"
We are at a pivotal moment as individuals embrace racial differentiation in order to exist in society
." This irrefutable observation, the American critic and author, Thomas Chatterton Williams, draws it up from the castle of Tocqueville. In the land of the famous political philosopher, intellectuals, journalists and politicians gathered to discuss the future of Western democracies, during a conference organized by the Tocqueville Foundation,
Le Figaro,
the American think-tank of the American Council and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, under the direction of Laure Mandeville, senior reporter at Le Figaro.
Moderator of the round table on the theme of identities, Alain Finkielkraut opened the discussions by warning against the spread of the
woke
ideology
: "
a fever which is now affecting France and Europe, a pandemic
". First confined to university campuses, the
woke
movement
has spread and imposed its theses in just a few years. On social networks, then in the world of culture and now in the political sphere, the contemporary cult of social justice continues its long march through institutions. Denouncing the "
dictatorship of identities
», The philosopher warned of the rise of a discourse structured around questions of race, gender, sexuality or even decolonialism and intersectionality.
“Wokism”, a democratic despotism
The concept of “
intersectionality
” is based on the idea according to which dominations (sex, class, gender, ethnic) are not independent of each other; they would become intertwined, even reinforce each other and then end up forming a
"
system"
.
Thus, all the "
dominated
" must converge in a struggle against the "
dominated
". Single-sex meetings, excluding white people for the benefit of blacks are a perfect example. “
Why would people sharing the same skin color or the same sexual orientation be identical to each other?
“Asks Rachel Khan, present to discuss the racial issue. The nebula
woke
, consumed by her fantasies of fusion, seeks to make each individual lose their "
signature
" and lock them into a "
fixed identity
", laments the author, born of an African immigrant father and a Jewish mother Polish, daughter of deportees.
However, if individuals are identified by their race, how can they be freed from it?
Yet some to embody the democratic ideal, the woke institute a tyranny, underlines Janice Rogers-Brown, former judge of the Supreme Court of California.
Pointing the finger at members of certain social groups such as aggressors, they make them their scapegoats and demand their removal from social life: "
living scandals must be canceled
", sums up Alain Finkielkraut.
If he wanted to guarantee the sustainability of democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville also knew its intrinsic dangers: "
I want to imagine under what new features despotism could occur in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of similar and equal men who turn without resting on themselves to procure small and vulgar pleasures, with which they fill their soul. "
(
Democracy in America,
II, Chapter 4)
The democratic individual, establishing equality as the finality of political action, not only no longer supports inequality, but considers the slightest difference as an offense.
Even if equality seems to have been achieved, the appearance of inequality somehow offends the collective conscience.
Thus, it is no longer a question of ensuring respect for equality, but of scrutinizing what could represent an outline of divergence, considered necessarily discriminating, continued the producer of the famous program
Replicas
.
Symptom of a dechristianized society
Dostoevsky affirmed in the preface of the
Brothers Karamazov
that communism wanted to be the realization of the kingdom of God on Earth. Embracing the theory of the Russian writer, Georgetown political theory professor Josh Mitchell developed in front of the audience the idea that
Wokism
was a new expression of religion in a de-Christianized society. Indeed, it is characterized by a social control unprecedented for the time, a love for official truth, an obsession with moral purity, social relations that have become pathological and when a story of persecution comes from the persecuted, not to believe it. is blasphemy.
But if the good word of Soviet totalitarianism emanated from the state, this new tyranny finds root in our liberal democracies.
In this regard, René Girard already said 20 years ago that the concern for the victim was fanatic:
"The perpetual escalation transforms the concern of the victims into a totalitarian injunction, a permanent inquisition."
While Christ was the scapegoat for all of humanity, giving himself up on the cross to save men, each now becomes the culprit to be named, argues the American scholar.
Preserving the democratic ideal
To oppose this new hegemony and promote a collective narrative alternative to this discourse, the past no longer seems to be a recourse, but a foil for the most extreme: "
The corpse of the ancient humanities gives way to the claims of minorities
", thus deplored Alain Finkielkraut.
However, we are the custodians of a history older than ourselves, and it is to preserve it that the Tocqueville Conversations work.
At the dawn of this pivotal moment, the speakers agreed on the need not to give in to victimization competition.
To ensure a common future, it will be necessary to go to the heart of democratic institutions, they concluded this first day of discussions.
