Julia de Funès is a philosopher. She recently published
Personal (imp) development: the success of an imposture
(ed. De l'Observatoire, 2019).
Emmanuel Macron's wit, having said about 5G, to which the green landerneau resists, that the Amish model would not solve the challenges of contemporary ecology speaks volumes.
Since Freud and his joke (1905), we know that the comedy of a word is never gratuitous.
Like dreams, the joke is a psychic elaboration which camouflages a more or less conscious truth by mixing it with humor.
Here the joke results from a work of condensation: to say little to express a lot.
In one word: "Amish", it is a whole section of ecology that stands out.
That of a moralizing ecology to advise us to purify and get back to basics, abolitionist to proscribe any technological innovation, gray to feed on seeds of zanzibar or sage, fragrant to pee under solar showers, sad to cry with his tears of Job or of Shiva.
That ecology opposes the indecency of excessive consumerism by refocusing on the sense of right measure and concern for the environment is something to which any reasonable mind subscribes.
But to condemn by rejecting in advance and in a radical way any innovation is another.
For many, unfortunately not having access to these technical innovations, it is easy to understand the comfort that this ecological fundamentalism brings by turning social inaccessibility into moral superiority.
By morally disapproving of what too many people unfortunately cannot concretely enjoy, this radical ecologism in this resembles La Fontaine's fox who asserts that grapes are too green and inedible because they are too tall and unattainable.
Only resentment can be at the origin of this systematic condemnation and electoralism at the origin of this political choice.
The decisions of some mayors know no bounds when they merge with the ten most demagogic commandments of the moment.
Radical ecologism, brandishing life (animal, plant, human, mineral) as a supreme value, yet denies it in principle!
Or it is having a poor idea of life to reduce it to mere existence.
However, a majority of public opinion does not approve of these choices.
The reason is as simple as it is existential: man is not a being of need but of desire.
“Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need”
.
It is by passing from the necessity of a need to the contingency of a desire that man makes his existence a life.
It is a desire that increases us from the basic need to feed on the refinement of taste.
These are the details of a decoration, the refinement of an atmosphere, which transforms a need for shelter to the comfortable softness of a home.
Also, is it a thing to exist but an art (with all the artifices that this implies) to live.
Radical ecologism, brandishing life (animal, plant, human, mineral) as a supreme value, yet denies it in principle!
Or it is having a poor idea of life to reduce it to mere existence.
This manic-regressive syndrome manifests itself in the satanization of everything that does not contribute enough to accelerate the return of all to the fold of animality.
But to purge the human being, always ambitious and dangerous, to replace the present - certainly imperfect - by the simple past by assimilating it to a more than perfect future is a mistake of human grammar and an error of conjugation with the world .
So ecology takes the wrong path when it always wants less, while man will always want more and better.
It would gain by not condemning what is done but by sublimating what is, by not aiming for decrease but by magnifying existence, by not opposing traditions but by encouraging innovations, by not refusing progress but responsibly accompanying modernity.