Twice a month, “Le Devoir” challenges enthusiasts of philosophy and the history of ideas to decipher a topical issue based on the theses of a prominent thinker.
Two recent events should prompt us to re-read one of the most prestigious representatives of the Age of Enlightenment, Nicolas de Condorcet: the death of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, forcing allegiance to a new king, and the controversies over the voting method used in the last election in Quebec.
Mathematician, philosopher and political actor during a key period in history – the French Revolution – Condorcet (1743-1794) was thrown into a new situation. For the first time, the destiny of a people was no longer linked to that of a king or a queen. When they died, the population should no longer passively accept that their son or daughter should come to power, as we are still asked to do today in Quebec for King Charles III.
The advent of the Republic demanded for Condorcet two social innovations: the establishment of a democratic voting system which makes it possible to elect the most competent person or group and the development of public education which allows the people to be free to choose, in an informed way.
The paradox
Condorcet examines the question of the voting system as a mathematician. Author of scientific advances in political arithmetic and probability, he was elected to the Academy of Sciences at the age of 26. The “Condorcet paradox” is still studied today. It demonstrates, among other things, that democracy is not necessarily respected based solely on the greatest number of votes attributed to a person. To ensure a democratic result, sophisticated procedures must be used with regard to the voting method used.
The results of the last election in Quebec generated controversy. The first-past-the-post system has been particularly criticized. Failure to respect the commitment on the reform of the voting system, signed in May 2018 by the Coalition avenir Québec, the Parti québécois, Québec solidaire and the Green Party of Québec, too. If the CAQ received 40.9% of valid ballots in this last election, it won 90 MP seats out of 125. Moreover, if we consider the total number of registered voters, that is, d t after Elections Quebec, a total of 6,302,789 people, the CAQ only received 26.7% of the potential ballots, although it won 72% of the seats.
A certain version of the Condorcet paradox is thus demonstrated by this election, where 40.9% of the votes, or even as little as 26.7%, turned, for various reasons, into 72% of the seats.
An intellectual in politics
Condorcet proposes a second social innovation for the conduct of a democratic Republic, namely public education. Here, it is the philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment who expresses himself. If Condorcet was the last of the encyclopaedists, he was also a member of the municipal council of Paris and deputy for Paris in the National Legislative Assembly. He knew then that this instruction should not only be introduced by philosophers and scholars, as in the days of Voltaire and d’Alembert. It also had to be organized by the state. Elisabeth and Robert Badinter, in their masterful biography of Condorcet, were right to present him as “an intellectual in politics”.
In his Five Memoirs on Public Instruction, Condorcet insists that primary education should enable everyone to acquire basic knowledge. In his time, only the aristocrats, the clergy or the wealthy merchants had the leisure and the means to educate themselves, and women were excluded. For the sake of equality, Condorcet proposes that education be public and free, and offered in the same way to all social classes, regardless of rank, gender or race. For him, basic knowledge includes reading, writing, arithmetic, but also basic notions for measuring land, understanding the different productions of a country or recognizing the first moral feelings. For example, the comprehension of the calculations presented above and their questionable proportion, so that 26.7% of the votes of registered voters are transformed into 72% of the seats of deputies, require a minimum mastery of reading and mathematics, and of judgment.
Also, for Condorcet, public education at the primary level must remain open to more elaborate knowledge in secondary schools, high schools and universities. For example, he recommends that schools be equipped with a library, a vegetable garden and a laboratory. For him, these arrangements allow students to carry out research, to get used to natural, chemical and biological processes, as well as to use certain scientific instruments. Moreover, in the social sciences, the study of different political regimes highlights the fact that, under a monarchy, a people can only accept that a new monarch reigns, even if he is incompetent, whereas in a republic, this same people can decide for themselves who should lead the nation.
As we can see, the primary mission of education is not for Condorcet to train people so that they find a job, as is often the case today. It is to ensure their freedom, by ensuring that they can think for themselves, that they know and can defend their rights, in addition to becoming responsible citizens. As he writes: “We teach in the primary schools what is necessary for each individual to conduct himself and enjoy the fullness of his rights. »
Obscurantist knowledge
For Condorcet, knowledge must therefore be liberating. But he considers that certain types of knowledge can become oppressive. He calls them “obscurantist knowledge” and he fights three of them.
First, he opposes the instruction of religion in schools. For him, public schools must stick to reasoned argument, and the republican state cannot endorse a religion, having to leave freedom of choice to people in matters of religious belief or non-belief. This conception is admitted today in many countries, but it is refused in others.
Second, he opposes the misuse of emotions in education. If he admits that emotions have their part in the evaluation of preferences, they cannot, for Condorcet, become the essential engine of education, to the detriment of reasoning and argumentation. In our current world, where recourse to seduction and fear is sometimes preponderant in marketing and politics, this conception of Condorcet is particularly important.
Finally, he opposes “vulgar empiricism”, which reduces knowledge to simple recipes to satisfy an individual desire in the short term. This type of knowledge contrasts with scientific thinking, which considers evidence and multiple viewpoints to inform decisions. For Condorcet, the ignorant being tends to know only his individual right and his immediate desires. In our world where economism takes precedence and where libertarian thought has many followers, this conception of Condorcet seems quite fundamental.
Condorcet’s fight against this obscurantist knowledge aimed at both the freedom of individuals and the right for all to access these freedoms. As he wrote: “As long as there are men who will not obey their reason alone, who will receive their opinions from an alien reason, in vain all the chains would have been broken, in vain those opinions of order would be useful truths: the human race would nevertheless remain divided into two classes, that of men who reason and that of men who believe, that of masters and that of slaves. »
Our schools today
It was not until 1882 and Jules Ferry that these ideas contributed to the development of public, secular and free schools in many countries. But this growth remains very uneven. For example, reports have recently shown that the education system in Quebec is the most unequal in Canada. In order to survive, schools compete with each other, emphasizing a three-speed system: private schools, subsidized by the state, public schools with special programs and public schools with regular classes. This situation increases costs for families as well as the segregation of students between academic results and socio-professional categories. The privatization and commodification of education are further accentuated at a time when working conditions and remuneration in the system are inadequate, when a majority of establishments require substantial investments and when an alarming number of teachers and teachers leave the profession.
François Legault, as Prime Minister, has stated that his priority of priorities is education. “That’s where it all starts,” he said. This assertion would have pleased Condorcet. But to really become an “intellectual in politics”, it will not only be necessary to invest massively in education, but also to separate the republic from the monarchy and to set up a democratic voting system for the elections.
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