The Seventh Function of Language

Gramsci dead in prison. Negri imprisoned. The world changes because intellectuals and those in power are at war with one another. The powerful win almost every battle, and the intellectuals pay with their lives or their freedom for having stood up to the powerful, and they bite the dust. But not always. And when an intellectual triumphs over the powerful, even posthumously, then the world changes. A man earns the name of intellectual when he gives voice to the voiceless.

Antonioni, whose physical integrity is at stake, does not let her finish. He cites Foucault, who says we must “put an end to spokespeople.” Spokespeople do not speak for the others, but in their place.

So the old woman responds straight away, insulting Foucault as senza coglioni: didn’t he refuse to intervene, here, in the parricide scandal that shook the whole country three years ago, just after publishing his book on the parricide of Pierre Rivière? What is the point of an intellectual if he doesn’t intervene in a matter that corresponds precisely to his field of expertise?

In the shadows, Sollers and BHL chuckle, although BHL wonders what Sollers’s field of expertise might be.

In response, Antonioni says that Foucault, more than anyone else, has exposed the vanity of this posture, this way the intellectual has of (he quotes Foucault again) “giving a bit of seriousness to minor, unimportant disputes.” Foucault defines himself as a researcher, not an intellectual. He belongs to the long-term goals of research, not to the agitation of polemic. He said: “Aren’t intellectuals hoping to give themselves greater importance through ideological struggle than they actually have?”

The old woman gasps. She spells it out: Every intellectual, if he correctly carries out the work of heuristic study for which he is qualified and that ought to be his vocation, even if he is in the service of those in power, works against the powerful because, as Lenin said (she turns around theatrically, her gaze sweeping the entire audience), the truth is always revolutionary. “La verità è sempre rivoluzionaria!”

Take Machiavelli. He wrote The Prince for Lorenzo de Medici: he could hardly have been more of a courtesan. And yet … this work, often regarded as the height of political cynicism, is a definitive Marxist manifesto: “Because the aims of the people are more honest than those of the nobles, the nobles wishing to oppress the people, and the people wishing not to be oppressed.” In reality, he did not write The Prince for the Duke of Florence, because it has been published everywhere. By publishing The Prince, he reveals truths that would have remained hidden and reserved exclusively for the purposes of the powerful: so—it’s a subversive act, a revolutionary act. He delivers the secrets of the Prince to the people. The arcana of political pragmatism stripped of fallacious divine or moral justifications. A decisive act in the liberation of humankind, as all acts of deconsecration are. Through his will to reveal, explain, expose, the intellectual makes war on the sacred. In this, he is always a liberator.

Antonioni knows his classics. Machiavelli, he replies, had so little concept of the proletariat that he couldn’t even consider its condition, its needs, its aspirations. Hence he also wrote: “And when neither their property nor their honor is taken from them, the majority of men live content.” In his gilded cage, he was incapable of imagining that the overwhelming majority of humankind was (and still is) absolutely lacking in property and honor, and could therefore not have them taken from them …

The old woman says that this is the very beauty of the true intellectual: he does not need to want to be revolutionary in order to be revolutionary. He does not need to love or even know the people in order to serve them. He is naturally, necessarily Communist.

Antonioni snorts contemptuously that she will have to explain that to Heidegger.

The old woman says that he would do better to reread Malaparte.

Antonioni talks about the concept of cattivo maestro, the bad master.

The old woman says that if there is a need to make clear with an adjective that the maestro is bad, that is because the maestro is essentially good.

It is clear there will be no knockout in this bout, so Bifo whistles to signal the end of the duel.

The two adversaries stare at each other. Their features are hardened, their jaws tensed, they are sweating, but the old woman’s bun is still immaculate.

The audience is divided, indecisive.

Bifo’s two fellow judges vote, one for Antonioni, the other for Luciano’s mother.

Everyone waits for Bifo’s decision. Bianca squeezes Simon’s hand in hers. Sollers salivates slightly.

Bifo votes for the old woman.

Monica Vitti turns pale.

Sollers smiles.

Antonioni does not flinch.