French philosopher André Glucksmann wrote a provocative piece in yesterday’s Le Monde, where he bemoans the “winds of hate” in our country.
He has been a tireless militant againt Putin and Russia’s ugly war in Chechnya and he also supported the invasion of Iraq on humanitarian grounds – Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator that needed to be brought down, and he had been critical before of the links between some parts of the French State with Saddam’s Iraq. In that sense he is close to the neocons, pro-American and anti-Russian. He still sees America as a force for good against tyranny and hate. Despite this, his words on France are interesting, and also provide some deeper insights.
Translation by me from the article in French in Le Monde:
In France as in the United States, integration is rife with conflict and contestation. No one questions the “Frenchness” of the peasants who impose their will with easy recourse to violence, and one must recognize a properly French virtue in the firebombs of the suburbs. It is in France that our nihilist firebombers learn that what makes you strong is your capacity for nuisance.
The more you break, the more you count. France, both the left and the right, should take a look at the mirror provided by the rioters. Who claims to control Europe while in a minority, even if it means declaring to the countries which are just freed from the domination of their Russian master that they have only one right, to keep silent? Who votes with a 55 % majority against Europe by adding its vote to those from the extremes and the racists? Who takes the risk to demolish fifty years of efforts? Who is ready to get WTO to fail and ignores, in the name of our 2 % of peasants, immense African misery? French diplomacy behaves in the international arena as if all relationships were about who’s most harmful to whom. Yesterday it was as friendly as possible with Saddam, today with Putin. It dared call “resistant” the killers of Baghdad.
Similar nihilist behavior inside France creates its dreadful effects. Examples of blackmail abound. Lawlessness takes its toll both in elite France as in the lower classes. Our suburbs are completely French. It’s much too easy to stigmatize foreigners. The firebombers are definitely at home here. They are citizens of a country where the winds of hatred blow.
Now, one may agree or not with that pretty dark vision of France (as it were, I think there is too much truth in there for comfort, even if it is a very partial and selective view), but this begs a more general question: why such nihilism? Why such hate?
This is a theme I have touched upon before – that of zero-sum games. Why, after many years of our civilisation successfully growing out of its earlier misery thanks to the adoption of win-win rules (demcoracy, cooperation, openness, accountability) are we falling back to older, almost feudal, rules of behavior?
Is it the pressure of the monetisation of value (only money grants value, and what cannot be “valued” – in dollars – has no value for our society) and the even stronger pressure to maximize such value in the short term?
Is it the disappearance of ideologies (national, political or religious) and the (stifling, but reassuring) rules they imposed on all in society from the onslaught of individual liberty – and our inability to replace collectively-imposed morality by personal responsibility?
Is it just a temporary aberration, when a selfish caste has taken advantage of the openness and the wealth of the system to, quite simply, cheat – and setting the precedent for everybody else to follow, until order breaks down and we come to our senses and kick them out?
Selfishness rules. Instant gratification has become a “human right” ( a “z’acquis sociaux” for the French). Our role models (people on TV) lead us in that direction by their example, and we hate it when we cannot do the same. Some of us are better brought up than others to resist the temptation, but are treated as naive or are abused.
How do we take a stand against hate? One thing is certain: not by becoming hateful ourselves.
How do we take a stand against hate? One thing is certain: not by becoming hateful ourselves.
I’m sitting here. I’ve read this three times now. It’s powerfully, deeply written prose that speaks to our cores.
Where to begin?
Because of all the grief in my family as well as ongoing illness, I’m sort of reduced to elementary acts that — while they may seem to be giving — are actually completely selfish in that these acts help me stay sane in a crazy world. (As everyone knows — or i hope everyone knows — every act of charity is selfish in its nature, and that’s alright, because that makes it a complete circle.)
Here’s what I e-mailed a friend today. This is simple stuff. It’ll never change the world. It won’t stop Iraqi and Syrian children (MORE ABOUT THAT LATER–DAMMIT ALL) from being killed … but it is what it is ….
I’m feeding a big female cat outside … she is the reason I fell down last week! She hides in the thicket of hedge and brush behind my backyard, and she used to just meow mournfully (and I thought she was stuck, which is how I ended up falling) …. but now she comes out when I call. She is HUGE — probably 17+ lbs.
And she is totally feline in her energy, look, zestiness, playfulness, and responsiveness to petting and scratching behind her ears.
Darcy’s coming over this morning, and we’ll put her in a carrier to take her to the neighborhood vet just in case she has a microchip. Then we’re taking photos and e-mailing them to the shelters.
….
We won’t discuss the raccoon teenagers … they’re well known here.
….
Then there are the occasions when I’ve used my ANGER to advantage:
A couple years ago, when I volunteered at the elementary school, two boys told me that they saw their cat catch a bird and they were so angry at the cat for killing the bird that they picked up the cat and threw it across the yard. I flew into a rage … and I don’t need to tell you what I told them …
Then there are the times that I either speak up to or give a dirty look to parents who are abusive to their children in public places, such as grocery stores. (I can’t see what they do to the kids at home, but I can sure make my opinion known when they behave in such an ugly way towards their own children in public.)
Small … big ….
Fwiw, I tend to see where we are now as a regularly occurring part of a cycle of human civilization; there is freedom at a pole and there is fascism at another pole and we are always collectively running circles around these poles. Not neat circles, of course, so it is complex in its manifestation, but circles nonetheless and thus a constant oscillation in the field in between the poles that can never really be pinned down and defined absolutely. It isn’t either/or but rather some amalgamation of both-plus-more. I haven’t worked a cohesive theory of it all the way out yet, but I suspect more all the time that this ambiguity may be a necessary condition for being.
So from my pov there isn’t “an answer” so much as there are multiple strategies, and each person must find their own.
Maybe the question is less “Why such hate?” and more “Given the hate, the causes for which aren’t really that difficult to find, what will be the response?”
Ideologies have not really disappeared: they run rampant on the right (the American religious right, the European nationalist right, the Arab and more generally fundamentalist Islamic right). And, for the moment, those ideologies give form and expression to the winds of hate. Fundamentalists on all fronts see the game as zero-sum: we have to protect and expand our turf because all others are simply out to do the same.
So, what’s the response? What ideology can answer? Socialism is a relic of another century. Liberalism seems tepid and tainted by its accommodations with captialism, which–not invariably, but in many cases–helps the winds to blow.
Hatred hunders after ideology. And it often latches onto the simplest ideology available. Usually, simple ideologies end up being the most murderous.
Is there a left ideology capable of envisioning the substantial changes needed to undercut the winds of hate? At the moment, I don’t see any, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong.