After driving us very far from our homes on the occasion of his previous test (In the friendship of a mountain), the philosopher Pascal Bruckner operates a 180 degree turn by discussing the dictatorship of the home. This tendency to give up, certainly increased tenfold by the pandemic, was pre-existing to him, he asks.
We quickly feel that a high dose of bitterness tints the pages of this Rite of the slippers which, despite its amusing cover, is intended as a sharp rant against the stay-at-home society. Will we all end up as so many little Oblomovs, an extremely lazy character described by the writer Ivan Goncharov in the novel of the same name?
First, a context, with the convergence of multifaceted threats that have arisen in recent years: a coronavirus that haunts the streets, an anxiety-provoking climate crisis, an unexpected war in Ukraine. The automatic response to these events would be to close oneself in, a revealing reflex of our mentalities which would be nothing new.
Indeed, Bruckner proposes to probe the historical and philosophical roots of renunciation, of which the recent confinements are only the extension, not without having previously castigated the development of a leisure society connected at all costs. Why seek the world outside our walls, when the world is concentrated there, at our fingertips, in our devices, telephones and computers? Burst series, video games, social networks: they all take it for their rank.
It is not sanitary tyranny that threatens us, but sedentary tyranny.
Pascal Bruckner
Beyond this bitter current observation, some chapters are more instructive, plunging us back into the past by retracing the introduction of banality and everyday life in the arts, especially painting. Similarly, the emergence and evolution of the concept of intimacy are scrutinized, with intriguing historical illustrations (see the King of France constantly spied on by his relatives and valets). We also touch on the dimensions of monastic life, now that everyone has been able to experience asceticism at home. Of course, literary and philosophical references are not lacking, Bruckner taking up the timeless allegory of the cave signed Plato, remodeled in the light of confinement and withdrawal.
Sleep, weather, literature of confinement… the essay is relatively short (160 pages), but the author does not hesitate to study his subject from many angles, always coming back to the dictatorship of the dress of room. He multiplies the shock formulas to reprove this culture (“the bovarysm of the portable”, “our domestic Guantanamos”…), but as the chapters follow one another, a fault seems to crack the work. Yes, the society of withdrawal has gargled the tragedies of recent years, but… what can be done to counter it?
Unless the mere awareness of its hold on our lives is the author’s goal, the essay seems to err in lacking concrete solutions to pounding down the walls we have surrounded ourselves with – “To paralyzing angst , we must oppose the elegance of the risk assumed”, this kind of formula sketched in the final chapter is certainly stylish, but will it really help to curb the appeal of the sofa? A practical manual for the decompartmentalization of our lives would constitute a logical subsequent volume to this Rite of the slipperswhose historical and philosophical aspects remain nourishing.
Extract
“The big religious question was yesterday: is there life after death? The great question of secular societies is the reverse: is there at least one life before death? Have we loved, given, given, kissed enough? Existence is not an endurance race where one must hold out as long as possible sheltered from blows but a certain quality of bonds, emotions, commitments. When it is reduced to withdrawal into its shell, to the simple viewing of video games, series in bursts or compulsive purchases, does it still have the slightest value? […] To experience the shock of change, one would have to start by breaking the drowsiness of identical days, by experiencing the power of revelation of the new, which the sealed-off life does not allow. »
Who is Pascal Bruckner?
Novelist and philosopher, Pascal Bruckner has authored some thirty books, some of which have won the Prix Médicis de l’essai (The temptation of innocence), the Montaigne Prize (The tyranny of penance) or the Renaudot Prize (beauty thieves). He is a member of the Académie Goncourt, and his work has been translated into around thirty countries.
The Rite of the Slippers – On Renunciation of the World
Pascal Bruckner
Grasset
160 pages