Chloé Morin was opinion advisor to the Prime Minister from 2012 to 2017. She is currently working as an associate expert at the Jean Jaurès Foundation. She is preparing to publish in February at Gallimard
Populism to the rescue of democracy?
"Controversy": Adjective and feminine noun.
"
Who manifests a critical or aggressive attitude".
“Written, lively or aggressive debate
”.
Central expression of contemporary political debate, the frequency of use of which is inversely proportional to the democratic culture of the one who employs it.
To read also:
Jean-Louis Bourlanges: "Let us restore its legitimacy to this inestimable good, representative democracy"
Often used as a synonym for “
This question bothers me
”, “
We have nothing to reproach ourselves with
”, “
Move around, there's nothing to do
”, or “
But since we tell you to shut it down!
".
He is frequently associated with a "
politician
", in order to increase tenfold his capacity to disqualify the opposing voice.
There is in the use, more and more frequent, of the word "
polemic
" by a part of the political leaders, a worrying sign for the vitality of our democracy.
Did you feel humiliated by the use of the expression "
refractory Gauls
" by the President of the Republic, during a trip abroad?
"
We must take a little distance from the controversy and social networks
", you are told at the top of the State.
We will answer you again and again: Vain controversy!
Do you take offense at what the government is presenting, on the sly just before the truce of the confectioners, a project whose wording seems to indicate that it intends to arrogate to itself the right to force the French to be vaccinated against COVID?
"
A bad controversy
", replies Olivier Véran at 8 pm.
You would have liked to understand why the vaccination campaign took so long to start, when during the first weeks of January our neighbors were vaccinating massively?
The Prime Minister will reproach you for "
sterile controversies which bring nothing
".
As Mayor of your municipality, you would have liked to know how many doses of vaccine will be delivered to you in the coming days and weeks, in order to answer the pressing questions of your citizens?
We will answer you again and again: vain controversy!
To read also:
Myriam Revault d'Allonnes: what is "the spirit of macronism"?
Are you worried that public action is getting bogged down, zigzagging, and that public statements are not reflected in your daily life?
You are part of the “
66 million prosecutors
” denounced by Emmanuel Macron, this collection of unproductive people who comment on the sidelines while the real ones, those who know, act.
Even when it is the source, the government rarely considers itself responsible for "
controversies
".
We remember, for example, this heated debate on the word "
wild
", used by the Minister of the Interior in the depths of summer.
Debate that one could have possibly considered legitimate, since words have a meaning, and often precede and shape reality.
But for Emmanuel Macron, this should only be seen as a futile controversy, maintained by a press which has been engaged in "
the kamasutra of savage for 15 days
" ...
It's not that we get vaccines too slowly, it's that they don't get to us quickly enough.
It is not a failure, it did not work.
How not to feel humiliated, despised, taken for morons, when to questions, fears, arrests, we are opposed: It is not our policy that is absurd, it is you who have the mind gone wrong.
It is not the government that is failing, it is you who misunderstood.
It is not the reality that is too hard, it is you who are too soft.
It's not that we get vaccines too slowly, it's that they don't get to us quickly enough.
It is not a failure, it did not work.
We don't change strategy, we modify it ...
With a hint of bad faith, we could claim that it is a congenital flaw of macronism, that of not knowing how to accept the contradiction.
That a party founded for one man would have taken the court line, and would have kept only the worst the verticality of monarchy and Bonapartism combined.
To read also:
Chloé Morin: "In 2021, let's get out of our democratic apathy"
But in reality, this tendency to disqualify any questioning, any criticism, any question, even naive or trivial, is unfortunately not the prerogative of current power.
It is not even limited to those who, holders of the main levers of power yesterday as today, believe they have a monopoly on the Good, the Good and the True.
No: the disqualification of criticism, the tendency to think that “the less we talk, the faster we go, and the faster we go, the more efficient”, the “
circulate, there's nothing to see
” are in the process of impose themselves as major social facts.
A significant - and, we suspect, growing - share of our fellow citizens seems to consider dialogue to be synonymous with lack of courage and lack of vision.
That listening is a weakness.
That to change your mind is necessarily to betray.
That to admit being wrong is to dishonor oneself.
All that is Political is becoming, in the eyes of a growing number of our fellow citizens, dirty, stupidly, and irremediably "Polemic"
Everything that is Political is becoming, in the eyes of a growing number of our fellow citizens, dirty, stupidly, and irremediably "
Polemic
".
The culture of debate, the dynamic which, through confrontation, allows progress, is fading in favor of a culture of "
everyone in their own way
", "
each his own reality
".
It is a cultural collapse, that of the spirit of democracy, that we are witnessing today.
Thank you for reading this umpteenth controversy to the end!
