Foucault on descent – and, by way of implicature, the advantages of speaking a language secondarily
Descent attaches itself to the body. It inscribes itself in the nervous system, in temperament, in the digestive apparatus; it appears in faulty respiration, in improper diets, in the debilitated and prostrate bodies of those whose ancestors committed errors. Fathers have only to mistake effects for causes, believe in the reality of an “afterlife,” or maintain the value of eternal truths, and the bodies of their children will suffer. Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in Truth and Method, p82.
Is it no so, then, than speaking one’s first language entails, to Foucault, a certain relation to the nervous system, temper, digestion, etc., and when we acquire a second language these relations are altered? Should we ask how the mistakes of fathers are reproduced in second language acquisition (“you can’t say that!” or “that’s an improper subject-verb constellation!”, etc) – and the manner in which the element of grammer in our teachings serves to maintain a metaphysical relation to language (pace Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols, “I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar”)?
is part of our task – finally – to reduce suffering?
Posted 29 Oct, 2014. Modified 17 Jul, 2026.
