If the discontinuation of the review
Le Débat
sparked as many glosses as its creation forty years ago, it is because the two events were perceived as a challenge to the spirit of the times.
They both referred to a straightforward diagnosis of the state of intellectual debate in France:
"Because there is none"
, wrote Pierre Nora in the inaugural issue;
because there are no more, he suggests in the last.
The birth of the
Debate
and its disappearance illustrate two pivotal moments in our public life: in 1980, the break with the hegemony of communist culture and its practices of excommunication;
in 2020, the intrusion of post-truth in our democracies and the concomitant resurgence of a new culture of proscription with no positive content or future project.
The old tradition revived by the review does not match the mood of the time: the debate of ideas no longer has much influence on the making of opinion.
A magazine that rolls down the curtain is a conversation
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