There is no ? Reverse ? in Societies’ Engine

?There is an aspiration to “progress” which is common to all societies of all time and at all times. Differences in that commonality of aspiration are in the starting point of the path and place where the path starts. Geography, and the state of the society in which the aspiration occurs. Both geography and point in the specific society’s history determine together the representation of the “progress” which is common to that society’s population, or to a most commonly accepted sentiment of progress.

Societies are permanently on the move. Therefore the point from which “progress” is considered, and the components of that sentiment, change all the time. Very slowly. At the pace of generations, by periods of between 20 and 30 years[1]. That’s the time it takes for one key determinant of the desired progress to take shape and crystallize in a majority of a society’s population. The key determinant can be a component of what “progress” is (social, economic, scientific, political…). It can also be, without any major modification of the composition of “progress”, the pace at which the said progress would be desired, or rejected. Neither too fast, nor too slow, speeds about which desires may differ.

The fuel for the engine of societies to keep churning can be any form of ambition or any form of fear. In the gearbox of societies’ engines, there is no “reverse”. There is “drive”, “park”, “neutral”, but not “reverse”. Some actors in society’s orientations can at times pretend that “reverse” would be possible. This is never true. Nobody can undo what has been done. Nobody can even erase the memory of what has been done. So, the question is not “how do we go back”, but “what do we do with what has been”. This is where the options are very open. Including rewriting history. The options are open, as for example Hannah Arendt analyzed it in 1970: “The loss of power and authority by all the great powers is clearly visible, even though it is accompanied by an immense accumulation of the means of violence in the hands of the governments, but the increase in weapons cannot compensate for the loss of power. Nevertheless, this situation need not lead to revolution. For one thing, it can end in counterrevolution, the establishment of dictatorships, and for another, it can end in total anticlimax?: it need not lead to anything.”[2]

Drive, Neutral, Park

?The ”drive” position in the engine is when there is an ambition or a fear. The “neutral” position is when a society is so comfortable in its existing state that it has no real ambition or fear, but neither any conscience of its having lost all ambition or fear. The “neutral” position can let society be carried adrift by its sole weight and the – even very slight – slope of its founding ground. The “park” position is when a significant part of a society has a common ambition, but another significant part a common fear or a fundamentally different ambition antagonizing the other part’s ambition. The result is deadlock, which does not exclude conflict. One example: “The Jews of our time seem to be unable to choose other than between two forms of Judaism: that of Abraham as the father of the nation, and that of Joshua as the conqueror of the land.”[3] Both options are deeply inscribed in the society formed by the population concerned. Both ambitions can be advocated on the basis of what has been that has founded that society. And long after, it is clear that the question is: what do we do with what has been in order to progress towards the next desirable stage of our society. But there is no “reverse”.

Conflicts thus arise when one progressive ambition conflagrates with an opposite one or with an absence of any progressive ambition, or with the illusion of “reverting” to an imagined anterior state. But over time and generations, progress nonetheless occurs. Too fast for some, too slowly for others. Combination of antagonist forces can occur within one society because there is a common identification of a “what has been” about which to be debated. Which occurs sometimes in a “park” position, for as long as it takes to sort out what it is that has been and what can be done with it. Or on the “neutral” position when the engine, by itself or under the influence of some interest, seems to have been turned off. Which can be the case with a tyranny.

The Tyranny of “Park”

“The reign which is described here in detail had that remarkable feature that public opinion was ruled down to details by the government, with, moreover, that ornament: ‘It is forbidden to write and to say that the said opinions are not free, and are not imposed on the government by unanimous sentiment.’ The idea of a free people is most pleasing to tyrants.”[4] A symmetrical tyranny is described in Georg Büchner’s words by Camille Desmoulins: “The form of the State must be a transparent dress which lets itself be tightly shaped on the people’s body. Every swelling of the veins, every tension of the muscles, every tremor of the aspirations must imprint in it. The figure may well be beautiful or ugly, it has anyway the right to be as it is, we are not justified to tailor for it a little rock after our taste.”[5] Dictatorship of the people against dictatorship of the tyrant.

Upheavals of ambitions often arise from the meeting of two remote visions of “progress”. Because even if two societies, two populations, do not seem at first sight to have some “what has been” in common, with which to do something similar or different, inspiration can come from differences which arouse envy, desire, or dreams. Or hate, rejection, or anger. Think of the envy, desire or dreams – or hate, rejection, or anger – which the French revolution has inspired in distant populations, in geography or in time. A reminder of all has been supplied by the “revolutionary” act in the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games in July 2024.

“Inalienable Rights” on Drive

Such episodes in history bring to light, or to conscience, commonalities of mankind which were there before, possibly forever, and which a “revolution” would put into words claiming that there would be “Droits de l’Homme”, “Rights inherent to Mankind” and not just “Human Rights”. A Declaration. As soon as the words are there, the claim can show its Universal truth. Way beyond its momentaneous political implications. “A purely political revolution could be contained within the borders of a nation. But the rights of mankind make revolution a universal demand (…). Based on the rights of mankind, the ‘revolution of France’ cannot remain ‘French’: it constitutes a denial of the law from local contexts.”[6] It is mostly in England that, precisely for fear of contagion of a desire for that “progress”, the French revolution was regularly named “the revolution of France”, thus hoping, by the virtue of language, to leave or keep it there only. Yet, the “inalienable rights” among which “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”[7] had already signaled that the “drive” was more broadly shared than just the shores of France.

Drive, neutral, park, but not reverse. And do not expect the gearbox to have a manual shift: “It is in that same manner that there occurs, in the course of History, by a series of impulsions and counter-impulsions, a modification of human behavior towards civilization. Here also, each intermediary stage has been determined by the desires and projects of a diversity of individuals or groups of individuals; but what has occurred in that manner until this day, our present behavior standards and the structure of our interiority, have in no case resulted from a project or the will of isolated individuals. This is how human society as a whole moves along, how mankind’s historic evolution was accomplished and continues to be accomplished:? Born from multiple projects, but without one single project, Driven by multiple finalities, but without one single finality.”[8]

An ideal, when considered as shared by many, can put society on “drive”. So does an interest. Interest seems to prevail these days as a collective driver in many societies. They confront, sometimes in crises or conflicts, with societies put on “drive” by an ideal – or an ideology. At least a perceived common interest or common ideal represented by its owners to the communities of society. In both cases, of the ideal and of the interest, the people are – more of less – instrumentalized in the name of their own sentiments. Because the collective is required for the interest or the ideal to become a driver of society. At the expense, sometimes, of institutional authority. “Isn’t there anybody around to obey an order?, cried Mr. Thompson. Isn’t there a brain left in this country?”[9]

Ideal? Interest?

Both ideal and interest may not be always clearly opposed or separate. “In the same manner as there is crafts of History, one may hope that interest be the craft of universal morals, but in that case, the hypothesis of its complement and contrary should openly come with it: universal morals as a detour of particular interest.”[10]

For example, in “America Great Again”, do you sell “America” as a dream, “Great” as an interest, or “Again” as a past ideal? The agglomeration of all three in one promise produces an electorate of widely antagonistic visions, whose holders discover only after the election which of the term they have bought into, or they have been sold into. And who is to “Make”. In any case, “It is not ‘the people’ which produces the upheaval, it is the upheaval which produces its people, by arousing common experience and understanding, the human fabric and the real life language which had disappeared.”[11]

Drive, order, disorder: can a society in motion simultaneously experience or enjoy order? And at what cost? “This transition from a society of order to a society of motion, of change, sheds light on an important aspect of modernity: the decomposition of all ‘personas’ on the human theater, whether it is the Self, the Law or the Will of the Prince – individual or collective. It also brings about a comprehension of the force of the conflicting movements trying to bring about again a community spirit in a society reduced to its changes.”[12]

The road bumps and hick-ups on the trajectory which History is. And yet, along the way, “a modification of human behavior towards civilization”, as recalled in the words of Norbert Elias. Neither pre-determination – desperate – nor chaos – hopeless? “There would be no history as we know it, no religion, no metaphysics, politics nor aesthetics, as we have experienced them, without an initial act of confidence, more fundamental, more axiomatic, by far, than any ‘social contract’, any alliance with the postulate of the divine. This inauguration of confidence, this entry of man into the city of man, is operated between the word and the world. It is only in light of this confidence that a history of sense can exist which is an exact counterpart to the sense of history.”[13]

Citizen Drivers Have No Reverse

Between “the word and the world”, between confidence (self-confidence, trust?) and making society, there is the rule of Law if the rule of power or force is to be tamed. “Concretely, it is the duty of politics to put power under the measure of the law and to thus organize the sensible use of power (…). Doubt against the law, riot against the law will always break out when the law itself no longer appears to be the expression of service to all established justice, but as a product of the whim, as a law to suit those who have the power to do so.”[14]

Citizens, if they are to be drivers of the movement in their society, will have to constantly get back to grips with their “what has been done” and their “what can we do with it”. No “reverse”. Retrospective not per se but in view of a prospective. ?Enlightening their choice to escape instrumentalization. “In a society which goes into its future backwards, contemplating itself in its past, for the same reason which will have it prefer the techno-scientific adventure and the short term of profitability plans to the long term of societal projects, the modernity of the individual subject is perhaps what prevents collectivity from turning into programmation of the individual.”[15]

The stance of the citizen requires confidence in the common law of his society. It also requires personal hope and individual conscience. A metaphysical opening and a “Roman” attitude.

“ Roman is, in this sense, whoever knows and feels that he is inserted between something like a ‘hellenism’ and something like a barbary. Being ‘Roman’ is having upstream of oneself a classicism to imitate, and downstream of oneself a ‘barbary’ to subject. Not as if one would be a neutral intermediary, a simple transmitter staying foreign to what he lets communicate. But knowing that one is oneself on the stage where it all happens, knowing that one is oneself stressed between a classicism to assimilate and an interior barbary. It means perceiving oneself as Greek in the face of what is barbarian, but equally as barbarian in the face of what is Greek. It means knowing that what one transmits is not received from oneself, that one hardly owns it, in a fragile and temporary manner.”[16]

Hope as a driving force. A fuel perhaps. The upwards of metaphysics translated into action. Remi Brague again: “Life must be a good. And not a “weak” goodness, pleasant, fun, cool, etc. But a good so strong that one could be certain that for those whom, without their will, we call into life, being born will in all hypotheses be worth more than not being born. And now that brings us right into metaphysics.”[17]

And hope as an active principle: “The function and content of hope are experienced without interruption and are activated and expanded without interruption in times when society is on an upward trend. It is only in times when society is on the decline, as is the case today in the West, that a certain partial and temporary intent runs downwards. Then, those who do not see for themselves an exit from the decline develop a fear of and an opposition to hope.”[18]

A good reason for hope is that precisely the “downward intent” can be only partial and temporary. Back to Norbert Elias for a hopeful conclusion: “We have seen that the transition from the clan and the tribe to the State as the main survival unit had caused the individual to detach himself from the pre-state groups with which he had so far been linked for life. The transition to the primacy of the State over the clan and the tribe has represented a surge of individualization. As we may see, the transition to humanity as the dominant unit will also be marked by a new surge of individualization. Man as an individual has rights of which even the State cannot deprive it.”[19] There is no “reverse”.

[1] A reading of this “generational” pace of opinions is proposed in a chapter of our latest book: https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/livre/9782376150145/des-pouvoirs-de-l-opinion

[2] Arendt, Hannah?: ??Thoughts on Politics and Revolution?? (1970) in?: Crises of the Republic, Harcourt Brace and Company, San Diego, 2017, p. 205

[3] Les Juifs de notre temps semblent ne pouvoir choisir qu’entre deux juda?smes?: celui d’Abraham, père de la nation, et celui de Josué, conquérant de la Terre. Attias, Jean-Christophe?: Mo?se fragile, Alma éditeur, Paris, 2015, p. 246

[4] Le règne, qui est décrit ici par le menu, avait ceci de remarquable que l’opinion publique était réglée jusqu’au détail par le gouvernement, avec cette parure, en plus?: ??Il est interdit d’écrire et de dire que ces opinions ne sont pas libres, et ne sont pas imposées au gouvernement par le sentiment unanime.?? L’idée d’un peuple libre est la plus agréable au tyran. Alain?: Le Roi Pot – chronique de l’autre règne (1916), Gallimard, Paris, 1959, p. 61

[5] Die Staatsform muss ein durchsichtiges Gewand sein, das sich dicht an den Leib des Volkes schmiegt. Jedes Schwellen der Adern, jedes Spannen der Muskeln, jedes zucken der Sehnen muss sich darin abdrücken. Die Gestalt mag nun sch?n oder h?sslich sein, sie hat einmal des Recht zu sein wie sie ist, wir sind nicht berechtigt ihr ein R?cklein nach Belieben zuzuschneiden. Büchner, Georg?: Dantons Tod (1835), Reclam, Stuttgart, 2014, p.7

[6] Une révolution purement politique se contiendrait dans les frontières d’une nation. Mais les droits de l’homme font de la révolution une exigence universelle (…). Fondée sur les droits de l’homme, la ??révolution de France?? ne peut pas rester une révolution ??fran?aise???: elle est une négation du droit des contextes locaux. Lacroix, Justine et Pranchère, Jean-Yves?: Le Procès des droits de l’homme, Seuil, Paris, 2016, p. 88

[7] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration

[8] C’est de la même fa?on que se produit au cours de l’Histoire, par une série d’impulsions et d’impulsions contraires, une modification du comportement humain dans le sens de la civilisation. Là encore, chaque étape intermédiaire a été déterminée par les désirs et les projets de différents individus ou groupes d’individus?; mais ce qui s’est institué jusqu’à ce jour par cette voie, nos normes de comportement et la structure de notre intériorité n’ont en aucun cas été projetées ni voulues par des individus isolés. C’est ainsi que se meut la société humaine dans son ensemble, ainsi que s’est accomplie et que s’accomplit encore l’évolution historique de l’humanité?: Née de multiples projets, mais sans projet, animée par de multiples finalités, mais sans finalité. Elias, Norbert?: La Société des individus, Ed. Pocket Agora, Paris, 2008, p. 107

[9] Rand, Ayn?: Atlas Shrugged (1957), Penguin Books, London, 2007, p. 1009

[10] De même qu'il y a des ruses de l'Histoire, on peut espérer que l'intérêt soit la ruse de la morale universelle, mais en ce cas, mieux vaudrait flanquer ouvertement l'hypothèse de son complément et inverse : la morale universelle comme détour de l'intérêt particulier. Debray, Régis : Le Moment fraternité, Gallimard, Paris, 2009, p. 206

[11] Ce n'est pas "le peuple" qui produit le soulèvement, c'est le soulèvement qui produit son peuple, en suscitant l'expérience et l'intelligence communes, le tissu humain et le langage de la vie réelle qui avait disparu. Comité invisible, A nos amis, La Fabrique éditions, Paris, 2014, p. 43

[12] Ce passage d’une société d’ordre à une société de mouvement, de changement, éclaire un aspect important de la modernité?: la décomposition de tous les ??personnages?? de la scène humaine, qu’il s’agisse du Moi, de la Loi ou de la volonté du Prince, individuelle ou collective. Il fait comprendre aussi la force des mouvements contraires qui tentent de réintroduire l’esprit de communauté dans une société réduite à ses changements. Touraine, Alain?: Critique de la modernité, Librairie Fayard, Paris, 1992, p. 302

[13] Il n’existerait pas d’histoire telle que nous la connaissons, pas de religion, pas de métaphysique, politique ou esthétique, telles que nous les avons vécues, n’était un acte de confiance initial, plus fondamental, plus axiomatique, et de loin, que tout ??contrat social??, que toute alliance avec le postulat du divin. Cette instauration de la confiance, cette entrée de l’homme dans la cité de l’homme, s’opère entre le mot et le monde. Ce n’est qu’à la lumière de cette confiance que peut exister une histoire du sens qui est, en contrepartie exacte, un sens de l’histoire. Steiner, George?: Réelles présences – Les arts du sens (1989), Gallimard Folio, Paris, 1991, p. 117

[14] Konkret ist es die Aufgabe der Politik, Macht unter das Mass des Rechtes zu stellen und so ihren sinnvollen Gebrauch zu ordnen.(…) Der Verdacht gegen das Recht, die Revolte gegen das Recht wird immer dann aufbrechen, wenn das Recht selbst nicht mehr als Ausdruck einer im Dienst aller stehenden Gerechtigkeit erscheint, sondern als Produkt von Willkür, als Rechtsanmassung derer, die die Macht dazu haben. Ratzinger, Joseph, in?:? Habermas, Jürgen, et Ratzinger, Joseph?: Dialektik der S?kularisierung, Herder, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 2005, p. 42

[15] Dans une société qui va à reculons vers son avenir, en se contemplant dans son passé, selon la même raison qui lui fait préférer l’aventure techno-scientifique et le court terme des plans de rentabilité plut?t que le long terme des projets de société, la modernité du sujet est peut-être ce qui empêche la collectivité de devenir la programmation de l’individu. Meschonnic, Henri?: Modernité modernité (1988), Gallimard Folio, Paris, 2005, p. 13

[16] Est ‘romain’, en ce sens, quiconque se sait et se sent pris entre quelque chose comme un ‘hellénisme’ et quelque chose comme une ‘barbarie’. être ‘romain’, c’est avoir en amont de soi un classicisme à imiter, et en aval de soi une barbarie à soumettre. Non pas comme si l’on était un intermédiaire neutre, un simple truchement lui-même étranger à ce qu’il fait communiquer. Mais en sachant que l’on est soi-même sur la scène sur laquelle tout se déroule, en se sachant soi-même tendu entre un classicisme à assimiler et une barbarie intérieure. C’est se percevoir comme grec par rapport à ce qui est barbare, mais tout aussi bien comme barbare par rapport à ce qui est grec. C’est savoir que ce que l’on transmet, on ne le tient pas de soi-même, et qu’on ne le possède qu’à peine, de fa?on fragile et provisoire. Brague, Rémi?: Europe, la voie romaine, Ed. Critérion, Paris, 1992, p. 40

[17] Il faut que la vie soit un bien. Et pas un bien ??faible??, agréable, rigolo, sympa, etc. Mais un bien si fort qu’on peut être s?r que, pour ceux que, bien malgré eux, nous appelons à la vie, na?tre vaudra en toute hypothèse mieux que ne pas na?tre. Et nous voici en pleine métaphysique. Brague, Rémi?: ??La métaphysique a-t-elle un avenir????, in?: Etudes n° 4116, Paris, décembre 2009, p. 629

[18] Funktion und Inhalt der Hoffnung werden unaufh?rlich erlebt, und sie werden in Zeiten aufsteigender Gesellschaft unaufh?rlich bet?tigt und ausgebreitet. Einzig in Zeiten einer nieder-gehenden Gesellschaft, wie der heutigen im Westen, l?uft eine gewisse partielle und verg?ngliche Intention nur abw?rts. Dann stellt sich bei denen, die aus dem Niedergang nicht herausfinden, Furcht vor die Hoffnung und gegen sie. Bloch, Ernst?: Das Prinzip Hoffnung, (1938-47), Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1959, p. 2

[19] Nous avons vu que le passage du clan et de la tribu à l’Etat en tant qu’unité principale de survie avait entra?né le détachement de l’individu des groupes préétatiques auxquels il était jusqu’alors lié à vie. Le passage au primat de l’Etat sur le clan et la tribu a représenté une poussée d’individualisation. Comme on peut le voir, le passage à l’humanité comme unité dominante sera aussi marqué par une nouvelle poussée d’individualisation. L’homme en tant qu’individu a des droits que même l’Etat ne peut lui refuser. Elias, Norbert?: ??Les Transformations de l’équilibre ‘nous-je’ ? (1987), in?: La Société des individus, Ed. Pocket Agora, Paris, 2008, p. 301

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