2024-10-29 13:25:00
In a previous text, I started a reflection around the“commitment” in the broad sense – personal, professional, educational commitment –, saying that it is a condition sine qua non to the harmony of men. A society in crisis is a society that has lost, politically and culturally, the sense of commitment, first local (in an immediate environment), then universal (in the name of principles).
Here I would like to develop my observations on the idea of discriminatory behavior within a society. Without talking about “good” or “bad” – notions which, before being dogmatic categorisations, impose themselves as anthropological necessities – I mean by “discrimination” the way of distinguishing worthy behavior from unworthy behavior: how does the action or choice of a particular individual, on a collective scale, more worthy or more reprehensible than others?
Racism, sexism, xenophobia are some pathological and (in theory) criminally reprehensible forms of discrimination. But behind the pseudo-progressive smokescreen, capitalist society has done nothing but encourage, through the myth of self-made man in particular, discrimination based on material wealth. In other words, the social origin of individuals remains, overwhelmingly, again and again, the first factor of silent discrimination at the origin of all the dysfunctions of the world subjected to the plutocratic system, be it neoliberal or “traditionalist”.
To give an extreme image of the absurdity and hypocrisy of neoliberal power, it would be like allowing, on the one hand, associations of heroin addicts to demonstrate in the streets for the legalization of heroin, and on the other entrusting pharmaceutical laboratories with the task to solve the problem of clandestine drug addiction through the sale of Subutex tablets or new substitutes, without ever implementing a real public health policy by providing, for example, psychological and professional support to addicted people.
Closer to us, it would be like authorizing and promoting “sex change” starting from adolescence with the sole pretext that some boys feel like girls and vice versa, without ever considering the pathological nature and traumatic origin of such cases, nor provide a therapeutic response to the initial suffering of “trans” people, who, if we pay attention to each one’s stories, very often were victims of violent parents during their childhood (for example a boy sexually abused by his father or victim of influence of a mother who sees a daughter in him).
But let’s go back to the concept of social discrimination. Fervent defender of French public schools (even if she doesn’t want me…) and her ideal of inclusion, I firmly believe in the concept of equal opportunities, which allows every child to benefit from a quality education whatever their origin . It should be noted that in most countries in the world, parents’ income determines the quality of education received, since this becomes a privilege as soon as attendance at private schools – paradoxically “international” – is reserved for a “financial elite”. There is nothing wrong with being rich, as others would say, but you still need to be aware of your wealth…
I have been able to see in Africa, and more particularly in Egypt where I lived and worked for two years (in 2016 and 2017), the collateral damage of a fundamentally unequal educational system, where favoritism and co-optation are the rule: a child of modeste has no chance of accessing a private school or a quality education – at least up to his potential – despite all the determination that could reasonably be expected of him. He therefore has no possibility of accessing higher education, which is too expensive, and therefore a network and, ultimately, a position of responsibility within the company.
This is a profound injustice, the demoralizing effect of which on so-called “disadvantaged” populations, on all young people from the working classes, however available, qualified and competent they may be, is not fully appreciated; they live in permanent social frustration and humiliation imposed on them by the “privileged”. This deaf and almost institutionalized violence – at least commonly admitted – which arbitrarily condemns the poor to poverty according to the laws of financial domination and in the name of archaic segregationist prejudices, infantile at best, is devastating.
I was able to verify this personally by understanding the great difference between two educational missions in Egypt: the teaching of French, in international high schools, to a new bourgeoisie paying fortunes in university fees, and the support, with local associations, for street children abandoned to themselves, originating from the slums of Cairo and Alexandria in particular, coming from adulterers, violent families and destitute families from which they were kicked out or who had the courage to escape.
To fully understand this gap, we must imagine the learning conditions of an average student in an Egyptian public school, and those of a student who benefits from all the privileges of birth and class (education being a marketable service here): from on one side the ruckus of about fifty boys without equipment, in a dilapidated room with a suffocating atmosphere, where authority inevitably imposes itself with truncheons, and on another, about twenty overprotected boys who manipulate digital tablets and the settler’s language, living in the certainty of being the international elite of tomorrow…
Here I come to the idea of positive or “constructive” discrimination – not of individuals as such, but of their behaviors (and therefore of their choices and actions). In my opinion, a healthy society is one in which everyone is present in its place. In his place, in the name of the notion of merit, according to his potential, his will and his predispositions on the one hand, and according to his know-how and his work on the other. Because, it is well known, “it takes everything to make a world”.
However, this world will not be able to function adequately as long as we reserve power, at all levels, to a segregationist caste, without prejudice to the fact that the first power to consider is that of changing things, precisely, in favor of the equality of citizens and justice. social – which implies a disinterest that unfortunately is not within everyone’s reach… It is what should be called a vicious circle, maintained without too much effort by tribalism and rigorous individualism, where money, with its hypnotic power, dictates its petty laws.
If we put aside illness and disability, which fall under medical care (it is still necessary that medicine, like education, be accessible to all…), a person who has “no particular know-how – for lack of being able to benefit from it in a fair and formal way – he will never be ashamed of his lack of education as long as he has with him the most precious of riches: the will. And let’s think here about the future of university studies (literary, scientific or other) in the world. era of artificial intelligence: how much is a diploma obtained after someone wrote a thesis worth? chatbots inspired?…
I have infinite respect for these street urchins I have met, these children who have been wounded and torn apart by the madness, negligence and cowardice of men. They rebuilt themselves, forming substitute families in the forced freedom, poverty and violence of the streets, prematurely becoming men in the face of contempt and predation from passers-by (including religious people, educators and people from good families). These guys are heroes. Their radical and terribly elegant humour, as well as being typically Egyptian and desperately humble, is the sign of a formidable resilience, which should serve as a lesson to all of us, poor incompetent crybabies.
And the lesson, in my opinion, is this: knowing how to distinguish the social being from the internal being, without ever letting yourself be demoralized. And if we consider politics as the application of philosophy – or as the art of putting principles into practice – which seems to me to be the most correct definition, then the time has come to ask in their place all the parasites, crooks and sell-outs who serve as our stewards today through the illusion of democracy and media tyranny.
#Knowing #saves #falling
