The text below is part of an article about the debate, written by Joep Huiskamp, that appeared in the publication 16+1 Covers.

The Chomsky/Foucault Debate in Eindhoven

On the evening of Friday, 22 October 1971, the cameras of Dutch Broadcast Foundation NOS were set up in the Auditorium of Eindhoven University of Technology (then called the Tech­nische Hogeschool) to record a debate between these two intellectuals for posterity. In saecula saeculorum: this episode from the International Philosophers’ Project series is still available on YouTube.

Which Mots et Choses stand out when we view this video through a phenomenological lens? The Auditorium’s main hall is filled with an at first glance predominantly male audience of – most likely – employees and students. The audience shots register plentiful zeitgemässe glasses, beards and unkempt hair. Insiders recognize Dr Kwee Swan Liat, THE’s professor of general philosophy from 1970 to 1984, in the audience. Two days before, he had provided students with an introductory lecture on the ideas of the debaters. In the back of the hall gleams the big Pels and Van Leeuwen organ. We see three gentlemen descending the stairs avidly, on their way to talk show seating next to the landing of what is now called the Blauwe Zaal (blue auditorium). There are three modernist chairs, probably taken from the VIP room next to the Senaatszaal (Senate hall). There is a carafe of orange juice on the side table. The debate is led by philosopher Fons Elders (1936), a bearded, long-haired and bespectacled young man in a beige leisure suit and a T-shirt. Noam Chomsky is dressed in a dark-grey ready-to-wear costume and is the only one wearing a tie. Thanks to a pair of too short trouser legs the viewer occasionally gets a generous view of the American philosopher’s bare shins. Michel Foucault’s naked skull gleams in the television light. His socks reach much higher than Chomsky’s and he wears a beige turtleneck under a fashionably cut suit.

Under the direction of Elders, the two gentlemen exchange ideas about human nature and man’s relationship to culture and politics. No matter how different they are, according to the moderator the two gentlemen are both digging ‘from different sides of the mountain to the same centre’. This expedition in the Auditorium is not going to be a light-hearted chat: ‘The clash between Chomsky and Foucault centers on this universal human nature: is human nature common to all people, irrespective of time, place, class, religion, race and so on? Or is the notion of human nature a limited construction dating from a certain period in history such as the 17th and 18th centuries, when Newtonian physics were applied to men with little understanding of the facts?’

Chomsky speaks English; five minutes before the start of the debate Foucault informs Fons Elders that he will be speaking French (contrary to the agreement). In 2019, no talk show would put the subject matter on the menu for more than five minutes for fear of people changing channels. But the Eindhoven audience doesn’t blink and the audience shots give the impression that everyone understands every word and sentence of Foucault’s discourse. It remains to be seen whether this was in fact the case. Remembering the debate, even Elders admits that thinking and speaking in two languages at the same time gave him a headache. In any case, the relationship between language and power is discussed extensively – no surprise given the interests of both philosophers.

In company town Eindhoven, Chomsky warns against the power and oppressive effects of multinationals (‘which are not very far from us physically, tonight’). Foucault in turn declares that he has little faith in the democratic calibre of society. In their discussions, the debaters also address issues such as law and justice. Foucault takes up the theme from Discipline and Punish: ‘The fight against class justice, against injustice, is always part of the social struggle: to dismiss the judges, to change the tribunals, to amnesty the condemned, to open the prisons, has always been part of social transformations as soon as they become slightly violent.’

At the end of the debate, there is room for critical questions. A revolutionary Zeitgeist blows through the ranks o f the audience, which is seated under the Pels and Van Leeuwen organ purchased with NV Philips money in 1966. The first question to Chomsky is about his definition of the Marxist concept ‘proletariat’. Does this concept still mean what it once meant? After all, today it is mainly revolutionary students from the middle classes who identify with the proletariat, isn’t it? Well, says Chomsky, perhaps we should indeed stop using the word. But then, which social group will incite revolution? According to Chomsky, this may well be the intellectual workers, that is, as long as they are on the right side of the revolution.

In the early 1970s, the Vietnam War was a matter on many minds internationally. One student (goatee with moustache, oversized spectacle frame, turtleneck) asks the American how he manages to survive within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is known as a ‘war contractor and intellectual maker of this war’. MIT is, acknowledges Chomsky , an institute that conducts research for the benefit of warfare. Chomsky lets slip that he is not a declared pacifist. On the other hand, MIT is also a university that cherishes libertarian values. Not that these values will save the Vietnamese people. Talking about MIT, we understand from Chomsky, calls for a nuanced approach. Whether the institute abuses him, a critical intellectual, as a left-wing alibi for all the research activities it carries out for the American army is the next question: ‘Aren’t you afraid that your presence at MIT gives them a clean conscience?’

Chomsky does not believe so: ‘I think my presence at MIT serves marginally to help, I don’t know how much, to increase student activism against a lot of the things that MIT as an institution does. At least I hope that’s what it does.

Preparations for the Television Programme

The lively debate was broadcast on the late Sunday evening of 28 November 1971, as director Kees van Langeraad remembers in 2006: ‘As a programme it was quite unusual for the NOS at the time, being a long debate between two philosophers. We wanted to record it with an audience and opted for a setting at Eindhoven University of Technology. I remember Chomsky as a clean American. Foucault was a more extra­vagant kind of man, who after the broadcast showed a great interest in Amsterdam’s nightlife.’

The initial idea of moderator Fons Elders was to invite eight famous philosophers to give guest lectures at several Dutch universities. When the NOS signed up as a partner, the idea arose to take philosophy out of its ivory tower and organized a series of debates before a live audience. This led to four television pro­grammes including, in addition to Foucault and Chomsky, conversations between the duos Alfred J. Ayer and Arne Naess, Karl Popper and John Eccles, and Leszek Kolakowski and Henri Lefèbvre. The three other debates were recorded at the International School of Philosophy in Leusden, the Auditorium of the University of Amsterdam on the Spui and the Ridderzaal in The Hague.

The text of what has become known as The Chomsky/Foucault Debate in Eindhoven was later published in three English-language editions. In Reflexive Water (1974) and Freedom and Knowledge (2013), Fons Elders reminisces about his meetings with the two discussion partners. Initially, Foucault seems a rather prickly gentleman. When Elders visits him in Paris for the first time in 1970, it takes him a while to find the right doorbell in the apartment complex. As a result, he arrives five minutes late. ‘Too bad,’ said the thinker, ‘now we only have 25 minutes left.’

Foucault comes across as ‘a hybrid between a Chinese general from the Ming Dynasty and Count Dracula’ to the Dutch philo­sopher. And the Frenchman does not fancy a televised interview with Chomsky, either. In 2019, Fons Elders remembers the bizarre exchange in which he eventually managed to persuade Foucault.

After their short talk, they leave the apartment building together. Standing beside his car, the Frenchman politely asks his Dutch visitor: ‘Anything else can I do for you?’ ‘If you’re going to Bordeaux, I’d appreciate a lift,’ answers Elders, taking Foucault by surprise. ‘He had to be some place in Paris, so I came along until he stopped the car. Then we walked together. Foucault said: “I don’t like television”, at which I remarked that TV can actually be quite interesting. I told him that I had been the first naked man to be seen on Dutch television. Foucault nearly jumped for joy and said, incredulously: “That can’t be true.” To which I again replied: Complètement nu, seulement avec des bottes rouges. Then Foucault said: “Then I want to be naked on TV with you and Chomsky.”’ If this wish had come true, the Eindhoven debate would undoubtedly have become world news. But in the Auditorium, the three gentlemen keep their clothes on.

But it did not end with just one preparatory talk. In September 1971 Elders and director Vincent Monnikendam travel to Paris for an introductory television portrait. Foucault does not want this portrait to have a biographical character. Showing emotion is alien to him; the person behind the philosopher is irrelevant. Indeed: his personal life coincides with his thinking. Recording Foucault’s penetrating flood of words takes 15 minutes.

When Elders meets Foucault for a third attempt to record a short, more personal portrait, this time in an Amsterdam café, Foucault once again refuses to cooperate. He has spent two entire nights at Melkweg, Amsterdam’s 1970s underground pop centre. He refuses to say a word. After eight o’clock in the evening, he states, he really only wants to talk to people under the age of 30. For lack of a better response, the extremely annoyed Elders simply sits down at the table and starts reading Foucault’s History of Madness. So they sit in silence (‘like in a Samuel Beckett’ play) facing each other until a taxi arrives to take the French intellectual to a waiting plane.

The preparatory contacts between Elders and Chomsky run more smoothly. On 29 May 1970, the Dutch philosopher visits MIT to make arrange­ments for the debate. In the hall of the building in which Chomsky has an office hangs a list of names of all kinds of research depart­ments affiliated with the American army, Elders notes. In the study of the philosopher, who looks exactly like a bank clerk, he notices a large poster of Fidel Castro and one of a Black Panther bigwig.

Almost half a century later, Fons Elders recalls that at the time, people in the Nether­lands had no clue what it took to convince the two thinkers to enter into debate with each other : ‘Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky were different personalities: physically, morally and in terms of worldviews. Foucault was a schizoid personality. He reacted differently , depending on a number of factors. Chomsky attacked and still attacks the super powerful United States and its imperialist world politics. This is no easy task. His sense of justice is without fear or favour. That’s great!”