Remember when the West defended its values tooth and nail?
Probably not, you’re too young for that.
But there was a time when Westerners were willing to do anything to protect their culture and civilization.
In fact, they liked their system so much that they wanted to export it all over the world!
It smells like mothball
I’m talking to you about a time that people under 40 can’t know.
It’s far, all of that.
Today the West no longer wants to attack the world head-on: it has curled up like a withered flower.
All Westerners want now is to be left alone.
With her screen, her internet connection and her down jacket.
This is what the latest essay by French philosopher Pascal Bruckner is about: The Rite of the Slipperspublished by Grasset.
How did they renounce the world.
“The house these days is not a simple shelter, it has become a space unto itself, cozy and connected, displacing the globe,” writes Bruckner. Almost anything can be delivered to your home. Then why come out of the cocoon and expose yourself? »
Westerners no longer fight and want to conquer the world like Malraux and Hemingway: they whine.
Complain.
Like old people.
The longer it goes, the more the west smells of mothballs, linden tea and lambert syrup.
THE SLOWED MAN
“The only interruption in our lives is the way from the chair to the sofa and from the bed to the bathroom,” writes Bruckner.
“We are moving from our living room to the kitchen and vice versa. The sky has the surface of our room. »
Like the characters in Les Frustrés, cartoonist Claire Bretécher’s famous series, modern man and woman have slumped.
Lying on IKEA pillows.
Your great adventure is no longer climbing Machu Picchu, but going to the cinema or the theater.
That’s quite a journey!
Going out, taking a car, queuing next to strangers… Phew! What an odyssey!
And when enemies declare war on our values, we just shrug our shoulders…
After all, they have the right! Everyone has their own values, right?
Who are we to tell others how to live?
If yes, we are the ones looking for it. We got involved in things that are none of our business.
We should have stayed at home. comfortable.
Without making waves.
THE LITTLE LIFE
Our literature has also become intimate, emphasizes Bruckner.
This is the reign of autofiction, the diary, which is considered one of the fine arts.
Instead of inventing worlds, we scratch the Bobo and explore the banality of everyday life.
“Shrinking has become a passion. »
We no longer add, we subtract.
We snuggle together, we snuggle together.
We’re like the hero from the 1950’s sci-fi movie The Shrinking Man.
We withdraw more and more from the world.
Give me a break ! Leave me alone !
We tear up, we pretend to be victims.
And we welcome the imposition of a curfew as good news…
