Dialogue does not prevent extreme discourses. Rather, it has the effect of diluting their prevalence, gradually, to the essence of more temperate proposals. At least, when disagreement is taken in time and antagonisms are not solidified into radically different (rather than opposing) perspectives. The adjective “alternative” is based on this idea of realities that have become parallel. There, no possible miscibility. Dialogue? Useless? Not quite, but studies on deradicalization have shown us the challenges that the process represents.
The current hardening, in speeches as in perceptions, is enough to scare. There are those who, in the comparison of personalities, situations or current and past events, find similarities. Echoes of the past would return, heralding the resurgence of the devastating ideologies that defined the last century. This is probably exaggerating the point of said similarities too much. Looking for similarities in the (proclaimed) authors of Trump. The Art of the Deal And Mein Kampfis exaggerated, to find, fallacious. This does not make our situation any less worrying. Particularly because there is almost nothing truly astonishing in what is happening at present.
Over the past fifty years, resources (and even the will to mobilize them) have been so lacking that it is illusory to think of reversing such movements. We do not suddenly wake up on the verge of implosion of our political, economic and social model. For decades, Western societies have indulged in self-celebration, multiplying the indices demonstrating their virtue (governance, corruption, respect for freedoms, etc.). At the same time, they preferred to ignore that, in their own territories, inequalities were increasing – in economic, social and cultural capital – creating pockets of poverty here and there.
At this point, it would be unfair to push the criticism without noting that external events have fueled the imbalance between resources and needs. The absolutely necessary care of migrants (who represent 3.6% of the world’s population) increases the pressure on the finances of the States that host them. It severely tests the social and community safety net (generally underfunded, sometimes defunded), particularly because their distribution is not random: most have no other means than to settle in overpopulated pockets of poverty.
This misery that overflows the walls where we tried to hide it is undermining our beliefs. The “corrective” measures have a limited impact, even on our conscience… fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. A legacy that each generation blames the previous one for but ultimately decides to accept and then make profitable. At the same time, a resentment whose roots extend ever further, fed by daily frustrations. Every day the ranks of the disillusioned swell. For those who feel misunderstood, abandoned, forgotten, there comes a time when it becomes possible to whisper in their ears that they can find a voice again.
A definitional “malleability”
By dint of treating the ills of our societies crudely, without a systemic approach, the infection has spread, even to our words. And while entropy progresses, the explanations provided, they, are simplified, taking the path of causal uniqueness (with, in addition, sometimes confusions between cause and effects). Propositions that present themselves without the help of a prompter or the recourse to hermetic experts. And on certain occasions, to complete the simplification, what is better than to consider that what is at the origin of our affliction is a foreign body.
The people began to be treated as if their capacity and tolerance for understanding complexity had vanished. Placed beyond their reach, science became a source of distrust, sometimes presented as an instrument of domination at the service of corrupt elites, sometimes as an obstacle to “common sense”. A part of the population began to doubt the integrity of the scientific approach or its validity.
And since it is very difficult to decomplexify it when one does not have the necessary knowledge, we started to do it, in an uncomplexed way. The method for testing a proposition is carried out through direct observation, without needing to be replicated other than through communities of interest, and which carries its generalization. Finally, an alternative vision of science, a strictly utilitarian scientificity, with variable geometry which allows to support almost instantly, in a few clicks, everything or its opposite.
The mantra “I did my research” illustrates this drift and the cognitive biases that accompany it (selection bias and information availability bias). Only information that supports the assertion is presented (if necessary, the integrity of information that opposes it is denied). Worse, this leads to the production (at a frantic pace) of information, falsified results and a multiplication of duplicates that artificially inflate the research pool. This has two consequences: 1. People are more exposed to erroneous information and 2. The law of numbers is subsequently used to demonstrate the validity of erroneous information.
The scope of this shift cannot yet be measured, because it profoundly alters a foundation of life in society: agreeing on the content (signified) of an object (referent). The definitions of things, the result of an approach aimed at consensus and precision, are purified (loss of substance or nuance) or even replaced. This definitional “malleability” is dangerous, because it makes possible a very free reinterpretation of facts, events, observations.
It is also a vector of uncertainty. Without knowing whether we share the same assumptions, rules, codes or symbols, defining a situation and its characteristic elements (“putting words to something”) in the context of an exchange is delicate and is likely to fuel the feeling that the other refuses to understand our reality.
A world separates us
Trust, the foundation of common beliefs (political, scientific, etc.), is wavering because it is given and preserved through speech and listening, which are suffering. The disappointed hopes of a societal model, at the heart of which is nevertheless dialogue, have become anger, fanned by the virulence of certain political speeches, sometimes instrumentalized as a means of accession to power. In an attempt to escape the pangs of fatalism, some of those who no longer have faith in institutions are relying on providence. They open their ears and hearts to those who offer a dream of a better tomorrow.
In this messianic broth, ideas are cultivated that are obviously radical. But all of them, ultimately, carry the same corollary: distrust of the Other. An Other who is, has become, too far removed from us. From now on, a world separates us.
Is it too late? I decide to believe that it is not. Nothing that I have presented, in any case, is irreversible. The costs, naturally, are commensurate with the task. In order to re-establish dialogue, significant investments must be made in all places where mediation and learning about others are practiced (education, media, etc.). Striking at the heart of inequalities requires sacrifices that we will ultimately have to accept.
By force of circumstances (notably the inevitable future population movements), we will be forced to do so anyway. We can choose to do so by reducing as much as possible the factors of chaos and conflict or being swept away by them. I hope that generations after mine will reject their heritage. Being called an idealist will not shake my conviction that one day, at the crossroads, we will choose that of our humanity.