The seasonal ritual of exchanging Happy New Year’s greetings is approaching and, as for decades, we are about to formulate them with gusto, despite a tendentially darker backdrop.
We’re not in a crisis, it’s not going to pass
Yes let us have the optimism of the will, but without departing from the pessimism of the understanding of realities. Bruno Latour, sociologist and philosopher, warns us about the ecological threat:We are not in a crisis. It’s not going to pass. We will have to get used to it. It’s final.
More generally, let’s realize that we are living the end of a world, it is necessary to succeed in giving birth to a new one.
We already know that the social elevator is broken
The era of radiant modernity is over. We already know that the social elevator has broken down and that precariousness extends to the detriment of job security, that we can no longer hope for the general increase in wages and pensions. Goodbye to technical and industrial progress which had improved our material living conditions and offered us autonomy. From now on, it brings facilities and entertainment but constrains us, monitors us, encourages us to spend feverishly. No more strolling in local shops, you have to rush, mobile phone in hand, to the platforms of large multinational firms.
Finished, a France and a world in peace, without cameras and drones of surveillance and control. Gone are the more democratic and decentralized functioning of political institutions and a deliberate and consensual journey towards a common project. The hope of a truly united Europe and a social model for other regions of the world is over. In the 1960s, General de Gaulle espoused the dream of cooperation and development for Africa; it was an illusion despite the glorious thirties and many young people in Africa today have no other hope than migration here. In 1974, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing promised us equal opportunities; despite a succession of reforms and ministers of national education, we are still at the same point.
Mourning this modernity for a radiant time
This is not the chronicle of this agony of radiant modernity and the expedients that have kept us in a permanent state of resuscitation. To restore what is at the heart of humanism, that is to say personal emancipation and a life of dignity for each and every one, we must mourn what founded this modernity for a radiant time: the primacy to competition in the markets, to the efficient and unlimited exploitation of all resources, human and natural, to maximize income, profits and growth.
Priority to cooperation and caring for others
The level of universalizable prosperity is the one we had in 1970. A sustainable world will prioritize cooperation, care for others and the environment. The tasks and fruits of the activity will be distributed equitably there by cultivating the art of working and living together to give meaning to this life. Without this, the agony of modernity will take with it what remains of humanism. Already the rise of populism and authoritarian regimes, violence, terrorism and civil wars is pointing out, while a certain elite dreams of escaping the common fate through transhumanism or even exile on other planets. Support a massive mobilization of global civil society; it alone will be able to impose on the powers that be the national and international solidarity necessary for radical changes to reinvigorate our humanism! “
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