“Where danger grows, so also grows that which saves. In the context of the Napoleonic wars, the German poet Hölderlin refused to give in to catastrophic despair. From the unhappiness endured could arise some unexpected positivity. As if the story proceeded in the manner of the skilful judoka to turn his opponent’s aggressiveness to his advantage. A conviction shared at the same time by Hegel for whom reason often progresses in history by its dark side. What he calls the “ruse of reason”.
In our present turpitude, these views are comforting in suggesting that, despite everything, evil could do something good by confirming that “in everything, woe is good.” But they come up against a double problem linked, on the one hand, to the fact that the “good” is usually revealed only after the fact, by a retrospective look, and, on the other hand, that those most affected by it. the pandemic might find cynical and shocking such soothing speech capable of justifying the worst horrors.
If we do not know what will emerge from the current convulsions, we can measure the positive of the crises and wars of the past. Take the two world wars of the XXe century. On the medical level, the advances will be considerable, during the first war, by the development of blood transfusion, radiology, transplants, vaccination and antibiotics, emergency medicine during the second war. Without counting, in 1914-1918, the rise of aviation, photography and cinema and, in 1939-1945, that of radars, cybernetics through cryptography. Of course, there is no question of praising war as a vector of progress. It is more simply a question of giving oneself reasons not to despair, against all odds.
Crisis and the welfare state
To be convinced a little more, we can also take into consideration the history of social progress driven by episodes of crisis. As, still in 1914-1918, the establishment in 1917 of workers’ delegates in the armaments factories which constitute official recognition of the salaried collective in companies, the law of eight hours and the basis of collective bargaining, in 1919. The crisis of 1929 will make an important contribution to the development of the welfare state. As for the Second World War, the political and social projects of the National Council of Resistance will proceed both with the creation of works councils following the generalization in 1938 of employee representatives, the generalization of collective bargaining, the creation of Guaranteed minimum interprofessional wage, and of course, the institution of the huge and brilliant social security system. So many significant advances conquered in the “euphoria of beginnings, new departures, shared hopes” (1) succeeding the parenthesis of war.
And what could be our pandemic? For American historian Jared Diamond, “The virus could prove beneficial despite all these deaths and all this suffering” (1) in particular by the emergence of a true “global identity”. But it is also true of the new way in which we are now going to “make society” on the basis of a revisited solidarity, in which we will conceive our personal responsibility in the collective game, and in which we will evaluate the essential part of fundamental research in biomedicine. Among others …
(1) “Nations facing crises and change”, La Découverte, 2020.
Professor emeritus of the Universities (Brest-Quimper).
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draguignan
