In the last century, the story of history’s progress was built on the idea that it would pass through a series of stages of material development. These stages were fixed, predetermined, and similar regardless of place, culture, or past history. This story indicated a path from underdevelopment to the happiness of an efficient, democratic market economy.
Various benchmarks were proposed along the way: the supposed results of material production. But the real criteria of success were not the spread of education, the status of women, literacy, human life expectancy, the fate of animals,. or even the quality or life span of the products that we use. For most branches of political thought, all these were just automatic by-products of growth and the flow of goods and money.
Until the beginning of the new millennium, almost no political camp had taken stock of the inherent contradiction in this way of seeing things: its quest for infinite demand in a world of finite resources. This objection surely did gain traction in the human and physical sciences, but both right-wing politics and the traditional left shrugged their shoulders.
But now the reality has become undeniable. The narrative of triumphant productivist modernity is dead. It has been replaced by nothing more than empty propaganda.
The Poverty of Productivism
Later in the century, another vision of the world was — at last — officially expressed. This came only after a long period of social struggle and reflection that began with the Club of Rome in the early 1970s. In 1987, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published Our Common Future, the report by former Dutch prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. Five years later, in 1992, the first Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.The narrative of triumphant productivist modernity is dead. It has been replaced by nothing more than empty propaganda.
Brundtland’s report replaced quantitative assessments with a qualitative vision. It proposed new criteria of success: “human development criteria,” to be achieved within the framework of“sustainable development.” Here the benchmarks for evaluating government action changed. They still produced a ranking of the different nations’ performance, but these were no longer based on growth and GDP.
The quantitative dimension had to take a step back, in favor of an assessment of the qualitative progress in the human condition. Of course, it is now well understood that this discourse has limits of its own. But it did mark a step forward in the mental universe of politics. In my own case, it prompted a break with a whole way of thinking — and offered an alternative to the traditional, entirely quantitative focus of the wing of the Left to which I had belonged.
I adopted this new approach in my first book, À la conquête du chaos. Twenty years later, I called the program on which I was running in the French presidential election “L’avenir en commun” (Our Common Future), echoing the title of the UNDP report. It was from there that I had deduced the idea of a general human interest. And no longer did I confuse this idea with the interests of the working class alone or just with the development of the productive forces.
Today I see the expression “in common” as extending the scope of this general interest to embrace all living things. After all, is not all life indivisibly linked by the need to halt the destruction driven by finance and productivism?
Another Narrative Is Possible
Sometimes a narrative of history on which we long relied becomes exhausted. Even if this is unbeknownst to us, this also changes our relationship with the world. It forces us to reposition ourselves. We can find many past instances of this.
The humanist thinkers of the Renaissance felt like they had been pitched into terra incognita when they learned of the existence of a continent unmentioned in the Bible. Worse still, on that continent there were people with no knowledge of Noah or the prophets. And yet, up to that point, everything from Adam and Eve to the final apocalypse had seemed set out in writing — a narrative that also justified the political order of the time.
We face a similar challenge today. Those humanist thinkers had two centuries to work up the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, before the French Revolution of 1789 ushered in what the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called “the modern era.” But today we are hemmed in by much shorter deadlines.The younger generation will show its own ability to mount the necessary uprisings and pave the way for a different history.
The younger generation will show its own ability to mount the necessary uprisings and pave the way for a different history. It will leave those who build their haughty power on the market ridiculous and archaic, just like those who once ruled the feudal ancien régime. A new narrative will take shape together with the new reality to which their actions give rise.
Of course, history will never come to an end, as long as there are at least a couple of human beings left. But the present moment is indeed the end of a world. It is the end of that world in which we were forced to live with suicidal ecological and social irresponsibility.
But what real reason is there to nurture such optimism? And is it enough to stir up our will to act? Looking at how things are right now, should we not instead conclude that all indicators point to collapse? Where can we find the energy to oppose this happening with all our might?
It is true that the limits of the ecosystem’s resistance are being crossed, one after another. Climate change has begun — and it is irreversible. Yet nothing seems to be able to stop the blindest form of capitalist productivism. Social and political violence against the many is spreading ever further. Similarly nothing seems to be able to interrupt the calculations of the warmongers and génocidaires.
So what now? The truth is that reality never follows inevitable paths. The real world is a world of probabilities. However small the possibility of a positive outcome, what else can we do but act to help make it happen? Why should we do less for the human community than we would do for ourselves?
We all know that we are doomed to die eventually. And yet everyone strives every day to keep going, to improve their living conditions and those of the people around them, and sometimes even those of society as a whole. So life poses only one question: Who can we help to build a different future?
Making a Commitment
In all this, we do have a guiding principle: personal commitment. That means not relying on others to achieve the outcome you want. All you have to do is act according to this principle, without worrying about getting any reward. The self-centered liberal thinks that he is doing what is best for everyone by doing what is best for himself — and calls on everyone else to do the same.
Such a perspective makes little practical sense. We cannot ignore the rest of the human community and its ways of organizing itself. For me, this liberal-egoist mindset is itself extra cause for concern. It adds to the other harmful elements of the market society that we are forced to live in.A mass culture based on ‘every man for himself’ will weaken the overall resilience of the human community.
Given the pressing — indeed, quite foreseeable — hardships ahead of us, this social egoism will hinder the solidarity and collectivism that we need to tackle the present situation. A mass culture based on “every man for himself” will weaken the overall resilience of the human community.
More broadly, social inequalities, the various kinds of discrimination and divisions driven by religious or racist hatred all undermine humans’ ability to build solidarity. So these are all additional dangers. The new collectivism of our time requires, more than anything else, that we cultivate our collective reflection, deliberation, and action.
But have you noticed? The high and mighty are no longer offering us any narrative on the bright future ahead of us. Gone are the steps toward happiness through growth, and a world in which we are guaranteed ever more freedoms! There are no grand declarations about a future of equality or of a happy society. Nor anything else.
In France, Emmanuel Macron is simply offering young people an immoral dream: to become a billionaire by taking part in the plunder. We are told that there is no future beyond an individual career plan. But from our perspective, our political commitment is about the appetite and the need — to live together.
This is neither self-sacrifice nor a career path, but real action to develop ourselves and build our future. It is a process in which personal ethics, a political program, and activism all come together. The program and the action are currently decided within the frame of our public political intervention, as part of La France Insoumise. But what about ethics and morality themselves?
There is no poetry without poets, no rebellion without the rebellious, no goodness without the generous of spirit. In general, nothing happens — however improbable it may seem at first — without someone being there to make it happen. The first source of a moral code of responsibility is personal commitment.
And to act, you need a reason to act. Where does that come from? Obviously it comes from nowhere other than oneself, from one’s own determination to act. But why? You have to breathe in order to be. This desire to be ends only with the end of life itself.The new collectivism of our time requires, more than anything else, that we cultivate our collective reflection, deliberation, and action.
Yet there is a certain demand for coherence that stands above each of us individually. It demands that we make what we do consistent with who we are. When we cannot do this, we are sure to feel remorse and regret. But when we can pass this test, we feel satisfied and fulfilled.
We would call this hoped-for coherence “harmony,” if we saw it in a bird soaring through the sky, in a river meandering across a plain, in a flower releasing its fragrance, in a note in a piece of music, or in a smile on the lips of a loved one. This inner harmony is unachievable if the context makes it impossible. We instinctively know that. Other people are our peers, our fellow human beings. If their needs can be met, then ours can too.
The human community is our inorganic being, our body outside our body, our imagination outside our will. It does not just contain us as individual members: we ourselves express this community. This community is just as concrete as the city that binds us together as we use its many networks and connections.
Political Good and Evil
When we learn to read and write, and connect with large numbers of other people, each human being acquires a taste for individual freedom. By now, the humanist idea that everyone is their own creator has made considerable headway. The rights that are today being demanded are good proof of this.
Even when we do not want them for ourselves, we are now more accepting of the freedom of each individual to make use of them. Indicative in this regard are three fundamental rights of self-determination that are increasingly gaining recognition, at least in some societies. These are the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy, the freedom to identify as the gender of your own choosing, and the right to die when you wish.
Even insofar as these issues produce bitter debates, these shifts are testament to movements in the history of ideas and behavior. What is good for each person endowed with equal rights is good for everyone — even if you do not use that right yourself. No one is forced to have an abortion, or commit suicide, or choose a different gender, just because the law allows for it.What is good for each person endowed with equal rights is good for everyone — even if you do not use that right yourself.
Other moral or religious norms that someone has taken up may dissuade them from exercising some freedom that they have gained. But in each case, an equality of rights is the basis of the desirable order of things. Here freedom of choice turns out to be the surest path toward equality. This connection between freedom and equality gives moral and ethical force to our political efforts.
When we want what is best for everyone, we want what is surely also best for ourselves. The concern to serve the general interest thus provides the basis for the quest for harmony: both the guarantee of its good intentions and the cornerstone of effective political action.
We call this quest virtue. This has nothing to do with the morality police; rather it is a political choice. Virtue is a moral code for the decision that is good both for oneself and for everyone else. But can a political program also have a moral meaning? Should we want it to?
Undoubtedly yes. Every form of social organization names some things good and others evil. It does this with its laws, but also with the projects that it sets out for the future. To plan something is to want something. And what should we want, if not good itself?
Our program calls for a break with the existing world order. It then names what is good by outlining the ecological and social transition that we need. It does this in a specific enough way to be realistic.
But it also makes clear that its intention to bring about a new direction in human history does not lock the future into any preconceived model. Still, this program does more than simply boast of its own good intentions. It also points to a political evil. It should not avoid doing so.The world is not careening toward ecological disaster because of some sort of misunderstanding.
The world is not careening toward ecological disaster because of some sort of misunderstanding. Finance has no extenuating circumstances when it fails to do its duty in relation to society’s needs. Finance cannot be excused when it merely serves its own particular interest, in the absurd, infinite accumulation of capital.
Production really is to blame, when it works not to satisfy human needs but to speed up the circulation of money in the cycle of commodities. It is evil when it criminally passes on its social and environmental costs to other people and places. When its greed leads it to deny the fundamental biological needs of our species and of nonhumans in the biosphere, that is something evil.
Virtue as Civic Morality
If virtue is the basis of a civic morality, then we must not shy away from the questions posed by its material practice. Virtue is not a state of being that we could hope to reach, as if it were like climbing a mountain and then staying up there like hermits. Rather virtue is a path that must continually be built anew.
It is the path that we take when we question the consequences of our actions: Are they really good for everyone? Virtue cannot stop at the level of good intentions. If it did, it would turn into something of a totally different nature. It would become hypocrisy, something in which we wrap our mere inability to act. To be something real, it must necessarily be an action, in the here and now.
There can be no virtue without the virtuous. Virtue cannot be merely decreed but must be observed in reality. Virtue finds its concrete application in the way in which we live together with others.
Virtue is its own reward and is itself fulfilling. To expect something else in return would hardly be virtuous. It would turn the focus of our actions away from doing what is good and just for everyone. But virtue is not self-denial or a negation of the self. In its most fundamental principle, it is a quest for reciprocity.
The motto of the virtuous would be: “What is good for everyone is necessarily good for me.” I know that my freedom ends where others’ freedom begins, once I can see that others’ freedom ends where my freedom begins. Virtue is a deliberately chosen and actively practiced relation of reciprocity.Virtue is a deliberately chosen and actively practiced relation of reciprocity. For this reason, it has to be based on equality.
For this reason, it has to be based on equality. Virtue is impossible wherever one person dominates another. It does not matter whether that domination is based on prejudice or on custom and practice, as patriarchy does through the creed of social one-upmanship — or worse still, by making people act out of fear of punishment. Equality is the very oxygen of solidarity.
Reciprocity means recognizing that we each have similar needs to be met. Virtue is the ability to reconcile the principles that we apply in our own lives with the ones that we would like to see applied to other people, for our common benefit. At a time when our societies are brimming with hatred, virtue is the glue that sticks us together.
Creolization
One development stands out as the most crucial advance of our era: the rise of a single human people, united by its shared fate and its common dependence on the ecosystem. This itself provides the starting point for writing a new narrative about human history.
We need to make this the oxygen of our aspiration for a different world order. Humanity is indeed bound together, at the very least by its equal dependence on its ecosystem. This provides the objective basis for the universality of rights: we all have the same inescapable needs and must have the same right to satisfy them.
If this understanding is correct, then we will also find spontaneous material evidence of it in practice. We could do this simply by noting that there is just one human species and, indeed, one in which any person can reproduce with any other, whoever they may be. And they do so.One development stands out as the most crucial advance of our era: the rise of a single human people, united by its shared fate and its common dependence on the ecosystem.
We could also make the simple observation that all cultures and languages make demands for freedom and universal equality. Humanity, in the form of large numbers united by their dependence on collective urban networks, is today spreading these realities far and wide.
But a new argument has been raised against this self-evident truth. The “clash of civilizations,” based on religious differences, is cited as proof that there are insurmountable divisions cutting through the human species. Humanity is said to be inherently divided, because communities assert their existence by developing different cultures.
This is surely a clever way of turning the argument around. Even if nature does not create any insurmountable boundary between the various expressions of humanity, perhaps culture does create one? We should respond as follows: even looking at this aspect of human life, our species has demonstrated its material unity, indeed in the most concrete terms.
We see this in the human tendency to create a common culture out of distinct elements; that is, to practice cultural mixing. This process has been called “creolization.” The word stems from the creation of a new language in the West Indies and South America: Creole.
There the slaves who had been kidnapped from all over Africa did not speak the same language, either among themselves or with the slaveowners. But communication is fundamental for all social animals. It is a means, but also an end: to produce the social bond without which no human can survive.
So these slaves developed a new, common language so that they could communicate. This new connection enabled them to reenter the realm of human relations. In the exact moment when their enslavement — their treatment as an object to be owned — denied their humanity, this was how they reasserted it. This is the fundamental significance of creolization.
Humanity of the Many
Creolization differs from the idea of a “mestizo” society in that it does not necessarily have any biological aspect. It is a purely cultural phenomenon. The concept was coined and given formal definition in the writings of the poet-philosopher Édouard Glissant. But even beyond the particular context that he was writing about, in the West Indies, we can find many other proofs and traces of this process at work.There will never be enough difference between human beings to stop them from combining to produce all manner of new things that they have in common.
We find it in all languages, which integrate loanwords from some other language, but we can likewise find it in music and rhythms. The same can be said of more private tastes. Whether it is cooking or clothing, creolization is proof of human universality, because it makes it a reality.
From a political point of view, it is the missing link between the desire for universalism and the assertion of the right to be different. It is not a half-and-half but the passage toward something new. Most creolization today takes place through music, television series, and our know-how in using various objects. These things all allow for a fusion of behaviors and norms.
Creolization makes a mockery of racism. There will never be enough difference between human beings to stop them from combining to produce all manner of new things that they have in common. Creolization goes beyond the narrow demand for “integration” into some preconceived mold. Rather, it concretely produces the human community in each country.
Creolization is inclusive. No doubt, in each instance, it draws on the dominant culture of a particular time and place. But that doesn’t mean reducing everything to a single norm. Rather, it brings out the unexpected and the original. It welcomes in and remolds everything that it comes into contact with.
This tendency is all the more powerful when the pressure of numbers multiplies connections and increases the interactions between people. In such a context, creolization can be seen as the preparation of a common matrix to build from, or as the foundation of a future cumulative culture.
Politically creolization offers a perspective for an era of mass population movements in the age of large numbers. Creolization does this at a time when climate change is massively increasing the number of human beings on the move. It does this at a time when the intensification of connections in the online noosphere has an unparalleled capacity to produce a common culture of reference.
It does this a time when an AI system like Bloom has proven its ability to “think” in forty-six different languages and come up with “intelligent” suggestions. And finally, it does this at a time when humanity’s expansion into outer space is underlining the existence of a single human >community — and beginning to transport it into a boundless universe. Creolization is the future of a humanity that is soaring to new heights.
