A journalist presents you with a recently published essay
Do you know why China once decided to allow science fiction and fantasy conventions to be held within its borders after years of censoring such literature?
British author Neil Gaiman explained it in one of his books. And his answer is fascinating.
“The Chinese were good at creating things if others brought them the plans. But they weren’t innovating, they weren’t inventing. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the United States, to Apple, Microsoft, Google, and they asked the people who were inventing the future there questions about themselves. And they discovered that all of them had read science fiction when they were children. »
A few years ago, I was struck by this anecdote. It came to mind when I read the essay. beyond the books, because it is in line with what Normand Baillargeon tries to prove with this collective work.
In this book, various Quebec personalities give their opinion on “the imprint of literature” on their professions.
Using short essays, they bear witness to the power of books. A vast power that can act “in all spheres of our lives, including professional, and this, regardless of our profession”.
The examples provided are as numerous as they are diversified.
The psychologist Rachida Azdouz says that she “developed an interest in psychology thanks to the philosophical literature” discovered during her studies, but also to Russian novelists such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.
She also specifies that in her practice, tales can be “precious tools”, among other things for “accompanying refugee children traumatized by war”.
Lawyer Julie Latour explains for her part that “literature irrigates the law, because legal thought is watered at the source of the language and the social imagination that it reflects”.
She then demonstrates that reading complex works (she quotes the author Marguerite Yourcenar, and she is not the only one to do so in this book) stimulates her intellectually and has a direct positive impact on her work as a lawyer.
Just like, she says, the minimalism of the works of Jacques Poulin, Ernest Hemingway and Gabrielle Roy. “Sobriety is often a more powerful vehicle than emphasis for resolving conflict, because it promotes clarity and allows the reader to welcome the proposal through his own subjectivity and then adhere to it. »
Journalist Josée Boileau says she has read many works of fiction that have allowed her to “hone [ses] reflections on society.
Accountant Chantal Santerre demonstrates that literature taught her “the relationship of people to money”.
We could continue this list for a long time as this little essay is rich in demonstrations as to the usefulness of books. As for this gift they have of enlightening us. As for the fact that they change lives, neither more nor less!
This power, the psychiatrist (and poet) Ouanessa Younsi sums it up elegantly, in a few words. “The doctor saves lives, the poet saves life,” she writes.
Normand Baillargeon says he hopes that this book will confirm “the importance of literature in general culture” and “the place it deserves in the curriculum – especially at CEGEP”. Let us reassure him: this noble objective has been achieved.
Beyond books – The imprint of literature on our professions
Editions Poètes de Brousse, Essay collection
241 pages
Extract
The educational philosopher that I am has always been sensitive to the major issues surrounding the justification of the place of literature in the curriculum, and in particular, its place as a component of a general culture offered to all. This subject quickly becomes polemical, especially if we approach the fact that we can hardly, or at least not in the usual sense, justify this place by arguing the instrumental value of literature, its economic value or, if you prefer, its importance as human capital, in the narrowest sense of this term – and this is of course also the case, I know very well, of philosophy. However, I think that literature, like philosophy, has an important and irreplaceable place in the deployment of this general culture that should be offered to as many people as possible.
Who is Normand Baillargeon?
“Partisan of Order minus Power and of intellectual self-defense. This is how Normand Baillargeon, a philosopher who was a long-time professor at UQAM, describes himself on his Twitter account. For this collective, he recruited no less than 12 collaborators: Brigitte Alepin, Rachida Azdouz, Josée Boileau, Alain Deneault, Jean Désy, Lucia Ferretti, Julie Latour, Sonia Lupien, Thierry Pauchant, Yannick Rieu, Chantal Santerre and Ouanessa Younsi.