STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

Perspectives: the debate is open 269at more closely, and the backdrop is not so favorable. The philosopher AlainFinkielkraut emphasizes that we must assume henceforth that "reflection hasbeen defeated": "We are living in an age of feelings: there is no longer anytruth or falsehood" (15 a); the norm consists of "yielding with pleasure to theimmediacy of one's elementary passions" (b). "His majesty the consumer" isking and no longer needs humanistic ideals: "The post-modern individual hasforgotten that liberty is something other than the power to change channels,and culture itself more than just an impulse assuaged" (c). "Life with thoughtis slowly giving way to a terrible and ridiculous face-off between the fanaticand the zombie" (d). A "society of mildly retarded individuals", echoestelevision critic Philippe Boucher as he looks out over the audiovisualhorizon (16). A major crisis set against such a backdrop would create a tidalwave of incommensurable force.Alternative schemasThe road not taken? Roads now closed forever?At the height of events, voices could be raised (probably not very many,but with the complicity of the silent majority) asking whether all thesetechnological developments were really necessary.These voices would attempt to revive the prophecies from the 1960s and1970s, expressed by figures like Ivan Illich: "Almost overnight people willlose confidence not only in the major institutions but also in the miracleprescriptions of the would-be crisis managers. (...) People will suddenly findobvious what is now evident to only a few: that the organization of the entireeconomy toward the 'better' life has become the major enemy of the goodlife. Like other widely shared insights, this one will have the potential ofturning public imagination inside out. Large institutions can quite suddenlylose their respectability, their legitimacy, and their reputation for serving thepublic good" (17 a).Caught up in the movement, these voices would restate their old positions:"The foreseeable catastrophe will be a true crisis - that is, the occasion for achoice - only if at the moment it strikes the necessary social demands can beeffectively expressed. They must be represented by people who candemonstrate that the breakdown of the current industrial illusion is for thema condition for choosing an effective and convivial mode of production" (b).But Illich specifies, "At the moment of the crash which is industrial ratherthan simply financial, the transformation of catastrophe into crisis depends onthe confidence an emerging group of clear-thinking people can inspire intheir peers. They must then argue that the transition to a convivial society canbe, and must be, the result of conscious use of disciplined procedure..." (c)"... the appeal of an individual to the formal structure embedded in a people'shistory remains the most powerful instrument to say the truth..." (d).It is clear that such conditions do not exist now. No alternative path hasreally been prepared; the terrain has been left fallow. This perspective might