The Ideology of Tyranny: Bataille, Foucault, and the Postmodern Corruption of Political Dissent

by Guido Giacomo Preparata

The Ideology of Tyranny traces the contemporary jargon of political correctness and the so-called 'politics of diversity' so prevalent in the academic and administrative discourse of the United States to the fantastic sociology of an obscure French pornographer, Georges Bataille (1897-1962). The celebration of violence sung in his works, re-elaborated in abstract form by the late followers of Bataille, has led to the creation of a peculiar talk emphasizing difference, antagonism, intellectual despair, and a profound political conservatism. As the so-called Left has lately come to adopt this troubling gospel of divisiveness, the consequence for a wholesome culture of dissent in our society have been a disastrous paralysis of its critical and moral faculties in the face of a new dawn of never-ending wars.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

257 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2007

Reviews

[Matthew James Dodson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Preparata's sucker punch against the onslaught of post-modernism from the left and neo-conservatism from the right makes a cogent and well-documented argument that both strains of the two wings of modern thought are spawns of the same anti-humanist, elitist and occult views of French philosopher and pornographer Georges Bataille. Rebellion and self indulgence packaged as freedom and uniqueness, Preparata argues that Western elites have adopted Bataille, his leftist offspring Foucault and rightist Straus as a means of disarming both the anti-globalist proletariat and complacent but problematic bourgeoisie.

Less convincing is Mr. Preparata's answer to the self-destructive individualism and sarcasm of postmodernism: the obscure writings of proto-leftist Thorstein Veblen, who advocates for some strain of non-Marxist socialism that seems as arcane and unworkable as Marxism itself.

Despite the moribund solution offered by Preparata, his analysis of the problem facing modern theorists with regard to the modes of power and governance is spot on and worth reading on its own.

[Ok · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is beautifully written and covers an astonishingly wide range of material(deep/parapolitics, Middle Eastern geopolitics, occultism and esotericism, the ''greatest hits'' of continental philosophy, etc.) but it's central thesis-that the ideas of postmodernist philosophers like Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucalt (and their intellectual antecedents in militaristic, extremist figures like Georges Bataille and Ernst Junger) have somehow been fully assimilated into the American political establishment-is bizarre and erroneous. Regardless, it is a great read.

[Frederick Heimbach]

Interesting ... but I lack the ability to evaluate these claims, and at some point I decided I had got what I was going to get from this rather hard to read book and I decided to move on. There are simply Too Many Books.