The Modern Victorians

How modern campaigns against racism could backfire.

In the beginning of The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction, Michel Foucault debunks the idea that the 17th-century Victorian era was an “age of repression” of sexuality.¹ Instead, he suggests that “there was a steady proliferation of discourses concerned with sex.”² These discourses “in the field of exercise of power itself: an institutional incitement to speak about it” in “endlessly ac­cumulated detail.”³ In other words, while it might have looked like sex was being repressed, the process by which this was done involved developing a lot of specialized language about sex and talking about it constantly.

Foucault compares this to prior ages, where sex would have been a secret, confessed to a priest. When sex became the domain of “experts,” it was commanded to speak. Actual sexual repression would mean that it is “condemned to prohibition, nonexistence, and silence.”⁴ The fact so many are speaking about it suggests a different story. Foucault suggests that “when one looks back over these last three centuries with their continual transformations, things appear in a very different light.”⁵ One need only look at what happened to sexual attitudes between the Victorian era and now to see the results of these discourses. Instead of repression, there was an “explosion” of sex.⁶

The same analysis applies to the modern campaign against racism. Just as the Victorians “repressed” sexuality, our society opposes racism. There is a story that we live in a “cancel culture” ruled by “woke” critical race theory and critical social justice. On one level, this is true, just as it is true that there were Victorians who campaigned against sex. Yet, in making “racism” the domain of experts, the woke have commanded it to speak.

Whereas before, racism would have been a secret, whispered between people, now there is a “field of exercise of power” with “an institutional incitement to speak about it” in “endlessly ac­cumulated detail.”⁷ There has been a “profiliation of discourses” about racism, with specialized language about it. New language has been created such as “institutionalized racism,” “internalized racism,” “aversive racism,” etc. These discourses are having the same effect as the Victorian campaign against sexuality. Instead of condemning racism to “prohibition, nonexistence, and silence,”⁸ there is an explosion of racism.

On one level, this could be intentional. In his analysis of the Victorian campaign against masturbation, Foucault suggests that this was done to expand medical power over bodies.⁹ By launching a campaign against a problem they could never solve, namely ridding people of sexuality and ending masturbation, Victorian doctors had an excuse to endlessly expand their power. Likewise, by launching a campaign to end racism, with racism defined as all inequality in the world including stereotypes, language, and differing social constructions of any kind, the “woke” have a forever-enemy that they can endlessly campaign against to expand their power. Instead of power over bodies, they seek power over language.

The result of the modern campaign against racism is becoming the same as the Victorian campaign against sex. Rather than repressing racism, modern Victorians have brought it into public discourse. When Victorians made sex a public discourse, it created language for people to speak about the sexual practices they intended to repress. Likewise, the “woke” have created language for people to speak publicly about ideas that would have otherwise been unexpressible. Instead of repressing racism into a hidden unknown, it is spoken of constantly. Just as there were groups that took language invented by the Victorians to argue for “sex-positive” ideas, there are already groups using woke language to argue for the ideas the woke oppose.

Both issues illustrate the metaphysical rule that energy spent in resistance often fuels the very thing one is resisting. In their efforts to resist sex, the Victorians spoke of it constantly. The modern Victorians speak constantly of the racism that they wish to resist. Yet in speaking of it constantly, they gave it attention. If I tell you, “don’t think about sex” what do you think about? Commands to avoid racism have the same impact. Both would have been better off focusing on what they wanted, rather than putting their energy toward what they claim they didn’t. If modern campaigners don’t learn this lesson, it is possible that the campaign against racism will have the same impact three hundred years from now that the Victorian campaign three hundred years ago against sex had on our own era.

1. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage, 1990, p. 17.

2. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage, 1990, p. 18.

3. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage, 1990, p. 18.

4. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage, 1990, p. 6.

5. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage, 1990, p. 17.

6. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage, 1990, p. 17.

7. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage, 1990, p. 18.

8. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage, 1990, p. 6.

9. Foucault, Michel. Abnormal: Lectures at the 1974-1975. 1st ed., Picador, 2004, p. 231-258.

Sidenote: There is a much longer analysis of this in Children’s Justice.