Sartre's second century

118 Chapter Eight
Despite these limitations, it is worthwhile in overall terms to
emphasise the positive value of Sartre's work in understanding and
navigating our contemporary postmodern situation. Like postmodernists
such as Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Guattari, Lyotard and Baudrillard,
Sartre offers a trenchant critique of the condition of modernity and a deep,
searching scepticism towards the project of the Enlightenment. More
importantly, however, his work acts as a kind of critical searchlight that
shines through the cracks and exposes the fragile foundations of both
modern and postmodern excesses. Thus, there are clearly aspects of
postmodernism that are anathema to Sartre's theoretical sensibilities.
Beneath the elements of change and evolution in his philosophical
outlook, there is a deep and consistent attachment to the idea of human
freedom and of transforming the world to bring this about. In the 1960s,
this brought Sartre into conflict with (post)structuralists like Foucault,
Derrida and Althusser who were intent at the time on consigning the figure
of "Man" to the dustbin of history. In the late 1960s and the 1970s,
Foucault and others severed their links with structuralism and moved on to
the (Sartrean) project of resurrecting the subject and articulating a vision
of freedom, relinquishing their hostility and adopting a more positive
attitude towards the value of Sartre's work. In an interview in 1968 for
instance, Foucault pays homage to Sartre's contribution to intellectual
thought in France and views his own work as "minor" in relation to the
"immensity" of Sartre's:
I think the immense work and political action of Sartre defines an era. [...]
I would never accept a comparison—even for the sake of a contrast—of
the minor work of historical and methodological spadework that I do with
a body of work like his. 39
In an article devoted to Sartre, entitled "II a 6t6 mon maitre",
published in a special 1964 issue of the periodical, Arts, Deleuze also
expresses his admiration for "the private thinker [who] introduced new
themes, a new style, a new polemic and a new way of raising problems as
well as a hatred for all modes of 'representation'". 40 He reiterates this
tribute in a series of interviews with Claire Parnet, published as Dialogues
in 1977, where he speaks enthusiastically of his respect for Sartre:
Foucault, in La Quinzaine litteraire, no. 46 (1968), 20, cited in Poster, Foucault,
Marxism and History, 5.
40 Deleuze, "II a 6l€ mon maitre", 1208-09 (my translation).