From Revolution to Ethics : May 1968 and Contemporary French Thought

A bold history of French intellectual life and the legacies of 1960's radicalism. Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1 Cobblestone Beaches: Normative Contradictions of the May Revolt PART ONE: THE SABRE AND THE KEYHOLE: FRENCH MAOISM, VIOLENCE, AND PRISONER DIGNITY 2 A Press Conference 3 Violence and the Gauche prolétarienne 4 The President’s Man and the State’s Thumb 5 Popular Justice and Incarcerated Leftists 6 The Groupe d’information sur les prisons 7 These Modern Bastilles PART TWO: SPINOZA ON PROZAC: FROM INSTITUTIONAL PSYCHOTHERAPY TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESIRE 8 Anti-Psychiatry and the Philosophy of Desire 9 Anti-Oedipus: Redux and Reception, Ethics and Origins 10 Institutional Psychotherapy and the La Borde Psychiatric Clinic 11 Félix Guattari’s Devolution 12 Gilles Deleuze’s Spinozist Ethics 144 13 Schizophrenia and Fascism 14 Craziness Is a Dead End PART THREE: “YOUR SEXUAL REVOLUTION IS NOT OURS”: FRENCH FEMINIST “MORALISM” AND THE LIMITS OF DESIRE 15 Gender and ’68: Tensions from the Start 16 Guy Hocquenghem’s Dark Encounter with Feminism 17 Feminism, Law, Rape, and Leftist Male Reaction 18 Boy Trouble: French Pedophiliac Discourse of the 1970s 19 Desire Has Its Limits PART FOUR: WHEN ALL BETS ARE OFF: ETHICAL JANSENISM AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHERS 20 The Main Event 21 Between the Union of the Left and Jansenism 22 Maurice Clavel 23 The Angel in the World 24 The Dialectic by the Side of the Road 25 John Locke Was Not French, or The Varieties of Ethical Experience Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z The French revolts of May 1968, the largest general strike in twentieth-century Europe, were among the most famous and colourful episodes of the twentieth century. Julian Bourg argues that during the subsequent decade the revolts led to a remarkable paradigm shift in French thought - the concern for revolution in the 1960s was transformed into a fascination with ethics. Challenging the prevalent view that the 1960s did not have any lasting effect, From Revolution to Ethics demonstrates that intellectuals and activists turned to ethics as the touchstone for understanding interpersonal, institutional, and political dilemmas. In absorbing and scrupulously researched detail Bourg explores the developing ethical fascination as it emerged among student Maoists courting terrorism, anti-psychiatric celebrations of madness, feminists mobilizing against rape, and pundits and philosophers championing human rights. Based on newly accessible archival sources and over fifty interviews with men and women who participated in the events of the era, From Revolution to Ethics provides a compelling picture of how May 1968 helped make ethics a compass for navigating contemporary global experience.