A little card that lists Michel Foucault’s statistics along with his “special move”—happily rejecting outdated models and creating new ones—is currently making the rounds online. It is illustrated, collectible, and somewhat ridiculous. It resembles something you might find at the bottom of a backpack, sandwiched between a rare holographic foil and a Charizard. Strangely, though, it may be contributing more to public philosophy than a dozen academic curricula put together.
Major thinkers are assigned strengths, weaknesses, and signature skills through the Theory Trading Cards project. On social media, Foucault’s card has been circulating, inspiring both sincere excitement and the kind of subdued, performative indignation that the internet excels at. It is deemed reductive by some scholars. Others appear to be quietly thrilled. Both responses might be accurate.
It’s simple to overlook the fact that this moment reveals something genuine, not only about Foucault but also about why ideas find it difficult to leave the rooms in which they are first expressed. This issue was the focus of Foucault’s career. How is knowledge arranged? Who determines what constitutes serious thought? In his 1975 book Discipline and Punish, he made the case that institutions, such as prisons, schools, and hospitals, mold people’s behavior through internalized norms and constant observation rather than physical force.
Jeremy Bentham’s primary metaphor was the Panopticon, a hypothetical circular prison where prisoners are unaware that they are being observed. If anything, the idea seems more pressing right now. The trading card bears the name of a man who would have had a lot to say about the original need for a trading card.
In a Hacker News thread, someone bemoans not being able to get their sociology class to take child development seriously. A commenter gently and correctly points out that Foucault spent his career studying the frustration itself. That is the peculiar loop that lies at the core of his work. When you dismiss him, you run into the issue he’s describing.
When Foucault was hired by the Collège de France in 1970, they practically had to create a title for him: “Professor of the History of Systems of Thought.” Just that title says a lot. The organization created a category around him because it was unable to adequately classify what he was doing. His work intersected philosophy, history, and politics in ways that caused discomfort within departments. Even his best ideas were uncomfortable. biomass. systems of epistemology. The way that who has the power to proclaim what is true in any given era is inextricably linked to that truth.
Over 52,000 people have watched the YouTube video that uses trading card mechanics to explain The Order of Things. Tens of thousands of people voluntarily choosing to spend time with one of the denser texts in 20th-century philosophy makes that number seem insignificant when compared to the amount of attention it receives on the internet. This specific format seems to be accomplishing something that assigned reading frequently falls short of. It provides a starting point for people without requiring them to already believe the topic is worthwhile.
Whether gamifying intellectual history democratizes or dilutes it is still up for debate. Most likely both. However, there’s something almost fitting about witnessing this specific concept gain traction—a French philosopher born in 1926 becoming, if only momentarily, a collectible. The central claim of Foucault’s argument was that knowledge is never neutral and is never merely waiting to be discovered. It comes through a frame every time. That frame can occasionally be a lecture hall. It seems to be a trading card with attack stats and a unique move at times.
It’s difficult not to imagine that he might have found that truly amusing, given everything he believed about how power shapes what is taken seriously.
