Summary
Dominique Pagani approaches worldliness as Michel Clouscard's own concept, which he regards as the keystone of his work, and he follows its two poles across a series of sessions in 2023. On one side, the world, made of the relations between people and distinct from the earth, is the condition of happiness, which requires duration and a positive relation to the world. He shows this with Voltaire's Le Mondain, Rousseau and Saint-Just1. On the other side, "the prince of this world" has lying as his essence. The "weight of the worldly" explains why the dominated remain imbued with the dominant ideology, and he refuses to give this a puritanical reading1. With Hegel, he argues that history extends to all the privileges of a few, and he defends the people's right to luxury2. He traces code and artifice from the précieuses to Les Liaisons dangereuses and on to Baudelaire's praise of make-up3. Finally, with Cheikh Hamidou Kane's L'Aventure ambiguë, he considers the clash of worlds, neither putting the world on trial nor offering an apology for it4.
- 1Worldliness in Clouscard, or “the dominant ideology”26 Apr 2023
- 2Worldliness in Clouscard, or privileges for all18 May 2023
- 3From the debauchery of sense to the orgy of sentiment29 May 2023
- 4Worldliness in Clouscard: the clash of worlds?9 Jul 2023
Introduction produced automatically from the 4 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.
The 4 videos
Cycle 11Worldliness in Clouscard: the clash of worlds?
9 Jul 2023How can we think the ambivalence of the world, between enjoyment and negativity, when two worlds collide, as in the colonial encounter between Africa and the school of the white men?
dominique bintouFrom the debauchery of sense to the orgy of sentiment
29 May 2023How does modernity shift the balance between pleasure and happiness, and what place do worldliness, code and artifice hold in it?
Cycle 11Worldliness in Clouscard, or privileges for all
18 May 2023Why does mondanité, in Clouscard, not reduce to "bling-bling", and what does the world become when the privileges of a few are extended to all?
Cycle 11Worldliness in Clouscard, or “the dominant ideology”
26 Apr 2023What does the world mean, and worldliness in Clouscard's sense, between the happiness of being in the world and the lie of the world that keeps the dominated under the ideology of the dominant?