The double look
In this week’s L’Express (french), Frédéric Encel revisits the war in Iraq: “a calamity, yes, the beginning of chaos, no”. He wants “we not to look in the American adventure of 2003 for the source of the mistrust of the global South against the West”. The connection is easy, it’s true: Twenty years ago, the … Read more
Abstract: What verdict for the ‘End of History’ announced 30 years ago by Francis Fukuyama? Far from having come to a standstill, political regimes continue their cycle, including democracy with a shift towards anarchy, renamed ‘peoplecracy’. Basically, it is a steady pendulum swing between individualism and collectivism that ends up undermining any type of regime … Read more
Discordance at the pediment Of the french republican trio equality-liberty-fraternity it is the third that has been most often erased and replaced by a less discouraging noun: charity of Christians, comradeship of communists, solidarity of socialists, humanitarian of NGOs. Less discouraging? Yes, fraternity is so easy to sully. Collectivism quickly derived into groupism. That of … Read more
Does our contemporary society need a government or can it do without one? The question may seem delusional to some but not to Philosophy Magazine, which organized a debate between Catherine Malabou and Jean-Claude Monod on this subject. Darling Anar Anarchy is making a comeback! Two forms are distinguished, the libertarianism of big capital, and … Read more
Before being bad in society, we are bad in our skin.All social problems are dealt with in the wrong first direction, teleological. The real first is ontological: why am I unwell before being bad in what surrounds me? There is a crowd on my identity path Certainly my discomfort comes from what surrounded me. This … Read more
The citizen’s restrained dream Exercising complete and unmediated power over one’s own life is the dream of every citizen. Ouch! The title of ‘citizen’ immediately curbs the dream. Others surround me, with their competing hopes. They must be reconciled. “Complete and unmediated” remain theoretical. Roughly the darker the color on the local population density map, … Read more
Dear Collective We tend to grant it a material existence, to endow it with a responsibility to us. A bit like Gaia, the mother planet. We gladly confuse the Collective with the government, or one of its ministries, or even with the imprecise sphere of people of power: their mission would be to make society … Read more
Non-democrats in democracy Neologisms are convenient, I create my share of them. But is “egodemocrat”, that of Eric Thiers, well found? Not only is there a very precise term for what it describes: anarchist. But ‘egodemocrat’ is a decoy, a sneaky, a contradiction in itself. An egodemocrat is indeed not a democrat. He is a … Read more
Representing is more than reproducing Politician and voters, delegates and constituents, representation is often treated as a mirror image. The scene would “only represent” what is already in the room. It is to insult the fertility hidden in the representation. Far from a simple reproduction, it is an act of separation, between the components and … Read more
A philosophical revival that founded the technological boom The Age of Enlightenment is synonymous with philosophical renewal. The eighteenth century saw the rise of rationalism and liberalism against religious obscurantism and noble conservatism. The Enlightenment is the one that great minds project on the world and the human condition. Humanity is getting rid of metaphysical … Read more