%0 Journal Article
%T The place of the Iranian Revolution in the history of truth: Foucault on neoliberalism, spirituality and enlightenment
%A Patrick Gamez
%J Philosophy & Social Criticism
%@ 1461-734X
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0191453718794751
%X In this article I want to argue that Foucault¡¯s engagement with the Iranian Revolution was neither romantic fascist atavism nor does it presage any sort of transformation of his thought. Indeed, Foucault¡¯s investigations of neoliberalism and subsequent work on spirituality, truth-telling and ethics are fully continuous with his critical genealogy of power. This is an important point, as we shall see, insofar as Foucault¡¯s journalism on the Iranian Revolution occurs in the midst of his Coll¨¨ge de France lectures on biopolitics and governmentality. Foucault¡¯s enthusiasm for the Revolution might indicate, albeit very indirectly, directions for thought that might resist neoliberalism. I will argue that Foucault was engaged in a very specific telling of the ¡®history of truth¡¯, emphasizing a partisan and agonistic form of truth-telling and transformation through struggle and ordeal, as opposed to the pacifying, neutralizing and normalizing forms of modern Western power. The ¡®political spirituality¡¯ Foucault witnessed on the streets of Tehran was a reactivation of this agonism, and¨C I will claim ¨C a literal embodiment of what Foucault calls the ¡®ethos of critique¡¯
%K biopolitics
%K critique
%K genealogy
%K liberal governmentality
%K politics of truth
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0191453718794751