English translation of the French transcript, made with AI and not yet proofread — click a paragraph to jump to it. Show the French original
Preamble: the life of the association and the general assembly 5:35 Good evening dear friends, dear comrades, dear subscribers, dear members, dear faithful followers, dear newcomers. Important session tonight, I say that every time, but still it's a pre-back-to-school session since our official start of the year is the beginning of the new cycle of talks, about which I'll give some details in a moment, which will begin around mid-November, which will fall on the 14th or the 16th, we'll see, maybe even the 15th.
6:23 But before talking about these new contents, first I'd like to ask for your indulgence regarding the somewhat, not chaotic — that's not the word, I mean somewhat irregular — nature of our broadcasts these past, these very last months let's say, and this is due, as always with important things, to multiple factors, most often completely independent of one another. First, very quickly, I've had some health concerns, I had to have tests done, and I'm approaching my 80th year, I'm sorry to say. Besides, the young volunteers, young or not so young by the way, of our association who contributed to the quality of this broadcast, which I know you appreciate — I'm rarely as happy as when I see the compliments in the comments addressed both to the technical team, which does more than its due, coming from people who were volunteers,
7:38 who were students, now they're working, as they'd say, and they no longer quite have enough time, and they tell me just how much they miss it, but anyway, I mean, they have better things to do for themselves, but I'm happy for them. There are some — I'm in the middle of a baby boom, there are plenty, you see it's not bad news — who are, so to speak, tied up, who have their first baby, and there we are, it's between three bottles that we'll come check whether the framing is right, etc.
8:10 Pierre-Alain is a tireless traveler, and it's really his whole career that's at stake, and it's all the more fantastic — I don't know how he does it — that he's here at my place tonight for a live broadcast, but anyway, I mean, he was in London last week, he was in Brittany the week before, he'll soon be in Iceland, well, I'm not giving away anything there, Pierre-Alain, there you go, and I'm only sketching part of it, and part of his team went to double up his exhibition in Taiwan, there you go, I'm not going to hold a gun to the head of all these excellent volunteers by saying, so, what about my videos, you see, on top of which I myself wasn't always in good shape, there you go, so that explains a good part of these irregularities in question. With the start of the new year, we're going to resume a regular cycle, but let me take the opportunity for several small clarifications, as a preamble — I'll get to it afterward, I'll be very glad to answer your questions, but just these important preambles which I skimp on a bit too often,
9:21 since, first of all, it's been a while — I say this for those who are members as well as those who aren't yet — that our association has been playing extra time somewhat in a formally illegal way, that is, normally, if you follow the bylaws to the letter, which few associations do on a day-to-day basis, well, the board members would need to be validated by a general assembly, which was done last time, but it's been almost two years now since we've held a general assembly, and that constitutes a bit of a failure to comply with formal law, if you will.
10:09 So, let's prepare for a general assembly — I say this for those who aren't members, I insist strongly, that the general assembly is the most sovereign body of the association, where everyone has their say, what's working, what isn't, what they'd like to see strengthened, what on the contrary they'd like to see reduced, you see, raise criticisms, offer advice, why not, let's dream a little, propose collaboration in a field where the person concerned would have technical expertise we need remotely, or indeed in the Île-de-France region.
10:53 For all of that, it's at the time of the general assembly that, exactly like a party congress, it's the most sovereign body, one man one vote, one woman — I'm wary — one vote, one boy, one girl. So, if you care, if you're interested in our talks, and if you intend to be more of a stakeholder, not just through the questions I'm delighted to see line up, as was the case earlier on screen, and which I'm always happy to answer, but in an even more active way, don't hesitate to become a member.
11:40 And let me take this opportunity, because if we have this delay, I'll tell you right away, we had a microphone problem, we're pushing some equipment to its limits as it reaches the end of its life. And yes, you guessed it, I'm going to speak to you underneath... I ask that, which is more or less the case overall, but still, that those who aren't up to date with their dues try to see if they can catch up — we'll never push hard on that, of course, but the timing couldn't be better, let's say.
12:14 And of course, this request doesn't apply to those who have very recently made more than friendly donations, without which we couldn't even function tonight. There we go. So, I'm going to ask our president, Alexandra, and our secretariat, to please set up a notice for the General Assembly in the days to come, with a date far enough in advance from today so that everyone can prepare for it.
Repressed determination: Gaza and the return of the repressed 12:55 So much for the first preamble concerning the organization of the association. Besides, as for the program for the upcoming cycle, you may have seen it in the announcement I made a bit late yesterday, for today it's a bit short notice, but I've placed at the center the theme we're going to work on together — I need you for this, just as much as you need me, if not more — and it's that of determination, the fact that we repress our determinations, it suits us, doesn't it, everything that...
13:57 to repress or set aside, as we say colloquially in French, sweep it under the rug, as has been done with the Palestinian problem for 50 years, for half a century. People said, we don't care, they're wretches, animals — an American congressman, no less, animals — and then, he speaks of it the way the former, the predecessor Zelensky, of Poroshenko, spoke of the inhabitants of Donbass, that is, of the Russian-speaking part of Ukraine, saying their children aren't even in school, we'll put them in cellars.
14:43 You see, we thought we'd get rid of it by putting it out of sight, so to speak, underground, it's a metaphor. There, in Gaza, two million people in an area the size of two French départements. And then, we'll ask Israel and the United States, the United States and Israel. I'm not an antisemite disguised as an anti-Zionist. For me, it's not Israel that governs all this. Without American backing, Israel wouldn't last a month.
15:14 And I'm being generous. That's the difference between the true anti-Zionist and the one who uses it only as a pretext to hide his antisemitism. No. Israel and the United States, the United States and Israel, ask Qatar, other petro-dollarized bodies, to kindly provide enough to fund an embryonic administration for Gaza or for Hamas.
15:46 Isn't that so? To fund Hamas. But of course! We set it aside like that, so we no longer hear about the Palestinians. They have enough to scrape by. And then, bam! Look at the return of the repressed. Those who have small children know, when giving the baby a bath, what it's like trying to push a ball down under the water for fun. And as soon as you let go of the ball, it springs up in your face. Isn't that so? But the ball has no strength of its own. If you'd left it floating, it wouldn't have sprung up in your face.
Determinations of the subject, not of the object 16:17 No, it's because we pushed it down — good old Archimedes — that it springs up in our face. That's what determinations are, aren't they, which constitute us as subjects. Let me sum up what I've just said, the philosophical takeaway and the program awaiting us. These determinations — I'll add a clarification afterward — these determinations, it's because we repress them that we give them this power to determine us.
16:49 So, the best way to free ourselves from them, since that's indeed the stake of all philosophy, isn't it, to move toward more freedom, and not in the liberal sense, you can well imagine. I'm thinking of Rousseau, who said, "Freedom consists less in doing what pleases us than in not depending on another's will." Yes, yes, I see some of you already noting it down. You're right to note that one.
17:19 by recognizing it — I put in the announcement, didn't I, the whole trajectory that goes from repressed determination to determination in the Hegelian term par excellence, "anerkannt," recognized. And so one can free oneself from it the moment one is recognized. This brings me to the clarification I promised you a moment ago. Careful, when I speak of determination, I'm not meddling in what isn't my business. I'm not a specialist in the so-called natural sciences, the hard sciences, the sciences...
17:53 There, I'm among the happiest that they exist. And without a doubt, I myself wouldn't be alive otherwise. And I'm not the only one — just imagine yourselves if these sciences and their implications didn't exist. So, careful, only these determinations aren't the business of philosophy, they're the business of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy. It's not at all forbidden for an astronomer, a biologist, to philosophize, but at their own risk and peril.
18:23 It's not within their field of competence. Or else they're exceptional individuals — I'm thinking of Bachelard, people like that. Why do I say this? Because I'm not talking about the determinations that mean I need to eat to live, that such-and-such enzyme in my brain, etc. No, no. I'm talking about determinations not concerning me as object — I'm talking about my body — but me as subject. Ah, but that's a bit more difficult. Yes, but that's the object of philosophy, the subject.
18:53 That's where, isn't it, things both become more complicated and at the same time simplify themselves. What dialectic! Let's not mix up the fields. And besides, there's a passage in Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right. I believe... I know I made a commentator laugh who said, "Good old Pagani, he steps out of frame, he goes to fetch his book." I'll recite it.
19:36 There we go. I had a beer in between. No, that's not true. I didn't have time. I'm more tea than beer, a bit like Nietzsche. I'll come back to Nietzsche later, regarding the questions. Yes. So, it's in — since they're divided into paragraphs, the Elements of the Philosophy of Right — I won't give you the page since that depends on the edition, but the paragraph number doesn't change, whatever the edition or translation.
Hegel: the freedom of the void and the fanaticism of destruction 20:11 So, I know it's around 6-7 or so. There, here we are. It's "the freedom of the void." I've read this often, that's not it. It's incredible, I can't find it. Wait. Ah, that's off.
20:42 Ah, there was a loose connection. Right. You see how our equipment... No, no, it's just a bulb, don't worry. There. I won't repeat every time this very important passage where Hegel distinguishes several moments of freedom, since we're on the topic, so I'll go through it quickly.
21:13 There are two opposite moments. The freedom that believes — the subject who believes himself free when he excludes all determination. Precisely, I am neither this nor that. That's the moment — it's not yet revolution, it's still a bit crude, but it's the moment of revolt. One must go through it, mind you, this is serious. I can't stand hearing revolt spoken ill of. It's a necessary condition, but far from sufficient. I am neither this nor that, isn't it — I'm neither French, nor a boy, nor a man, nor a girl, nor a man, nor a woman, nor chaste, nor mad.
21:48 I'm neither of nature, nor of God. I'm me, me, me. You know, Stirner, one of Onfray's darlings, The Ego and Its Own. Well, there you go. I won't dwell on it further. It's a bit much. There's what he says about it, isn't it — that it's the freedom of the void. Isn't it? It's the freedom of the void.
22:18 It can manifest itself in real form and become a passion. So, if it remains purely theoretical in philosophy, it's the religious fanaticism of pure Hindu contemplation. If it turns toward action, you know, he's alluding to Buddhists — he knew it well, it's an Eastern doctrine, and much better than Schopenhauer, who subscribed to it, since it wasn't his Bible, exactly, who spends his time saying that everything is religion except me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
22:48 If it turns toward action, then the opposite — in politics as in religion. Listen carefully, because this even foretells the greatest massacres of our era, and this is perhaps no accident — I'm thinking of the Khmer Rouge, for instance, you know I call them Khmer Greens, who had nothing red about them, who were often funded by the CIA — look it up, regarding the votes at the UN, for Democratic Kampuchea against the Cambodia that had been liberated from it thanks to the Vietnamese.
23:18 And yes, at that time the pro-Chinese Khmers had to be helped — I mean the China of the Cultural Revolution, thankfully China got past that — against the pro-Soviet Vietnamese, you see, that's what the Khmer Rouge were, but I call them Khmer Greens because their first great action was to empty the obscene and corrupt city to go to the countryside, isn't it, where they were massacred. Well, but look, he was talking about the Hindu religion earlier — Cambodia is Buddhist. So here, if the freedom of the void can manifest itself in real form and become a passion, then if it remains purely theoretical, well, it's the religious fanaticism of pure Hindu contemplation, no big deal, it does no harm; if it turns toward action, it's in politics as in religion — isn't this topical — the fanaticism of destroying every existing social order and excommunicating any individual suspected of wanting order, and annihilating any organization trying to come into being.
24:21 I'm not going to be determined by anything, am I? It's only by destroying that this negative will has the feeling — if it's even knowledge, the feeling, what he elsewhere calls the mush — the feeling of its own existence. It thinks it wants a positive state, for example, the state of universal equality, you see, or of universal religious life, but in fact it doesn't want positive reality at all, for that immediately introduces some order, one has to eat, one has to do the dishes.
24:55 I'm thinking of the communes, in the Cévennes, back then, where it was all Zen and it was always the same lives. Good girls kept subjugated, as Clouscard says in "la maison de campagne," an admirable chapter of "Le capitalisme de la séduction," you'll find it at the end of the volume — it's always the good girls kept subjugated, isn't it, who did the dishes and the cleaning. Well, it thinks it wants a positive state, for example the state of universal equality or of universal religious life, but it doesn't want positive reality at all, for that immediately introduces some particular order, a singular determination, both of institutions and of individuals, whereas it's precisely by negating these specifications and this determination that negative freedom becomes conscious of itself.
25:35 It must always be in the process of acting, like a flame that always needs fuel to burn, otherwise it goes out. That's negativity. Thus, what it believes it wants may perhaps be, for itself, in its consciousness, only an abstract representation — I'm a good man, aren't I, I'm for human rights, etc. — and its realization, its putting into practice, may be nothing but a fury of destruction. There you go, so that's the self, abstract freedom, the freedom of the void — I won't go back over it — the negation of all determination.
Absolute determination and immanent negativity 26:10 After that, there's the opposite, the antithesis — I am a Roman citizen, absolute determination, I am a character, La Bruyère, you see, classicism — indeed we speak of "characters" in classical theater, don't we, the jealous man, the miser, jealous Hermione, isn't it, Phèdre subjugated by her passion, determined by her rotten love, etc., etc. So, there it's the complete opposite: one identifies with one determination and one alone, to the detriment of all the others.
26:43 So, well, now I come to this passage about what I really call the determination we're going to talk about, which is not, I come back to it, I haven't lost my thread, it's not biological, physical, chemical determination — let's leave that outside philosophy, let's stay tuned, let's be attentive to discoveries, to discussions of what's problematic, but let's listen to the scientists — that's not, there, that's not, let's be careful when they pretend to speak philosophy, and let's be careful on our side not to make the opposite mistake — it's not, it's not these determinations I'm talking about. So which is it then? So, if it's not the determinations that come to us from nature, let me go back — rather, Hegel goes back to a remark, you see, I'll show it to the camera, there's an R — it's often been said that Hegel relegated the concrete to the remarks, isn't it, otherwise this second element of determination remains a bit abstract — I am a well-defined character — is just as much negativity and cancellation as the first,
27:53 you see what a dialectician is — someone who sees what's common between two parts that seem to be radically opposed on everything. Yes, we'll come back to this later, left, right, Israel, Hamas, I mean, everything that seems radically opposed — what do they have in common, isn't it, we need to set them back to back and arrive at something more serious. This second element of determination — I am the margin, I am passion — is just as much negativity and cancellation as the first; it's the cancellation of the first abstract negativity.
28:35 There. Just as the particular is contained in the universal — I'll go a bit fast here — likewise, and for the same reason, the second element is already contained in the first, and it's merely a positing of what the first already is in itself. If you don't understand, it doesn't matter at all, clarity will come. The first element, indeed, amounts to the freedom of the void — I am determined by nothing, I am myself and that's all, I equals I, as we find in Fichte — the first element, indeed, as first for itself, is not true infinity or the concrete universal, that is, the concept, the opposite of feeling, of intuition, but only something determinate, one-sided.
29:22 I don't understand, you were telling me that this first moment is the refusal of all determination. Precisely, watch this reversal. Since it is the abstraction from all determination, since it exists only by making abstraction — like the flame devouring the wood, as I told you earlier — since it abstracts from all determination, it is therefore not itself without determination. Take away the wood and the flame disappears. All determination, in its abstract and one-sided being, constitutes its determinateness, its specificity, its insufficiency, its finitude.
29:55 Those who thought they'd arrived at the infinite, isn't it? I remind you that I illustrated this with that admirable poem by Rimbaud called "Conte," where we see a prince destroying everything around him, isn't it, a bit like Caligula or Nero, in order to feel his own existence a little. In short, you see, there have to be things to destroy in order to destroy. So, the separation and determination of the two elements indicated are found in Fichte's philosophy and also in Kant's. For now, let's move on.
30:25 We're not in a history-of-philosophy class. To stick with Fichte, the self as unlimited is taken only as positive, so much so that this abstract self-for-itself must be the true, so that consequently the limitation appears as something added on. And now comes the passage that defines determination as we're going to speak of it throughout the coming academic year. To conceive of the negativity immanent in the universal, or in the identical, as in the self, was the progress that speculative philosophy still had to make.
31:06 A necessity that those like Fichte have no inkling of, who don't perceive the dualism of the finite and the infinite within immanence and abstraction itself. In other words, I'm talking about determinations that are internal to the subject — I repress what is a fundamental aspect of my self but which I don't want to acknowledge, because it would muddy somewhat the image I'd like to give to others.
31:36 You see? And then it would disturb my narcissism. I like myself, I love myself, don't I. And so, if I say that in fact I'm a monster, well that doesn't work, it contradicts. Doesn't it? So, when we talk about determination among ourselves, I mean everything that determines us as subject, not as object. I don't know, it's obvious that if I'm deprived of oxygen I won't last long. There, I'll say much more about it in detail, in a more concrete way, with texts that will give flesh and blood to all of this.
32:11 I wanted to speak to attentive ears because I'm increasingly, not surprised, but pleasantly touched, there's no other word, by a great many of our listeners who have been following us for a long time and who are increasingly starting to see the coherence, a bit despite my digressions and everything, who don't lose the thread. So, I want to tell you that we have a busy program for this new season, we've prepared a general assembly, to sum up, and this fall, I'm telling you, around mid-November, we'll do the first live session on this notion of determination first repressed, and let's hope we move toward the recognized determination, which is the moment of liberation through which this determination stops determining us.
Left and right: a difference of strategy, not of content 33:13 Which isn't the case, for example, up until my death I will always have to eat to live, but you can see clearly that I'm not talking about those kinds of determinations, that's not the philosophical field. So. Now let's maybe move on to the questions, after these two long preambles. And then, maybe, usually I say, right, I give the name or the pseudonym, of course, of whoever asked the question, I read the question, but here, since it's a question that comes up often in a considerable number of interventions, of comments, I'll place it instead under its heading or like a title, it's all those who ask me what do you think, what do you think about left and right, does that still mean anything, isn't it, isn't it outdated, or others who say, yes, yes, Pagani is right to say there's a left and a right, yes, you see, this discussion isn't, which is taking on considerable proportions,
34:23 in any case, mostly on TV sets, and I'll take this opportunity because I was a bit annoyed to see a video—I don't know the people or the organization that produced it, but I was a bit annoyed, I'm not talking about the content, I mean, I respect all efforts, and I even appreciate all these attempts at reflection and any attempt to answer this kind of question, but what I didn't like is—I try not to attack people, that's not—well there I saw they were trying to stir up a fight, in particular between Loïc Chaigneau and myself.
34:59 So, let me put it very simply. Yes, because people say Loïc Chaigneau says there's no more left and right, and Pagani says the opposite, Pagani contradicts Loïc Chaigneau, and some people only retain that, the war. So, let me be precise: most of the theses for which Loïc Chaigneau identifies as a communist, I share them. I'm in solidarity with him on those points. Let that be clear.
35:31 So, it's not in terms of content, despite what I read here or there, that we're opposed. But it is true that we don't have the same strategies, starting from this agreement we have on content, we don't have the same strategies when it comes to disseminating that content. For example, I mean, I myself have been approached by factions who position themselves very explicitly on the right, even the far right.
36:03 I didn't go there. It's a difference in strategy that I've experienced, and I respect his. Maybe it's not only necessary but even essential that there be dialogue, isn't that so? But I don't want to serve as left-wing cover at a moment when political debate seems to take place only between the right and the far right. In practically everything that's called, in journalistic terms, you know, I don't like this term, the West. The West, which is rather corroded right now, sorry, that's a very bad pun, but it's on shaky ground, isn't it?
36:36 But oxidation is rust. Anyway, and the machinery is still running powerfully. And so, I don't respond to these overtures. Individually, yes. As a physical person, I have friends across the whole political spectrum, that's not the point, I never confuse, you see, a person, a human singularity, with their political opinions.
37:08 I never reduce someone to that. And sometimes I feel closer to people I disagree with on a whole bunch of points than to those who are supposed to be in my camp, if indeed anyone talks to me about camps. And I want to thank here our friend and comrade, subscriber and member, an old companion who took care of our videos for a long time and who still sometimes continues, I think, the series of live readings, I'm thinking of Philippe Moreau, who used to say, we're sick of trench warfare.
37:50 There you go. What is your position? War of position. There. I wanted to clarify that. It's not that people aren't trying to divide what's already quite divided on the left of the left, which is in a lamentable state, fragmented, blinkered, atomized, to the point that sometimes I get the impression there's no debate left except between the right—that is, the one that thinks of itself as the left. How does he put it? Macron: we are the progressives and facing us are the populists, the reactionaries, the fascists.
From Islamo-leftism to Islamo-Atlanticism 38:23 It's extraordinary. Yes, we come back to this left-right question anyway. To answer it, come on, let's be serious now. It's very rare for a man of the right to present himself as being of the right. The right is never as effective, isn't it, in pursuing its most condemnable aims as when it presents itself under a left-wing label. Yes, I'm alluding to the Mitterrand generation, of course.
38:54 How did the man of Vichy manage to become the very incarnation of the left? Isn't that so? When people on the right, you see, talk—ah, I want to come back to current events, but in passing, if we start talking about the problem of the Middle East, we'll go off our program—when they talk about Islamo-leftism, that's how they put it, but that's the people on the right. What, Pagani, you don't see Islamo-leftism? Ah, I see an Islamo—I see a use of Islam, that's clear.
39:25 No, sorry, not of Islam, never. Muslims are the main victims of what I'm denouncing. By far. I'm—you know, we're under the shock of these tragic and very recent news, those two Swedes who got shot in Brussels, isn't it, that teacher, on the anniversary of another teacher's death. But those are isolated cases. It's by the hundreds of thousands that people are being murdered under horrific conditions in Muslim countries, by extremists who claim to act in the name of Islam and who are Islamists, not merely Muslims.
40:07 Now, this Islamism is recent. Oh, there have always been sects, there have always been—wait, I won't say, I won't say coming from the depths of the desert—there have always been, I'm thinking of the Mahdi, for example, at the end of the 19th century, in Sudan. There have always been zealots in all religions, not only, you see, in Islam, coming from the depths of the desert, claiming to have returned to the source of the Quran, etc. That did very limited damage, very limited.
40:38 That doesn't add up to much monstrosity. It's been producing a lot since—well, I'm going to tell you what I think of Islamo-leftism. It doesn't exist. It's a term used by the right to mask the fact that it's the worst of the right that has allied itself with Islamism. And I denounce—you don't hear anyone talking about this—Islamo-Atlanticism. Listen, since when do we know about Afghanistan? Because before, people didn't talk about it much. It's Afghanistan that triggered everything. I'm not talking about recent Afghanistan, with the pitiful American withdrawal.
41:10 I'm talking about their entry, when they hadn't yet gone in because the Russians were in place there. That's the era when young Afghan women wore miniskirts. That's the era of the Soviets, you see, who had been invited by Prince Daoud, at the time, to come help them fight. Already, Islamist guerrillas financed by the Pakistani special services, at a time when the United States was producing the Pakistani services.
41:49 There are still some links today. Back then, they were, how do you say in French, thick as thieves. The ISI, that's the name of the Pakistani secret services, was an offshoot of the CIA. And it was actually on American advice that Bin Laden—old, the family, the Bin Laden family, even when little Osama was still a child, his parents were already great friends of the Bush family. Yes, of Bush senior, the idiot, W's father.
42:25 The only plane that crossed American skies at the moment when all flights were suspended after the destruction of the Twin Towers—the only plane was the one that flew the Bin Laden family, who were in the United States at the time, back to Saudi Arabia. There's no famous leftism there. It's the far right manipulating the far right. The Western far right manipulates, and needs, the Eastern far right to drive out the reds, the communists, the atheists, the great Satans.
43:06 That's clear. Don't take my word for it. Check who financed the Taliban. It's the same people who financed our entire press. Back when they were at war with the Soviets, they were the heroes of freedom, the very ones now shown as bloodthirsty monsters, bearded men. No, all of Paris was full of nothing but that, restaurants, the Silk Road, Afghanistan, Afghan cuisine.
43:38 Really, though. And it goes back a long way. Saudi Arabia, one of the most Wahhabi countries, as they say there, one of the most fundamentalist. It's been changing for some time now. But I'm talking about the period, you see, the worst of these last 50 years. First of all, it's a creation of the United States, or rather let's say the Anglo-Saxons. It took one of Her Majesty's greatest spies, Lawrence of Arabia, to unify—he spent his whole career trying to unify—the Bedouin tribes who were torn apart by internal strife.
44:15 At the time, there was no Saudi Arabia, there was no state, there was the Ottoman Empire, that is, the Empire whose capital was in Turkey, neither the Turkish language nor the Turkish people, nor Arab—it's the Ottoman Empire, they're Indo-European, or rather I should say Turco-Mongol, and Lawrence of Arabia unified them because at the time England, that was a good war, was at war with the Ottoman Empire.
44:46 So Arab nationalism—I'm not even talking about Islamist, I'm not talking religious, but merely political—Arab nationalism is already a Western creation. The Americans only picked up the files that the British had worked on so admirably. Look at the classics of film history, with Gary Cooper who was 20 years old, yes, barely 20, that's rather rare, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, based on a novel by [Francis Yeats-Brown] of the era, from English colonialism, which takes place exactly in the places we hear about almost every day when talking about Afghanistan, the Khyber Pass, through which one passes from Asia practically into Europe, let's say, to go quickly, the lawless provinces between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
45:37 Well already, there, there's a conflict between the English, who control the subcontinent, as India was called, which hadn't yet been separated from Pakistan, India against the Russians—but the Russians of the Tsarist period, this is before the 1917 revolution, I'm talking about the end of the 19th century, very early 20th. Already, on this old file, Islamo-Atlanticism, isn't it? What better way to divide?
46:08 To divide—that was the great British strategy, preventing any power on the European continent from rising too much, France or Germany; as soon as one starts to gain a bit of strength, it has to be made to squabble with the others, discord has to be sown, so that no powerful enemy can ever threaten us. But above all, above all, I mean, Afghanistan, and then the West, which couldn't care less about the Palestinians, the Yemenis who, not so long ago, before the war in Ukraine broke out and captured attention, the UN said that the tragedy of Yemen was the greatest contemporary humanitarian catastrophe.
46:49 We couldn't care less, royally didn't care. On the other hand, the Uighurs, the only Muslim minority in China—there's an Islamo-Atlanticism there. I repeat it, I keep hammering it, to make a double point, I mean, sorry, it's on the one hand to tell you where the danger lies, and on the other hand I'm exasperated, you see, that the left—I don't know which left—is pointed at, I've already said what I think of the left descended from Mitterrand, from Vichy, and that it's pointed at for supposedly flattering Islamism.
47:32 No, there's Islamo-Atlanticism, and Atlanticism is the worst thing in the West. You see, I'm not being anti-American, I'm being anti-Atlanticist, how many times have I repeated this phrase? Even in the United States, and even more so than in France, we are now so aligned that we lag behind many American anti-Atlanticists. I'm talking about people who are great specialists on the East, on Ukraine, the Balkans, the Middle East, who are terrified by the turn Atlanticist policy is currently taking.
48:10 So there is an Islamo-Atlanticism. It's the exact opposite of Islamo-leftism, unless you're telling me NATO defends left-wing values. Alright, back to neither left nor right, you see we're right in the thick of it. I'm dwelling on this because this debate is so rigged these days that a bit of clarification is needed. Ah, you don't know how to tell the difference between left and right? Well, I'll tell you. Let's go dossier by dossier. The Vietnam War, 3 million dead. It was the left that was for the Americans and the right that was for the Viet Cong.
Vietnam, Suez, Libya: the West against secular regimes 48:43 Check the press of the time, we'll talk about it again. We'll go through the results. Suez, the Suez crisis, isn't it? When Nasser, taking advantage precisely of the fact that the English—and this predates him, but inheriting precisely the Arab nationalism created by the English to outmaneuver the Turks—took it seriously and said, but Egypt, we have no resources, we have neither oil nor are we Saudi Arabia, we're not—
49:17 There's only one thing that makes money here, it's the canal. And on top of that, it doesn't bring in a cent, it's a Franco-British company that... He nationalized the canal. What a scandal! The new Hitler, you know what came next, it's the same thing they say now about Saddam Hussein, Putin, Assad, right away. There's an Islamo-Atlanticism. And they set the Muslim Brotherhood on him. I know many of you already know these six minutes of joy where you see Nasser gathering all his chiefs of staff, his government, his special services, his police, his deputies, gathering them and mocking the Muslim Brotherhood, who say, they want me to veil women.
50:08 I said to myself, but you can't even get your own daughter to wear a veil, I said to the head of... and the room bursts out laughing. Oh my, that laughter seems so far away now. There are six minutes of joy. You'll see that we mustn't make this series of abominable identifications between Islam, Arabs, Islamism. They're the Arabs, the Egyptians. They're Muslims. They're not Islamists. There, we know that Israel originally created Hamas to get rid of what was worse for it—a secular, left-wing Arab opposition.
50:46 But yes, the only recent interventions—not Atlanticist ones—that the Americans carried out, armed, that caused, we count a million dead, check it, I'm not the one saying it, it's now all over the press, isn't it, now that it's too late. In Iraq, for example, it was each time to get rid of regimes that weren't perfect on every point, but which weren't Islamist, which were secular—Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Assad, isn't that so?
51:16 And to put in their place—look at what happened in Libya, look at the state Libya is in, close the book, isn't it? You can't even move around the capital now without being attacked by one of the armed factions, whereas when I was in Black Africa, in the region, in the Sahel, because Niger, where I worked on the northern border with Libya, the dream of young Nigeriens who were in poverty, most of whom still are, was to find work in Libya, a country that was thriving economically.
51:47 I flew over it myself, you know, because Libya was sometimes convenient in terms of fares to reach France, or when flights were full on UTA or Air France, I'd fly over it—farms right in the middle of the desert, isn't it, canals 2000 kilometers long across the desert to bring water, it had nothing to do with the stagnation and immense corruption of most of the region's regimes.
52:19 So, there is an Islamo-Atlanticism, and it's against that that the military interventions were supposedly carried out, isn't it? Bernard-Henri Lévy, at the forefront—well, at the forefront, he's only a communication tool—people say it's the French who took out Gaddafi, let's not be too France-centric, French planes couldn't fly two hours without being refueled by American planes, and Gaddafi's car was spotted by Yankee satellites, but yes, just as the people shooting and killing children in the streets of Donbass and Donetsk are guided by Anglo-American, even French, satellites, there's an Islamo-Atlanticism.
53:07 You see my anger? Not only do we fail to acknowledge this determination—there, you see, here's a return of the repressed I'm doing—we've swept it under the rug, our collaboration with the worst of the West, the worst of the East, allying together, isn't that so? That's Islamo-Atlanticism. You see what state Afghanistan is in?
53:37 I'm telling you, look, take a look at photos from the time when the Soviets had been called in, look at the era of Prince Daoud, of the king, look, the girls are in miniskirts, cars are driving around. And what state is it in now? I think of what this city once was, so magnificent in its ramparts, in its heroes, so fertile, mistress of Asia.
54:07 And I look at last what became of Troy's fate, and what its destiny now is. I see nothing but towers that ash has covered, rivers dyed with blood, deserted countryside, a child in chains. And I cannot imagine that Troy, in such a state, still aspires to vengeance. There, I close this question of... yes, someone needs to hand me back the questions so I take them in order...
54:37 neither left nor right, Islamo-leftism, you see the two are linked. There's a right that points the finger at Islamo-leftism to hide its own Islamo-Atlanticism. Except that the Islamo-leftism that has denounced certain discourses, certain ideas—which aren't mine—at NUPES or elsewhere, on social issues, that's not the same thing. You know, I won't go back over it. Whereas on their side, what they're hiding, Islamo-Atlanticism, isn't a matter of discourse.
Rousseau's Letter on Virtue: to feel rather than to know 55:07 It's dreadful. It's millions of dead. So, there's Erwan Kenobi, whom I greet. I don't know if his name is familiar. If he's already made comments, I hope he won't hold it against me, my memory's getting a bit shaky. I have quite a few gaps. Ah yes, I know. People tell me, 'Oh come on, you know it by heart.' Yes, yes, I have a memory for texts, but I have less and less memory for everything else.
55:38 There, there isn't room for everything. Someone asks me, 'Would it be possible for you to talk to us about Rousseau's text on virtue? Is there in this text a development on worldliness?' So, you see, this is recent, it's inside my site on worldliness. So, I'm going to ask each and every one of you to get hold of this. Two euros. One euro per text. I say that because there are two texts in there. There are two letters.
56:11 These are two letters in which Rousseau answers questions that had been put to him in writing. One on the individual and society, and the one Erwan is asking me about, this rather incredible text on virtue. Isn't that so? So, I'm going to answer first by letting Rousseau speak, rather than speaking about Rousseau. Because what's incredible, you see—yes, I should point out there's a fairly intelligent afterword by the publisher, added by the publisher to Rousseau's words, which also serves as an explanation of the text and is very well done.
56:48 as a kind of critical apparatus, an embryo of a critical apparatus. But Rousseau — libertarians use him as the one who is for nature against society, isn't that so? And when you cut things short, when you truncate, you can always put Rousseau in your pocket — big as he is, he still manages to fit in the pocket of those who keep repeating "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." I'm going to open a text where Rousseau speaks, where he says precisely what he thinks about the relationship between the individual and society, because that's exactly the fundamental subject in Erwan's question.
57:39 He begins by answering the fellow who had asked him "What is virtue, for you?" Rousseau, good Lord. You seek more to embarrass me than to instruct yourself by asking me "What is virtue?" I could tell you in two words that it is what no one can learn except from oneself, and that you will never know it unless your own heart has already answered you. Besides, why raise again a question so often and so well resolved? — implying, this is the exact opposite of "Change is now."
58:11 No, no. Open Plato, Cicero, Plutarch, Epictetus, Antoninus, consult the virtuous Shaftesbury and his worthy interpreter. Do better still: study the life and sayings of the just man, and meditate on the Gospel. Take your pick — Plato, or rather, set aside all the books. This is about virtue, we're not talking about mathematics. And set aside all the books, go back into yourself, listen to that secret voice which speaks to every heart — not, here, to reason — and be virtuous in order to know what it is to be so.
58:51 Be virtuous in order to know what it is to be so. Virtue is much more an act, isn't it, than a discourse. Do not think, however, that I refuse the sublime task with which you honor me. So he's going to attempt what amounts to an answer. Don't expect, I'll skip ahead, to find metaphysical dissertations here. If all this apparatus of words that many readers will no doubt look for here, and which serves only to make man vainer without making him better or more enlightened — such an affectation of doctrine would suit neither the author nor the work, in a matter where it is more a question of feeling than of perceiving, and which the simplest people always understand better than the most learned.
59:32 How many times have you heard me say — and we saw things again with Erwan's question, thank you, Erwan — that at the very origin of philosophy, the word philosophia itself — rather than letting it speak, than speaking in its place — the love of sophia, yes, I say it in Greek, not to be snobbish, not to play at Heidegger, but because it means almost two things, not exactly different, but sometimes not contradictory either — well, it's sometimes knowledge, sometimes wisdom.
1:00:04 Knowledge is: what are the roots of such-and-such a second-degree trinomial? What can I know? Right? Whereas wisdom is the answer to the question — not "what can I know," which already takes time, but "what must I do?" That's what it's about — virtue. Notice that the difference between the two questions, "what can I know" and "what must I do," doesn't only lie in the last two verbs, knowing and doing. That's a fairly familiar problem — the theoretical, the practical, knowing and doing.
1:00:36 It's not the theoretical and the practical. No, there are two other verbs before that also stand opposed. What can I see? What can I know, and what must I — must I do? Yes, we come back to virtue. Well, you see, how many times have you heard me say — I pick up my thread again — regarding this passage from Rousseau, that as for knowing what the genetic signature of some organic molecule is, I'll ask the biologist, not the philosopher.
1:01:18 But knowing whether I should marry Marinette, declare war, make peace, send three ships to the Indies hoping to make a profit — this was in past centuries, in the spice trade — taking that risk, knowing what I ought to do — there, I say, to answer these questions, a wise man, nearly illiterate, deep in an African jungle, is no better placed to answer this question, especially when it concerns things like: should I let someone I love, who is dying of cancer, live on, or should I end their suffering?
1:01:55 How could a Nobel laureate in physics be better placed than that African sage to answer these questions? That's what you're saying, in effect. It was a revelation at the time, in the Age of Enlightenment. He humbles — never reason itself, but the understanding, the merely cognitive aspect of the Enlightenment, turned outward. The floodlight illuminates the garden, it doesn't illuminate itself. Know thyself — that is philosophy.
1:02:25 So there we are, right? I repeat the sentence for which I took this long detour. In this domain, regarding virtue, it is more a question of feeling than of perceiving, and the simplest people often understand better than the most learned. Nature has given us feelings and not enlightenment, and since we cannot without injustice be held accountable for what we have not received, we would have much to complain about if so much knowledge were necessary to know virtue.
The individual as part of a great whole 1:02:58 My method will be simpler and surer. So there, he begins by apparently sidestepping the question. Now I get to the relationship — which was right at the heart of Erwan's question on the relationship between the individual and society. And he says this: "It follows from this that I must now consider myself as existing" — so it's an impersonal 'I,' it's you, me, we — we should consider ourselves as existing in another way, and appropriate for ourselves, so to speak, another kind of goodness suited to this new existence, since we have passed from the state of nature to the civil state in which we live in society.
1:03:43 So, today, since my life, my safety, my freedom, my happiness depend on the cooperation of my fellow men — you get sick, you go see a doctor — it is clear that I must no longer regard myself as an individual, isolated being, but as part of a great whole. Yes, and people say Rousseau is the asocial libertarian, à la Robinson Crusoe. As a member of a larger body, on whose preservation my own absolutely depends, and which could not be badly ordered without my feeling that disorder myself.
1:04:20 If I'm doing badly, it's because somewhere the polity too is doing badly. So, skipping ahead — you might ask me perhaps whether a man who had received nothing from society — here comes the libertarian's argument. You might ask perhaps whether a man who had received nothing from society could owe it anything; but consider, I beg you, that such a supposition is worthless when it rests on the impossible. And everyone sees that it is utterly impossible for a man to be born, to live, and to sustain himself within society without owing it anything.
1:05:00 Without owing it anything. He would be wrong to plead his poverty, his misfortunes, his ills. The state will answer him. So listen carefully — Rousseau here has the general will speak, because it is not the state, not Macron's police, not the state apparatus. I don't want to go back over it, but you know that I often make the distinction that we used to make with Clouscard and to which we attach enormous importance — this monstrous state apparatus, monstrous as it has never been before in our societies, in France in particular right now.
1:05:30 And, small parenthesis — I learned that a woman, three or four days ago, was held in police custody for more than 24 hours because one of her neighbors had reported her to the police for having supposedly said, on the floor below, "Salam alaikum." She apparently had the audacity to say hello in Arabic — I don't know — to greet her neighbor. That's France today. Not a joke, check it, you'll find it quickly on the internet — a woman taken into custody for "Salam alaikum."
1:06:06 You'll immediately find quite a few articles. So, I get there — that's the state apparatus, but in the service of what? Of the absence of a state of the general will, which is the private sphere. That is the exact opposite of the state Rousseau speaks of here. Perhaps, then, he would be wrong to plead his poverty — that's beautiful. The state will answer him, and here it begins. It's the state speaking, that's called in stylistics a prosopopoeia — you make someone speak, so to say. Perhaps it would have been better for you to be born in the depths of a desert, but you are within my bosom, you have lived there, and you could not have lived there had I not sustained you.
1:06:45 Earlier I was telling you that if I couldn't criticize vaccines, I wouldn't even be alive — I'd be like, regarding the vaccines we've all received for several generations, if I hadn't had them — I've lived long enough in countries that don't have them, where infant mortality was appalling. Perhaps it would have been better for you to be born in the depths of a desert, but you are within my bosom, you have lived there, and you could not have lived there had I not sustained you. You should have quit life if it was a burden to you, or quit the country if its laws seemed too harsh — die or leave, if you want to owe me nothing for the future.
1:07:21 But give me the price — before you leave — the price of the thirty years of life you enjoyed by my assistance. Meanwhile, as long as you exist, you owe me what you have been. There, thank you, Erwan. Two euros — please, read this text, it isn't long. The first part is the first letter on man and society, and this one is the letter on virtue.
Platonic dialectic and democracy according to Hegel 1:07:51 It's nothing, not even thirty pages. It will let you review many of the things we've discussed together. So, thanks again to Erwan — Julien Belmont, yes, who asks me: "Can one apply the principle of Platonic dialectic to the model of democratic debate?" Even though we know Plato was not a fervent defender of democracy.
1:08:23 There, someone who really knows. In other words, can we speak of truth — because Plato cared about that — in a democracy? Are we governed by the law decided by the majority, whether that majority is right or wrong? Or should we be governed by truth? So, can one apply the principle of Platonic dialectic to the model of democratic debate? Julien already gives part of the answer, a rather negative one.
1:08:57 No, no, we can't make Plato out to be a great democrat when we read, for instance, that in his so-called ideal city, the Republic, individuals are forbidden to leave the city before the age of fifty, in case they might pick up elsewhere, you know, habits, tastes, things that would sow discord among us. You see, for instance, Julien — Hegel was ironic about the fact that in the Republic, Plato tells the midwives — sorry, the nurses, sorry, that's not the same thing — to run back and forth with the baby in their arms to accustom it early to discomfort, so that it would become a warrior, a citizen.
1:09:42 Yes, yes, that's not — the state has no business with that sort of detail. Yes, yes, that Hegel is a Prussian, a real Prussian, in his ignorance. So, can we apply the principle of Platonic dialectic to the model of democracy? But on the other hand, this same Hegel who is ironic, says in this passage, in the same Philosophy of Right — this is solemn now, because here Hegel speaks of philosophy — that famous passage, I'll tell you right away, where he says that philosophy always comes too late in history.
1:10:17 The owl of Minerva. Minerva was Athena — Minerva is the Latin name of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, whose emblem was the owl, the owl drawn on, say, the Guillaume Budé collection of the ancients. The owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk, when it's already a bit late. Before I read you this text — Hegel, yes, is going to praise what is, not reactionary, but revolutionary in Plato.
1:10:52 You see, I'm not losing my thread, but since I'm holding it so well, I allow myself this apparent digression. I can't deal with every question, but I take many of them in clusters, like this, the way I did with left and right — several commentators are involved. I'm often asked, "But what do you have against Nietzsche?" I mean, Nietzsche is so fashionable, he's so much, you know, the most prized philosopher in Atlanticist ideology, that it's almost sacrilege for me to say he's a great ego, while still stressing his immense qualities as a writer.
1:11:34 First of all, he's undoubtedly the one who makes the German language of his time resonate best, in writing at least, with his musical — not just musicological — pertinence. I close this little parenthesis. In the same way, democracy — here's what Hegel says in this astonishing passage in the preface to the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, right?
1:12:09 At a moment when he's about to conclude this preface, which is somewhat his political testament. There's already that dusk he speaks of, isn't there, the dusk of life — his hair has gone gray by then. In the course of this work — meaning he'll go into it in detail afterward, if I don't get to it — I have pointed out that Plato's Republic — well, well, Hegel speaking of Plato, just as he's about to leave the stage — Hegel, isn't it, the end of philosophy and the origin of philosophy greeting each other at the great central table of the banquet of philosophers we have so often dreamed of.
1:12:47 I'm sure some of you catch my allusions between René Comer, Clouscard, and many others, De Negroni, etc. In the course of this work, I have pointed out that Plato's Republic itself, which is the proverbial image of an empty ideal — what we call utopia, this is what we ought to do — whereas for Hegel, as for Spinoza, this is their great point in common, philosophy concerns itself with what is, not with what ought to be — untangling what is, just as Marx spent the whole immense labor of Capital not saying "here's what we'll do in communist society," but "here's how capital works."
1:13:23 If you don't know how it works, you can always try to get rid of it, but you won't succeed. You see we're not far from the cycle that will occupy us soon. To free ourselves from our determinations, we must first not only know them, but recognize them. We know them, since we repress them — meaning we're well aware they have an unpleasant side — but we must recognize them. All right, I've said too much or not enough, but the continuation will be from mid-November on. So, in the course of this work, I have pointed out that Plato's Republic itself, which is the proverbial image of an empty ideal, of what in philosophy is called an ought-to-be, rather than utopia, essentially grasps nothing but — actually this is a misreading, says Hegel — unbeknownst to himself, Plato expresses something that is, that belongs to his political world, the Greek city.
1:14:12 I'll tell you now in his own words: this work, the Republic, essentially grasps nothing other than the nature of Greek ethical life. Plato was conscious of a deeper principle making a breach in that ethical life, something new for the Greek city, alluding to what would soon give rise to the Christian era, the demand for absolute freedom. Don't forget that the Athens, the Greek city, that Nietzsche and Heidegger glorify, only concerns 20% of the city.
1:14:50 The rest are slaves. The Orientals knew that only one man is free; the Greeks knew that some are free; the moderns know that all are free. So that's to tell you what Hegel is talking about when he says Plato was conscious of a deeper principle making a breach in that ethical life, but which, at this degree, at this moment in history, could only be an unsatisfied longing, and consequently could only appear as a principle of corruption. To demand freedom, there, is to throw all tradition into chaos. A present-day corruption, isn't that so?
1:15:21 Ah, the good old days, it was better before, when traditions were respected. He was conscious of a deeper principle making a breach in that ethical life, but which at this degree could only be an unsatisfied longing, and consequently could only appear as a principle of corruption. Plato, moved by this longing, uneasy — that's his reactionary side, isn't it — sought a remedy against it. He writes against the sophists, which is a way of saying there is no more truth, that everything is relative, that everyone can do as he pleases, that pleasure should govern the city and not justice.
1:15:57 Plato sought a remedy against this, but since help could only come from above — implying, at this stage of history — he could only look for it at first in an external form; he had to condemn sophistry as being peculiar to this new ethics, believing thereby to master the corruption, in the dialogues, isn't that so, where Socrates is right against Gorgias, for example, and succeeding only in wounding to the quick — it's a great text, you know — what was most profound there, namely: the free, infinite personality. And that is the era to follow, the one we are in, isn't it, that's modernity — there's antiquity and the modern world, and freedom is what makes the difference, the demand for freedom, but not just any freedom, the free, infinite personality. So you'll tell me he's confirming that Plato is a reactionary — yes, but look at this turnaround: yet he proved himself a great mind, because precisely the principle around which what is decisive in his idea turns—
1:17:08 what is at the center of all of Plato's dialogues — one always begins by seeking the definition of the word one uses, what is virtue, what is courage, how should I raise my child, what is beauty, the Symposium, or Phaedrus — yet he proved himself a great mind, because precisely the method immanent in every dialogue — listen carefully — the principle around which what is decisive in his idea turns, is the pivot around which the revolution turned — well now, we're far from reaction here — the world revolution then in preparation.
1:17:42 Colon: the rest you know by heart, it's Hegel's most famous quotation, but it's in its proper place here: what is rational is real, and what is real is rational. All right, and I'll finish nonetheless with our owl, shan't I? To grasp what is, is the task of philosophy, for what is, is reason — the real is rational. As for the individual, each is the son of his time.
The owl of Minerva and truth with others 1:18:14 Likewise philosophy sums up its time, whether it realizes it or not, in thought — even when it believes it is thinking the Greek city, it still thinks it with the political categories of its present, more or less consciously, and rather more unconsciously than consciously. It is just as foolish to imagine that any philosophy could go beyond its contemporary world as to believe that an individual could leap beyond his own time, could cross the Rhodus, a river of antiquity. If a theory in fact goes beyond its limits, well, get off my back about my own time — I can imagine the future, live in lost time.
1:18:49 If a theory, in fact, goes beyond its limits, if it constructs a world such as it ought to be, that world does indeed exist, but only in its opinion, which is an inconsistent element that can take on any imprint whatsoever at the corner café. On a TV talk show, it's the same thing. Modifying this formula somewhat — the formula he had quoted before in Latin, "Hic Rhodus, hic saltus." Here is the river Rhodus, here you must jump. So he says, modifying this formula somewhat, it would become the expression "Hier ist die Rose, hier tanze."
1:19:23 Here is the rose, here dance. That little one, it's there. So, recognizing reason as the rose in the cross of the present — the gifts. I was talking about recognizing our determinations — recognizing reason as the rose in the cross of present suffering, and rejoicing in it. This is the rational, mediating vision that reconciles us with reality. The identity... So, excuse me, to say one more word about the pretension of teaching how the world ought to be — we note that in any case, philosophy always comes too late.
1:20:04 As thought of the world, it appears only when reality has completed and finished its process of formation. The day is over, dusk has set in. What the concept teaches, history shows with the same necessity. Colon: it is in the maturity of beings that the ideal appears facing the real. And after having grasped the same world — implying, when it was young — in its substance, it rebuilds it in the form of a realm of ideas.
1:20:36 When philosophy paints its gray in gray, a manifestation of life has finished growing old. It cannot be made young again by gray on gray, but only known. It is only at the beginning of dusk that the owl of Minerva takes its flight. Berlin, 25 June 1820. So there, Julien.
1:21:07 Both, then — Hegel clearly sees what is reactionary in Plato. It's the fact that he cannot stomach this idea of freedom, of the free, infinite personality. In other words, the prince spoken of in Rimbaud's tale, which I alluded to earlier, whose title, if you look for it, is in the Illuminations, it's half a page. Conte, C-O-N-T-E. It seems dreadful, what looks like destruction, but one must go through it, one must pass through negativity.
1:21:40 You have to go through hell, you need Good Friday to deserve Easter Sunday, that's all it is. The relation between the dualism of thesis and antithesis, that suffering and then that reconciliation which is the synthesis. So Plato can't stomach that form of freedom. But what a cunning of reason, that's the phrase for it, his very method of knowledge is that it's no longer religious nor political authority that should reign.
1:22:16 But only understanding, with non-contradiction and the fact that I can only carry on if the two of us agree on common principles, and from that we build and move forward. I need the other in order to answer the question "what can I know?" No doubt, it's no accident, Plato is a contemporary of the emergence of mathematics in, let's say, the modern sense of the term, even though at that time it was still almost purely geometry.
1:22:48 But what is modern is that, for the first time, it's not mathematics in the service of an application, of measuring fields in order to know how to give back to each person, after the Nile's flooding receded, what was owed to them, but as pure discourse of coherence, of pure truth. So I want to get precisely to the point that I need the other in order to be in the true. Because, I say it often, but I repeat it for the newcomers - I'm so glad there are newcomers, who have every right that things be repeated - you should know that Euclid alludes to, builds all his mathematics up to today, by way of what are called first propositions which are undemonstrable, but from which one can demonstrate all the others.
1:23:38 The point of the game being that there shouldn't be too many undemonstrables, and that the maximum should be demonstrable from the minimum of undemonstrables. Except that these first notions, they call them postulates ["demandes"]. Postulates - that's not addressed to something, but to someone. I ask you to grant me that through a point one can draw a parallel, and only one, to a line in the same plane. And from that relation and correlation, one can carry on. Thank you Julien for giving us this occasion to show the incredible richness of Plato 1400 years later.
Mitterrandist socialism is not the left 1:24:19 Are there any questions? Do you want me to display them? Yes, yes. If we still have a little time, because it's a very packed session, let's look at a few questions - I'll see a bit depending on... Let's go. There's a lot about... It comes back to Islamo-leftism. Let's go. So, Tanguy, no doubt a young man, but still, an old acquaintance, whom I'm glad to find again.
1:24:53 Without speaking of Islamo-leftism, I think many are surprised, if not embarrassed, by the tolerance toward Muslim puritanism shown by a French socialism that was built against a reactionary religion. What socialism are you talking about? Jaurès would never have been that kind of socialism. It's not a leftism, real socialism. That socialism dates from Mitterrand. Mitterrand, I've already said it, but it's good to restore the historical sequence that's constantly hidden from you.
1:25:28 Mitterrand didn't even have his Socialist Party card when he took its leadership. It was in such a state of collapse. The PS of that time, a bit like today actually, even before it went on to govern France for three generations, right? He didn't have his card. He came from the right. Before the war, he took part in demonstrations with placards. We have the photos, outside, "foreigners out."
1:25:59 But of course! Come on, let's forget that, Tanguy. I mean, that's not socialism, like that. Earlier I said, that's not the left. Or it's this left that only appeared at the moment of the Cold War, when it was absolutely necessary that the communists not have the monopoly on the left. De Gaulle had the same strategy. It was necessary that the communists not have the monopoly on the Resistance. But De Gaulle never positioned himself on the left.
1:26:29 He had that clarity. I'm not, he'd say, I'm a man of the right and I'm proud of it. He already used to say, moreover, which is typical of the right, that he was beyond left and right. You see why I don't much like getting rid of both at once. Because it always comes from the right. That said, I prefer a thousand times the Gaullist right to the Vichyist right. We can't agree on that. But Mitterrand is closer to Vichy than to De Gaulle.
1:26:59 But Mitterrand, he's not an Atlanticist. We know, when there was the crisis over intermediate-range missiles, you know, the intermediate-range missiles, the ones with which we kill each other, we obliterate each other among Europeans. Not the intercontinental ones, the inter-regional ones, they were called IRBMs, well, let's not get technical. It was about knowing whether the Americans could deploy in Europe the Pershing rockets, the intermediate-range rockets, with nuclear warheads of course, not facing Western Europe, but Soviet Eastern Europe.
1:27:31 And of course, the real left, at that time, was against it. Back then there was still a Communist Party, which was not yet Atlanticized. And Mitterrand made that most famous declaration: "The pacifists are in the West, but the missiles are in the East." Isn't that an Atlanticist statement? Justifying the deployment of American nuclear missiles thousands of kilometers from home.
1:28:04 Just as they caused three million deaths in Vietnam, ten thousand kilometers from home, because Vietnam had had the outlandish idea of choosing a communist option. But where are we headed? Is that the left? Do we call that the left? As I've said before, I'll repeat it, there's a sentence of Marx's that suddenly gives us a cold shower to wash us clean of that kind of mirage. When Marx says: "Just as one does not judge an individual by the idea he has of himself."
1:28:35 "I am a man of the left!" "Just as one does not judge" - that's Marx - "an individual by the idea he has of himself, one does not judge an era by its self-consciousness." It's not a theory of consciousness, Marx's theory. It's a theory of the subject. And consciousness is the small emerged part of the subject, which is only an infinitesimal part of it. And which bears the heavy burden of bringing to consciousness everything that is not conscious, of recognizing its own class determinations.
1:29:06 I don't know. That's determination as subject. There. I come back to the beginning. I close the loop. There. So, if they're embarrassed, it's because they still believe that that left, that anticommunist left, is a left. I didn't say that only communists can embody a left. I prefer a thousand times, mind you, Christians - they're not communists, Catholics - partisans in Latin America, and they paid with their blood, or torture, partisans of what's called liberation theology, that is, does God exist or not?
1:29:45 That's a bad way, these admirable Christians used to say, of putting the question. God will exist to the extent that we expand here on earth the domain of freedom. So we must be in solidarity with the guerrillas fighting against the worst dictatorships that Uncle Sam had installed in every state of Latin America, and in particular South America - well, I'm not even talking about Central America, where there was the greatest number of deaths through repression, entire villages massacred by inhabitants.
1:30:24 The greatest number of deaths per inhabitant is in Guatemala and El Salvador, in Central America. But I was coming back to South America - it was the era when we're made to believe that we are the democracies fighting against authoritarian regimes. But since when? At what year, at what midnight, did we pass from what I'm about to recall to democracy? When I was your age, well, I mean the age of most of the young people, even though some of my listeners are my age, and all the better, I feel less alone, but I'll say there are many people around thirty, let's say, roughly, at the peak of the Gaussian curve.
1:31:00 When I was that age, well, I'll say, the heads of state of South America all had good Spanish names, didn't they? In Brazil, it was Geisel, the dictator who reigned. In Paraguay, it was Stroessner. Oh yes! Some left you're talking about. In Bolivia, it was Hugo Banzer.
1:31:33 Come on, I could go on, but really, this isn't serious. That's Atlanticism - it's the ferocious struggle, I was talking about 3 million deaths in Vietnam, but there were 3 million in Korea 3 or 4 years earlier. It's not a threat to their borders, Korea, Vietnam. If you call that socialism, if you think Biden is more left-wing than Trump - I'm not a Trumpist, and besides he'd have me shot if he knew my positions.
1:32:07 But is he more dangerous than Biden, who sends two aircraft carriers off the coast of Israel at the very moment we are in the process of committing... Listen, I've seen things, I'm approaching my 80th year, soon. And there, we're going, to the most densely populated region in the world, where we have condensed, concentrated - I don't want to insult the victims of the concentration camps by playing on the word, but still - we have concentrated two million destitute people, as few places on the planet have, on a surface the size of two French departments, and we bomb it, and today I just learned there was a hospital where in a single bombing there were 500 dead. I'm speaking from the press, from the news I learned through Western media, there.
1:33:05 So, what are you going to tell me? Oh well, Hamas shouldn't have... But Hamas, I already answered earlier, these are Atlanticist creations, all that, come on, I remember from my youth all these horrors, don't I? There, no, careful, Tanguy, careful, let's leave the TV panels where the left is NUPES, and the right is what? Who is it? Le Pen, Macron, it's... Don't you want Macron to descend in a straight line from Hollande, and Hollande to descend in a straight line from Mitterrand, from Jospin, still, let's open our eyes, that past isn't so old after all, I'm not going back to Aristotle to speak like Clouscard - I do go back to Aristotle.
Defining the left from the standpoint of the victims 1:33:46 Well, there you go, thank you very much, maybe we'll stop there, no? And, because the debate... Just that, maybe to clarify. So, yes, so, Pierre-Alain suggests a question, to clarify, well let's go. I could play as much extra time as you want, but I don't want you to get scolded at home for spending too much time looking at the screen, you want to go eat. not to apply.
1:34:20 Objectively, I'm listening to myself. So, Dominique, what is your definition of the left? In all these skewed debates, we never hear this definition given by each speaker. Well, there, finally, a good question. A Platonic question, there, Plato, that's it. above all, what did you call left? There, that way, we'll know whether it's a disguised left, whether it's a right dressing itself up. What did you call left? In other words, the left is the subject in the grammatical sense. What are the attributes? God is eternal - the subject.
1:34:50 God eternal, the attribute. The left is what? Thanks to our old comrade, much younger than me, but an old acquaintance nonetheless, quite faithful, who plays a great role, doesn't he, in, I say plays to move on to a great role, in the struggle to finally have an English translation, right, of Michel Clouscard, alongside Delga editions and ourselves.
1:35:20 So, I'm going to answer Stavisky. I should ask him someday why this pseudonym - I won't ask in public - but the Stavisky affair, before the war, he must know, but I think most young people don't. It was a strange story. Well, if there is indeed a connection, I won't answer that now, but tonight, at the end of the session, it's too important, maybe we'll start with that, when we talk about determinations starting mid-November.
1:35:53 But I've already started to answer, otherwise it would amount to dodging what I'm in the middle of saying. But no, I started answering through the content, that's what matters, not formalism. When I said, when there was the Vietnam War, and Stavisky, it was the left that supported the American bombings - you'll tell me, yes, part of the PS did - well, precisely, look who supported what I just showed to be unacceptable, making things stream over the eyes of Vietnamese children because napalm made their eyeballs melt.
1:36:30 Come on, I'm not a voyeur, I'll stop there, the atrocities, you all know the massacres of Son My, of My Lai. It's appalling, Vietnam. More tons of bombs, at a time when it's Gaza under the bombs, more tons of bombs than on the whole of the battlefields of the Second World War, the Pacific war included, on that tiny territory. I'm not talking about it because I was born there, for heaven's sake, that's not the point. In general, the French who were born there were rather on the American side, incidentally.
1:37:00 There, I'm a class traitor. So there, I'm not going to answer it, but I'll give a few leads. The nationalizations that took place at the Liberation - was it the right that supported them? You'll tell me, but still, De Gaulle, ah! You see, what is the right? What do we call the left? What do we call the right? The Gaullist right which made an alliance with the communists at the decisive moment of history.
1:37:33 I'm not a Gaullo-communist, but I prefer a thousand times the Gaullist right to the Vichyist right. Once again, I'm not even imposing my point of view on you, but at least what I'm saying is coherent. For me, what is most right-wing today, I answer, is Atlanticism. If I look - and now I'm going to give the key to my answer in terms of content, I know, the opposite of dodging the question here, but I'll stop there afterward, because for illustration it would take time and that's not what will be lacking.
1:38:05 The big difference is when one stops placing oneself as the one who judges, who is on the left, who is on the right, as I seem to be doing, in order to place oneself on the side of the victims. What does it matter? And I'm being polite. To the Vietnamese who see their village, their children, right, burning in napalm before their eyes, whether the pilot dropping the bombs is gay or straight? That's today's left.
1:38:35 Isn't it? I... Isn't it? On the NUPES side, there's a good deal of that. NUPES isn't only that. Well, finally it's Poxon, as we say in French [pun on "pas con"]. So, I answer the question. What does it matter to him whether he's gay or straight? Whether the pilot is black or white? Whether it's a man or a woman? There weren't many women back then, but there are more and more now.
1:39:05 As soon as you look at things from the victims' point of view, all these false problems evaporate. The left is those who find it monstrous that these innocent victims were made in the name of the richest and most militarily equipped powers on the planet. I'll surprise you by saying that the left is more often on David's side than on Goliath's.
1:39:39 Come on, yes, I'll take two figures from the same land of Palestine. That way, everyone will agree. There. Well, listen, I'm very happy to have found you again. I'm even happier about your questions and I look forward to answering the questions you'll ask soon in mid-November. I'll take this opportunity to say that it's quite possible that even before mid-November - that's after the break of course, but in about a month we'll do the next livestream as usual - but we're going to resume our regular rhythm, but in the meantime, it's possible that, keep watching on Facebook or YouTube, that we'll have publications, videos coming out through other channels than our irreplaceable channel with Doumé, right, the philosophical Dominique Pagani channel, I'm thinking of the series of our live readings that we owe to the very fine initiative of Philippe Moreau,
1:40:49 within which I recently did, apparently it went down rather well with some of you, a reflection on Kleist's essay on the theater of marionettes, in a very fine edition, and also the brand new channel created by our friend Amélie, called Dominique Bintou, which pleases me because it pays tribute to my cat, who is currently trying to gain ground on Pierre-Alain, taking advantage of the fact that I'm talking.
1:41:27 There, so, stay tuned to the networks, we'll meet again very soon. Thank you again for being here, see you very soon. Don't forget to keep your membership dues up to date, please, don't forget to... We're also going to launch another crowdfunding campaign soon. Yes, we're going to appeal to your wallets, and once again, this doesn't apply of course to those who started this movement with donations, for which I can't thank them enough.
1:42:04 Thank you so much and see you very soon. And a good start of the season to everyone. Thank you.
