Breaking Down The Fallout Between Foucault and Deleuze

You know how two geniuses can admire each other, share ideas, and then suddenly one of them decides the other smells bad?

That’s Foucault and Deleuze.

They were both French. Both radical. Both smoked too much. Both loved Nietzsche like a drunk texts an ex.

They even wrote glowingly about each other’s work—until they didn’t. Then it got cold. Icy. Maybe even petty.

Foucault started by writing a nice little preface for Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, calling it “a manual for an anti-fascist life.”

Not bad. But before long, Foucault was sneering at Deleuze’s concept of desire.

He just couldn’t stand it. “Desire equals lack,” he said. Deleuze, meanwhile, thought Foucault had backed himself into a corner with his ideas about power.

And when Deleuze tried to reach out—literally wrote the man a letter—Foucault ghosted him.

What follows are seven points to consider when figuring out where it all went to hell.

1. Desire vs. Power: The Core Difference

Deleuze saw desire as an active, productive force. It wasn’t about needing something you don’t have; it was about constantly creating, changing, assembling new possibilities.

Foucault, on the other hand, had beef with the word “desire” itself.

It reeked of psychoanalysis, which he was already busy tearing apart in The History of Sexuality.

For Foucault, power was the real game—how it shaped knowledge, institutions, and even our most intimate selves.

At some point, these two concepts—desire as production, power as structure—stopped being friendly neighbors and started throwing beer bottles over the fence.

2. Nietzsche, but Different

Both men worshipped at Nietzsche’s altar, but they read him differently.

Foucault used Nietzsche to analyze how history, discourse, and institutions shape truth.

Deleuze, meanwhile, went full cosmic with The Will to Power, using it to push his own philosophy of flux and becoming.

In short, Foucault saw how power trapped people. Deleuze saw how desire freed them. No wonder they clashed.

3. The Jealousy Theory

It’s been suggested that Foucault, always the sharpest guy in the room, got a little salty when Anti-Oedipus became a hit.

That preface he wrote? Deleuze apparently didn’t love it. Maybe Foucault sensed that and took it personally.

Could it be that Foucault simply got tired of sharing the spotlight?

Nobody likes to think of big intellectuals as petty, but history suggests otherwise.

4. Ghosting Deleuze: The Letter That Went Unanswered

Deleuze, being the kind of guy who still believed in conversations, wrote to Foucault in an attempt to reconcile their differences.

Foucault ignored him.

Not a “let’s agree to disagree” reply. Not a “hey, let’s grab a drink and argue about it” invitation. Just silence.

In the academic world, that’s basically flipping someone off.

5. Tactics vs. Strategies vs. Assemblages

Foucault made a big deal out of the difference between tactics and strategies—the micro vs. macro of how power works.

Deleuze, however, worked with assemblages, which blurred those lines.

This wasn’t just a philosophical difference. It was a fundamental split in how they saw reality itself.

Foucault’s world was structured by historical conditions. Deleuze’s world was an explosion of connections, rhizomes, and unpredictable transformations.

No wonder they started seeing each other as talking past one another.

6. Deleuze’s Final Words on Foucault

Despite the falling out, Deleuze gave a eulogy at Foucault’s funeral.

He read Foucault’s words on curiosity, emphasizing how his friend had changed how we think.

You don’t do that unless you still care.

Maybe Deleuze was the bigger person in the end.

7. Did They Ever Really Disagree?

Here’s the kicker: for all the fighting, the ignoring, the muttered insults—were their ideas actually incompatible?

Foucault thought power wasn’t just about repression but also about production. Deleuze thought desire wasn’t about lack but about creation.

Sounds… pretty damn similar.

Maybe Foucault just didn’t like the word “desire.”

Maybe Deleuze was too stubborn to frame it differently. Maybe, in another life, they could have been friends again.

Table Summary of the Foucault-Deleuze Rift

Issue	Foucault’s Take	Deleuze’s Take
Desire	Desire = lack, shaped by power	Desire is creative and productive
Power	Power structures everything	Power is just one assemblage among many
Nietzsche	Used for history and discourse analysis	Used for metaphysical exploration
Anti-Oedipus	Wrote preface, later disliked it	Thought the preface was misleading
The Ghosting	Ignored Deleuze’s letter	Tried to reconcile, got silence
Death & Legacy	Remained bitter until death?	Spoke kindly at Foucault’s funeral

Foucault and Deleuze started as allies and ended as distant shadows of each other.

Was it a clash of ideas? Yes.

Was it personal? Probably.

Did it have to end this way? Absolutely not.

Maybe if Foucault had just picked up a pen and answered that damn letter, we’d have a different story.

Maybe if Deleuze had framed his ideas in a way that didn’t rub Foucault the wrong way, they could have continued pushing philosophy together.

Or maybe—just maybe—this is how all great minds end up. Brilliant. Stubborn. And just a little tragic.