Identity politics must return to the past only through narrative reinvention

Evidence

Hotman takes up the German thesis and says: “The Franks who, at some point, did invade Gaul and establish a new monarchy, are not Trojans, but Germans. They defeated the Romans and drove them out.” This is an almost literal reproduction of Rhenanus’s Germanic thesis. | sav “almost” because ee me there is after all a difference, and it is of fundamental importance: Hotman does not say that the Franks deteated the Gauls; he says that they deteated the Romans. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 134 (#expands, via linked claim)

But from the seventeenth century onward, these Gauls became the principle or, so to speak, the motor of history. Thanks to a sort of inversion of polarities and values, the Gauls became the first or fundamental element, and the Germans came to be described as a mere extension of the Gauls. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 138 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Essentialist cultural identity is a closed, timeless myth with real shaping power; Cultural identity is a forward-directed production, not a recovery of origins; Diasporic identity politics entails recovering suppressed histories (+6 more)

Related

• A crucial rhetorical shift produces a new political narrative (similarity 0.88)
• Historical narratives can reverse which conquered people anchors national identity (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• A crucial rhetorical shift produces a new political narrative #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 134
• Historical narratives can reverse which conquered people anchors national identity #expands (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 138