English translation of the French transcript, made with AI and not yet proofread — click a paragraph to jump to it. Show the French original
Return after a silence and rise of the far right 0:00 For a reason that extends to this reservation. You're going to tell me it's not the first time I start with this reservation, you're going to tell me I say that every time, but listen, it has never been so true, that I am very, very happy to be with you again.
0:35 All the more so since, in response to the latest videos I made, quite simply more recently on Facebook posts on my page, on the association's page, I'll say, Philosophizing with Doumé. I see quite a few very kindly anxious questions asking me, I hope you're not ill, take care of your health. I am very, very touched by this concern, and when I say I'm happy to see you again, it's because you've missed me at least as much as I've missed you.
1:17 Let me allow myself to say that. So, I won't dwell on it, right? You can guess the main reasons for this rather long blank in my publications. There are, on the one hand, health problems, I mean. I'm going to turn 81 on February 6th next, sorry for the fascist dates, but I can't help it. And so I have normal warning signs, examinations that take a lot of time, tests that are often negative, so you have to start again.
1:55 If you see me in front of you, it's because it's not as serious as we imagined, well, for now, we're still waiting for a few results. In any case, what I feared most, the cardiovascular side, since I did have a heart attack about twelve years ago, seems to be excluded. There you go, if that can reassure some of you, that's already something. In any case, a thousand thanks for your loyalty despite my silence. And the second reason is that I was invited to do quite a lot of talks, lectures if you prefer, in the provinces, or even abroad, and I couldn't be in two places at once.
2:36 I won't dwell too much, you know I don't like talking too much about myself. So I'll get straight to what's surely on your minds, as I also notice when I look at the latest posts here and there, on the networks as they say, right? You're worried about what's becoming of the left in all this. Does it still exist? Yes, I ask the question rather bluntly, but for now you'll agree that the voices that are growing, the voices that are increasing, as we go from one election to the next, in our era, are mostly on the right, and indeed above all probably on the far right.
3:19 We're on the verge of having the National Front in government soon, it's staring us in the face. The future isn't decided, but the figures are there. When I think that the far-right, Le Pen-style vote was really at 2.5% when I was your age—I say "you" referring mostly to my audience, who are all ages, including people older than me too, thankfully, but the majority are roughly between 25 and 35.
3:51 So there's still this observation that the left is becoming smaller and smaller, shrinking like a peau de chagrin. I'm not going to get into the internal debate on the left—doesn't LFI contradict what I'm saying when I say the left is kaput? In any case, even LFI, for now, isn't 55% of the electorate. So I'm not being electoralist, that's not the point, but I am even less indifferent, mind you, to citizens' votes.
What is called fascism? Trivialization, identities, and war 4:30 Let's take the bull by the horns—there is indeed a danger of fascization. So, we're doing philosophy here. In principle, in our association, in the journey we're making together. And you know that in philosophy, the most important thing isn't to say "what is it," it's to say "what do we call it," what do you call it? That's the Socratic question par excellence, isn't it. What do we call fascism? Meaning, what should rightly be called fascism?
5:00 Let me give a counter-example. In '68, people would call a professor a fascist just because he had the nerve to teach from a platform that was 10 cm higher than the rest of the classroom—so he's a fascist. Right? I'm glad that kind of fascism is starting to fade away. But you see how necessary it is to ask again what we should truly call fascism, because the example I just gave has, more than a drawback—that's an understatement—it has the counter-revolutionary effect of trivializing the notion of fascism.
5:42 It's a teacher giving his class, an excellent class, technically excellent in his subject, and moreover it could happen, it was almost the majority case at one time, rather on the left, the teacher—I don't see why he should be called a fascist just because he ought to be in the middle of the classroom, surrounded by the students. You can already sense political correctness coming, the dictatorship of political correctness which, most of the time, of course, comes to us from across the Atlantic, as you know.
6:14 And in an extreme case, I heard about—I think it was a year ago, no? Maybe not quite. But this author, I'm not sure of my wording, but an African novelist or essayist, whose book had been translated into French by a French woman, and the French woman was verbally assassinated, by what right can a white woman translate a book written by a black woman? You see where this leads? And we're already not far from progressing toward what is truly fascism, because we already see the illusion of black and white identities emerging.
6:55 Blacks against whites, Corsicans against the French, Hutus against Tutsis, gays against straights, active lesbians against passive lesbians. No, I'm not exaggerating, I read things far more sophisticated than that, if I may say so. You see, in short, this whole left, which I don't consider to be left at all, because it's merely societal. I haven't said that societal issues don't matter.
7:27 I haven't said that homosexuals pose no problem at all. There are countries where they're killed. In Egypt, not so long ago, there were death sentences for homosexuality. Yes, I'm not going to pick some hyper-fundamentalist state. I was simply taking Egypt, led by a president who has actually driven the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood out of power that arose from the so-called Arab Spring. There you go.
7:58 I need to calm down. So yes, there are many dangers on the horizon. So I have nothing against the societal in itself. What I have a problem with is that it has taken the place of the social. But not at all—as Clémentine Autain would say—we can absolutely do both. When I talk about women, I don't forget about workers. Yes, but I observe that this is false. That statistically, right? When we fight a societal battle, gays against straights, or vice versa, I mean... On the right, it would rather be straights against gays.
8:29 But still, I observe that every time, we waste time not talking about the fact that there's a war at our doorstep. For a long time now, it's not just a risk of war. Nearly four years now. And that, even more seriously, thanks to that war, but also to what's happening in Venezuela, but also in Greenland, but also in Iran, with the arrival of the invincible armada, as they used to say about the American-Spanish situation, off the coast of Iran, there's also a danger of war.
9:02 But wait, it's not each of these wars taken separately. There's the danger of triggering a war. And here I quote Einstein, who said that if there is a third world war, the fourth will only be fought with stones. That's what's at our doorstep. Yes, yes, this won't be a war like any other, like the Vietnam War, or a schoolyard scuffle. No! This will be something unprecedented in the history of humanity, even counting prehistory.
9:36 And those who care about the planet—maybe they'll be pleased to know that humanity will disappear as a result of a generalized nuclear war, but not the planet, which really doesn't care, does it? I'm throwing a stone, not at ecology, but as you know, at ecologism, I won't repeat myself every time, precisely at those who give priority to problems that aren't the most threatening or the most urgent. There are those who are indifferent to the geopolitical whirlwind currently preparing fractures and tensions that are barely bearable, and who, on the other hand, absolutely want us to talk as a priority about frogs getting run over by cars on the roads.
10:21 I'm exaggerating a bit on purpose, but we need to wake up from time to time. You see? I still haven't defined fascism, but I'm trying to clear away the rubble that keeps us from reaching the vile statue of fascism, or the status with a T, or the statue with an E, whichever you prefer. So there is a danger.
10:54 Maybe the fact that I was born in 1945—it's really rare for me to talk about myself, but given the times we're living in, that must be what's driving it. I'm getting a bit worked up, but I was born in 1945, that is, the generation whose slogan was "never again." And now it's the "it" that's coming back. You see the question deserves to be asked, you're not the only ones—you at least have the huge merit of asking it, right? So, to approach a definition—it's a bit presumptuous, the word definition, look closely at it, it's written there, look, we never notice it, in the word "definition" there's the word "fin" (end).
Confusionism and the concept of totalitarianism 11:41 Yes or no? So we shouldn't start with the end. We'll attempt a definition once we've continued to make progress in analyzing the events that illustrate this return of fascism. I'm going to proceed in several stages. I'm going to talk first, not directly about fascism in order to end with an active definition, but I'm going to start by defining what is often labeled as fascism and is not fascism at all.
12:13 Right? The false trails of fascism. I'll start there. Let's save time. We no longer recognize, we no longer have the capacity to identify—this is a serious thing to say—true fascism, ever since, in order to muddy the waters, to confuse the issue, to multiply the expressions, to bring in confusionism.
12:47 I have nothing against confusion, I have plenty of it myself, in my head. Don't worry about that, like all of us. But it's not the same thing—confusionism is when someone deliberately introduces confusion. And I'll take the opportunity to quote Nietzsche. Well yes, I've criticized him often enough to allow myself to quote him positively for once. When he says somewhere—somewhere, excuse me, it's in Zarathustra—I am weary of all the poets, they trouble their waters, you see, confusionism, they trouble their waters so that they will appear deep.
13:20 End of quote. So, what is not fascism, but is labeled as fascism, and which distracts us from our anti-fascist fight? It's the vile concept of totalitarianism. As soon as the groupie of the most Nazi of philosophers—for those just joining us, let me remind you the groupie is Hannah Arendt and the most Nazi of philosophers is Heidegger.
13:50 Well, by what right? I haven't said he's THE most Nazi. There were Nazi philosophers appointed by Hitler to university positions as early as the 1930s, but that's already insignificant. I say the most Nazi among the great philosophers. Because what I hold against Heidegger above all is that he's not stupid, he knows the texts. And so, when he sows confusion and muddles things, he knows what he's doing.
14:20 He knows what he's doing. This concept draws a symmetry between communism and Nazism. That is, it puts on the same level those who had the most victims of Nazism—that's a bit rich, isn't it—the 25 million dead, some say 30 million, but everyone agrees it's at least 25 million dead if you combine civilians and soldiers of the Soviet Union.
14:53 The 25 million dead thanks to whom we are not under the Nazi boot in Europe. Not at all. What's Pagani saying? Well, it was the Americans who got rid of Nazism. Well, that's true too—yes, yes, that's clear. They landed. They did well. I'm glad they landed, because for years the Soviet governments had been asking them to intervene to relieve them of the horrible carnage that Nazism was inflicting, first and foremost, on the Slavic "subhumans." I... Look at the documents of the time, the press of the time, the German press.
15:26 That's how they talked about Slavs. Slavs. Slaves. Fine. So this concept puts on the same level those who liberated us from Nazism and Nazism itself... Listen, but that's good news for fascism. I understand that fascism is doing better now than when I was 20, when Le Pen was polling between 1 and 3%. The father, Le Pen. The one who talked about Durafour, who was a minister under Giscard, and added "Durafour crématoire" (crematory oven).
16:00 That was his idea of humor. How did he go from 3% to between 35 and 40%, soon? Well listen, this concept of totalitarianism—no one tells you this—is one of the main causes. I'm apparently not being Marxist here. I hope some of you are thinking, Pagani isn't a Marxist. He's saying that it's ideas that cause what happens in history. No, no, that's clear and I agree.
16:30 But as for me, I fight on the segment of the front where I'm mobilized. As a philosopher, that's the ideological front. I'm not on the military front, touch wood. I'm not on the economic front, I'm not some big Wall Street speculator. I'm on the front of the ideological battle. And in that battle, the notion of totalitarianism—and I agree with those who suspect me of not being a Marxist on this point—I agree that if I stopped there, I would be giving too much importance to ideas.
17:11 Except it's true that this change happens all at once. Whereas De Gaulle, Mauriac—De Gaulle never claimed to be a man of the left, he was a man of the right. But this man of the right never spoke of communism by saying it was like the Nazis; they were comrades in the fight for him. Objectively speaking, I mean. I'm not saying he got teary-eyed every evening over the martyrdom of communist resistance fighters. No, but what's important, and what we can clearly see now, is that what changed were indeed economic and social transformations that meant that from around the early 1970s onward—see, I don't really like exact calculations.
17:57 When we say the 17th century, everyone says it runs from 1600 to 1700—no, that's too abstract. It runs from 1610, the death of Henry IV, the last Renaissance king, to 1715, the death of Louis XIV, the longest reign in French history. There, it starts to become a bit more concrete. And likewise, the 19th century, I don't start it in 1800, sorry, but in 1789.
18:30 It's a real break with what came before, isn't it, the French Revolution, which I'll talk about afterward because we cannot approach the truth of fascism without seeing one of the constants of true fascism—the real one, not Hannah Arendt's—which isn't content with simply being totalitarian. I'll come back to this notion of totality later. But I'll say that its constant feature is being hostile to everything that comes from the French Revolution.
Hegel, Marx, and the French Revolution 19:00 And on this note, I need to read you an excerpt. Sorry, I'm going to leave the frame for a moment to read you an excerpt. Oh, they can't hear me there. Sorry. I was talking about a distinctive trait. Here's a first one. I haven't defined it yet because there are other attributes of true fascism. But for now, one that is fundamental and constant is hostility to the French Revolution.
19:30 So, you see, I'm going to read you an excerpt from a German Romantic author who is contemporary with the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution, right? So, roughly a contemporary of Hegel. Except that Hegel says, in an admirable passage, that what makes the difference between the French Revolution and all the others is—it's very powerful what Hegel does there, he really grasps what's specific about the French Revolution.
20:01 He says it wasn't content with abolishing privileges, with setting the clocks right so to speak more colloquially, and with removing social distortions and gaps that had become unbearable. Of course, that's all part of the French Revolution, but it's not the most important thing. The most important thing, he says, is that the French rid themselves of the fear of death. That's very Hegelian—they went headlong into danger. And he will say later that the Germans are profound, more profound than the French in the theoretical domain.
20:39 We Germans, we are profound. We think what the French did with their Revolution. But they actually do it, which the Germans don't do. That's what he admired about the French. And Hegel said, to illustrate, the French have a hot head, quick to anger—meaning they get angry easily, you shouldn't push them too far. And that's what he envied. And that didn't fall on the deaf ears of Marx, I assure you. Because that's exactly what Marx admired about the French.
21:09 He said clearly—if there was such a thing as Marxism, it was a confluence of three traditions. English political economy—this is Marx speaking. English political economy, French political action, the century of revolutions, the 19th, 1789, 1830, 1848, the Commune, it never stops. And finally, the German theoretical tradition. It's at the crossroads of all that. So this constant of being against the revolution, I'll read it to you from an excellent author, from a literary, poetic point of view as they say, but reactionary, named Achim von Arnim.
Reading of Achim von Arnim's Die Majoratsherren (The Heirs of the Entail) 21:55 So, once again, let's say, late 18th century, the last years, 1795, and this text was published in 1805. I'll give you the reference, he wrote short stories, the title of this one is The Heirs of the Majorat. Majorat is a legal title, I won't dwell on that. I won't tell you the story or the plot. No, I'll just read you the beginning, the very beginning. And I'm going to ask my comrade Paul here to please hand me my glasses.
22:25 Yes, that's fine, thank you. There we go. I promise I'll stay seated now. So, leafing through an old almanac the other day, we see parading before our eyes the mad images of that era reflected in these engravings. It was very popular, almanacs, the calendars of the time with sections, articles. Already, so far behind us now, that era resembles a fable. What rich fullness the world once knew!
22:57 He's talking about a world that is rich, a fullness, that had value. What rich fullness did the world not know before this general revolution to which France gave its name and which overturned everything? I couldn't be clearer. For him, then, everything that ruined it all is the French Revolution. As for the wars of religion, the massacres... Let me just give you a small example. Genghis Khan, you know, one of the greatest conquerors of all time, at least in terms of territory—no conqueror ever built an empire as vast as that of Genghis Khan across the Eurasian steppes.
23:38 There. Well, when they conquered a city whose name escapes me, but I'll give you the source in a note at the bottom of the video, the city had the misfortune of resisting his army a little, and to take revenge, he told each of his soldiers to slash, to slaughter. Each one had to slaughter 400 inhabitants of that city. Children, old people, all of it, who cares. No, but apart from that, it was the good old days.
24:08 Well, so, what rich fullness the world knew before that general revolution to which France gave its name and which overturned everything. How poverty has spread. But we hear that all the time now. Uniform and equal. It's said that the modern world, industry, all that, everything that came out of the revolution, has all become uniform. How does Rimbaud put it in a poem? "Everywhere the same bourgeois magic wherever the mail-coach sets us down."
24:39 You see? It's as if centuries separated us, as if centuries, sorry, separated us from those times which we can hardly remember were the ones our youth knew. So it's quite recent. I'm telling you, it's from 1805, not very long after the French Revolution. Well. The sublime spiritual clarity of bygone days can be glimpsed, easy to gauge, above all in its shadow silhouettes which the artist's eye — he's talking about an engraver — captured and drew upon the earth.
25:16 What nuances, what diversity in that vanished world, granted, and not only on the surface. Everyone formed — note the imperfect tense, for the long duration — everyone formed, in their outward appearance as much as in their costume... go talk about outward appearance and costumes to the peasants, to the majority of peasants who toiled away in the period he's talking about, right? I wonder how many of them had a costume, out of all that. Everyone formed, in their outward appearance as much as in their costume, a world unto themselves, a personal world, and everyone settled on earth as if for eternity.
25:50 If you look closely, these are things you hear all the time nowadays in reactionary circles, right? That things were still better before. Everyone was well provided for. That's the best part. Provided for — meaning everyone had wealth. Or rather, had what they needed. Because when you have everything you need materially, what's left? Well, boredom still threatens. Ah, but no, you'll see. And so magicians were welcomed with joy, conjurers, visionaries of all kinds.
26:25 You see, all the irrationality suddenly appears? Secret societies and mysterious adventurers, miracle doctors — you see, in short, charlatans, miracle doctors and prophetic illnesses. Imagine if, when a loved one of yours is suffering from cancer, you called it a prophetic illness — that means people aren't paying much attention to it after all. Capable of casting a glance out of this hermetically sealed cavity of the heart, and of providing some nourishment for eternal human longing.
Conservatives and reactionaries: the Restoration 27:00 A magnificent text, but then, then, he really lays it on thick politically. So I'll skip some passages from this novella which features — you'll see why I'm going to read a second excerpt that will bring us closer to the problem of fascism. For now it's not obvious. We see a reactionary, but not a fascist. Right? Someone nostalgic for the Ancien Régime. Although — here I'm working through the concepts a bit, that's the point of tonight, isn't it? Our subject tonight.
27:33 There are conservatives on the right and there are reactionaries. Conservatives aren't the most dangerous. They're people attached to certain values, given their background and all that. Why not, right? But reactionaries — they're conservative, but with one further determination that conservatives don't necessarily have, namely that they were afraid. And so they became vicious. Right? Like those who fled France at the time of the Revolution, those who had the means to flee to England, aristocrats especially, right?
28:09 Or into the Holy Roman Empire. Before Napoleon went to hunt them down there too. I'm thinking of Pozzo di Borgo, his fellow countryman, who was an advisor to the Tsar of Russia. But, quite seriously, those émigrés, when they came back to power at the Restoration. At the Restoration. Under Louis XVIII, for example, the first return of a king after the Revolution, after the collapse of the Napoleonic adventure, after Waterloo, if you prefer.
28:45 Never forget that it's been since Waterloo that the world has been run by the Anglo-Saxons. Now, I'm not stating an opinion here. It's a fact anyone can measure. Don't think the British Empire was nothing compared to what the Americans are now. I would even say the British Empire is the greatest planetary political mastery ever seen. Even the Americans haven't gone that far, geographically speaking. So let me take this opportunity to say — you understand what it means to have been afraid.
29:16 The émigrés, when they came back to power, never forgot that they had been afraid. They became not merely conservative but reactionary — vicious. They react, you see the importance of words, they react against revolutionary advances. That's very different, isn't it? And I say this to help you understand a formula that historians know well. It's been said of them that they were the ones who had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
29:50 They learned nothing, they still understood nothing about why the Ancien Régime had had its day and why freedom nonetheless had to find its way forward. But above all, they learned nothing and forgot nothing — but they didn't forget that they had been afraid. And well before NATO, on the ruins of the Napoleonic Empire, those who ran Europe after Napoleon, in short, after that great intermission running from the taking of the Bastille in '89 to Waterloo in 1815 — what comes immediately after is what's called in history the Restoration, as it happens, right?
30:34 As we say of a building, right? It's the Restoration. We see serious things happening now too. Now, politically, what was it? It was Austria that ran Europe on the continent, Metternich, who was Austria's political boss to put it quickly, with England's money. And yes, you recognize the pattern — now it's with CIA or US money, right, which has taken over from England. When I tell you that since Waterloo the planet has been run by Anglo-Saxons, I'm actually understating the truth, because I'm going fast, I won't elaborate further.
Antisemitism, hatred of the state, and anticommunism 31:15 There. So, we've seen the first determining feature that defines fascism — we saw it in that passage I read you — hatred, right, of the French Revolution. But, the hero, let's just say it that way, takes possession of an apartment that comes to him as the heir to the entailed estate, he has an inheritance, and it turns out his apartment has windows overlooking — he's a decadent romantic who plays the flute like that, somewhat indifferent to everything — but across the way begins the Jewish quarter, the ghetto.
31:53 We're in 1805, no mistake about it, we're not in the 1930s of the 20th century, 1805. And there, you suddenly see the way he talks about the Jewish ghetto — but it's just like a fascist from Marseille today talking about the Arab neighborhoods. Well, well, how strange, isn't it? There, I won't read it to you, it would hold us up, but I recommend the novellas, on Wikisource. "Die Majoratsherren" [The Heirs of the Entail], by Achim von Arnim.
32:26 Achim, spelled A-C-H-I-M, von — that's "of" in German — Arnim, A-R-N-I-M. There. First determining feature, anti-revolution. And that's not all. There's also the hatred of the State. Oh, no, no, come on, us good Paganists, that can't be, after all, Nazism is the exact opposite, it's the all-powerful State. Oh no, listen, look at the greatest specialist, in the French language, so you can listen to his lectures.
33:00 It's not me saying he's the greatest specialist, I mean, nobody knows the Nazi archives better. He worked for years and years, and sometimes you have to fight to consult certain archives, you know, it's not easy, especially with this kind of material. I'm thinking of course of Johann Chapoutot. I've already used him for other things, other videos, he's not from my camp, he's not a communist, but he does have the merit of knowing the texts of the Nazi era thoroughly.
33:33 You only need to know a hundredth of those texts to drop the notion of totalitarianism that would suggest a complicity between communism and Nazism. "But yes, yes, look at the proof, the German-Soviet pact." Ah yes, yes, yes, but that one gets trotted out all the time, doesn't it? By the way, what date was the German-Soviet pact? Ah, 1939 — well, well, so it's after? After what? After Munich! The Soviets weren't there at Munich. But Mr. Chamberlain, the most important Westerner at that moment, at Munich — well, I don't know what to say, the French were just following whatever the English were doing at the time, I tell you, since Waterloo, that's the rule — Chamberlain, coming back to London, surrounded like that by the euphoria of the people, who said he had saved peace by granting Hitler pretty much everything, starting with Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain said that wonderful line, "Mr. Hitler is a gentleman."
34:30 So I'm restoring the historical sequence — you can check this, don't just take my word for it, it's such well-known stuff — type "Mr. Hitler is a gentleman" Chamberlain into Google, you'll find much worse than anything I'm telling you, right? So, second determining feature, anticommunism. You don't need to be very sharp to see there's a link between anti-French-Revolution sentiment and anticommunism, because after all, in the French Revolution there is, among other things, not just liberty — and when we speak of liberty in connection with the French Revolution, it's not the "free world" in the American sense, the one that caused 3 million deaths in Vietnam, 3 million deaths in Korea — that's already 6 million, mind you — and it keeps going, I'm not even talking about the permanent bloodbath maintained by Uncle Sam — not the American people, there are Americans who oppose this, not enough, but there are some.
The West, an occulting concept, and Atlanticist decline 35:26 No, no, I'm talking about the Atlanticists, right? And let me close a parenthesis I often open, but here it's relevant, you understand why I avoid it when I can, except when I'm in a hurry, to make myself understood — the word "Western," "the West," which we encounter all the time right now: Saddam Hussein defies the West, Iran defies the West, China, right, competes with the West. Let me quickly recall, since I've already done this a hundred times, so those of you loyal to my ramblings must be getting sick of it, but still, for the newcomers, and I'm glad to see there still are some — what does "the West" mean?
36:08 Literally, it means "the west" — right or wrong? So where is the west? You know very well, since the Earth is round, you pull up your chair and you're in the west, I mean, like the Little Prince on his planet — well, is Poland in the East or the West? Is it east of Germany or west of Russia? What do you want me to say? These words mean nothing. There's a name for this in philosophy — they're called occulting concepts. Meaning concepts that aren't meant to show us something, like the concept of books, pianos, computers, cats — because my cat sometimes disturbs the broadcast a bit by wandering into frame.
36:46 Those are positive concepts that show things that exist. That's not the case with "the West." It's a concept that doesn't show but conceals. An occulting concept. They're made not to say things. "Come on, stop splitting hairs, you know very well that when we say the West, it doesn't just mean geographic west, it also means the European countries." Oh really? Well, how about that, but I thought the boss of the West was the United States of America, not Europe. Oh dear, that doesn't work either. You see, I'm doing my Socrates thing here.
37:16 I start from a definition my interlocutor gave me and I find the contradictions. Do you accept them or not? Ah yes, so we can no longer accept that the West means only Europe. Fine, let's stop splitting hairs. These philosophers are impossible. Actually it means the industrialized countries, the developed countries, not the ridiculous countries that survive thanks to the World Bank and the IMF, or rather, in my view, that are withering away thanks to the World Bank and IMF.
37:46 But that's another matter. You know very well it means the industrialized countries. Ah, so we're wrong to place Japan in the Far East geographically. Japan is in the West. There, you see, none of this holds together. So let's now name what this concept is hiding, and in doing so we're doing revolutionary work. It's Atlanticist imperialism. There have been forms of imperialism since Antiquity. I'm talking about the one that has dominated the world since Waterloo, and which is now starting to falter. That's the present situation.
38:19 But it's so complicated that I'll start by... I'll continue tracing the whole genesis that has led to this decline you're witnessing, which means that, in the wake of the extremely serious riots that took place in Iran — extremely deadly ones. You'll notice that for now, I'm not condemning anyone. I'm noting that it was extremely deadly. I'm noting that Trump issued an ultimatum.
38:50 I even recall one of his posts where he addresses the Iranian people saying, don't worry, help is coming, it's on its way. So people thought that the very next day there would already be bombing of Iran, like during the famous 12-day war, or 14-day war, I don't remember exactly, where they quickly stopped because they saw that Iran isn't Iraq. It has missiles that punched holes through Israel's famous Iron Dome, that did damage, which was barely covered in the media, but the entire Mossad headquarters was blown up, for instance.
39:23 And then, as it happens, the war quickly stopped. And even now, you see, the aircraft carrier has arrived, it's off the coast, but I mean, it's taking its time getting involved, because the Russians and Chinese — those bastards, I'm talking like I'm from the CIA — they convinced the Iranians to put submarines on alert, and with the missiles the Russians now have, the Oreshnik and so on, right, which are absolutely impossible to stop with defenses like Patriot and all that — and yet those are the most sophisticated ones we have in the West.
40:04 With one missile, you take down an aircraft carrier, and with 20 missiles, you wipe out the carrier's entire fleet. There's a military decline, there's an economic decline, the American debt has become abysmal — and to think we're made to feel guilty in France over a very large debt, but one far smaller than that of the United States or Japan. Now, it's true that the Japanese are the holders of their own debt, the creditors are Japanese, whereas for us, France's creditors, unfortunately, are quite far from the Hexagon.
40:37 They're more on the other side of the Atlantic, most of the time. You see, we set things straight when we resurrect a historical sequence that's been passed over in silence. By not talking about it, we end up forgetting it. So it's the moment, isn't it — I had made a whole series of videos on the theme of the alternation between amnesia and anamnesis, the opposite of amnesia, the fact that memory suddenly comes back, right?
41:13 And that's going to be very important for talking about fascism again — the fact of not having too much memory. So: hostility to the French Revolution, first attribute of fascism; second, anticommunism. But still, the German-Soviet pact — yes, it's a pact. It means the Soviets told Hitler: listen, buddy, if you want to go to war, that's your business, but don't start with us. The Soviets were in the middle of a five-year plan, reconstruction, moving from being a country backward compared to the rest of Western Europe, economically, even though there were already very powerful factories, Leningrad in particular.
42:00 This is not the time to go to war. War is a catastrophe for those who are building. That's why the Chinese aren't eager for war. I say this because right now there's Russophobia, Sinophobia, but that's serious, isn't it. It's serious. I was already ten years old when people were already talking about the yellow peril. The yellow peril, back when poor China was made up of peasants trampling human manure into the rice paddies with their feet. But no, no, no.
42:30 No, some people even say — I've seen videos — "these aren't even Chinese people saying this." I saw an American who says, "I feel ashamed when I come back to America after a stay in China. I feel like I'm returning to a backward country." Now they're in 2050, the Chinese cities. That doesn't mean I approve of everything going on in China. But when you make comparisons, there's no contest. So wait, wait, wait. I'm saying, wait, this returning fascism, all that, is this our era? No, it's not our era. That's from the past.
43:00 It's our place. It's the little Western world. Fortunately there are reasons for hope, called the BRICS. And China first of all. See how things get introduced. And as it happens, everyone knows that Trump wouldn't mind, sure, getting rid of Russia — no wait, his real enemy is China. He's not stupid. He has advisors. He knows very well that time is working for the opposing camp. And I can hardly imagine capital saying, "Listen guys, you're the best," to the Chinese.
Antifascism, peace, and economic crisis 43:33 "Here, take the keys to the Empire. Try to do better than us." No, that's not how it's going to go. It won't happen without damage. And so we find that the antifascism I'm trying to mobilize you for — even more than you already are, for almost all of those listening to me — must go hand in hand with a firm commitment to peace. I'm furious to see that on France 24, a state television channel — it's not some small private channel doing propaganda for whatever cause.
44:11 No, a state television channel funded by your taxes. By our taxes. There's a little recap of recent years' news. You see, flashing by quickly, the way it's done in communications, with the camera scrolling before the big 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. news bulletin begins. And the last of these spots, quickly, is someone saying, "Yes, you know, there were a lot of people hostile to war in the 1930s, right?
44:48 And that served Hitler. If you're a pacifist, you're for Hitler. That's what we're being told now. You're for Putin, it's the same thing. That's exactly what the totalitarianism thesis says — that it's the same thing. Yesterday it was that communism and Nazism were the same. Now even Putin's Russia. Putin is an anticommunist. You see, when you restore the historical sequences, a lot of lies completely lose their force. Russophobia and Sinophobia are serious matters.
45:21 Because we're attacking those who are building, right now. Those who are destroying — look at what's happening in Minneapolis. You see a guy coming out of a hotel with the wrong skin color. They ask for his papers, and if he's undocumented, they take him away. And if people protest in the street, they get killed. I'm not making anything up. This is the most immediate current news. And that's just what's happening inside the United States.
45:51 This is the first time — I've long expected this myself, but it's the first time I've heard it said that it's not impossible that, in this country whose specialty is, after all, civil war, which had the deadliest civil war of any Western country — yes or no? The second half of the 19th century. With the Northerners and Southerners, you know American cinema, full of things like that. Generally giving the better role to the Southerners, because there's a sentimentality — well, we were defeated, but at least we know how to live a bit better than those Northern folks who are just bureaucrats or industrialists.
46:24 In short, it produces masterpieces — you can be reactionary and produce masterpieces, like Gone with the Wind, which glorifies the Southerners, right? No. There's talk again of the possibility of civil war. In any case, America has never been this divided. Agreed? And there's talk of arming the city of Minneapolis, the city hall, which is hostile to Trump. So there will be weapons on both sides. It'll get a bit ugly, won't it.
46:54 But I'm talking to you about carnage. Beyond that, there's still the bombing, the flattening, the ruining and the killing in Gaza above all, amid near-indifference, or at least, powerlessness. Even those who talk about it, to say "oh dear, there have been deaths, that's not good, that's wicked" — yes, but I mean, they never say a single word against the one thing that would immediately stop this massacre: if the Americans stopped supplying weapons to Israel.
47:30 I dare anyone here to say that this is Pagani's subjective opinion at the corner café. No! I mean, it's... What a lovely era, giving weapons to a far-right government in Israel and to neo-Nazis in Ukraine. You see, fascism is serious. So, you see, anti-French Revolution, anti-Jacobinism, anti-centralization, regionalism's fellow travelers, you know, the Corsicans - I sound like I'm speaking for myself, I don't live in Corsica, and that's also one of the reasons, it's that, while it's...
48:16 as everyone knows, one of the most beautiful countries in the world, that's a truism, that's what all those who've traveled the world ten times over say anyway, but Corsica has often been subjugated, dominated by foreigners, by the Pisans, by the Carthaginians, by the Romans, by the Greeks, by the French - and the French, much more recently and for much longer - by the English, at one point, the short-lived Anglo-Corsican Republic. But now they write on the walls 'French out,' and underneath, 'Arabs out.'
48:49 You see, there's no social class in that, 'the French,' as if it were self-evident - what a native-born Frenchman is, you're lucky, I don't know. My four grandparents are Corsican, I was born in Vietnam, but I grew up in Africa, I don't really know what a native-born Frenchman means. And I believe we are better off - well, better, a bit better, or let's say less ignorant, to be more modest - about French literature and everything that makes France's greatness, a bit better than the average of those who watch the most widespread media channels.
49:28 To use a labored paraphrase. There. So, fascism first took hold in Italy, then in Germany, at the time of the greatest economic crisis - let's go back to Marx, shall we? The so-called crisis of '29, which began in 1929, but the crisis of the 1930s, right? Up to 20 million unemployed in the United States, I don't know if you realize. Okay. There's a sequence, in which Chaplin film is it, that's extraordinary?
50:00 Yes, it's City Lights, that's it - my favorite, by the way - where he sees a truck go by, you know, behind trucks sometimes there's a little red flag to warn that a beam sticks out a bit from the truck. And it falls. So he picks it up kindly and runs after the truck with the red flag in his hand. And the police think, think he's a communist, right?
50:50 He's arrested, he's thrown in prison. Well. Better to laugh about it, but it's not really funny. Yes. Fascism in Italy, then in Germany, took power thanks to the greatest economic crisis.
51:22 Now, what's happening right now? The most severe economic crisis the West has had since - explicitly since, though it was brewing before - the so-called subprime crisis. And since then, it hasn't recovered. Since then, American debt has multiplied by 10. That's not over a few years. The dollar is collapsing. Isn't that so? And above all, many powers are currently trying to get rid of the dollar, which is unprecedented. There's the order imposed by - I said Anglo-Saxon, but really by the Pentagon after the war - which the Bretton Woods agreements sum up fairly well.
52:02 It's this world that is starting to be invaded by a multitude of cracks that threaten it. I didn't say that's it, we're going to get rid of it. I don't want to repeat myself, 'Here, here's the key, you're better than us.' No! I mean, a wounded tiger is far more dangerous than a healthy tiger that has as many gazelles as it wants to feed on and doesn't have a thorn in its paw preventing it from chasing them. There you go.
National revolution, sovereignism, and French identity 52:33 I'll stop there for this first technical rundown on fascism, but not to stop talking about it. Rather, to talk about it from another angle now, which is the notion of revolution. Because there too, you know, if all those who call themselves Marxists were actually Marxists, that wouldn't be bad. If all those who call themselves revolutionaries were actually revolutionaries, that wouldn't be bad either. But let me remind you that in the 1930s, in Germany, the Nazis spoke of their movement as the national revolution.
53:07 Ah, that's not proletarian internationalism, that smells of communists. I say that because today we see a whole segment of the right becoming national again against what it calls globalization. Right? Personally, I have nothing against the French nation. That's not it. No, no, but nationalist isn't the same as patriotic, for instance. Let me explain. We're going to clarify some serious things here.
53:40 The debate now takes place between those who are, what do you call them, sovereignists. I'm for sovereignty, don't worry, I've talked enough about Rousseau who founded the modern concept of sovereignty. But sovereignism is something else than sovereignty. It's defending the nation tooth and nail against what? Against the rest of the world. Globalization. No. I'm for the rest of the world. I'm for proletarian internationalism, as we used to say not so long ago, though it's been a while since anyone says that anymore, against bourgeois cosmopolitanism.
54:15 Take, for instance, a big Dutch boss and a big Japanese boss - there are differences in skin color, I'll grant you that, but it's trivial. They live the same life, they share the same references, they watch the same films, roughly speaking. But between each of them and their respective workers, there are worlds apart. That's where we see that as soon as we neglect the notion of social class, we serve the enemy, we serve the illusion of identities.
54:49 There you go. So, the French Revolution began by tearing down identities. And yes, the Savoyard, you know, the regions, the Corsican, the Breton - but I have nothing against those people. I'm against Bretonism, Corsicanism, that's not... The French Revolution created départements. But yes, Seine-et-Marne, Finistère, that's a bit more universal, isn't it, and less identitarian than Breton-ness or being a native-born Frenchman.
55:27 It's not impossible that the original French population was black. Yes, yes, I know that scandalizes some people, but really, when you look at current prehistoric research, it's not out of the question. A lot has happened since Neanderthal, you know, before calling yourself a Frenchman of origin, after all. My ex-wife, who's German and ten years older than me, told me she'd been investigated, back in the Nazi era, when she was a kid, to determine whether she was Aryan going back so many generations. It came out fine apparently, it seems she was Aryan back that many generations.
55:57 How can anyone be sure of that? How can we know if the grandfather didn't, in a barn, on a farm, with a maid who might have been Jewish? You see? How can we know? So, from Neanderthal down to us, calling yourself a native-born Frenchman - I don't know where the root is. As for me, it's been so long, I can't see it anymore. I'm not saying there's no French identity. But it isn't, you see, given just like that, independent of everyone's actions. It is forged over time through historical events, French identity.
56:29 Historians roughly agree that it starts to appear timidly, but rather noticeably, from the end of the Hundred Years' War, when all the regions of France, right, united against the common enemy, which was to drive the English out of France. Right? For example, it's late, and even for centuries after the end of the Hundred Years' War, people kept speaking Picard here, in Corsica people still speak Corsican, it's one of the rare regions, like Alsace, where the inhabitants still fluently speak the regional language.
57:08 And what did the most to make these regional languages disappear was television. It wasn't a Jacobin authority that told them 'I forbid you' - well, in certain regions, yes, but it was Corsican schoolteachers who prevented young Corsican schoolchildren from speaking Corsican. It wasn't an order coming from Paris, it's because social advancement could only happen if you gained access to French. Even in Africa now, in Abidjan, someone who is literate, they say, 'he knows paper, he knows paper,' well then he'll get a job somewhere, a bit at the post office, something modest.
Revolution, revolt, reform 57:43 But there you go, when a place is divided into 80 languages, especially in forested Africa, where languages proliferate as soon as there's forest, a factor of isolation and separation, whereas, for example, throughout Algeria, everyone understands Arabic, whether Kabyle or not. Well, there you go. I'd like to stop there for today, that is, on the notion of revolution - just, let me extend it, to propose three concepts that we often tend to make neighbors, or even sometimes identify: revolution, revolt, reform.
58:22 Already, reform - I won't talk about it because it almost makes me want to throw up. For almost 40 years we've been saying the word reform, we're going to make a new reform, it's to carry out a counter-revolution, it's to destroy, it's to decide that a whole list of medications will no longer be reimbursed - those are reforms that improve our budget, right, but that kill off, right, those who can't afford to buy the medications. I remember the mother of a friend who was English, very anti-French, she was an admiral's daughter, she has her reasons, I'm not saying she's right, she has her reasons, but who, whenever she was sick, came to France to get treated.
59:01 Back when the French social protection system was a little less demolished than now - some are still working hard to demolish what's left of it, don't forget. You see, that's what it's all about. When people say reform, I avoid talking about it because it brings back very bad memories. But now, at present, under the aggressive neoliberal capitalist regime in which we live, we must understand clearly that when we talk about reform, it means a counter-revolution is being prepared.
59:34 I didn't invent that. Actually, sorry, for once I'm not reading it, I don't often find it in my sources or my research. I allow myself to say it. So don't take my word for it, you know, I hate gurus. Check it, check it. The great reforms that were discussed over the previous five-year presidential terms - well, they can present themselves as left or right, Sarkozy, Hollande, I mean, but it's exactly the same economic and social program. That's why, as Marx says, to know who is left or right, it's not enough to ask, 'And you, what are you?'
1:00:06 'I'm on the left.' No. I'm quoting here the famous 1859 preface, a phrase that isn't repeated often enough. Just as we don't judge an individual by the idea he has of himself, we don't judge an era by its self-consciousness. Come on, let's speak plainly. What does it mean to judge an individual by the idea he has of himself? That would be too easy. Can you imagine the trials? How much simpler it would be. They'd say, 'Defendant, rise!' 'What do you think of yourself?' 'I'm innocent, Your Honor.' So, acquitted. Yes, if we judged people by the idea they have of themselves.
1:00:36 That's quickly settled. There you go. So, as for revolt, it's the movement that libertarians prefer, you know. Now there were revolts well before the French Revolution. That's why some have a soft spot for revolt. It's that revolt, most of the time, is crushed in blood. Most of the time, under the Ancien Régime it was peasant revolts, what in France are called the Jacqueries, and which took on - in Germany, sorry - which took on in Germany gigantic proportions.
1:01:14 Take a look at Wikipedia, since we don't have anything better. Even if there are stunning aspects to Wikipedia, but let's move on. Look, for most of you anyway who have access, look up Germany, Peasants' War. You won't believe it. That's mainly in the 16th century, roughly. The carnage it caused. You understand why some people are fond of revolt, because often it isn't politically sanctioned.
1:01:45 It's crushed in blood and the power becomes more reactionary than ever. So, revolt has a certain appeal, provided it doesn't stay at the mere stage of revolt, negative, but goes all the way to revolution. And what makes the difference - allow me to quote Lenin - without revolutionary theory, no revolutionary practice. And suddenly we see, to show the fruitfulness of this phrase, that if there was the French Revolution, it's because there was a great theoretical detour for a century before that revolution, called, as it happens, the Age of Enlightenment, or also the century of philosophers, the century of theory.
1:02:29 Well yes, I know full well that anti-intellectualism, right, being common on the right is no surprise, but that it reaches even people who claim to be Marxists, like those who speak of 'Western Marxism,' saying they waste time on cultural, artistic problems, all that, instead of talking about productive forces and relations of production. These are people who want to be more Marxist than Lenin, you see, or more Leninist than Lenin, which is even better, it's not even more...
1:02:59 I'd say comical if it weren't so dangerous, it's not... And yes, those who talk about 'Western Marxism' - soon it'll be racial, really. On this note I recommend an excellent article that Victor Sarkis, our young comrade, has just published on a blog I've already mentioned and on which we debated together at one point about the Hegel-Marx relationship. If you look closely, it's the famous blog called, easy to remember, 'The Big Red That Stains.'
1:03:30 At least it announces its colors. Blog - I pay tribute to two people, to Victor Sarkis who has just written an excellent article on the so-called notion of 'Western Marxism.' Keep the quotation marks well in mind, I don't know if those things deserve to be called Marxist. But a blog that was founded by Benjamin Lelouarn, whom I salute, and who was kind enough to invite me during my convalescence in Brittany for New Year's Eve.
1:04:00 There you go. Let's set aside the personal side of things. There you go. For now, I'm showing that those who hold grievances against the French Revolution, against Jacobinism, against the dictatorship of the center over the periphery - about New Year's Eve, I don't know, all that, we can sort it out. But beware of becoming accomplices of [attacks on] the French Revolution. The Third Reich abounds - read, listen to videos, for instance, or read the books, that's even better, by Chapoutot, right - with that critique, already common, of the centralization of the French Revolution, and even of the State - and yes, you jump when I tell you that Nazism was anti-State - well, Chapoutot has period documents, right, quotes where Hitler says, I quote, 'the State must be pulverized.'
1:04:49 There you go. I'll stop there for today, because those who listen to me know there's an important distinction between the State and the state apparatus. I'm so happy to have found you all again. I want to say a big thank you, a big thank you to Adrien who comes by bike - sorry, I say it every time, Adrien, but really, I don't know how to show how lucky I am, I'm not complaining - by bike, from Aubervilliers all the way to Cachan, the two most opposite points of the Île-de-France, that's - and our mutual comrade Paul, who lives with him in Aubervilliers, right.
1:05:22 There you go, and without them I couldn't have made this recording, and above all, it's not just that, but without them I wouldn't have the fruitful exchanges we often have about what's currently happening, right, which show that there is still hope after all. Alright, I'll end on this. Watch a few videos about the bridges the Chinese are building in barely explored places, which are 100 meters higher than the first floor of the Eiffel Tower.
1:05:52 Look, and afterward, when we've talked about the poor Chinese groaning under a dictatorship, will that make you laugh? Look at the crazy Chinese in the streets, it's unprecedented in human history. We don't have enough historical hindsight yet, it's so gigantic. We'll have to wait a while before we realize that never in human history has there been such an upheaval, such a change on such a scale. Have a very good evening and see you next time for this thrilling serial. Let's not lose sight of resurgent fascism.
