Every Tuesday, Le Devoir offers space to the creators of a periodical. This week, we offer you a text published in the Argument magazine, volume 26, number 2 (spring-summer 2024).
“It’s a scandal to deliberate. » These words spoken by Robespierre on December 3, 1792 raised a dizzying question: should we, yes or no, put the king on trial?
A few days earlier, Robespierre had published a letter in which he outlined the extraordinary nature of the event. A normal trial opposes two individuals, both subject to the judgment of society. But in this exceptional case, it was society itself which defended its own cause against a singular individual: Louis Capet, king of the French.
He also affirmed that the trial of Louis XVI, if it took place, would therefore be a trial in which the Republic would be both judge and party. This is why he believed that the king should be condemned, not by the Republic which founded the judicial order, but by “the laws of eternal justice” which themselves founded the Republic.
Going back to 1792, I approach the question of today’s political polarization from a long way. Robespierre’s formula is, however, worth this historical detour. His statement “it is a scandal to deliberate” resonates like a distant echo that the news periodically takes care of updating.
Each time polarization reappears, it is the same prohibition that accompanies it: if speech can still be used to establish positions, discussion has suddenly become impossible: we are for or against, but examining positions amounts to complicity. .
These words from Robespierre therefore allow us to identify a definition of polarization: there is polarization in a society when the exercise of deliberation is considered scandalous.
This polarization that we have just defined is not new, but the current phenomenon of polarization nevertheless presents a certain novelty for us.
These two facts are not incompatible: polarization is a phenomenon that is both punctual and fluctuating; a society is more or less polarized depending on the era. And if we are still very far from civil war or the Terror – this is another merit of the historical approach to evaluate the present according to a fair perspective – the feeling that we live in a more polarized society is largely widespread, and widely founded.
So what happened in our country to cause the scandal that would be deliberation to reappear?
To understand this, we must once again go back in time a little to the period which immediately precedes ours, that is to say the years 1995-2007, whose intellectual climate was very different from that which reigns currently.
There were already many reasons for disagreement at that time, but, all things considered, minds came together around certain common values which formed what I would call a disillusioned progressivism.
The environment and racism were issues of concern, as were the political future of Quebec, religious fundamentalism, urban violence and social and sexual inequalities. On all these subjects, positions were sometimes camped, but it was not a scandal to debate them.
Radical positions undoubtedly already existed, but the mainstream media and publishing houses played the role of intellectual filters, and what was marginal remained marginal. This is no longer the case. Social media has changed the situation and now threatens the existence of traditional media. This is why the year 2007 is, in my eyes, a pivotal year: appearing at that time, the iPhone profoundly changed social mores, and with them the circulation of ideas that make up our intellectual climate.
The iPhone obviously does not explain everything – that would be too easy – but it now constitutes the substrate on which information is presented, and that is partly what has changed the situation. Public discourse has become intimate, political harangues are whispered in the ear.
Both public and private, political and intimate, anonymous and viral, the iPhone is the perfect device for (individual) radicalization and (social) polarization. For him to fully play his role, only one ingredient is missing: indignation, anger, fear, etc.
And there is no shortage of causes arousing indignation, anger, fear; our societies secrete it at will. All that remains is to politically exploit these feelings by fueling them with individualized messages; what the combination of the iPhone, social networks and “Big Data” allows.
As Giuliano da Empoli writes: “If, in the past, the political game consisted of developing a message that unified, today it is about disuniting in the most striking way possible. To win a majority, we must no longer converge towards the center, but add the extremes. »
The most effective way to “mobilize” these people is clear: fuel their anger and polarize them. For them too, it is then a scandal to deliberate. Even if they have never heard of Robespierre, even if they do not have his eloquence.
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