An Officer of Civilization
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[«il ne possédait qu’une Ferrari Modena Stradale (version légèrement sur motorisée de la Modena ordinaire, et allégée par l’emploi de carbone, de titane et d’aluminium) et une Porsche 911 GT2; en somme, plutôt moins qu’un acteur hollywoodien moyen. Il est vrai qu’il envisageait de remplacer sa Stradale par une Enzo, et sa911 GT2 par une Carrera GT; mais il n’était pas certain d’en avoir les moyens.[…]. Pour alimenter j’évoquai ma Bentley Continental GT, que je venais de troquer pour une Mercedes 600 SL – ce qui, j’en étais conscient, pouvait apparaître comme un embourgeoisement.» (Possibilité, p. 128)]
Recent studies of Houellebecq’s work have suggested that the writer is a reactionary, calling for a return to traditional religions.32 However, this claim can be refuted on the grounds that in the western society depicted by Houellebecq, traditional religious belief is no longer possible and thus we cannot return to answers that were appropriate for different life situations and past problems. The gaps between the dynamic western ‘I’ and its environment are usually filled in accordance with consumer mechanisms. What rules the life of contemporary people, what makes them consume a great deal and venerate ever-changing fashions, are the systems of belief in innovation, advancement, and technology – all the while rejecting transcendence. It should be noted that while Daniel1 is among the most important supporters of the Elohimite movement, he refers to the founding triumvirate, embroiled in power struggles, as the “Monkeys” ← 136 | 137 → (Possibility, pp. 193–194) [«Singes» (Possibilité, p. 274)], clearly hinting at the Theory of Evolution and an indifference toward Creationism. Houellebecq’s Elohimism emerges in an atmosphere of conceptual catastrophe and moves human particles that are devoid of any sanctity. This religion is in a marginal position in the valid move toward evacuating any significance and is meant only to feed the hunger for happiness, a hunger which Baudrillard views as a result of “the despair of having everything”.33 Houellebecq’s society is one of hominese conomici, guided by financial principles, in which the ‘black hole’ of thinking is how to be happy in a commercialized world wherein the logic of merchandise and objectification have infected all levels of human relations. The characters, working in the particular context of a society dominated by commercial phenomena, together with the values of Elohimism, expose the obscene postmodern object which has been defined by Žižek as absence, the presence of that which is not there, a void that is indifferent and arbitrary.34 Furthermore, this obscene object is characterized by the fact that there is neither subject nor essence, and thus there is no possibility of faith, morality, or epiphany in the cultural logic of late capitalism. Therefore, I would like to argue that Houellebecq’s work expresses the impossibility of religious faith at this stage of capitalism, secularization, and new subjectivity. The manner in which Houellebecq presents the new possible religion makes it all too clear that faith can no longer serve as an instrument to establish what is human or for subjectivization; on the contrary, it is a tool of de-subjectivization and neutering all that is human.
In his essay “Qu’est-ce qu’un dépositif?”, Agamben claims that an examination of modern apparatuses reveals their inherent differences from traditional ones, which were distinct from the subject and aided his establishment as such. According to Agamben, the event that created that which is human is the ripping apart of being and action: the subject is ‘being’, the instrument is ‘action’. He illustrates this through the Christian concept of οíκονοµία, the economy which enabled the dogma of the Holy Trinity and the idea of God as sovereign to enter the Christian faith. Catholic confession is an example of an instrument – the believer finds his truth as ← 137 | 138 → the repenting self, first through de-subjectivization (sin) and then subjectivization (repentance). This apparatus is a process of subjectivization that creates the subject as at once manageable and systemized, as well as free.35 However, as Agamben states, «Les sociétés contemporaines se presentent ainsi comme des corps inertes traversés par de gigantesques processus de désubjectivation auxquels ne répond aucune subjectivation réelle.» [“Contemporary societies appear as inert bodies crossed by huge processes of de-subjectivization to which no actual subjectivization responds”].36 The apparatus allows us desire itself and lets us be ruled by it, but does not produce subjectivity; hence, in Agamben’s opinion, the decline of politics is a result of the a-priori assumption that subjects and real identities, such as those of workers or the bourgeoisie, exist. Elohimism is basically like any one of today’s apparatuses (the internet, television, mobile phones, or credit cards): it determines what people will do and supervises their ways into wellbeing – and no more. Thus we witness a parody of theological economy. While the concept of sanctity, which possessed the potential to detach things from the human sphere and connect them to a transcendental one, has been lost to the secularized world, the new apparatus has been imbued with a sacred status. Deifying the prophet is deifying the action, not the being.
As for Elohimism, it was adapted perfectly to the leisure civilization in which it had been born. Imposing no moral constraints, reducing human existence to categories of interest and of pleasure, it did not hesitate, for all that, to make its own the fundamental promise at the core of all monotheistic religions: victory over death. Eradicating any spiritual or confusing dimension, it simply limited the scope of this victory, and the nature of the promise associated with it, to the unlimited prolongation of material life, that is to say the unlimited satisfaction of physical desires. (Possibility, p. 248)
[«L’élohimisme, de son côté, était parfaitement adapté à la civilisation des loisirs au sein de laquelle il avait pris naissance. N’imposant aucune contrainte morale, réduisant l’existence humaine aux catégories de l’intérêt et du plaisir, il n’en reprenait pas moins à son compte la promesse fondamentale qui avait été celle de toutes les religions monothéistes: la victoire contre la mort. Éradiquant toute dimension spirituelle ou confuse, il limitait simplement la portée de cette victoire, et la nature de la promesse, à la prolongation illimitée de la vie matérielle, c’est-à-dire à la satisfaction illimitée des désirs physiques.» (Possibilité, pp. 351–352)] ← 138 | 139 →
With the rise and spread of Elohimism, comes the decline of man as understood by the humanist tradition. Indeed, in Houellebecq’s vision of the future, the Earth has been taken over by a new breed of reduced subjects, a de-subject – the cloned neohuman. Thus one of the basic works of future neohumanism is the book written by the Supreme Sister: Refutation of Humanism.
We must now return to the prophet’s question in the book’s motto: “Who, among you, deserves eternal life?” [«Qui, parmi vous, mérite la vie éternelle?»]. In the text, this is answered by a clone, Daniel25, who responds that “mankind did not deserve to live” (Possibility, p. 309; emphasis in the original) [«L’humanité ne méritait pas de vivre» (Possibilité, p. 435; emphasis in the original)]. Daniel25 is the neohuman who breaks the chain of commentary and goes out to seek a human community which he can join. Humanity, as he reads it in the writings of Daniel1, is not worthy of living.
Is this Houellebecq’s answer? Once again, in accordance with the poetics of passive-activism, Houellebecq’s answer to the question of religious belief in a consumer society problematizes the very question. The secularized world, the scientific episteme and late-capitalist society alter the content of all the constituent components of this question, and the only religion possible is a pastiche of faith. Eternal life means endless cycles of here and now. Spiritual life refers to a state of subjective awareness of happiness.37 ‘Appropriate’ is an invalid concept in a society that sanctifies the fulfillment of all desires and wherein the existence of the subject has collapsed. As Houellebecq says, through Daniel1:
For Elohimism it was a worrying phenomenon, because, even if it bases itself fundamentally on a promise of eternal life, a religion considerably increases its attractiveness as soon as it is able to give the impression of offering in the here and now a life th
at is fuller, richer, more exalting, and more joyful. ‘With Christ, you live more’: this had more or less been the constant theme of the advertising campaign organized by the Catholic Church immediately before its disappearance. (pp. 254–255). ← 139 | 140 →
[«Pour l’élohimisme c’était un phénomène préoccupant, car même si elle se base fondamentalement sur une promesse de vie éternelle une religion augmente considérablement son pouvoir d’attraction dès lorsqu’elle semble pouvoir proposer dans l’immédiat un evie plus pleine, plus riche, plus exaltante et plus joyeuse. ‘Avec le Christ, tu vis plus fort’, tel était à peu près le thème constant des campagnes publicitaires organisées par l’Église catholique immédiatement avant sa disparition.» (Possibilité, pp. 360–361)] ← 140 | 141 →
1 This motto, a metaphor of light breaking through darkness, is figuratively connected with the narrative. Its religious content, however, is not further developed in the text or clarified. Nevertheless, the work raises questions regarding the relevance of religious preaching to the text.
2 Sandrine Schiano-Bennis, “Michel Houellebecq: La tentation gnostique ou le monde blasphème”, in Murielle Lucie Clément et Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq à la Une (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011), pp. 247–258 (my translation).
3 Ibid., p. 253.
4 I refer here to the epistolary exchange between Houellebecq and Bernard Henri-Lévy, in which Houellebecq writes very explicitly about his real-life experiences.
5 See Michel Houellebecq and Bernard Henri-Lévy, Ennemis Publics (Flammarion/Grasset et Fasquelle, 2009), pp. 144–149. For an English translation see Miriam Frendo and Frank Wynne, Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2011).
6 According to Serres’s explanation; this includes the essence of humanness in the word “virtual”, referring to a person’s ability to use things such as myth and metaphor in order to create realizable possibilities. In this way, God himself is a virtual construct. Michel Serres, “Nouvelles technologies et Littérature”, Lecture given at Tel Aviv University, 11 July, 2013.
7 Juremir Machado Da Silva, En Patagonie avec Michel Houellebecq (Paris: CNRS, 2011), pp. 81–82 (my translation).
8 This is an indirect representation of ideology and a marker of the author’s authority, as his image is clearly present behind the narrator. One characteristic of twenty-first century French prose is the restoration of the author’s authority, as noted by Emmanuel Bouju, “Que peut (être/faire/espérer) le roman français aujourd’hui? Energie romanesque et reprise d’autorité”, Lecture given at Bar Ilan University, 22 May, 2013.
9 See Emmanuel Dion, La Comédie Economique: Le Monde Marchand selon Houellebecq (Paris: Le Retour aux Sources Editeur, 2011). According to Dion, the evidence for Houellebecq’s scientific foundation is his inclusion of scientific theory on many levels of the text, from the literal vulgarization of scientific theory and historical references to thought and science, to his rhetorical style and use of various scientific disciplines to reach a metaphoric formulation in each of his novels (for example, politics in Whatever, physics in The Elementary Particles, economics in Platform).
10 In his recent summary of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus, Frogel discussed the various ways of formulating an ethical-secular perception, as distinct from religious ethics. See Shai Frogel, “Secular Ethics: Man instead of God”, Gilui Daat (Manifesto) 3 (2013): pp. 87–106 [Hebrew].
11 Dion, La Comédie Economique, pp. 37–38.
12 Zygmunt Bauman, Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 166–167.
13 Sandrine Schiano-Bennis, “Michel Houellebecq: La tentation gnostique ou le monde blasphème”, in Muriel Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq à la Une (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011), pp. 247–258.
14 In total contrast to the Big Brother, including the Orwellian totalitarian dystopian concept – the cloned are those who live in closed, supervised enclaves.
15 On the biblical allusions in The Possibility of an Island see Maud Granger Remy, “La Possibilité d’une Ile, ou ‘le livre des Daniel’”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq à la Une (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011), pp. 221–232.
16 Compare to Daniel 7:9. These verses offer an anthropomorphic depiction of God, with white hair and wearing white clothes.
17 It should be noted that the prophet’s dozen fiancées, surrounding him in the huge painting hanging in the dining room, echo the twelve apostles, and the pictorial depiction underscores this reference.
18 This was made prominent in the film version of The Possibility of an Island (La Possibilité d’une Ile, directed by Michel Houellebecq, France, 2009). The visual representation of the background, scenery, and costumes creates a contrasting analogy between the first believers and later adherents, when the religion becomes allembracing.
19 For more on references to Scripture in the Elohimite religion, see Fanny van Ceunebroeck, “Michel Houellebecq ou la possibilité d’une bible”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq à la Une (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011), pp. 209–219.
20 In his work, Houellebecq uses various devices to question the distinction between author and narrator. These include use of the first person, incorporating the author’s biographical details into the character’s history and naming the main character Michel.
21 Giorgio Agamben, “What Is the Contemporary?”, in idem, What is Apparatus and Other Essays, trans. by David Kishik and Stefan Pedatolla (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), p. 41.
22 Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), pp. 25–43.
23 Jean-François Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thébaud, Just Gaming, trans. by Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008 [1979]), p. 91.
24 Eilon Shamir, “New Idolatry and Covenant in Contemporary Israeli Society”, i A. Klinberg (ed.), What’s Next? Students Think of the Future (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2005), pp. 9–90 [Hebrew].
25 Ibid., p. 12 (my translation).
26 It is for good reason that the narrators – Daniel1 and his clones – repeatedly use the word ‘sect’ rather than ‘religion’. Elsewhere in the text, Houellebecq relates the new religion/sect to the “disappearance of the human civilizations, at least in its first phase” (Possibility p. 310) [«la disparition des civilisations humaines, au moins dans sa première phase» (Possibilité, p. 437)]. This decline of civilizations gives rise to a new popularity of beliefs of yore, among them barbaric rituals, prophetic magic, etc.
27 Shamir, New Idolatry, p. 17 (my translation).
28 Granger Remy, “La Possibilité d’une Ile, ou ‘le livre des Daniel’”, refers to Daniel1’s story as the gospel».
29 Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners and Madmen, A Study of Gurus (New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1996), pp. 43–44.
30 Similar apologetics are found in Houellebecq’s Lanzarote, pp. 80–81 (pp. 84–85 in the French). In the English translation, Claude Vorihon’s character appears as Philippe Leboeuf.
31 Shamir, New Idolatry, p. 13.
32 This claim was laid out by Morrey, who views Houellebecq’s criticism of modern society as an unequivocal call to return to religion. See Douglas Morrey, Humanity and Its Aftermath (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), pp. 141–151. See also Louis Betty, “‘Michel Houellebecq, Meet Maximilian Robespierre’: A Study in Social Religion”, L’Erudite Franco-Espagnol 1 (2012): pp. 19–33.
33 Jean Baudrillard, “The Despair of Having Everything”, Le Monde Diplomatique, November 14, 2002.
34 Slavoj Žižek, “The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion”, Philosophy Today, vol. 43 (1999), available at:
35 Giorgio Agamben, “Qu’est-ce qu’un dépositif?”, trans. by Martin Rueff (Paris: Editions Payot et Rivages, 2007).
36 Ibid., p. 46 (translated by Marlène Shemouni).
37 See Amar’s argument that the issue of happiness in The Elementary Particles and The Possibility of an Island is not a situation preceded by suffering and passion (as Schopenhauer has claimed). Houellebecq identifies happiness with «un état de connaissance et d’objectivité pure» [“a state of awareness and pure objectivity”]. See Ruth Amar, “La diversité du bonheur dans le roman français des XXe et XXIe siècles”, in idem (ed.), L’écriture du bonheur dans le roman contemporain (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), p. 14.
Pornography and the Post-human
The Pornographic Formula
Explicit sexual descriptions, an inseparable part of Michel Houellebecq’s poetic world, suffuse the author’s works.1 Indeed, many sections, often very similar in content and style, appear to draw on the type of book which is intended “to be read with one hand”2 – works written for a particular kind of male reader. Episodes involving sexual acts are described in graphic detail and appear to be the product of an assembly line: a certain number of body parts are described, a specific number of acts take place, and nothing unexpected interrupts the scene as it approaches its climax. Neither male nor female lovers exhibit unique or original sexual responses. In Houellebecq’s writing, slight variations on the same scene are repeated numerous times. Metaphor is forbidden, and this redundancy does not appear to concern the author. Houellebecq’s representation of sex complies with the laws of a genre for whose every detail he has the utmost respect: pornography.