EUGENE GOODHEART
399
The idea that desire may become tyrannical must seem anoma–
lous to the many who would identify desire with freedom itself. After
all , doesn't everyone dream of having one's desires satisfied? And
isn't the thwarting of desire the very definition of unfreedom? The
fact is that the profoundest students of desire (for example, Nietz–
sche and D. H. Lawrence) conceive of desire under the regime of
necessity , not freedom. The interesting distinction is between
strength and weakness, not between freedom and unfreedom .
Both Nietzsche and Lawrence have a predilection for men of
power, and they oppose the thwarting of the full expression of
power. But perhaps deeper than the advocacy of power is their
respect for difference, that is, for the different powers and disposi–
tions of power that characterize the human species. It is a desecra–
tion of life to impose an imperative (for instance,
be strong)
upon
those who are incapable of strong action. The doctrine of strength
does not justify coercion. The inner coercion of desire (whatever it
might be) is perhaps unavoidable. We are subject to the necessities
of our nature, but we are not necessarily subject (or should not be) to
the necessity of someone else's nature - that is, a personal necessity
transformed into a universal principle, a categorical imperative.
For Nietzsche, a principal source of tyranny is the platonic con–
viction that of the three sources of human motivation (reason, the
will, and the appetites) reason should dominate. As Alexander
Nehamas puts it, "Having identified a large number of independent
motives and character traits, Nietzsche, in contrast to Plato, con–
siders that the question which should govern the self requires a dif–
ferent answer in each particular case." The implication of this view is
not confined to reason.
If
reason is not required in one case, it may
indeed be required in another. And if desire is required in one case,
it may not be required in another. Moreover, what does it mean for
something to be required? Does it mean following out what is ex–
perienced as the necessity of one's nature , the overwhelming desire
for a particular satisfaction, or does it mean achieving control or
mastery of the desire as Nietzsche, for instance, envisaged the role of
the artistic will? The considerations are complex and even confused,
but it is clear that the possibility of tyranny is not confined to the
discourse of reason. All discourses are potentially tyrannical.
The primacy of discourse in Foucault's argument (an assump–
tion he shares with other poststructuralists) in effect contradicts the
hypothesis of repression, for what is repressed according to the
hypothesis are energies that cannot speak, that have no language.
