Finally! Philosopher Juliette Morice allows us to soar to the higher spheres of critical thought by analyzing travel and travelers in a clear and in-depth manner. Abundantly nourished by references across the centuries, this essay is perfect for those who wish to go… further.
First of all, let’s point out the somewhat misleading title. This is not yet another code of ethics asking the fateful question: is traveling good or bad? This “philosophical investigation”, which announces from the outset that it does not take sides, rather explores perceptions and postures with regard to explorations, generated by great thinkers and literary figures over the centuries. A very well-stocked suitcase: Montaigne, Kant, Rousseau, Lévi-Strauss, Perec, Chateaubriand, Socrates, and so on…
The preamble already grabs attention, evoking the “ends of travel” stated in the past, between the nostalgia for very slow travel and the bitter feeling that every square centimeter of the globe has already been explored: it is “the exhaustion of the world”. And yet, we continue to circle around it. Why? This simple question will bring an avalanche of contradictions.
But you are blurry
But before the “why”, we must also clarify the “what”. Because what is a journey? From what distance and duration can a trip be considered as such? And from a qualitative point of view, should it be woven with freedom, punctuated by events, or centered on movement, as Montaigne conceives? The journey is “an elastic and vague concept”, forged by a host of parameters, like those of its supposed “success”. The author also underlines our propensity to substitute the verb “to travel” with “to see” or “to know”, evoking Rousseau, who advocates discovering otherness only once one’s mind is formed, contrary to those who claim that “travel forms youth”.
Then the underlying question of “why” emerges, which is just as thorny. Is it an indispensable experience? In the past, travel could already be perceived as unnecessarily risky. In the 14th century,e century, Petrarch concludes that they took more from him (time, money, strong friendships) than they brought. Diderot, for his part, points to an “overabundance of energy” that forces one to move, more by constraint than by choice. And what should we think of Socrates and Kant, two totems of philosophy who, despite their strong cosmopolitan leanings, refused to leave their native city? The essayist also dwells on the interesting “scratch card”, implying an unattainable ideal of exhaustiveness, but also, on the contrary, the fashion for travel “to nowhere”. In short, trying to grasp the nature and function of travel often results in paradoxical answers.
Tourist flight and self-hatred
What follows is an interesting phenomenology of locomotion, analyzing, somewhat in the manner of Barthes in his Mythologiesthe most common means of transport – the bicycle having a very special status.
Then, along the way, other contradictions emerge: that of risks and fatigue, both sought and feared (Nicolas Bouvier), the veneer of discovering others hiding a background of vanity and self-celebration (hello, social networks), or even the taste for adventure… organized!
The third part of the book focuses on psychological issues: can escapades shape us, create ruptures with ourselves? From Deleuze to Seneca via Lipse, the idea of an influence too superficial to have a lasting impact on the soul emerges; even going so far as to suppose an impossible escape from oneself. The Survenant would have also constituted a perfect illustration of this vision (“The unfortunate person who carries a natural boredom in his heart, if he believes he will always find a remedy for his pain further along the roads, it is for nothing that he leaves his home, his country”, we read there).
We then drift towards the figure of the tourist, widely reviled even though he is the vast majority among travelers. And since “we are always someone else’s tourist”, could it not be a question of self-hatred, as demonstrated by the anthropologist Jean-Didier Urbain? Finally, the final chapter, captivating, dissects the relationships between journeys and the distortion of stories, proposing to see the various facets of the “traveler-liar”.
Neither a moralizing essay, nor a model traveler’s manual, Give up traveling aims to be an excellent reflection that anyone who likes to explore the globe can learn from, accompanied by the greatest thinkers and their surprising positions.
Extract
“Trying to think about travel is therefore exploring a paradoxical terrain, that of contradictory desires that pull human beings in opposite directions, and install in them a gap or what we could call a permanent “incoincidence”. This is because the “desire for elsewhere” has something problematic in itself: indeed, what is the true object of this so-called “desire for elsewhere”? Is it really elsewhere for itself that we desire?”
Who is Juliette Morice?
Juliette Morice, a qualified professor and doctor of philosophy, is a lecturer at the University of Le Mans. She has published The World or the Library – Travel and Education in the Classical Agea book that also addressed issues related to travel and training.
Give up traveling
Puff
248 pages