Éric Sadin: "How can we break our collective isolation?"

Éric Sadin is a philosopher.

He published

Faire secession, a politics of ourselves

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FIGAROVOX.

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Eric SADIN.

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This pandemic has forced us to carry out many of our day-to-day actions online.

Work, school, university, access to cultural works, usual exchanges, in short, a large part of what is called “social life” has been transposed into pixels.

In this, a crucial phenomenon has taken place: the screen setting itself up as the instance of major interference in interpersonal relationships.

As if, in a flash, another age of humanity had been inaugurated, seeing our “pixel masks” take charge of making the “social distancing” measure required by the threat of the coronavirus viable.

The various confinements did not only represent a biopolitical event due to our compulsory medical internment, it was as much a psychological shock caused by the fact of having had to live a "generalized telesociality".

However, nothing less natural than such a situation which confused us, or as confirmed for a large number of a latent state.

That resulting from ever more unbridled economic logic in force for decades which has generated the feeling of not being able, as best we can, to rely only on ourselves, to end today by bringing out what I call a state of “collective isolation”.

I established this observation in my previous work,

and all the deleterious consequences induced.

In my mind, there could be no question of confining myself to this single diagnosis, but of considering, afterwards, to what extent we could extricate ourselves from this great maelstrom.

In this regard, the expression "secede" does not in any way imply breaking with the common order, but, on the contrary, giving it back its full meaning.

This, by breaking with schemes that have become inoperative and by seeking to identify possible avenues of action, able to restore all of its vitality to what the proper exercise of our political condition implies.

Much more than the advent of a “post-truth”, what we have witnessed is an atomization of beliefs, each relying on his own perception of things, reduced to his sufferings.

Eric Sadin

The United States and France are the two most polarized societies in the world in terms of opinion.

Social networks are partly to blame.

In your opinion, should a new regulation be established, as the government commission "The Enlightenment in the Digital Age", headed by Gérald Bronner, is working on?

It is important to remember the context of the appearance of social networks, which took off at the end of the 2000s. and where the majority felt that they were experiencing social degradation and selflessness.

And so Twitter opened the floodgates for expressing its opinions - mostly placed, given the context - under the seal of dissatisfaction and resentment.

This, according to brief formulas which favored the categorical assertion, quickly leading to an extreme brutalization of exchanges.

Much more than the advent of a “post-truth”, what we have witnessed is an atomization of beliefs, each relying on his own perception of things, reduced to his sufferings.

Read also Maxime Tandonnet: "Does France need a ministry of truth?"

So, we are alarmed by a lack of regulation in the face of this mechanism gone crazy.

Of course, there is an urgent need to legally limit excesses, and above all words of hatred.

Nevertheless, the reflex, in France, very technocratic, consisting, as soon as there is a social problem, to set up commissions, seems to me very vain.

In reality, unless you see these platforms disappear, this state of tension will only intensify, because there is nothing you can do against the intoxication that these instruments provide to feel that you exist in the eyes of others through self-expression - especially in a period of disorientation.

The issue consists less in regulating these practices, than in grasping the bitterness of most of not influencing the course of things, of feeling reduced to the rank of simple spectators of a world ultimately emerging from forces that would be foreign to them .

It is against this yardstick that we must understand the rise of conspiracy, like the illusory sensation of taking back the reins of one's life via extravagant stories.

Each of us has come to worry only about the defense of our particular interests, to the detriment of taking into account fundamental common values.

Eric Sadin

In this sense, what is now up to us is to take the measure of the powerful desire to be a stakeholder in the affairs that concern us.

But how do we actually do it?

And what I am putting forward - this is the heart of my book - is that making oneself much more active cannot be formalized in a unique way, but supposes to implement various modalities which call for being less passive in the place of so many iniquitous situations, while working to implement common modes of organization establishing equitable relationships, promoting the development of each and not harming the biosphere.

Against the neoliberal system, you propose to reconnect with a “culture of refusal”.

Don't you think that this risks locking individuals even further into a selfish and individualistic logic?

I am advocating the exact opposite.

All the measures that have unraveled public services, resulting only from accounting logic, but also those contributing to finding ourselves left to ourselves, due to relentless management methods and the extension of self-entrepreneurship, if we accepted them, it is because the spirit of liberal individualism prevailed.

Each of us has come to worry only about the defense of our particular interests, to the detriment of taking into account fundamental common values.

In this regard, as soon as measures affect the issue of wages or the maintenance of jobs, then we immediately know how to stand up, mainly through demonstrations or strikes.

Have we forgotten that society is made up of a base of principles, in the forefront of which, those of the good administration of public affairs - the

- and respect for the integrity and dignity of human beings?

So many requirements, strictly moral, which summon us to block decisions that intend to be imposed unilaterally.

Those which look at the enthronement of techniques aiming only at optimization imperatives, often resulting in the isolation of people, and presented as being part of the inevitable sense of history.

In the worlds of business, administration, school, university, hospital, justice ...

Today, we see how much we are paying the price for not having mobilized enough, especially with regard to the tattered state of public services and all the damage caused to the psyches and bodies caused by the sacrosanct. -sainte

of the “digital transformation” of the world of work that has taken place since the turn of the 2010s.

The time has come to celebrate the margins in so far as we realize to what extent it is the submission to so many normative frameworks which, in various ways, has turned out to be harmful.

Eric Sadin

In what way does the example of the ZAD (“Zone to defend”) constitute an interesting experiment for you?

If the ZAD produces such a fascination today, it is because it articulates two major dimensions.

First, the resolute will emanating from consciences which, in the name of fundamental values, decide to physically block out intentions deemed to be iniquitous.

And very quickly, the desire to implement more fulfilling living conditions, within mutual aid mechanisms, manifests itself.

We can see that the decisive issues of the time are at stake here: to face situations considered intolerable and to respond to aspirations to be more creative and autonomous.

Nevertheless, one should not err on the side of romanticism and be pragmatic.

Because on the one hand, those who engage in these initiatives do so at their own risk - without a safety net.

Read also Éric Sadin: "Smartphone in hand, individuals no longer believe in the collective project"

On the other hand, the idea prevails that here is a model which more than ever would be called upon to spread.

However, this is wishful thinking - as with all alternative businesses - because not everyone can risk such steps aside.

In this sense, at a time when aspirations for other ways of life are so pressing, I consider that it is up to the community - that is to say all of us - to support, with public funds, the abundant blossoming of such projects.

Many alternatives, breaking with the Western way of life, exist today (eco-hamlets, collective housing, permaculture, etc.).

What audiences do they concern?

Are they viable or are they just “robinsonnades”?

Now is the time to celebrate the margin insofar as we realize to what extent it is the submission to so many normative frameworks which, in various ways, has turned out to be harmful. A more or less known expectation is manifested today: to see all the alternative experiences in progress little by little spreading. However, it does not support any project defined in this sense, running the risk, in fact, of quickly becoming akin to an archipelago of "Robinson Crusoes".

In this regard, it is up to us, in a voluntary and structured way, to promote them, to the point of making banal the fact that, faced with a professional failure, walled in a dead end, but driven by the desire to give shape to forms pluralities of inventiveness and cooperation, then public funds support the constitution of collectives, working to forge bonds of reciprocity, rejecting moreover any predatory and devastating finality.

It is as if, at the start of the presidential election, we had suddenly forgotten everything and we were recovering, full of affect and expectation, to believe that it is on her that all fate will depend. entire nation.

Eric Sadin

It is a completely different project than the basic income which is part of an apparently progressive idea, aimed at countering precariousness, endemic unemployment, but which

results from the renunciation.

Everyone, in a sort of à la carte world, relying, as best they can, on themselves, seeing the majority, out of necessity, string together contracts, or some satisfy their passions until then more or less buried thanks to to generalized individual subsidization, which only confirms, under the guise of laudable intentions, the current situations, as well as our collective isolation.

How, then, to rethink a political system that serves the collective?

Precisely, by working towards an “institutionalization of the alternative”. A formula which seems to stem from an oxymoron and which, on the contrary, postulates that this apparent contradiction results from a deviation which has been going on for too long. That of having, wrongly, ignored that public money - which is ours - should be opposed to a strictly utilitarian vision of "daring" - based on the passion for personal success and endorsing the credo competition between individuals - encourage the emergence of a myriad of projects driven by virtuous aims.

All those determined to ensure the prevalence of a few criteria deemed essential: principle of equity, respect for the environment, and encouragement for the good expression of know-how - in the era of integral machinery and artificial intelligence systems destined to replace all human activity. This, in all fields of life. Not only permaculture, which nowadays seems to represent the almost unique alternative option, but in the various forms of craftsmanship, gastronomy,

, fashion, architecture, education, care, art…

In this, to the support that will have been given to

, and to their glorification, which took place throughout the 2010s - while they only aspire to a futile innovation, only aim for a single commodification , and boast, full of cynicism, of "disrupting society" - must be replaced, in these 2020s, aid to collectives.

It will be understood that this is an exactly opposite social project.

While the pre-campaign for the 2022 presidential election has started off with a bang, do you think there is a political offer that rethinks our social, political and economic organization?

What is very striking is when we experienced so many disillusions with regard to institutional politics, it is as if, at the start of the presidential election, we had suddenly forgotten everything and that we were let us put back, full of affect and expectation, to believe that it is on her that the entire fate of the nation will depend.

It is advisable not to be naive and to understand to what extent this state of mind is maintained by a growing industrialization of the countryside, now seeing the news channels organizing sensationalist debates and TV shows where we talk endlessly and which do not aim only to generate numbers.

Or a gigantic media-political process contributing to put us under hypnosis and only cultivating a tenacious collective fiction.

And the fact that now the candidates emanate less from the parties than they present themselves as free individuals, favors a festival of personal ideas, all positive, as if the negativity of the real did not exist.

Dimension at work today with "social-ecologism" which, after the Covid-19 crisis, competes with good intentions suggesting that with the return of the welfare state and ecological measures, then we would be soon delivered from most of our ills.

It would be time to be more mature and to no longer hope for mountains and wonders from providential people, but simply to weigh so that "great politics" takes care above all of its essential prerogative: to take charge of the good administration of things, or the quality of public services and institutions.

What in my opinion we must integrate is that political life, more than ever, must ultimately be exercised at two levels.

That of the institutions, which we need.

And that of taking charge - by all of us, and at all levels of society - of a large part of our daily realities, calling as much to mobilize ourselves to defeat iniquitous decisions as to get down to establishing ways of life and organization that better meet our aspirations.

Because of not having taken into account the principle of conviviality, as defined by Ivan Illich, who called for us to stick to small scales and to use techniques that do not dispossess us of our faculties.

Eric Sadin

Doesn't a

I will reverse the terms of the question to take a very pragmatic position.

Namely, that it is precisely for us to have definitively turned away from these values ​​which represent, nowadays, the main cause of our sorrows.

First, because of not having taken into account the principle of conviviality, as defined by Ivan Illich, who called on us to stick to small scales and to use techniques that do not dispossess us of our faculties. The consequence of this was to generalize the very large size in the professional world and in institutions, leading to phenomena of anonymity, interchangeability of people, selflessness, as well as the establishment, in companies, of digital systems dictating our actions - especially in the logistics sector and which are truly unworthy.

Wanting today to make these principles prevail supposes that each one contributes in a singular way to a common work, to avoid asymmetric relations of power and to operate a critique in action of dogma, in various ways, devastating growth.

The joint organization thus envisaged comes from

, friendship, understood as a welcome given to our aspirations to flourish in the exercise of our activities, and to forge relationships which intend to establish a good harmony between people. and between beings and the environment.

It is for all these reasons that I insist on the current importance of the notion of collectives, able to respond to our desires to live according to other codes, to make us fully actors in our lives and to identify new horizons of hope.

Following this pandemic which has further confused us, if we do not give ourselves concrete keys to unravel our sad passions, it is likely that the outburst of resentment and the fury of all against all will become the only dominant features of the time.

Secession, a policy of ourselves

, Éric Sadin, L'Éscapée, October 2021, 224 p., 17 € L'Escapée