There’s one particular passage in the Archaeology of Knowledge where Foucault calls himself as the enemy of the Weltanschauung, a word that loosely represents a general orientation towards life. Such a proclamation seems rather innocuous in and of itself but if understood in the proper context, it reveals Foucault’s disdain for overarching truths and narratives. By pioneering the postmodern technique, he hoped to show that knowledge, throughout history, has never progressed cumulatively. There were endless debates about the nature of the world and in the intersection of each epoch, new frameworks of knowledge and truth displaced more than it built on the work of its predecessors. So instead of seeing a movement towards objectivity or better approximations of truth, Foucault witnessed a history of dispersion. A series of events which only acquired meaning within a certain frame of reference, which according to Foucault, was mostly discursive.

As much as these observations seem reasonable enough, they also entail the invariable conclusion that all affirmations of truth and morality are fundamentally tyrannical. Since there can be no question of a true objectivity, making it possible to discern truth and error only inside a certain reference point, the act of choosing one reference over another becomes arbitrary or as Foucault called it, contingent. It naturally followed that arguing for a specific worldview was more an instantiation of your unique context than an attempt to communicate what you believed to be true. The subject was always subordinate to the rules within which he existed. Rules that not only informed his way of life but which also ultimately determined what he could say to be true or false. In virtue of the fact that an individual’s conceptions was fettered by this intellectual tyranny, Foucault undertook the herculean task of deconstructing these rules and contexts by showing that under the weight of his analytical knife, nothing remained which was not our own linguistic construction.

It became pointless to search for hidden meanings, underlying truths or some ulterior discourse which illuminated the secret order of things. All of us existed in an ateleological sea of islands drifting aimlessly and moving towards nowhere. And the fact that we inhabited an island, cherished a specific value, held a worldview dear to us or elaborated a certain Weltanschauung is simply a consequence of historical happenstance. Although such claims ring the death knell of most things I consider worthwhile in human life, they enjoyed wide acclaim and continues to, in my opinion, inform the undercurrents of modern culture.

It is by no means radical to say that society now suffers from a general loss of objectivity which found its loudest expression in Foucault’s works. Throughout the world we see the continuous rise of extremism whose flames are fanned mostly by the prevalent aversion towards disagreements. If, as Foucault claims, there really is no underlying thread which connects seemingly random events in history, no place where a person can meet another outside his frame of reference, what becomes the purpose of human relationships? Why would I cherish disagreements when all I see in it is a gaping cleft that reminds me of my abject loneliness? As mired with contradictions Foucault’s ideas seem to be, they are also a faithful expression of an isolation that is now widely felt. For a rational mind that prefers ugly truths over comforting delusions, it seems appealing to embrace this ambivalence and wage war against the Keepers of Weltanschauung vainly searching for something they may never find. However for a mind that is both rational but also shudders in the fear of its own separation, it would be more desirable to hold ground and use whatever means it has at its disposal to delay the isolation it perceives to be imminent.

So it is no surprise that we are no longer able to find a place of commonality in disagreements. We tenaciously cling on to our beliefs and worldviews because, much like Foucault, we are not quite sure what exists outside of them. And we are more terrified of what we are without them. Therefore as much as I recognize the seeming arbitrariness of my own notions, in what hope am I to relinquish them, even momentarily, if all I see outside my island are vistas of interpretations and perspectives stretching into nothingness? Isn’t this all the more reason to hold on to what has been given to me? Wouldn’t I be a fool to forsake what I imperfectly know for a possibility of perfection I might never attain? We have nursed these questions deep in our hearts, albeit rather poorly, and we are preoccupied with answering it unlike a fool, but why shouldn’t you be a fool?