Tharsher, swan song: How is it that Michel Houellebecq’s balance sheets are always so devastating? Probably because he’s thinking unusually deeply. His acceptance speech for the Frank Schirrmacher Prize (awarded by this newspaper) turned out to be an obituary for two writers who were practically untranslated in this country and elsewhere, in the sense of political correctness, as not particularly house-trained, occasionally even classified as right-wing extremist: Philippe Muray (1945 to 2006 ) and Maurice Dantec (1959 to 2016). The notorious range of notorious wings for him already makes the accusation of reactionary, which one made both of them, appear superficial. It is another out-of-date consideration, a lofty lament, with a slightly identifying intent, about the dwindling spiritual substance (see here and here), about “a tired western world, grouchy and fearful”.
Such diagnoses are not opinions that serve any desirability; Houellebecq takes it for his own account, and its power comes from his knowledge of the real and the spiritual world, which allows him to make extraordinarily consistent but hopeless considerations across societies, generations and epochs with a motionless expression. At that time he still took refuge with Tocqueville, who in the middle of the nineteenth century observed a new, harmless, but spiritually and ultimately existentially devastating “despotism”: “I see a lot of similar and equal people who are turning restlessly in circles, to get small and ordinary amusements to fill their minds. Each in his isolation is alien to the fate of all others. A tremendous patronizing power rises above them, which alone ensures that their enjoyments are secured and that their fate is monitored. It is unlimited, going into detail, regular, precautionary and mild. It would be like paternal power if, like this, it pursued the goal of preparing people for mature old age; instead, however, it merely seeks to hold it irrevocably in the state of childhood. Couldn’t she also completely relieve them of the worry of reflection and the troubles of life? “
The separation is complete
It is not difficult to recognize anticipations by Horkheimer / Adorno as well as more recent theses on the infantilization of society. Houellebecq concluded at the time: “As far as ideas are concerned, this passage contains practically all of my work. I only had one thing to add: that the individual who still has friends and a family at Tocqueville no longer has them with me. The process of isolation is complete. ”So much for a determination of the position.
One can, yes, perhaps has to go back a little further in order to understand to some extent the basic intellectual, political and historical assumptions on which Houellebecq’s new novel, due out this Tuesday, is based. The determination of the position is the same, not only because of his loyalty to Tocqueville and above all to Pascal. “Destroy” takes place in the year 2026/27 and essentially tells the story of Paul Raison, a close colleague of the French economics minister Bruno Juge, who renounces the presidential candidacy in favor of the former television presenter Sarfati, who in turn is only the placeholder for the outgoing one The incumbent is on suspending two terms.
The similarities and similarities with real politics are easy to notice. They form the foil for the web of ideas that play on many levels and that is worked with the typical Houellebecq set pieces: basically a sensible, unprejudiced analysis of the tactical and economic constraints to which politics is subject; also migration, terrorism, marriage, family and sexuality; finally disease, the care industry, euthanasia.
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#Houellebecqs #Contempt