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Onfray Moves Out, by Jacques-Alain Miller
1. Why Papuans?*
Onfray displays the virtue of the philosopher as public figure: according to Foucault, parrhesia,
Greek for telling-all, truth-telling, plain-talk. He preaches the four
virtues to the powerful, pulls down the idols, all the while chanting
out unanswerable indictments. And when the dosage is right, you can
wrangle yourself from the Left to the Right. But sometimes he gets
confused, and then, thump!
1. Why Papuans?*
Greek for telling-all, truth-telling, plain-talk. He preaches the four
virtues to the powerful, pulls down the idols, all the while chanting
out unanswerable indictments. And when the dosage is right, you can
wrangle yourself from the Left to the Right. But sometimes he gets
confused, and then, thump!
Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which he declared a “Papuan village”, and whose
pinko-caviar mafia he decapitated without pity. In the fury of the
massacre: “I prefer an accurate analysis by Alain de Benoist to an
inaccurate analysis by Minc, Attali or Bernard-Henri Lévy… The Papuans
will scream! But they will not make me say that I prefer an inaccurate
analysis by BHL on the pretext that he claims he is left-wing.”
chief: authority, the constant companion of his anger. Here he is,
shutting up the philosopher: “When Michel Onfray claims that basically
Alain de Benoist is worth more than Bernard-Henri Lévy, it means that
we’re all losing our bearings.”
“a close reading of the text.” The problem, in his opinion? Valls is “a
cretin”. Not exactly. There is something rather twisted in Onfray’s
proposal.
(Onfray) am expected to prefer other men of the Left to those of the
Right. B) As a philosopher, I prefer the accurate to the inaccurate, the
true to the false. C) As I am a philosopher before I am a man of the
Left, I give way to B over A: a truth from the Right is worth more than
an error from the Left.
: Plato is my friend, but the truth is a still greater friend. This
thought comes from Plato, and is taken up by Aristotle. Cicero, on the
other hand, makes the opposite choice: I would rather err with Plato
than be in the truth with Pythagoras (the origin of the celebrated
phrase “Better to screw up with Sartre than to be right with Aron”).
inspired the great ethnologues: Malinowski, Margaret Mead, Godelier. Who
are you, Onfray, to scorn them?
Valls, Michel Onfray et Bernard-Henri Lévy: what’s at stake in the
debate”, La Règle du jeu, 8 March 2015): “We have every right
to find it odd that a completely forgotten intellectual, Alain de
Benoist, should emerge from the mothballs of obscurity.” In effect, why
Alain de Benoist?
analysis” corresponding to the “inaccurate analysis” of BHL? As an ad hominem
attack, with BHL as its target, the mention of his name imposes itself,
it is legitimate and necessary. On the other hand, the mention of Alain
de Benoist is not necessary but contingent: any other figure from the
Right would have done as well. The choice of name has no effect on the
logical validity of the reasoning.
over every thesis F (inaccurate, false, erroneous) no matter the author
of the thesis;
valid if redundant – since the fact that the author of the thesis comes
from the Right or the Left is neutral with respect to the validity of
the formula. Namely: for all x such that x is a true thesis with an author from the Right, and for all y such that y is a false thesis with an author from the Left, x is worth more than y.
of a true thesis or the left-wing author of a false thesis belongs to
the sentimental or ideological, rather than logical, order – that is, it
is effectively a rhetorical choice.
than to identify by this name the left-wing author of a false thesis.
However, Onfray’s hostility toward BHL is such that it overflows the
bounds of the logical scheme of his crossed preferences- whence the
suspicion that we are dealing with gibberish.
proper left-winger. He highlights that BHL “says he is left-wing”. In
his eyes, what’s at stake is an illocutionary assertion, expressing a
subject’s opinion of himself; which presupposes that Onfray himself
refuses to assign the status of objective truth to this claim.
Thereafter, nothing prevents the supposed falsity of BHL’s thesis from
extending itself to his left-wing presumptions. In other words, Onfray
lets us understand, or suggests, that BHL is a false “left-winger”.
proposes that, in every case, the true is worth more than the false,
does not have as its only consequence the scholium affirming that every
true thesis is worth more than every false thesis. There is another
implication: that a true right-wing man who authors a true thesis is worth more than a false left-wing man who authors a false thesis. This scholium completely justifies Manuel Valls’ reading of Onfray’s gibberish.
way, in every media outlet; he has called Valls a “cretin”. The fact
remains: there’s only one cretin in this affair, and it is Onfray.
the excess of his hatred. Hatred of BHL. Hatred of the elitist,
decadent, Saint-Germain-des-Prés mafia. Hatred of the left in nearly all
its known forms. Of all those who have expressed themselves in the
media in 2015, Onfray is by far the most consistently hateful, he is the
only one whose style transmits something of Action Française. Today’s Rivarol is far behind.
would offend the public’s common sense, or, to use Orwell-Michéa’s
phrase, “common decency“. In short, to consider someone as the
source of a true thesis inevitably conveys a laudatory effect. Let’s say
I were to claim, for example: “a true thesis by Hitler”. Even if I
affirm my hatred of this figure elsewhere, this claim conveys praise,
since I presuppose that Hitler is someone who is capable of making (at
least) a true claim.
claims”, like: “I will re-occupy the Rhineland by surprise, and they
won’t do anything”, “No one will prevent me from enacting the Anschluss“,
“We will cross the Maginot line on the recommendation of Manstein, and
we will beat them hands down”, etc. Given the exactitude of these
forecasting assertions, nothing opposes the strict logicality of
speaking of “true claims” of Hitler. To resume Roland Dumas’ memorable
phrase from his dialogue with Jean-Jacques Bourdin, from February 16,
“Why not say it, if it’s a reality?”
context of a purely logical argument, of the source of true claims. It
is yet another matter to do so in the “public sphere” (in Habermas’
sense). This particular proper name contains a connotation that no
speaker can reasonably ignore, if he doesn’t wish to be seen as a Nazi
sympathizer.
extra-logical, tactical, and opportunistic criteria. The name has the
status of a rhetorical signifier, characterized by its “nebulosity”,
according to Barthes’ term. One can calculate in advance its probable
effect on the public.
of BHL be paired with the name of a more or less comparable right-wing
intellectual, namely a notorious figure, with easy access, indeed
privileged access, to the media, ready to express himself loud and clear
on questions of current events.
autodidact intellectual. He is a prolific author. He is also the leader
of a certain school of thought, whose hour of glory was in the years
post-68, when Robert Hersant and Louis Pauwels entrusted the orientation
and editing of the Figaro-magazine to him and his group “La
Nouvelle Droite”, posts formerly held by François Mauriac and Raymond
Aron. Nevertheless, his name satisfies none of the requirements that I
have just explained. Whence Maria de França’s astonishment.
can be explained, according to Renaud Dély, by the “common points and
convergences” between Benoist and Onfray, noted in the latest number of
Monsieur de Benoist’s magazine Eléments (“Michel Onfray et les ‘idées justes’ d’Alain Benoist”, Bibliobs, 9 March). In short, it’s an example of payback.
might take its natural place opposite BHL without startling anyone:
that of Eric Zemmour. It would perfectly satisfy the informal
requirements I have enumerated. Here is the basis of the hypothesis that
there was a signifying metaphor (in the Lacan’s sense) in Onfray’s
claim. The signifier “Alain de Benoist” would have substituted for “Eric
Zemmour”, which would have then “fallen into obscurity”.
him back into the mothballs of oblivion along with Alain de Benoist.
Associating BHL with Zemmour would have meant associating him with an
actual and promising dynamic: associating him with Benoist places him in
the past, buries him, it’s the equivalent of saying “Die, BHL!” or
“You’re already dead, BHL!”
decontamination: associating the names of BHL and Zemmour would have
made a correlative association between the name of Onfray and that of
Zemmour. Thus, that which Onfray would prefer the reader to
misunderstand would have become legible. This is what we are about to
investigate.
de Benoist rather than an inaccurate analysis by BHL. Until now, we have
analyzed it as such, out of context. Now let us replace it in its
proper context, the interview in Le Point from which it is excerpted.
transitional phase, a political “moving-out”, and it is not clear that
this figure, so quick to rectify everything said concerning him, showed
the best judgment in manifesting himself in this case. Text: “The
philosopher scorns the proper-thinking left. Suffice it for the right to
recover him… ” In effect, Onfray has set out. He is in the process of
migrating, with arms and baggage, from the Left to the Right.
having any interest in the Right unless he can join its as a “man of the
Left”. He must accomplish a tour de force: to be a “left-wing man” on the Right, indeed “the left-wing man” on the Right.
as a class of individuals; b) that, contrary to Danton’s claim about the
fatherland, he, Onfray, may bring the country under the soles of his
shoes.
Corneille’s Sertorius before Pompey: “Rome is no longer in Rome, she is
wherever I am.” This is Onfray’s project: to demonstrate that the Left
is no longer on the Left, but rather wherever he is.
adandoning me, but in so doing she leaves herself. As noted by Baptiste
Rossi, Onfray’s Left is “neither the bohemian left, nor the communist
left, nor the liberal left, nor the islamist left, nor the
proper-thinking left, nor the animal-loving left, nor the Mitterrand
left, nor the marxist left, nor the Sarkozy left…” (“Michel Onfray, le
mafia ne passera pas”, La Règle du jeu, 9 March). In his interview with Le Point,
the rage Onray reserves to stigmatize all the Left’s trends leads him
to define the Left by what it is not. This amounts to transposing in
political philosophy the major proceeding of negative theology, whose
first theorist was, at the end of the 5th century, the so-called
Pseudo-Denis the Areopagite, “the father of mysticism”. I might add in
passing the regrettable fact that the volume of his Complete Works, once translated for Aubier by Maurice de Gandillac, is out of print.
“to deny”) knows only one limit: Onfray himself. Baptiste Rossi
explains it well: “You might say that for Michel Onfray the definition
of the Left begins at Michel and ends at Onfray.” This is the solution
to the problem. When the true Left is just wherever Onfray is, and is
somehow confused with his person, it is permissible for him to
compromise with the Right, associate, flirt, fuck with the Right, indeed
bear it children, and for all that never cease being left-wing.
is not due to Onfray’s own disorientation. On the contrary,
disorientation is his tactic. In order to successfully accomplish his
installation on the Right as a “left-wing man”, he must cover his
tracks. The idea is to establish a vague situation where the well-known
cat can no longer find her kittens. The passage through the “cosmos”
will help him there.
propaganda organ for the powerful, that hammers out the Party’s three
slogans: “WAR IS PEACE”, “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY”, “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”.
Onfray, who has offered himself in almost all the media outlets this
past week, is himself a little ministry of Truth in his own exclusive
service. What sublime slogans does he diffuse? Something like: “THE LEFT
IS NO LONGER THE LEFT”, “THE RIGHT IS MUCH MORE THAN THE RIGHT”,
“ONFRAY SPEAKS THE TRUTH ABOUT TRUTH”.
all the more urgent for him to reaffirm his identity as a left-wing
man. He will have to highlight certain of his supposedly leftist
“markings”.
to make up the difference. The conservative is just as anti-liberal. See
for example the interview with Denis Tillinac in Le Figaro on
March 14, published under the title: “If the Right is a liberal version
of the Left, it will die”. Anti-liberal? The reformed neo-fascist is
much more anti-liberal than the average member of the socialist party,
whence Alain de Benoist’s joke: “I think I’m further Left than Manuel
Valls!” In the end, everybody knows that the Front National is
henceforth the biggest anti-liberal political force, leaving Mélenchon,
the Front de gauche, and the Trotskyites far behind.
come up with to preserve his left-wing reputation? Heaping scorn on the
real leftists is something, but it’s not enough. I can imagine him
picking out here and there certain “left-wing truths” with which to
associate himself, to mark with his label.
is easygoing; we would expect its “cosmic” rantings; we could offer it a
place to knock on Valls; the literary chronicle deplores the meddling
of politicians in cultural affairs: as much as saying, “Valls, to the
doghouse!” We shall see how long this time-to-understand lasts with the
“pure of ear”.
return of the prodigal son. We have seen that Alain de Benoist, the
grand anti-Christian, already knighted Onfray. In Le Point this
week, Christine Boutin would not be outdone: she excuses his militant
atheism, for “his will to seek truth through the real rejoins the
Christian incarnation”; whatever that means. Then she falls into a
swoon: “He even dares proclaim the end of the Left!”
to his breast “the colossus”, the force of whose work he admires. He
has always protected “our national Savonarola”, persecuted by “the
commissioners of the thought police”. As he sees it, he defends Onfray
as simultaneously the son of the poor, the hick, and the heretic.
the same wavelength as FOG (Franz-Olivier Giesbert), its dandy. Will the
Onfray case be the apple of discord among the right-wing? We shall have
look at each one’s “position” under the microscope.
consists in assimilating Saint-Germain-des-Prés to a “Papuan village”.
We know that Saint-Germain was inscribed in the post-war years, then
during the colonial wars in Indochina and especially Algeria, as the
neighborhood of the capital’s intellectual Left, a bit like Greenwich
Village (“the village“) in New York, or Bloomsbury in London, in the days of Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf.
You could not say that the “Papuan ethnic group” was aimed for as such.
What counts is the word “papou” [papuan], with the internal alliteration
of its labials, “p…p…”, and the final long “u” that recalls the call
“hoo…hoo…”, whose significance can run from friendly greeting to hostile
derision.
the great ethnologists, not at all. Only, in French, given the spirit
of the language, a certain ridiculousness is attached to the word
“papou”, along with a certain tenderness, as in “papounet”, the familiar
diminutive form of “papa”. When you hold that the intellectuals of the
Saint-Germain-des-Prés are ethereal, even degenerate, snobs, everyone
understands that it is a joke to call them “Papous”, a word which in
French evokes the general signification of the un-civilized, the savage.
the spiritual class depicted in literature by Anouilh, Marcel Aymé,
Antoine Blondin, Céline, Michel Déon, and other lesser masters.
object of contempt. During the Occupation, they took aim at the
“zazous”- ah! there they are, the ancestors of our “papous”- the
non-conformist youth, who belched on Vichy, loved jazz, and sometimes
even wore the yellow star for solidarity with the Jews (see Wikipedia).
Then it was the existentialists who were publicly scorned by our dear
anarchists.
knowledge of the history of our country in the 20th century, couldn’t
fail to see Onfray as the sucker for this good old French tradition.
some very beautiful pages, some great writers. Its style and worldview
profoundly pervaded the “French ideology”. Don’t seek to banish it: it’s
a part of the French genius, from Gabin to Delon, from the Nickel-Foot Gang to Journey to the End of Night,
about which Beauvoir said in her memoirs: with Sartre “we knew by heart
a bunch of passages. His anarchism seemed close to ours.”
overlaps. Time is needed for them to separate. For Onfray, the time has
come.
crowd”, which “rejoices in voluntary servitude and throngs the streets
as a single unit at the first call of the media” (in Le Point, no. 2216, p. 40).
only ever appealed to the extreme right-wing circles (just look at the
history of Proudhon’s own circle).
take his revenge on the bourgeois ladies, to overshadow the heirs by the
energy of “a child of a humiliated people. Caliban has only one wish:
to become Prospero. Or rather, to take his place.”
society of imbeciles and assholes.” Whereupon Giesbert clasps him to his
heart: the theatre of virile friendship. “The right-wing anarchist
morality is constantly on the defensive.”
autobiography”, to the point of unleashing his next opus under the title
Cosmos.
simultaneously, his conviction that the triumph of this very century is
“ineluctable”, that the aristocracy of the spirit is destined to be
trampled and vanquished. For his populism “is less the deliberate choice
of the victims than the just as deliberate choice of the defeated.”
now, with his success, “a new Lower Norman HQ” in Caen, as Giesbert
teaches us – “and whose social type is the small businessman, whose
positive image runs through all his books.”
that sketch a figure who is unique and recognizable among all the
others, that of the right-wing anarchist.
mention of Robespierre, Marx and Sartre are excerpts from a single
book: the historian Pascal Ory’s essay Right-wing anarchism, published in 1985 by Grasset. There is no discussion of Onfray, whose first book dates from 1988.
the cosmos, and their life was set by the impeccable mechanism of
universal clockwork.” What presumption on the part of the humans, those
tiny creatures, to rebel against the order of things! “The stone obeys
the cosmos, as do the plants and animals, of course, but not man(…)”
Well, Bye Bye Kant, and the rest. It’s a tirade worthy of Jean Gabin.
“This is my first book.” Until now he had been content to be a grouchy
post-68 reactionary. Now he’s a post-1789 reactionary, in unison with
the purest counter-revolutionary thought, the original thought of the
counter-revolution, the most hostile to the Enlightenment. His emblem:
the light-bearing eel. So, a word to the wise.
chance. He will be, in fact he already is, the right-wing neo-anarchist
our era was waiting for.
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