These "mediocre" which lead the world Receive the last hour alerts of duty

Known for his battles against the mining industry and tax havens, the author and philosopher Alain Deneault goes back to the front.This time, to denounce the sleep of critical thinking and mediocrity hoisted to the rank of social norm, in many circles of power.

"You have to think so soft and show it.The assault was indeed launched, the mediocre took power, "claims the mediocracy from the first page, the last sling of the polemist author.

There is no doubt that Alain Deneault has a sense of formula and much more.The author of Black Canada and Tax Paradise Recurrent in this new pavement against what he considers to be the new social poison.The omnipresence of a new invisible order, which favors the norm, the dull environment, the consensus at all costs to the detriment of bright, disturbing ideas.

Examples ?Politicians who elect the controversial issues, academics who give birth to complacent research to please subsidies, universities that suffocate critical thinking rather than encouraging audacity.Far from contaminating only the high spheres of power, mediocrity extends its tentacles to the small worker who was collusion or the ineptie of his superiors to climb the social scale.

"Right now," said Deneault, "we are swimming in the extreme center, all gray, the thoughtful evidence.Mediocracy is the sleep of critical thinking, "he said, taking for example the sweetened gibberies specific to the electoral campaigns.

This new critical essay was not born from excavated surveys which made the brand of Deneault-and earned him a pursuit-bâillon of the mining industry in 2008-, but from a reflection exercise on "this colossal issue butmore vague ”that afflicts our contemporaries."The devices of power, through their strategies, enjoin social actors to be means.What bothers me is that it imposes limits on people, it requires them not to express potential.Mediocrity not only took power, but prevents the emergence of strong proposals, "insists the author.

And who are these mediocre who direct us?Deneault points to all these circles which allow "perfect incompetent" to access power, "if they play the game".In this post-commission Charbonneau era, where Quebec has seen dozens of high placed, masters of lie and collusion, shredded in the public square, the punching work aims much more than the only political or financial classes.The damage caused by this culture of mediocrity are everywhere, he deplores, including in those who should be the guards of thought.

Universities in sight

"In universities, there is a bonus on mediocrity when you encourage the production of non -signifying articles, self -censorship, complacency at the expense of original ideas.I am not saying that all academics are poor, but there is a serious incentive to do “small” things to obtain subsidies, advancements, using empty words, without social impact ”, Critique Deneault.And wham.

The authors of the disturbing theses, he believes, soon have their funds dry up if their conclusions scratch some industries.Conversely, decreases the author of lectures at the University of Montreal, planned obsolescence, colonization of the mind by advertising are part of the highly subsidized fields of research in the institutions of knowledge.

Middle victory

This "average" thought goes so far as to tint the learned language, to the point that works no longer speak of "political revolts", but of "resilience", and that thinkers generate insipid terms like "governance", "militancy "or" survival "."The university gloss is rotten," insists the controversial work.

The whole company is questioned in this plea against "moderately competent".Even the cultural environment is no exception to the salvo when Deneault decreases the outstretched hand to Pierre Karl Péladeau by these "101 artists [who] publicly support the arrival in politics of a donor of their production, a magnate of thepress moreover, culture grave if we judge by the bad taste that his newspapers demonstrate ".The artists, too, play the game and participate sadly "in a circus of a new kind".

"In my previous books, I was aiming for powerful spheres.There, I approach something devious that even affects those who abdicated, not by choice, but because they are constantly pushed there.Mediocracy approaches corruption when it leads people to do the opposite of what they should.Pharmaceuticals who make medicines that make people sick or economists who have no critical sense in the face of high finance, in my opinion, it's worse than accepting a bottle of wine, "said Deneault.

In this sense, the era is sorely lacking in Claude Robinson, seems to tell us the leftist intellectual.Is it worse than before?History has always known its share of mediocre, trafficking in search of power, but the last decades, invaded by "managerial" thought, have "institutionalized" mediocrity, believes Deneault.

"Non -romantic revolutionary", Alain Deneault knew that he would be accused of elitism, intellectualism by committing his burning.It is rather by realism, and not by moralism, that he claims to launch this cry from the heart."In the 1970s, idealists thus thought.Today we just have no choice, he concludes.When 1 % of the most wealthy are about to have the majority of world wealth, that 80 % of ecosystems are threatened, we do not have the luxury of staying poor.The common good, the common thing are excluded from the mediocre discourse.We cannot reduce our lives to this kind of small combins.Our era deserves better.»»

Alain Deneault en cinq dates

2008 Publication de Noir Canada : Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique, ÉcoSociété.2008 Alain Deneault et ses coauteurs sont poursuivis pour 11 millions par deux minières canadiennes. Une entente hors cours est conclue avec Barrick Gold en 2011 et l’ouvrage retiré de la circulation.2009 Le Québec devient la première province à se doter d’une loi anti-poursuite-bâillon, la loi 9, à la suite de l’affaire Barrick Gold.2012 Publication de Paradis sous terre – Comment le Canada est devenu une plaque tournante pour l’industrie minière mondiale, ÉcoSociété.2014 Publication de Paradis fiscaux : la filière canadienne, ÉcoSociété.

À voir en vidéo