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En terrain miné
« Cher Alain,
Nous avons donc décidé d’échanger des lettres plutôt que de nous entretenir de vive voix. L’utilisation de ce vieil outil littéraire me semble prudente et bénéfique, bien que je me demande si elle n’est pas une dérobade. Malgré mon goût de l’affrontement, je redoutais en effet ta présence et ce que le tac au tac implique de violence. Autrement dit, je craignais de me heurter en temps réel sur du non négociable et de voir bientôt se lézarder une chère et ancienne amitié. »
« Chère Élisabeth,
Si je tirais sur tout ce qui bouge, tu aurais raison de vouloir m’en dissuader, et il me semble que je serais assez avisé pour suivre ton conseil. Mais je n’ai rien d’un tireur convulsif. Et lorsqu’il m’arrive de perdre mon sang-froid, c’est parce que je suis la cible favorite de ceux qui n’ont que le mot “changement” à la bouche
et pour qui rien ne bouge. »
Nous avons donc décidé d’échanger des lettres plutôt que de nous entretenir de vive voix. L’utilisation de ce vieil outil littéraire me semble prudente et bénéfique, bien que je me demande si elle n’est pas une dérobade. Malgré mon goût de l’affrontement, je redoutais en effet ta présence et ce que le tac au tac implique de violence. Autrement dit, je craignais de me heurter en temps réel sur du non négociable et de voir bientôt se lézarder une chère et ancienne amitié. »
« Chère Élisabeth,
Si je tirais sur tout ce qui bouge, tu aurais raison de vouloir m’en dissuader, et il me semble que je serais assez avisé pour suivre ton conseil. Mais je n’ai rien d’un tireur convulsif. Et lorsqu’il m’arrive de perdre mon sang-froid, c’est parce que je suis la cible favorite de ceux qui n’ont que le mot “changement” à la bouche
et pour qui rien ne bouge. »
- GenresPhilosophy
265 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 13, 2017
3 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Alain Finkielkraut
112 books77 followersAlain Finkielkraut, né le 30 juin 1949 à Paris, est un philosophe, écrivain, essayiste et producteur de radio français.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 29, 2017
I knew Finkielkraut as the Radio Show host of Répliques. I haven't read him before, I wasn't quite sure of his positions, because as a host, even though he rarely was unbiased towards his hosts, he still held himself against clearly professing his ideas. One thing though that was the common denominator of all of his episodes, was his obsession with the muslim immigration and the transformation of the French society as a result.
This book validated this impression.
Elisabeth de Fontenay is a Philosophy Professor at the Sorbonne and Finkielkraut was a Professor of the History of Ideas at the École Polytechnique. They're friends for more than 40 years though they share little in common and it's because their ideas and their analyses keep diverging that they've decided to debate in an exchange of letters, to preserve their friendship, Élisabeth initiating this exchange.
By the end of this book, she clearly came out to be the more interesting of the two, the one with the well thought of and well formulated ideas. Throughout the book she kept finding common grounds between them, she attempted some kind of a balance between his vociferousness, her ideas at odds with his and her genuine concern for their friendship; so much so that at one point, I wondered if they're going to be able to close this exchange decently. [This sudden shift from aggression to compliance was my only criticism of this book, as it felt artificial when one is immersed with a real debate of minds].
Being both Jewish, or more precisely, she having Jewish origins from her mother's side, I knew there'd be references to past writers, thinkers and philosophers.
Kundera, Aragon, Arendt, Bensoussan, Sansal, Camus, Sartre, Peguy, Descartes, Diderot, Rousseau, Jonas, Adorno, Darmesteter, Cicero, etc... all were referenced throughout the book.
I found De Fontenay the more agile of the two; she would formulate her ideas philosophically, drawing some kind of synthesis from Finkielkraut's angry letter, throw it his way and then support herself with quotes from past thinkers and it was such a joy to read. Though I'm a unconditional supporter of fiction when it comes to the emotions and reactions it extracts out of us, this exchange, more than often, held my breath and I was eager to move on the next letter that would unravel the reply the other had prepared.
Though I was disappointed with Finkielkraut, in that I did not read anything novel by or of him that I haven't previously heard on Répliques; for example, when Élisabeth brought out the subject of feminism, she was quite powerful in her arguments that Alain's only escape was via the narrow path of the status of women in the islamic suburbs of France, thereby bringing the subject, once again, on the effects of the Maghrebine immigration.
That said, still I felt a bit sad at the state of the freedom of expression in a country like France. It's this auto-censure that one imposes on oneself because one suspects that the time or the place to say one's ideas is not right or is not mainstream enough. This is the genuine fear that takes hold of De Fontenay as she tries to relay to Finkielkraut the need to sacrifice or let's say to hold off on transmitting his hardcore truth and to take into consideration the current political climate, urging him to clearly distance himself from the extreme right, or even to denounce its rise and its increasing popularity. His failure to clearly do so and his obsession with north African immigration's transformation of French society have caused him the loss of several friends among *les intellectuels* and she even worries that he is drifting towards a similar fate as that of the writer Renaud Camus, whose political opinions -eventually calling to vote for the Front National- have led to his ostracism from France's intellectual life.
This book validated this impression.
Elisabeth de Fontenay is a Philosophy Professor at the Sorbonne and Finkielkraut was a Professor of the History of Ideas at the École Polytechnique. They're friends for more than 40 years though they share little in common and it's because their ideas and their analyses keep diverging that they've decided to debate in an exchange of letters, to preserve their friendship, Élisabeth initiating this exchange.
By the end of this book, she clearly came out to be the more interesting of the two, the one with the well thought of and well formulated ideas. Throughout the book she kept finding common grounds between them, she attempted some kind of a balance between his vociferousness, her ideas at odds with his and her genuine concern for their friendship; so much so that at one point, I wondered if they're going to be able to close this exchange decently. [This sudden shift from aggression to compliance was my only criticism of this book, as it felt artificial when one is immersed with a real debate of minds].
Being both Jewish, or more precisely, she having Jewish origins from her mother's side, I knew there'd be references to past writers, thinkers and philosophers.
Kundera, Aragon, Arendt, Bensoussan, Sansal, Camus, Sartre, Peguy, Descartes, Diderot, Rousseau, Jonas, Adorno, Darmesteter, Cicero, etc... all were referenced throughout the book.
I found De Fontenay the more agile of the two; she would formulate her ideas philosophically, drawing some kind of synthesis from Finkielkraut's angry letter, throw it his way and then support herself with quotes from past thinkers and it was such a joy to read. Though I'm a unconditional supporter of fiction when it comes to the emotions and reactions it extracts out of us, this exchange, more than often, held my breath and I was eager to move on the next letter that would unravel the reply the other had prepared.
Though I was disappointed with Finkielkraut, in that I did not read anything novel by or of him that I haven't previously heard on Répliques; for example, when Élisabeth brought out the subject of feminism, she was quite powerful in her arguments that Alain's only escape was via the narrow path of the status of women in the islamic suburbs of France, thereby bringing the subject, once again, on the effects of the Maghrebine immigration.
That said, still I felt a bit sad at the state of the freedom of expression in a country like France. It's this auto-censure that one imposes on oneself because one suspects that the time or the place to say one's ideas is not right or is not mainstream enough. This is the genuine fear that takes hold of De Fontenay as she tries to relay to Finkielkraut the need to sacrifice or let's say to hold off on transmitting his hardcore truth and to take into consideration the current political climate, urging him to clearly distance himself from the extreme right, or even to denounce its rise and its increasing popularity. His failure to clearly do so and his obsession with north African immigration's transformation of French society have caused him the loss of several friends among *les intellectuels* and she even worries that he is drifting towards a similar fate as that of the writer Renaud Camus, whose political opinions -eventually calling to vote for the Front National- have led to his ostracism from France's intellectual life.
May 24, 2018
Un échange philosophique sur des sujets tels que l'exactitude, la finitude, le conservatisme, l'identité et le féminisme.
La finitude force l’humanité à l’épigenèse, car l’éventualité de la naissance et l’inéluctabilité de la mort provoquent la détresse, chez l’homme, de se découvrir bordé par deux néants.
Provoquant ! Excellent ! A lire !
La finitude force l’humanité à l’épigenèse, car l’éventualité de la naissance et l’inéluctabilité de la mort provoquent la détresse, chez l’homme, de se découvrir bordé par deux néants.
Provoquant ! Excellent ! A lire !
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews