Yes, I know, the word “shismogenesis” may seem daunting. However, it is not new – it was coined by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson in the 1930s – and it expresses a tendency leading to a blocking of all dialogue. The term is taken up by authors David Graeber and David Wengrow in their fascinating book In the beginning was… A new history of humanity (The links that liberate, 2021).
In etymological terms, the word is composed of “schism” and “genesis”, or the art of creating division. The example given by the authors describes the current process well: “Imagine two people talking about politics and starting to argue over a minor point of disagreement. After an hour, it’s a safe bet that they will be separated by an impenetrable ideological border, each defending increasingly intransigent positions (and undoubtedly more radical than they would normally have done). to signify its rejection of the opposing point of view). This is how, at the end of a feverish discussion, two moderate social democrats with slightly divergent tendencies can transform one into a Leninist, the other into a zealot of Milton Friedman. »
In a certain way, this process involves binary thinking, which thrives on the construction of dichotomies which sometimes radically oppose positions which then become irreconcilable. It is about radicalizing the position of the other to better discredit it.
Examples abound in social debates. The example of secularism immediately comes to mind. For me, we can be for Law 21 without being accused of Islamophobia, just as we can be against it without being accused of playing into the hands of the Islamists.
It seems to me that binary thinking must make room for thinking more oriented towards the “continuum”, going, for example, from 0 to 10, concerning an object of debate. An example: the question of nationalism. Rather than contrasting point 0 (e.g., ethnic, identity-based, conservative nationalism) with point 10 (e.g., civic, multiculturalist, progressive nationalism), we might find that the majority of people fall somewhere in between. According to variable gradients, of course, but where sometimes the positions can come together, like those of people located around points 4 to 6, or even sometimes around points 3 to 7.
The debate then takes on a completely different aspect: it is no longer a question of discrediting (“accusing”) the other, but of debating the foundations of one or the other position.
The axis of the continuum is also important because it allows us to move away from a position frozen in time. We can (and do continually) oscillate from one point to another depending on the political context. Thus, one day we can favor identity-based nationalism (for example when we are shocked by condescending remarks like those of the president of Air Canada) and another day opt for an inclusive nationalism (for example when a minister accuses the immigrants not to work).