Jean Szlamowicz, linguist, university professor, normalien, agrégé in English and a translator. He publishes:
The sheep of thought - New ideological conformisms
(editions of Cerf, 2022).
FIGAROVOX.- Your book attacks the “concepts” that our time has brought to light: intersectionality, patriarchy, whiteness, decolonialism… What can be said about this subject that has not yet been said?
Jean SZLAMOWICZ.-
Indeed, very sharp criticisms have been formulated, by Pierre-André Taguieff, Nathalie Heinich, Shmuel Trigano, François Rastier... A linguistic approach focusing on the coherence of these discourses and the imposture that these concepts constitute.
This is essential to be able to access the debates because this new vocabulary has imposed itself fraudulently, in research as well as in the media.
Many people find themselves confused by these obscure, pretentious, authoritarian words: this rhetoric creates aggressive linguistic and intellectual insecurity because it claims to have to be adopted by everyone.
Against this ideological forcing, I wanted to offer a guide for the lost, allowing them to orient themselves in this moralizing magma...
Far from being just descriptive concepts, these terms all contain a part of negativity, you say. What does the massive use of the psychology register reveal? In what way do you think this reveals a methodological problem?
Yes, in truth, these notions are not real concepts pertaining to the social sciences: intersectionality or neo-feminism are not sciences, but militant demands.
The approach of these discourses therefore does not consist in producing knowledge but in legitimizing their positions, often in bad faith and with selection biases.
When we talk about “whiteness” or “decolonialism”, we use terms that seem scholarly but only morally demonize their object.
This has no descriptive value, they are accusatory formulas.
The use of terms built on the suffix
–phobia
is indicative of a process of pathologization: "Islamophobia", "glottophobia", "transphobia" make it possible to radically discredit the accused.
The manipulation resides in the fact of applying it as a shield in the face of the slightest criticism.
Pseudo-scholarly words serve as ideological insults in order to block in particular the formulation of criticism towards gender theories or political Islam.
John Szlamowicz
These are not concepts that describe the social, but pseudo-scholarly words that serve as an ideological insult in order to block any criticism of gender theories or political Islam.
As for the deconstruction of "imaginary" and "representations", it is located in the greatest methodological vagueness: we do not know how this criticism would have access to immaterial, subjective things which are, moreover, never precisely defined. .
Moreover, "criticism" or "deconstruction" are often claimed in a noble sense, whereas most of the time it is only a question of pure pejoration, without a truly intellectually solid horizon.
Two main principles illustrate these new concepts: a radical skepticism about the very possibility of objective knowledge (everything is a social construction, including knowledge), and the principle according to which society is structured by systems of power (patriarchy, white privilege, etc.). Can we speak of a “conspiracy without plotters?”
This ideology of deconstruction, gender or decolonialism discovers the moon: societies are governed by norms!
But there is no human community that does not share values, behaviors and beliefs whose existence is structuring for the group.
This is the very definition of the social — and from this point of view, all societies tend to be conservative, which does not prevent them from evolving.
But instead of being part of a progressive critique, postmodernist ideology sees in every social phenomenon the invisible hand of the “dominant”.
We thus invent a “masculinization” of the language, as if the language had been “created”!
We then imagine men, brought together in a manipulative secret to invent humiliating grammatical forms for women,
like "it's cold" or the impersonal pronoun, similar to the masculine pronoun, would see the triumph of a linguistic virilism.
Others imagine that “the patriarchy” is responsible for having delayed the emergence of wheels on suitcases.
Or that the Greeks were black people who were erased from history.
Or that math is an instrument of white supremacy.
“Masculinization”, “invisibilization”, “systemic racism”… It is a mythifying reading of history, the invention of a racial and sexual martyrology.
This is why I speak of "mytheology" to describe these mythologized arguments and stories that are intended to promote ideologies.
others imagine that “the patriarchy” is responsible for having delayed the emergence of wheels on suitcases.
Or that the Greeks were black people who were erased from history.
Or that math is an instrument of white supremacy.
“Masculinization”, “invisibilization”, “systemic racism”… It is a mythifying reading of history, the invention of a racial and sexual martyrology.
This is why I speak of "mytheology" to describe these mythologized arguments and stories that are intended to promote ideologies.
others imagine that “the patriarchy” is responsible for having delayed the emergence of wheels on suitcases.
Or that the Greeks were black people who were erased from history.
Or that math is an instrument of white supremacy.
“Masculinization”, “invisibilization”, “systemic racism”… It is a mythifying reading of history, the invention of a racial and sexual martyrology.
This is why I speak of "mytheology" to describe these mythologized arguments and stories that are intended to promote ideologies.
“systemic racism”… It is a mythifying reading of history, the invention of a racial and sexual martyrology.
This is why I speak of "mytheology" to describe these mythologized arguments and stories that are intended to promote ideologies.
“systemic racism”… It is a mythifying reading of history, the invention of a racial and sexual martyrology.
This is why I speak of "mytheology" to describe these mythologized arguments and stories that are intended to promote ideologies.
How did part of university research, in your opinion, fall into a kind of paranoid delirium?
The herd of directors of conscience, persuaded that their small diplomas raise them to a moral dignity superior to that of the people, began to theorize politics from fiction.
By taking stories for reality, by gargling words, academic pretension has done what it has always known how to do: give moral lessons.
The collapse of the general level results today in having researchers and teachers with lamentable training.
When you only do research on TV series, porn and Pif the dog, you don't risk having a very high theoretical level.
We compensate by jargon, in any inconsistency, and we speak of "representations", which avoids collecting real data.
It is the triumph of "studies: cultural studies, porn studies, gender studies,
video game studies”… These are not disciplines endowed with methodological principles, but chatter.
It's more accessible for a student audience that is no longer able to understand — much less produce — real demanding research.
There is a social demand for this militancy of good conscience: don't forget that ideology is also a market.
John Szlamowicz
As intersectionality is now the mainstream, to build a career, it is better to adopt this discourse and this posture rather than focusing on subjects that are too complex or that do not comply with this orthodoxy.
There is a social demand for this militancy of good conscience: don't forget that ideology is also a market.
In fact, the development of ideological surveillance in the university has become very worrying – we now find “ethics referents”, in other words political commissars!
According to you, this so-called cultural revolution aims at nothing less than the eradication of the common culture. Isn't that overkill?
The revisionism of "generalized cancellation" now affects all heritage subjects: literature, history, music... From sexuality to urban planning, everything must be degendered and decolonized!
From Ronsard to Keats or Aeschylus, the whole of Western culture undergoes a simplistic racial or sexual reading of pure reprobation.
Notably, only the West would be sexist and racist.
This moral Manichaeism bears the trace of decades of Marxist militancy of Soviet origin, relayed today by Islamism, necessarily anti-Western and anti-Semitic.
The partiality of this militancy forgets, of course, to point out that egalitarianism and anti-racism are part of our national consensus, which is not the case elsewhere, for example in the Islamic theocracies which are, curiously,
spared from these speeches.
For other reasons, this ideology is also conveyed by the EU in a frantic quest for cultural levelling.
Read alsoIn Brussels, the holy alliance between Wokism and Islamism
The social base made up of the elites is very comfortable with these intersectional discourses that promote clientelism because this converges with a vision of the social as a market, made up of niches that are all targets.
The forces that feed this ideology are of multiple origins but they result in the development of an egocentric, religious, sexual, ethnic communitarianism… We only speak in terms of quotas and social representation to obtain positions and careers.
Ideology is a bath of ideas in which social actors are immersed.
You have to be aware that you are changing the bath water - but be careful, the new water may well be toxic!
Don't you think you are falling into the pitfall of hysterizing the debate and overestimating the real extent of the so-called
“
woke
” threat
?
I would like to, but political action, in particular through the European Union, finances this ideological current in a massive way.
This ideological current is largely institutionalized and entryism has now become a power.
Admittedly, the “at the same time” policy is made to reassure, but one cannot at the same time pass a law against separatism and say that there is no French culture;
claiming international excellence and rolling back fundamental knowledge;
speak of sovereignty and obey European frameworks.
Where I am very optimistic is that the intellectual nullity of “wokism” condemns it to self-annihilation.
Knowledge cannot be based on bad faith and bias.
We cannot deconstruct without ever building anything.
The sheep of thought - New ideological conformisms
, Jean Szlamowicz,
Cerf, February 2022, 20€.
Editions du Cerf
