“The left is not awake” (The left is not awake), by Susan Neiman, translated from English (United States) by Cécile Dutheil de La Rochère, Climats, 250 p., €22, digital €15.
LEFT OF ENLIGHTENMENT AGAINST WOKISM
What exactly does it mean to be leftist? For several generations, explains American philosopher Susan Neiman, it meant intimately adhering to the principles of the Enlightenment. Three founding convictions constitute them. Universalism: humanity is one, common ideas and values can unite it, beyond tribes, genders, cultures and other particular points of view. Justice: little by little, equality and dignity must become a reality, the ideals of morality and law are not in vain, games of power and domination are not the only owners of the game. Progress: the human condition can be improved, history. It is built, the worst is not fatal.
The left has not woken upThe philosopher’s new essay highlights how, in recent times, this triple ideal has been neglected. He is even criticized, vilified, accused of all evils by the left. “radical woke”. The universalism of human rights would only be the false nose of Western domination, crushing the legitimate diversity of points of view, ethnicities and genders. The dream of justice would be just an empty discourse, which would mask the reality of power relations and the perpetuation of exclusions. Progress would be an illusion, a mirage invented to exploit more and better. In short, the ideals of the Enlightenment would be nothing more than a harmful illusion and a trap that must be deconstructed. We must not only abandon them, but denounce them and fight them mercilessly, in the name of decolonial, racialized, intersectional or transgender thinking.
This essay testifies to the resistance of reason against movements that prefer to free themselves from it. A specialist in Kant, author of a dozen books, particularly on the question of evil and contemporary infantilization, Susan Neiman has taught at Princeton, Yale and Tel Aviv. He now lives and works in Germany. By denouncing the poor arguments against the Enlightenment, his book reminds us (supporting arguments, texts in hand) that it is the result of misinterpretations, biased readings, and mass ignorance. In fact, the three founding ideals remain essential: without them, nothing remains. The best proof: to disqualify them, their adversaries adopt, sometimes without knowing it, eminently reactionary or frankly fascist assumptions: blood identity, priority of the land, primacy of tragedy.
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