,nish. The inquiry is
order to have such an experience through u • 111~ ,i tcd toan investigation covering the period
bool( like The Histo,,.y of Madness, it is nec~ ·· ·.·. ,1, t() about 1830. But even in this case readers,
'

essary that what it asserts is somehow ''true," .. 11..tl1er critics or not, took itas a description
in terms of historically verifiable truth. But •· .· 1111 1odern society. You won 't find an analysis
~. what is essential is not f ound in a series ot: · ,f' the present in the book, although it's t111e
historically verifiable proofs; it líes rather in tl1:tt for me it was a matter of living out a
the experience which the book pern1its us to . ~1·tain experience related to contetnporary
have. And an experience is neither true nor ·...· l11·c.
false: it is always a fiction, something con- : Here too the investigation makes use of
structed, which exists only after it has been . · · l.t rue' ' docutnents, but in such a way as to
1
n1ade, not before; it isn 't sotnething that 1s • l t11nish not ju .st the evidence .of truth but also
''true," but it has been a reality. ·t11 experience that Inight permitan alteration,
To... sum1narize, then: the difficult relation . ·, t1·ansfor1-11ation,of the relationship we have
with truth is entirely at stake in the way in ·• with ourselves and our cultural universe: in a
which truth i,s f ound u sed inside an experience, •.· wor d, with ou1· knowledge (savoir).
not fastened to it, and which ., within certain Thus this game oftruth and fiction-orif
lirnits, destroys it .. you prefer, of evidence and fabrication
~-----_....,L....- d
\ .

36 37
 REMARKS ON MARX ~ 1
1-IE ' EXPERIENCE-BOOK'

r
will perm _it us to see clearly what links us to-· .1 11 11ly individual but which has a character
'

ou1..modetnity and at the sarne titne will tnake -__-· . ·sible to others: that is, this experience
--~it appear modified to us. This experience that 1 1t • ·t be linkable, to a certain extent, to a
pertnits us to single out certain inech .anistns _ ._ 11 tive practice and to a way of th· ·ng. :
(for example, imprisonment, penalization, ·_: · I' 1:11 is how it happened, for exatnple, for
etc.) and at the satne time to separate our- . 1 11 1noven1e.nts as anti-psychiatry, or the
selves from then1 by perceiving thern in a _.· 1 1·1sclners' IDovetnent in France.
totally different forill, ITiust be one and the . · ·.
•
sa1T1eexper1ence. ~, > ~¡rombadori: In indicating, oras you say,
This procedure is central to all my work _· 1 · learing tl1e way for a transfon11ation ca-
And what are its consequences? First of ali ., _-· ,:,1 le of being linked to a collective practice,
that there does not exist a theoretical back- •. _ . 1i 1d already the outline of a methodology or
- .

ground which is continuous and syste111atic. -·_ Jlarticular type of ''teaching ·. '' Doesn 't it
That in1plies, secondly, that there is no book - . c..1n so to you? And if so, doesn 't that eeITI
that I 've written without there having been, at _-- «, *(Jntradict anotherrequirement that you've
least in part, a direct personal experience. I - , 1 1 tioned, of avoiding a discourse that pre-
[
had a personal, colllplex, direct relation with --
,
. 1 ~1tJes.?
,
I
adness ., psychiatric hospitals, and illness. -
1
l
And even with death: when I was working on _ 1 l1<'lF oucault: I would reject this tertn ''teach ...
The Birth of the Clinic, arguing about the 111 1r''; such a tertn would reflect the character
subj ect of death in n1edical know ledge, it took _,J , work, of a systematic book that leads to
place ata titne when these things hada certain · 111e thod that can be generalized, a inethod
iIUportance for me. Thirdly, starting from rt 1l l of positive directions, of a body of
- experience, it is necessary to clear the way for teac hings'' for the readers. In tny case it's
•
a transformation, a rnetatnorphosis which 1sn't l111clt her Inatter entirely: 111ybooks don 't have

• 38 39
 ('

I
( (
RE AR SON MARX

his kind of value. They function as i.nvita- ,y veryone .... We feel that s01nething con-
tions, as public gestures, for those who tnay t, 111¡)01~ary has been brought up for discus-
-· - - . -() 11 . And in effect I began writing th·s book
· . want eventually to do the same thing, or
. s01nething like it, or, in any case, who intend . ,11ly after having participated for s0IJ1e years

to slip into this kind of experience. 111 wo rk groups - groups involved in reflec-
. 1 ,11s ''upon'' and struggle ''against'' penal
, t . ·t itutions. It was con1plex and difficult work,
'

Duc·c·1:oT,--ombadori: But isn't it true that a ''col-

lective practice'' 111ustlead us back to values, ' · 1·1-ied out with p.risoners, their fatnilies,
c1iteria, and behavior which transvalue indi- J lt il ·on guards, magistrates, etc.

vidual experience? W l1en the book carne out, various reac.iers

'

JJé.lrticularly prison guards, social workers, •

Michel F,ouc-ault: An expenence is, of course, 1 •. - gave t-his singular judgment: ''It is
something one has alone; but it ca .nnot have . 11 ~1
4
lyzing. There may lJe soine correct ob- 1

· · its ful ,l impact unless the individual manages · 1

_ •
,,{,·vations, but in any case it certainly has its
. · to escape frotn pure subjectivity 1nsuch a way 1 i111 its, ~e_c_ause it blocks us, it prevents s 1
· that others can-1 won't say re-experience it 1 t)111 C(?ntinuing our activities." My reply is
• exactly - but at least cross paths with it or , 1·tt i is just that relation that proves t e

re trace i t. Let' s retu1·n f ora ininu te to the book :· , cc ss of the work, proves hat it worked as
1

on prisons. In a certain sense it is a histo1ical 1 ~.td wanted it to. That is, it is read as an · ·
investigation. B ut its audience appreciated 01 · ¡ c rience tl1at changes us, that prevent s -us
detested itnot as ahistori .ographical work. All , -.·· 1·t,1n ,1lways bein ,g tl1e same, or frorn having
its readers felt or had the irnpression that it tf 1 .. s· me kind ofrelationship with things and
was about them, the world today, or their i t 11ot he1·s that we had befare reading it. This
relatio11s with ''conterr1poraneity ," in the fo1-n1s 1 111o nstrates to me that the book expresses
by which the latter is accepted and recognized ,11 exp er1ence that extends beyond m y own .

40
 REMARKS ON MARX

The book is merely inscribed in somethi1 ,

that was already in progress; we could sa
that the transf ormation of contemporary ma ·,
is i11 relation to his sense ,of self. 20 On the oth .~~,~
hand, the book also workedfor this transfor ., .
mation; it has been, even if in a small way, at •·
agent. That's it. This, forme, is an ''experi
. ence-book''
......
,
as opposed to a ''truth-book'' or't
· · ''de01onstration-book. ''+

, •
e ·ect, now e
•

' u ·. e,
1 t e ' istor o ru '

, ·,,, ·, i<JTrombadori: I 'd like to rnake an observa-

1 itln at this point. Y our speak of yourself and
tlt·yourresearch as ifthe latterhad developed
·1l1nost independently of its historical context
---- and above ali of the cultural .relationships
=- within which your research carne toma-
l 11rity.You 've cited Nietzsche, Bataille, and
l~lanchot: how did you arrive at thetn? What

42 43