Book. “It’s not possible to be such an idiot!” » It was then when she finally lived her dream of being able to write full-time, without pursuing free time, that Mona Chollet became aware of that small, insulting voice that tyrannized her no matter what she did. In his last essay, resist the blame, the successful attacks of the essayist “to our habit of disqualifying ourselves, of attacking ourselves relentlessly; to our conviction that our spontaneous ways of existing are always defective; that we don’t deserve anything good”.
He wants to fight against this inner voice that does not make us better and crushes us, prevents us, sometimes humiliates us and “ It corrodes our being from within as if the whims of life did not already care enough for it. “Thus, we burden ourselves as insufficiently productive workers, as consumers who are not always responsible, not always sufficiently committed activists and, obviously, on an ontological level, as women and as mothers. There exists, Mona Chollet rightly believes, a “psychic continent” to emerge.
That this inner voice, which seems so intimate, does not belong only to oneself is evident. It’s less about us not subduing it with positive “mantras” about its intrinsic value. As she did with Reinventing love (Zones, 2021), Mona Chollet takes up an issue essentially addressed by the field of personal development – which she also aims to defend – to observe it from a more social angle.
A malicious chorus
Who speaks to us when we think we are speaking to ourselves? She identifies several sources for this malicious chorus. Christian culture: how to escape from it? –, and more particularly Saint Augustine, who, triumphing over opposing beliefs, made original sin a fundamental doctrine of the Church. This is the guilty human since he was born. There “Demonization of children” It is obvious: contrary to the positive education that we believe to be dominant, they are often considered little evil beings who must be educated so that they do not become kings, challenging their emotions.
The culture of performance, of overwork, which pushes us to self-exploitation, makes us feel guilty for resting, for being sick or simply unproductive. That of individualism, which makes us personally responsible for the misfortunes we suffer, when the causes far surpass us.
In an ingenious chapter on “ militant purity »which she considers to be largely impregnated of“religious ethics »The author deplores the misappropriation of a progressive ideal of openness to everyone’s sensitivities into a surveillance tool (tracking “ privileges »to expressions of sadness, or even, within oneself, to impure thoughts). “ I am convinced that guilt is a sterile feeling, which produces nothing of value for anyone. »He writes in sensitive pages about the right to happiness in a world that is going so badly.
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