Se défendre/To Defend Oneself or Why Occupy?

Michel Foucault: Se défendre

« Se défendre » est un inédit de Michel Foucault qui présente une saisissante synthèse de ce que peut être un rapport offensif à la légalité et aux institutions chargées de la mettre en oeuvre. Il vient d’être publié par Courant Alternatif avec un article (voir plus bas) qui montre ce que l’activité de défense doit aux luttes afin de souligner que le droit en général et les procédures judiciaires en particulier sont des espaces de lutte qu’il est nécessaire d’investir.

Se défendre

1- Evitons d’abord le problème ressassé du réformisme et de l’anti-réformisme. Nous n’avons pas à prendre en charge les institutions qui ont besoin d’être transformées. Nous avons à nous défendre tant et si bien que les institutions soient contraintes de se réformer. L’initiative doit donc venir de nous, non pas sous forme de programme mais sous forme de mise en question et sous forme d’action.
2- Ce n’est pas parce qu’il y a des lois, ce n’est pas parce que j’ai des droits que je suis habilité à me défendre ; c’est dans la mesure où je me défends que mes droits existent et que la loi me respecte. C’est donc avant tout la dynamique de la défense qui peut donner aux lois et aux droits une valeur pour nous indispensable. Le droit n’est rien s’il ne prend vie dans la défense qui le provoque ; et seule la défense donne, valablement, force à la loi.
3- Dans l’expression « Se défendre », le pronom réfléchi est capital. Il s’agit en effet d’inscrire la vie, l’existence, la subjectivité et la réalité même de l’individu dans la pratique du droit. Se défendre ne veut pas dire s’auto défendre. L’auto-défense, c’est vouloir se faire justice soi-même, c’est-à-dire s’identifier à une instance de pouvoir et prolonger de son propre chef leurs actions. Se défendre, au contraire, c’est refuser de jouer le jeu des instances de pouvoir et se servir du droit pour limiter leurs actions. Ainsi entendue, la défense a valeur absolue. Elle ne saurait être limitée ou désarmée par le fait que la situation était pire autrefois ou pourrait être meilleure plus tard. On ne se défend qu’au présent : l’inacceptable n’est pas relatif.
4- Se défendre demande donc à la fois une activité, des instruments et une réflexion. Une activité : il ne s’agit pas de prendre en charge la veuve et l’orphelin mais de faire en sorte que les volontés existantes de se défendre puissent venir au jour. De la réflexion : se défendre est un travail qui demande analyse pratique et théorique. Il lui faut en effet la connaissance d’une réalité souvent complexe qu’aucun volontarisme ne peut dissoudre. Il lui faut ensuite un retour sur les actions entreprises, une mémoire qui les conserve, une information qui les communique et un point de vue qui les mettent en relation avec d’autres. Nous laisserons bien sûr à d’autres le soin de dénoncer les « intellectuels ». Des instruments : on ne va pas les trouver tout faits dans les lois, les droits et les institutions existantes mais dans une utilisation de ces données que la dynamique de la défense rendra novatrice [1].
Michel Foucault

From: http://michel-foucault-archives.org/?Deux-textes-de-Michel-Foucault-en

(Source: http://variazionifoucaultiane.blogspot.com/2012/05/se-defendre.html) 14.5.2012.

 

Michel Foucault: To Defend Oneself

To Defend Oneself is an unpublished article by Foucault which presents a striking synthesis of what could be an offensive relationship to legality and institutions charged with enacting it. It is to be published by Courant Alternatif with an article (see below) which expresses what does the activity of defense owe to combats in order to accentuate that the law in general, and the legal procedures in particular are the spaces of combat which need to be moved into.

To defend oneself

1- Let us first avoid the worn out problem of reformism and anti-reformism. We do not have to take charge of institutions that need to be transformed. We need to defend ourselves for as long and as much until the institutions are forced to reform. The initiative needs then to come from us, not in the form of a program but in the form of questioning and in the form of acting.
2- It is not because there are laws, not because I have rights that I have the ability to defend myself; it is in the measure within which I defend myself that my rights exist and the law respects me. It is then primarily the dynamics of the defense which can give value, an indispensable one for us, to the laws and rights. The law is nothing unless it comes alive in the defense it provokes; and only the defense, valuably, gives the force to the law.
3- In the expression to defend oneself the reflexive pronoun is capital. It is effectively a matter of inscribing life, existence,subjectivity and even reality of the individual  in the practice of the law. To defend oneself does not mean auto-defense. Auto-defense, it is the will to do justice to one self by one self; that is, to identify oneself with an instance of power and to prolong the actions of its own master. To defend oneself, on the contrary, is to refuse to play the game of the instances of power, and to use the law itself for limiting its actions. Thus understood, the defense has an absolute value. It cannot be limited or disarmed by the fact that the situation was worse before or could be better later. We do not defend ourselves except in the present; the unaccaptable is irrelevant.
4- To defend oneself requires then simultaneously an activity, the instruments and a reflexion. An activity: it is not about taking charge of a widow and orphaned child, but about making it so that the existing willingness to defend oneself comes into the light of day. On reflexion: to defend oneself is a work that demands a practical and theoretical analysis. It often requires the knowledge of reality which is so complex that no voluntarism can dissolve it. It requires then a return to actions undertaken, a memory which conserves them, information that communicate them and a point of vue which puts them in relation with others. We will of course leave it to the others to worry about denouncing «the intellectuals». On the instruments: we will not find them all ready-made in the existing laws, rights and institutions, but within the utilization of those premises that will be rendered innovative by the dynamics of defense.

 Žižek on Occupy Wall Street 

There is no lack of anti-capitalist sentiment in the world today. There’s an overload of critiques of the horrors of capitalism: books, in-depth journalistic investigations and television reports abound on companies ruthlessly polluting our environment, on corrupt bankers who continue to get fat bonuses while their banks are saved by public money, of sweat shops where children work overtime.

The “democratic illusion”, the blind acceptance of the institutions of democracy as the only and the right force for change, actually prevents radical change.

What is as a rule not questioned, however, is the democratic-liberal framework of fighting against the excesses of capitalism. The explicit or implied goal of such critiques is only to democratise capitalism, to extend democratic control to the economy through pressure from the media, government inquiries, harsher laws, honest police investigations and so on. But we never ever question the democratic institutional framework of the state of law. This is the sacred cow that even the most radical forms of ethical anti-capitalism—think of the Porto Allegre forum, the Seattle movement—do not dare to touch. http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279483

 

Addressing the protesters at Zucotti Park:

"So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from Communist times. A guy was sent to work in East Germany from Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors, so he told his friends, ‘Let’s establish a code. If a letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I say; if it is written in red ink, it is false.’ After a month, his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: ‘Everything is wonderful here. The stores are full of good food, movie theatres show good films from the West, apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot find is red ink.’This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want, but what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom, ‘war on terror,’ and so on, falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink."

http://guerrillablog2.blogspot.com/2012/03/slavoj-zizek-speaks-at-occupy-wall.html?zx=d7341d264673f3f4

.Slavoj Zizek Speaks At Occupy Wall Street

. .Slavoj Zizek speaks at Occupy Wall St

[...] “[They are saying] we are all losers, but the true losers are down there on Wall Street. They were bailed out by billions of our money. We are called socialists, but here there is already socialism — for the rich. They say we don’t respect private property. But in the 2008 financial crash-down more hard-earned private property was destroyed than if all of us here were to be destroying it night and day for weeks. They tell you we are dreamers; the true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers; we are the awakening from the dream that is turning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything; we are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know [inaudible] from cartoons. The cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath its ground. Only when it looks down and notices it he falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street, ‘Hey! Look down!’
[inaudible] “… In 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV, film, and in novels all stories that [inaudible -- something about portraying "alternate realities or time travel"]. This is a good sign for China; it means people still dream about alternatives, so attacked and prohibited is dreaming. Here we don’t think of prohibition because [inaudible -- "history"?] has even oppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world — an asteroid destroying all of life, and so on — but we cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from Communist times. A guy was sent to work in East Germany from Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors, so he told his friends, ‘Let’s establish a code. If a letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I say; if it is written in red ink, it is false.’ After a month, his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: ‘Everything is wonderful here. The stores are full of good food, movie theatres show good films from the West, apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot find is red ink.’ This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want, but what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom, ‘war on terror,’ and so on, falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.
“There is a danger: Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: Carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after when we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then? I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like, ‘Oh, we were young, it was beautiful…’ Remember that our basic message is, ‘We are allowed to think about alternatives.’ A taboo is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want, but what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want? Remember: The problem is not corruption or greed; the problem is the system which pushes you to be corrupt. Beware not only of the enemies, but also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process in the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat. They will try to make this into a harmless moral protest, a decaffeinated protest. But the reason we are here is that we have had enough of the world where to recycle Coke cans to give a couple of dollars to charity, or to buy a Starbucks cappuccino where one percent goes to Third World starving children is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture [inaudible -- calls for "mic check"]… We can see that for a long time, we allowed our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back.
“We are not Communists, if Communism means the system which collapsed in 1990. Remember that today those Communists are the most efficient, ruthless capitalists. In China today we have a capitalism which is even more dynamic than your American capitalism but doesn’t need democracy, which means, when you criticism capitalism, don’t allow yourselves to be blackmailed that you are ‘against democracy.’ The marriage between democracy and capitalism is over. A change is possible.
“Now, what we consider today possible — just follow the media. On the one hand is technology and sexuality — everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the moon, you can become immortal by biogenetics, you can have sex with animals or whatever. But look at the field of society and economy — there, almost everything is considered impossible. You want to raise taxes a little bit for the rich, they tell you it’s impossible. We lose competitivity. You want more money for healthcare, they tell you, ‘Impossible! This means a totalitarian state.’ Is there something wrong with the world where you are promised to be immortal but they cannot spend a little more for healthcare? Maybe we have to set our priorities straight. We don’t want higher standards of living; we want better standards of living. The only sense in which we are Communists is that we care for the commons: the commons of nature, the commons of what is privatized by intellectual property, the commons of biogenetics. For this, and only for this, we should fight. Communism failed absolutely, but the problems of the commons are here. They are telling you we are not American here, but the conservative fundamentalists who claim they are ‘really’ Americans have to be reminded of something: What is Christianity? It’s the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other and who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense the Holy Spirit is here now, and down there on Wall Street there are millions [?] who are worshiping blasphemous idols. So all we need is patience.
“The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home, and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case. You know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire.”
rough transcript from http://carlygsdrafts.wordpress.com/
rough transcript from http://www.disinfo.com/