The Continuation of War by Other Means

No Debts, No Masters...

Years ago I read a series of lectures given by Michel Foucault; a collection titled Society Must Be Defended. I’m not sure why it was called that. It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing Foucault would say, but maybe he did. It was something I picked up with careless curiosity, but it became one of those rare gateways into constellations that have guided me long since. 

There are two ideas to sketch here. 

One begins with a quote from the Italian poet, Petrarch. “All history is praise of Rome,” he said. And it was well said, since he was poet Laureate of Rome in 1341. Foucault held that this was still the case. Modern European nations often have at their roots, certain myths which claim that they too carry the noble fire of civilisation that Rome once held. While the Romans traced their legend back to the mythic brave ones who escaped the fall of Troy, France and Britain and Germany went on to say the same; that their early kings too were scattered Trojans. There was something about the greatness of Rome's empire, its law and its peace and its shaven-faced reasonableness, its mixture of military might and noble rule, that became the paradigm that Western powers have appealed to ever since, with all their white pillared museums and temples and houses of government. Roman rule remains an archetypal image of western civilisation.

The second thread begins with the old saying of Clauswitz: “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” Foucault is playful and morose, so he switches it around to make it more bleak than it already was: “politics is the continuation of war by other means.” This is to say that the pattern of civilisation, so deeply admired in the image of Rome, is rooted in violent force. Whether violence is happening or only hangs as a threat, the Roman peace comes at the edge of a sword. This too is still the pattern of civilisation. The greater the power, the more nukes are sat in waiting. Those who would take it upon themselves to bring peace must therefore be the greatest in might.

There is an old story in Mark's gospel, in which some disciples are vying to be the Rabbi's second in command. Others have different ideas and the scene descends into a gabble of hot-headed men. And so their messiah figure says to them:

“You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognise as their their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them, but it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must become your servant,  and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:41-43)

These discussions among Jewish peasants always carry a sideways glance to the Roman occupiers: an orderly hierarchy of soldiers, centurions, proconsuls, tribunes, regional governors and Caesars. The New Testament criticises Rome on every page. This was merely in keeping with the anti-imperial bent of the Hebrew Bible. Mastery and the politics of force are steadfastly shunned. The social location of messianic life is among slaves. To the amusement of early Roman commentators, it was slaves and women and children who took this messianic idea to heart.

There are a few nostalgic voices these days, defending Western civilisation as the last bastion of Judeo-Christian values. Foucault on the other hand (with his usual indifference) saw that the Bible tended, historically, to be the source of one insurrection after another, against the grain of a history that was ever in awe of Rome.