Foucauldian Vietnam

January 22, 2023

The unavoidable question for the skeptic familiar with East Asia is: was Michel Foucault's work, even his attitude, a part of the "civilizing mission" of Imperial France in its colonial projects? My answer turns on the topic of the great rupture that occurred in the consciousness of international humanity in the 20th century, a situation that France and the United States shared, and that has loomed over all manner of discourse in the decades since it. This is, of course, Vietnam. 

Vietnam constituted an intellectual crisis in both countries. The involvement of both in the internal affairs of Vietnam was an imperialist crime of aggression, although that is a fraught term in Asia. But we should tone down the guilt by association, especially such tenuous association as through nationality. Foucault's work is more than anything a rejectamentalist commentary when it comes to Vietnam, and doubly a commentary on the failure of the French Left to constitute in its own mind the identity of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian culture. 

In one of his essays that mentions Vietnam ("For an Ethic of Discomfort") there comes this quote that I believe applies equally well to the traumatic experience of Vietnam:

"decisive moments when things begin to lose their self-evidence."

Anyone who's been to Vietnam can probably tell you that the country has that effect on our fundamental assumptions, and not only as Westerners but on people from other parts of the world too. 

It's not only the nature of politics but the nature of its people and language that creates this doubt about fundamental truths. Perhaps it is the time-honored resistance to outside pressures (from Chinese and Indic Empires in antiquity) that create this social force. Vietnam seems to situate itself as the yin to every yang in the world, the dark complementary to every ideology and culture, no matter its provenance. And this is exactly their point of pride, I think. 

There's another passage from the same essay: 

"a manifest truth disappearing not when it is replaced by another one that is fresher or sharper but when one begins to detect the very conditions that make it manifest: the familiarities that served as its support, the darknesses the brought about its clarity, and all those far-away things that secretly sustained it and made it "go without saying.""

This is Vietnam. And it's through this uncertainty that the solidarity of the Vietnamese with each other is constituted, I believe. So it's a mistake to portray Foucault as an apologist for French intervention in Vietnam, I contend. (His stance on Algeria and other issues is more clearly no.) I will limit the scope of this to these observations. However, as a general matter I think it's misguided to label someone so fundamental to modern left-liberal discourse as representing something antithetical to it.

(╯°□°）╯