Published at 2:18 am. Updated at 5:00 am.
Chantal Guy: My dear Paul,
I thought of you as I read a passage from Dalie Giroux’s latest essay, “A Civilization of Fire.” In particular, she questions the violent response to the climate crisis – and the crises it creates. She writes that the cry “Fake News!” is “a political affect: it means that our world is collapsing and that we categorically refuse to let that happen to us” and that “the desecrating power of conspiracy discourse – its subversive power – is not the least of its advantages”. What struck me was when one of his friends told him, somewhat cynically, that the counterculture today is right-wing. I asked myself: What if it were true?
Paul Journet: Giroux touches on something important. If we get confused, it is because there is not just “one” dominant discourse.
The intellectual authority at universities tends to be on the left. Political authority fluctuates between governments, but in Quebec it most often revolves around the center. The authority of the media is harder to discern – “individual thinking” is denounced by both the left and the right, which should arouse suspicion… Even if we can criticize one medium or another in particular, there is no homogeneous bloc.
On the other hand, economic power leans towards the same side, even when it uses slogans of inclusion and benevolence. Housing remains an instrument of enrichment and speculation. And despite the rise of so-called green finance, the prevailing trend forces companies to pursue profits even if it disrupts ecosystems.
If I may, my definition of “normal world” is a person experiencing each of these forces.
Chantal Guy: Obviously, we will not deal with the complexity of our crises with binary thinking. This is where fiction and art can help us. However, more and more artists are concerned about freedom of expression, which is increasingly subject to committees that pay more attention to ratings and intentions than to the quality of the work.
If an author like Larry Tremblay, who can’t be described as a rabble-rouser, fears a “narrowing of the imagination,” then that’s worth considering. Our cultural clashes in recent years, fueled primarily by the clashes in the United States, have focused heavily on freedom of expression, but also on the argument from authority. Museums, for example. We want to decolonize them, just as we wanted to denaturalize them in the past in order to get closer to the people. And there have always been conservatives who were against it, including real aesthetes who think more about art than politics. The word “curator” also refers to the person in charge of a museum whose task is to preserve for future generations what has been considered valuable in the history of art and humanity. We find this idea in the “Testament” by Denys Arcand, which is very popular among the population.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
A homeless man rests in a bus stop in downtown Montreal.
Paul Journet: I have nothing against socially conscious art, far from it, but it is a difficult genre to tackle without shortcuts. In my ideal, an author deconstructs clichés, explores the complexities of existence, and exposes our contradictions. Seeing the world in black and white, as a battle between oppressors and oppressed, risks making the confusion you speak of even worse. It hides the fact that there are multiple types of powers.
Of course, I prefer it when an artist takes the side of people who are oppressed by power. But there is something paradoxical about our cultural bureaucracy imposing its criteria on artists. I make an important nuance: for parity, which restores the representativeness of groups, I can understand the usefulness of quotas. But we do not need to require the content of the work itself to be socially useful. Maybe that’s what Tremblay meant. Art is not a normative discourse. We don’t have to force artists to take a stand on the world or to want to change it. Making it understandable is a lot. As Kundera said, the moral of the novel is knowledge.
Chantal Guy: It is therefore important to have different voices in the cultural landscape that can show people and make them understand a world that is not monolithic. Even if this inevitably leads to new crises, especially identity crises.
Paul Journet: Exactly. I would like to return to the “crises” mentioned by Giroux. The word is omnipresent today: to talk about housing, the climate or inequalities. Given the seriousness of the problem, it is an objective observation, but I also have the impression that it is an admission of helplessness, a cry for help. A bit like experiencing a reality crisis. We talk about a crisis to convince others that what is happening is really happening. Freud spoke of the reality principle – this ability to postpone the gratification of pleasure in order to take into account the considerations of the outside world. Or as another psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott, said: Accepting reality is a never-ending task. Maybe we’re a little neurotic overall or in a phase of acute denial.
Not long ago, writers like India’s Amitav Gosch suggested writing more novels that tell stories about climate change. In his opinion, one had to imagine the worst. Although reading the newspaper last summer was enough to concretely see that the planet is approaching several turning points.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Last summer, severe forest fires devastated the north coast.
The war of stories
Chantal Guy: Not only is the word “crisis” used frequently, but the worrying impression that the crisis will be permanent rather than temporary may also contribute to helplessness and denial of reality. Because not tomorrow will we stop global warming, solve the housing crisis and achieve peace between Israel and Palestine.
To stay with psychoanalysis, we say that denial is perhaps more dynamic than impotence. Also anger, which makes you less passive in the face of threats. I sometimes wonder what use fiction is when reality surpasses it. It’s hard to concentrate on a novel when your eyes are burning from forest fires.
What particularly fascinates me is not that we argue about responsibilities and solutions to crises – which would be normal – but about their existence. I believe, Paul, that we have entered into a war of stories, because for some time now the ones we have long lived by are being questioned. And the least we can say is that not everyone likes it.
PHOTO ARUN SANKAR, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVE
Travelers have to hold on to the outside of the carriages of a train overloaded with passengers in the Indian city of Loni.
Paul Journet: There is a bit of presenteeism in this observation. We worry about current problems and think they are new or worse than the problems of previous generations, even though this is not necessarily the case. Just think of child mortality, war deaths, the number of hours worked. I agree with you that there is a crisis of confidence in the future. If we need to find a connection between the different topics we talk about, it is there.
Hannah Arendt said that for the first time since the beginning of the 20th century we had the impression of having a common future. Humanity has shrunk. The rational person who maximizes his personal interest in free and happy consumption has established himself as the norm, indeed the achievement, of civilization. Do you know the English acronym WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic)? It refers to this latest vision of man that marks a rupture.
We envision that this model, with technology and democratization, will lead to greater progress and happiness. But this generalization of the Western consumer lifestyle reproduces envy. Wherever we look, people seem to be doing better than us. There is a gap between what we think we owe and what we have. This makes inequalities even more unbearable. This way of life is a resentment generating machine.
Chantal Guy: I didn’t know the acronym WEIRD, but its definition reminds me of Fritz Zorn, the author of Mars, who wrote: “I am young and rich and cultured; and I am unhappy, neurotic and alone. » He wasn’t surprised and found it almost normal that he had cancer.
But I don’t agree with what you say about presenteeism. There is much that has never been done before in our present time. This is also due to the many advances that have disrupted our lives, with the difference that we were never 8 billion people on this planet at the same time; we have never been so informed in real time (with the risk of mass manipulation by algorithms); We have never been aware of the impact of our activities on the ecosystem, which is in danger of collapsing with species extinction.
My mother-in-law, when we started talking about the climate problem, she got a little annoyed and she ended the discussion by saying that human genius would save us. I can no longer believe it, because it is not the human genius that we see at work in this moment, when conflict after conflict erupts. It’s a bit like this dream of electric cars sustaining our way of life. It’s part of denial.
Paul Journet: I agree on that.
PHOTO SAY KHATIB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians survey the damage after a bomb attack by Israeli forces on the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip on November 7.
Chantal Guy: As for the problem of trust in elites, Hannah Arendt talked about it in “The Crisis of Culture.” And we are perhaps at a culmination (and accelerated) moment of what she describes in this excerpt: “…the many fluctuations of public opinion, which has periodically swung from one extreme to the other, from liberal to liberal, for more than 150 years Mood to a conservative mood and back again to a more liberal mood, sometimes seeking the restoration of authority and sometimes the restoration of freedom, had the only result of further undermining both, mixing problems, closing the line between authority and freedom blur and ultimately destroy the political significance of both. »
Paul Journet: Freedom has taken some hits on the forehead – that’s not a quote from a well-known thinker. The problems – sorry, the challenges – that we are talking about, like climate, require collaboration. It is said to be a strength of our species. However, culture distances us from it. Our consumer logic, defending their rights and immediate interests, is leading us to a wall. It has consequences that harm everyone.
Finally, allow me to be a little more evil?
Chantal Guy: Continue.
Paul Journet: The climate crisis is scary when you see it on TV, but it makes you want to buy a new 4K TV. It makes for beautiful aesthetic images of endangered animals in documentaries on Netflix. A verse by Xavier Caféïne seems strangely prophetic to me: “If it is the end of the world, I will see it on television.” »
Chantal Guy: Yes, but Paul, remember that Gil Scott-Heron sang “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” in the 1970s. Given the problems facing traditional television, it is not certain that we will see the end of the world on television. On the other hand, the “revolution” could definitely be TikTokized. It has already begun: Citizens are filming their burning houses while others in their tanks are making angry speeches.
PHOTO SERGEY BOBOK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVE
An unexploded Russian grenade lies buried in the ground near the town of Derhachi in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.
Insightful readings
Want to think further about the state of our world? Paul Journet and Chantal Guy offer you some readings.
A Civilization of Fire, by Dalie Giroux (Mémoire d’encrier)
The latest essay by the author of “The Master’s Eye” attacks in an almost pamphlet-like manner the way we deal with the ecological crisis in the country. (Chantal Guy)
A Civilization of Fire
Inkwell reminder
170 pages
The Crisis of Culture, by Hannah Arendt (folio essay)
A classic of 20th century thought that questions the crisis of modernity in terms of traditions, education, authority, freedom and politics. (Chantal Guy)
The crisis of culture
Essay Folio
384 pages
Mars, by Fritz Zorn (Gallimard)
The author, published in 1976 under a pseudonym, analyzes his middle-class environment through the prism of his cancer. A unique book that has become cult for those who have read it. (Chantal Guy)
march
Gallimard
317 pages
The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt (Vintage Books)
The American psychologist presents the moral intuitions of the left and the right and also reveals that Western individualistic morality is not the norm throughout history. (Paul Journet)
The righteous spirit
Vintage books
501 pages
The Age of Rage – A History of the Present, by Pankaj Mishra (Zulma Essays)
Using Rousseau, Voltaire, Russian anarchists and German romantics, the Indian essayist analyzes the sources of discontent and the limits of materialism. (Paul Journet)
The Age of Rage – a story of the present
Zulma Essays
459 pages
The Great Disruption, by Amitav Ghosh (WildProject)
The Indian writer shows how politics, history and fiction limit our ability to imagine the risks posed by the climate crisis. (Paul Journet)
The great inconvenience
WildProject Editions
224 pages