A Cultural revolution
& intellectual necessary
Is the SEC lends to make its clean “revolution” ?
by Dominique LEROY
In all orders of things, places and mediums, it appears with obviousness that one lives the end of the evolution of multidimensional crises. The total company is in a tectonic state of disorder.
1 – Some logics which lead to major changes :
a) the globalization which brings increased contradictions if it is not a general aporia. I will take as example two dissymmetrical afflictions : with dimensions one of the rich nations, a form of “end of the History” with the generalization of a universally identical and completely anonymous mass culture ; opposite that, the misery of the world, the war and hunger lived like perpetual plagues.
b) a financialization “without shores” where the financier dominates the economic one as it never was, and where the requirements of the capital determine the limits of the production and the public interest. One already saw such a situation before and during the Great crisis of 1930, but on less scale.
c) Lastly, the informational and communication revolutions which constitute a cardinal vector of change. Examples : “Internet and the transformation of the European social model” or “multidimensional changes of the world of the “organizations””.
Conclusion : to seize the jump civilisationnel in advanced gestation, it is necessary to transcend the systemic analysis which is unable to explain why reform the structures is not enough any more.
2 passed it of the SEC and its work
a) Operation and development of the SEC
– SEC under development (email MCB 2008) : “The Food-growing Policy is this instrument which indicates – beyond the policy with the ordinary direction – the broad objectives to be continued for better living, which has the direction of the walk of the History. What changes and must be always again updated, they are the top priority of the food-growing policy. That supposes a continuous analysis of times that we live, of the movements dominating the news”.
– SEC under operation : I will refer to the “key words” which characterize the SEC according to H. Bartoli (in Understanding “Europe, the Culture and Peace) : “dialogue” ; “man of culture” ; “civilisation of universal”… and “action”. This last term was relativized by U. Campagnolo : “the SEC is not a kind of “judge higher” than the sentences of which should yield the spirits” ; each one remains free to determine its own position and the SEC does not have to decide as such ! the SEC does not make political decisions instead of people themselves : it is a place of debate, of elucidation of the problems of our time…
b) the work of the SEC constitutes a cumulated “cultural capital”, it must become a intellectual lever for the future :
– a heritage (its archives, the review To understand, activities of Venice and national centres) with re/valoriser
– a long dialogue : “with each plenary session, we wonder about the dominant questions of today, to deduce the top priority from them from the PC” (MCB 2008)
c) There exist however limits with this development which are due to :
– the verticality of the organisational structures of the SEC
– with the compartmentalized development of the national centres ; it will also be necessary to draw from the lessons of the experiment of Newsletter Fr-NL.
– with the inanity of financial means, whether it is in the center or in periphery.
One can retain, to conclude, that the SEC how has community life concentrated on the events – rare – are AG and the Executive councils !
3 – Some lightings on the major crisis of Western civilization and Europe
a) One must wonder about the dubious future of our “intellectual civilisation”. For that, I choose two moment-pivots :
– In “Phèdre”, Plato condemns the writing which, “far from being a remedy for the lapse of memory, the product in fact because the written speech generates an unconcern with regard to what is known as. The writings hawk a dead thought… The writing has only the appearance of the life”.
– And nowadays, of the changes in the diffusion of the knowledge in the long term announce the end of a long bracket : “Like the abbeys at the time of Gutenberg, the universities in their current form will disappear” (Gilles babinet, digital person in charge for France at the European Commission) ; “will teaching pass from the lecture theater to the courses online” ?
b) compared to research, it is increasingly difficult to position :
It of dimensioned there court-termism where the tempo of the projects and anticipations is determined by the Internet or the Stock Market, and other with dimensions “length-termisme” which one finds in too many works, theses or articles which dodge the relevance of real time. The point of view of Sirius led in certain cases to an analysis too resolutely turned towards the past.
c) The effects of new technologies are not immediately décryptables
– Thus, the computer déconstruit writing, even with a simple word processing.
– The electronic shelves transform the act of reading
– The smartphone, of dimensioned sound, doesn’t it constitute a new opium ?
– Lastly, the transmission of knowledge by educational new technologies (TICE) is not very readable. With the MOOC (Massive Open One Line Courses), the knowledge is dehumanized and nomadisé.
Let us conclude : if the future belongs less to the rational spirits than with the imaginative ones, will the intellectual give up his place sociétale with “creative”, itself more or less related to the market ?
4 – can a intellectual and ethical revolution constitute a program for the SEC ?
“The air of time” does not go it in another direction when it is noted, in the modern societies, that “the worship of the entertainment condemns the culture” (the world, 8/23/13). Some in addition plan “to invent a cyberdémocratie to accompany the civilisation by digital” whereas the ego of the individuals is exacerbated and that it ““Nobody” died”.
Some questions (and recommendations) which I ask :
a) to become Europe ?
While passing from the Community to the Union, didn’t Europe make an illusory projection ? Insofar as the concept of community keeps all its force, isn’t the future to transcend the Community-Union of 1993 by a Communion… which remains to be defined ?
b) It is necessary to wonder then about the prospect in the long term for a second Rebirth. As wrote it Henri Bartoli, “When a civilisation is not recognized in its culture, the question intensely arises going beyond the conflict, a new intelligence of the values and creation of new values”
c) It is necessary to reconsider the method of the “food-growing Policy” :
– With shouldn’t the information rate, of the reflection and the decision, the SEC be washed of any suspicion “length-termisme” ?
– One can wonder about what was the SEC 20 years ago and what it could become in 20 years.
d) It is especially necessary to reconsider the organization of the SEC :
– to decentralize the action and to develop a collaborative co-operation between national centres.
– “Linked in” could help with the construction of a specific and adapted social network
– Crowdfunding or “participative financing” could bring Money which misses with the SEC
Conclusion : reform or revolution in the SEC ? It is necessary to find a need with the SEC, like in 1950, and that the will either presents to go !
Reserve as for ““the Webish” gold perish” : which interest y-a it to have to spend the hours and the days on the Web ?