‘F&#% autonomy’: Houellebecq, Submission, and Enlightenment’s ‘last dismaying dregs’

ABSTRACT

This article examines the evolution of Houellebecq’s treatment of History across the span of his novels. Focusing in particular on The Elementary Particles, The Map and the Territory, and Submission, I explore a gradual but discernible movement away from a broadly Comtean understanding of historical destiny, which anticipated the decline of theology and metaphysics and the rise of positivism. Over the course of Houellebecq’s novels, this account of historical evolution yields to a circular rendering of history in which theology and metaphysics alternate as religious and secular dispensations trade power. While The Elementary Particles imagines the techno-utopian fantasy of a genetically perfected humanity, Submission abandons these Comtean-inspired utopian ambitions for a religiously grounded social order maintained under Islam. Crucially, I contend that François’ journey towards conversion in Submission, foreshadowed by the character Houellebecq’s conversion to Catholicism in The Map and the Territory, may be read as a narrative of the West’s exhaustion with Enlightenment and the burdens of personal autonomy. Submission is a novel that doubts the positivist pretention that humanity can move beyond religion and metaphysics, and instead suggests that metaphysics and its attendant doctrine of individual rights and freedom inevitably collapses back into theology.

RÉSUMÉ

Nous examinons ici la manière dont Houellebecq, dans ses romans, traite le thème de l’Histoire. En nous concentrant sur Les Particules élémentaires, La Carte et le territoire, et Soumission, nous ètudions une conception du destin historique qui s’èloigne de l’idèe comtienne de l’histoire, laquelle prèvoyait le dèclin de la thèologie et du mètaphysique au profit d’une vision positiviste du monde. Au cours des romans de Houellebecq, cette conception de l’histoire cede la place à une interprètation cyclique dans laquelle la thèologie et le mètaphysique se disputent la prioritè èpistèmologique sous l’alternance des pouvoirs spirituels et temporels. Alors que Les Particules élémentaires imagine la fantaisie techno-utopienne d’une humanitè gènètiquement perfectionnèe, Soumission abandonne ces ambitions utopiques et comtiennes en faveur d’une conception religieuse de l’ordre social fondèe sur l’Islam. Surtout, nous soutenons que le parcours que fait François vers la conversion dans Soumission peut s’interprèter comme un rècit d’èpuisement vis-à-vis des Lumières et des valeurs de l’autonomie individuelle. Soumission met en cause la prèsomption positiviste que l’humanitè peut se passer du religieux et du mètaphysique; le roman suggère plutôt que le mètaphysique, ainsi que les doctrines des droits de l’homme et de la libertè individuelle qu’il implique, s’effondrera inèvitablement en thèologie.

Déclaration de divulgation

Aucun conflit d’intérêts potentiel n’a été rapporté par le(s) auteur(s).

Notes

1. In Poland, for example, the Law and Justice Party attempted in 2017 to politicise the nation’s court system. Since 2010, Hungary has been controlled by the Fidesz party, which has instituted numerous illiberal policies.

2. See Maris (2014).

3. See Vertaldi (2015).

4. This has been a matter of contention among scholars. van Wesemael (2005), for instance, argues that Houellebecq is a reactionary calling for a return to a more religious past, while Varsava (2005) sees The Elementary Particles as a novel that ‘propounds the illiberal view that people are incapable of altering their personal and collective circumstances for the better […]’ (160–161). Morrey (2013), on the other hand, has treated the post-human aspects of the novel in a less skeptical light, especially regarding the potential affinities between post-human and religious thought (see esp. pp. 141–151).

5. See Sweeney (2013), pp. 91–96 for a detailed discussion.

6. I have made this argument elsewhere. See Betty (2015).

7. The passage on ‘sexual pauperisation’ in Whatever is one of the most discussed in Houellebecq’s oeuvre. Sweeney (2013), for example, writes that the novel’s insight concerning the ‘extension of the struggle’ is, arguably, ‘the most frequently cited line from Houellebecq’s work’ (41). See also Crowley (2002) and Abecassis (2000, 810–811) for a discussion of sexuality and sexual liberalism in Whatever.

8. I use ‘liberal’ here to signify both economic liberalism in the classical sense and also moral liberalism of the sort that is more often associated with ‘liberal’ political sensibilities in the United States.

9. Bruno Viard (2013) writes, ‘Houellebecq’s originality is that he is anti-liberal in everything, which makes him unclassifiable’ [‘L’originalité de Houellebecq est qu’il est antilibéral en tout, ce qui le rend inclassable’]. See also Viard (2008), p. 41.

10. See Sweeney (2013), p. 126.

11. See Ferry and Renaut (1985) and Lipovetsky (1993) for a discussion of the ‘unintended consequences’ of the May 1968 cultural revolution. Sweeney (2013, 96–101) offers a discussion in conjunction with Houellebecq’s fiction.

12. See Bellanger (2010), pp. 162–163 and Jeffery (2011), p. 34 for a discussion of materialism in Houellebecq’s work. See also Chabert (2002), pp. 194–195.

13. See van Wesemael (2005) and Lindenberg (2002).

14. Powers (2016) explores the use of irony as a defense mechanism against spiritual loss in the works of Baudelaire, Zola, and other modern French authors.

15. See Gugelot (1998) for a discussion of Catholic renaissance writers.

16. Houellebecq describes his own failing attempts to embrace Christianity in Public Enemies. See Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri (2011), pp. 137–140. See also Houellebecq (2012), pp. 201–202, for a more recent, novelistic rendering of the decline of Christianity. See also Houellebecq (2009), p. 41.

17. See Houellebecq (2013), pp. 10, 32, and 75.

18. See Betty (2012) for a treatment of Houellebecq and Robespierre. See also Betty (2016), pp. 78–9.

19. Buchweitz (2015) argues that work by Morrey (2013) and Betty (2012) identifies Houellebecq as a religious reactionary calling for a return to traditional religion. As my comments demonstrate, this is clearly not my view, nor is it the view espoused in the article to which Buchweitz refers.

20. See Camus (2011).

21. There is an understandable tendency to view the issue of the ‘great replacement’ through the lens of race rather than of religion. This, however, is not my perspective, and neither is it Houellebecq’s. See the latter’s interview with Sylvain Bourmeau (2015b) in The Paris Review.

22. See van Cuenebroeck (2011).

23. See Beck (2006) for a similar analysis of Houellebecq’s characters’ moral hypocrisy.

24. Houellebecq has used this same term to describe his fiction. See Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri (2011), p. 275.

25. See Moore (2011) for a treatment of Houellebecq and Schopenhauer (and Nietzsche).

26. See Betty (2016), pp. 96–99.

27. See Chabert (2002) for a discussion of Houellebecq and Comte.

28. The novel seems to have been inspired in part by Houellebecq’s recognition of France’s stunning—and stunningly consistent—natural beauty, which he celebrates in a letter to Bernard-Henri Lévy in Public Enemies (116).

29. See Courtois (2017).

30. See Osborne (2017).

31. See Sherwood (2017).

32. Houellebecq uses these terms in Whatever (2) to describe the alleged collapse of feminism.