Deconstructing Sexuality and Truth
Heidegger, Foucault and Sufism ; By Dr. Humaira Awais Shahid
To define sexuality, one must address the prior problematic question of defining truth and reality as well as defining man. One must probe the construction of truth in western thinking. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger is the first philosopher who points out in the most detailed, profound, and most insightful manner the intricate issue of how western thinking defines the truth. Sexuality is an integral part of human life. Any attempt of knowing ourselves cannot be compartmentalized in processes separated from the rest of our entire being, Emotional, spiritual, sexual or mental processes are all weaved together into a complex experience unique to every human being.
Human behavior cannot be understood by looking at its different components in isolation. Heidegger critiques all human sciences as inadequate to accomplish their intended tasks, not because they are not good or incompetent at what they do, but because their intended tasks are based on arbitrary and shallow definitions of man.
These definitions serve the purpose of making human beings comprehensible to our inquiries, but in the process, man is made into a thing. Biology will only see man as a biological machine, psychiatry will only see the thinking mind, and anthropology will only see its cultural and ethnic relations, and sociology focuses on social interactions. The attempt to make man comprehensible by creating these fields results in false conclusions however rationally and carefully they may be constructed. It follows that the sum of the conclusions of those fields does not add to any clarity. The danger is when those conclusions are taken as truths and then they are elevated as a source of Law for all people.
Heidegger uses the word DASEIN in order to speak about “the being that we all are”. Dasein means literally “being there” or the locus in which Being manifests. The word “Dasein” is an attempt to reconsider the relation between man and Truth. It indicates that man is not the measure of the Truth, but that he is “being measured” by the Truth. He is not the observer (subjectivism) but he is the one observed. Islam offers a view on the matter that is unique: Allah is Al-Haqq, the Absolute Truth. Allah does not have a “what?”, “when?” or “where?”. So, the answer to the question “what is Allah?” cannot be answered. Allah cannot be compared because we don’t have the knowledge to compare. When a man tries to answer that question creates a theology. Theology is an attempt to define God, in defining it becomes a concept, defining Allah with comparisons hence becoming a shirk. Therefore, Allah is Truth and it stands beyond human comprehension. Human perception and language are limited and cannot define Allah. Truth cannot be defined. The philosophy of the Ancient Greeks initiates a process of transformation of the meaning of truth in an attempt to make truth comprehensible. In Greek, the word is αλήθεια Aletheia and means disclosure. Truth is seen as disclosure or unveiling. Philosophy will transform that meaning into something else: the claim that Aletheia or unveiling is a method of correspondence between λόγος logos (a statement, a speech, a discourse) describing an object 2 compared with the evident appearance of that object. If the description accurately corresponds with the perception of the object, then it is true.
We continue to do the same in the West. When we say something that is accurate, we say “it is true”. This ontological jump defines Western thinking, the one we are used to. In Arabic when you make a statement that accurately corresponds with the appearance of something, you say “it is صحيح sahih”, which simply means “it is correct, it is valid, it is accurate”. But it would never be said, “it is Haqq”. This is because Haqq is beyond any man-made statement. There is a huge difference between sahih and Haqq. Based on this prime “construction of the truth”, Heidegger investigated western thinking (which is not just geographical west, the whole world now thinks in a western way, the western fashion thinking) as a “history of Being”, that is, a history of how that process of construction of the truth would evolve over time. Applying this Greek “way of thinking” the West will define all the aspects of human life and nature. This “way of thinking” first examines the question of God, creating theology. Theology is an attempt to conceptualize god to make it comprehensible. Thus, in the history of philosophy, theology is the first science. Heidegger points out that the “way of thinking” of theology would become the foundation of modern science. So, science is founded upon a false understanding of truth. Subjectivity is the common factor of all the different evolving fashions of Western thinking.
The position of the subject groundsman as the observer and measurer of the world. It is with Kant and the construction of objectivism that science is set in its present form. Yet, as Heidegger clearly proves, objectivism is only a refined form of extreme subjectivism. Schopenhauer would fashion subjectivism as “will of will”, and finally Nietzsche would fashion it as “will to power”. Subjectivism could not evolve further beyond Nietzsche’s will to power”. Thus, Heidegger calls Nietzsche “the last of the philosophers”, announcing the “end of philosophy”. Philosophy arrives to nihilism. The rational values are valueless. Man-made god is dead. The fundamental problem is the “manufacturing of truth”. It is an illusion, a false claim. From the Sufi point of view, any man-made statement is just an opinion. Truth belongs to Allah. The way beyond reason is the heart. The heart has cognitive power. Sufism is based on knowledge through the cognition of the heart.
Allah states in the Qurán: “qaloob e yaqiloon” (22:46)
So have they not travelled through the earth and have hearts (by which) to ´aql and ears (by which) to hear? For indeed, it is not eyes that are blinded but blinded are the hearts that are within the chests. Ears to hear and hearts to ´aql. ´Aql is the cognitive power of the heart. The thinking heart. Wrongfully most modern translations of ´aql into English use the word reason. Yet, the reason is not ´aql. Reason comes from the brain and it is expressed in words and statements. ´Aql comes from the heart and it is expressed in “basirah” (inner vision). Sufi teachings tell us that 3 reaching to The Truth is a labor of the heart. Allah can be reached through the heart, not the brain. Marifatullah (gnosis, knowledge of Allah) is through the heart. Heidegger does not explicitly speak about the cognition of the heart; he simply announces the limitation of reason and the danger of elevating reasoning to the truth. He says: “science does not think”. He argues that thinking that cannot “think the Truth” is not thinking at all. Therefore, rational thinking cannot think at all. Heidegger says “it has to do with thinking but it is not thinking”. The danger of such positioning of sciences is when they are formulated into Laws. Western Law, a man-made law, which appeals to reason to “manufacture truth”. This is irresponsible, misleading, and therefore dangerous. This danger to man extends to nature and results in its continuous destruction.
When it comes to sexuality the discourse of Michel Foucault stands out. Foucault is going to use the Heideggerian deconstruction in order to build a new discourse on sexuality that had and still has a great impact in the West. Foucault would not discuss sexuality per se, but through its relation to power, that is law-making power. He is interested in how common discourse on sexuality is constructed by the power in order to preserve power. The key idea in Foucault is the “production or manufacturing of truth” and how this is constructed and for what purpose. Foucault says that “manufacturing of truth” is done by isolating, framing the subject as separate from the rest of the things, creating a “special jurisdiction” and then building a narrative that suits the power structures. Foucault uses Heidegger to dismantle the fallacy of “manufacturing of truth”. The motivation of that fallacy is to ensure the perpetuation of power and maintaining the status quo. It is all subjectivism. Foucault proves that the present discourse on sexuality is flawed.He clearly identifies but does not provide a solution. He does not give an alternative approach to reach the Truth. Nevertheless, his conclusions are far-reaching: the discourse on sexuality has been created by power and has an agenda, and this discourse needs to be dismantled. He hopes, that by eliminating it something new will emerge. Foucault´s discourse points at an important and constituent element of the “manufacturing of truth”: its intention. Heidegger himself explains that subjectivism is bound to its intention. You see what you want to see. These truths therefore always carry with them the intention with which they were manufactured. Dismantling the intention is not possible in subjectivism, because it is a constituent of the thinking subject. The path to eliminate the distorting nature of the intention is identical to eliminate the subject itself. That path takes us in the first instance to power, defined as the law-making power. Law-making power uses its manufactured truths in order to create man-made Laws. Yet, the path continues to the door of The Truth. Without resolving this matter nor Foucault or Heidegger permit us to examine sexuality or any other aspect of human beings, without ourselves becoming part of the “method” that we intend to dismantle. Islam is very specific about the matter of laws. The authority to make laws belongs to Allah alone. According to Islam when man-made laws are applied injustice, prejudice, and inequality are embedded by necessity. 4 Foucault’s “critical philosophy” takes us to another important topic: the enframing narrative. Looking at sexuality from a perspective that is different from what is current requires to look at the issue of compartmentalization.
To create a “special jurisdiction” in which partial logic and partial truths can operate is both a requirement of rational thinking and a tool to calibrate results according to our intention. For Heidegger enframing is both the result of compartmentalization and the method of thinking. The results are inevitably tainted by the subject through defining the parameters of the field and the method of analysis. When sexuality is enframed by method and jurisdiction, the result can be whatever the subject wants. Yet, the irony is that the matter of sexuality is never discussed. Only the outcomes are discussed.
Sexuality can only be understood from a holistic approach that involves the entire human being and not placing a subject, but by letting “The Truth speak to us”. To let the Truth, speak to us all we need is “unveiling”, that is, the removal of all the veils that man imposes upon himself. And that is Sufism. The meaning of deconstructing sexuality is to free sexuality from all the man-made fallacies legally imposed on us.
