66
PARTISAN REVIEW
Claudel's text would have an effect
only
in the postwar era, we can mea–
sure the time it took for the new, recentered classicism, initiated in
complete obscurity by Mallarme, to take full effect. C laudel, even in the
midst of his conversion to Catholicism and the only one, in his own eyes,
to create great poetry, always speaks as a member of Mallarme's Tuesday
meetings. How many at that time understood Mallarme's message, strange
and limited as it is? Only a tiny elite: Gide, Valery, Claude!. "A throw of
the dice will never abolish chance." That is not exactly one of the age's
ideological facets. But ideology is always present. The religious conflicts of
the eighteenth century, which inspired a very particular Ii terature, are ide–
ological conflicts.
MF:
You want a definition of history. I would like a definition of ideology.
ps:
Let's call it a propagandistic discourse used in the service of a partic–
ular belief or philosophy.
MF:
You're confusing rhetoric and ideology.
PS:
There is always ideology when the discourse entails an immediate
stake in power.
MF:
That's too wide a definition to be of much use. By ideology, I mean
the projection of scientific rationality, invented by Descartes to understand
matter, onto different orders of the human spirit. It is the modern phe–
nomenon
par excellence.
Aristotle and all those centuries that accepted
rationality as master were aware of the distinction between scientific truth
and the truth of human appearances. Plato, according to another ontolog–
ical division, authorized the same distinction. Malebranche is the first
French ideologue who, dismissing Descartes' prudence, applied the
Cartesian method to morality and theology.
PS:
But this or that series of pamphlets provoked by the Jansenist ques–
tion is ideology. Even
1..£5
Provinciales
is ideological.
MF:
Not at all! That's literature, and some of the best of it is found in the
genre of the pamphlet or the polemical essay. The ideas that Pascal defends
are less important than the art with which he persuades his reader and
throws off his adversaries. It is an art made of a style that reinvents French
prose.
PS:
Calling it great literature does not make it incompatible with belong–
ing to ideology.
MF:
On that we are in profound disagreement. You are in fact placing
1..£5
Provinciales
on the same level as
L'Imperialisme: stade supreme du capitalisme.
