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"Despite gathering years of NSA-worthy surveillance on the philosophers, Hoover’s agents were never able to discern the ideological program of the French. “I ca

"Despite gathering years of NSA-worthy surveillance on the philosophers, Hoover’s agents were never able to discern the ideological program of the French. “I can’t work out,” wrote one in a note in Sartre’s file, “if he’s pro-Communist or anti-Communist." I feel the same. Lévy often seems to be a manichean ideologue, but I found his Sartre book revealing: "Levy depicts Sartre as a man who could succumb to the twentieth century’s catastrophic attraction to violence and the false messianism of its total political solutions, while also being one of the fiercest critics of its illusions and shortcomings." https://bernard-henri-levy.com/en/book/sartre/ https://bernard-henri-levy.com/en/book/sartre/

saghm 3y ago
> "Despite gathering years of NSA-worthy surveillance on the philosophers, Hoover’s agents were never able to discern the ideological program of the French. “I can’t work out,” wrote one in a note in Sartre’s file, “if he’s pro-Communist or anti-Communist." Honestly, what's crazy about that to me is the idea that he _must_ be one or the other. The idea that every writer is actively and wholeheartedly trying to advance exactly one side or the other of a geopolitical struggle is kind of silly. Maybe sometimes he thought about other stuff besides that?
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  The article does address that: > The black-and-white, spy-vs-spy world of the FBI left little room for philosophical nuance and literary ambiguity, after all. It's classic authoritarian thinking where even the perception of a small stain ruins the entire outfit. But then, in stating the above that way I have, that could be an example of the same; putting into a small box those who put others into a small box. In defense of my argument: it is the policy and process of intelligence services and law enforcement that creates the small box thinking, not the individuals who are employed to pursue it, whilst those they are putting into the small boxes are individuals with all the many colours of opinion, subjectivity, and experience that make up their whole, and cannot be accurately small-boxed.
underlipton 3y ago
It's almost as if exceptional thinkers don't always fit inside an ideological box or something.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  It's a tradition as old as Socrates.
aphroz 3y ago
Levy is not regarded as a serious person. He once quoted a made up philosopher and has some dubious interests. In the french speaking world most people treat him as a joke. https://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1963338,00.html https://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1963338,0...

saghm 3y ago

> "Despite gathering years of NSA-worthy surveillance on the philosophers, Hoover’s agents were never able to discern the ideological program of the French. “I can’t work out,” wrote one in a note in Sartre’s file, “if he’s pro-Communist or anti-Communist." Honestly, what's crazy about that to me is the idea that he _must_ be one or the other. The idea that every writer is actively and wholeheartedly trying to advance exactly one side or the other of a geopolitical struggle is kind of silly. Maybe sometimes he thought about other stuff besides that?

BLKNSLVR 3y ago
The article does address that: > The black-and-white, spy-vs-spy world of the FBI left little room for philosophical nuance and literary ambiguity, after all. It's classic authoritarian thinking where even the perception of a small stain ruins the entire outfit. But then, in stating the above that way I have, that could be an example of the same; putting into a small box those who put others into a small box. In defense of my argument: it is the policy and process of intelligence services and law enforcement that creates the small box thinking, not the individuals who are employed to pursue it, whilst those they are putting into the small boxes are individuals with all the many colours of opinion, subjectivity, and experience that make up their whole, and cannot be accurately small-boxed.

underlipton 3y ago

It's almost as if exceptional thinkers don't always fit inside an ideological box or something.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
It's a tradition as old as Socrates.

aphroz 3y ago

Levy is not regarded as a serious person. He once quoted a made up philosopher and has some dubious interests. In the french speaking world most people treat him as a joke. https://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1963338,00.html https://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1963338,0...