The members of a society can feel in agreement with the principles that govern its functioning and show a form of loyalty to it. When this is not the case, they have only two possible modes of action, as the economist Albert Hirschman reminds us in a famous book, Exit, voice, and loyalty : protest or defection.
These last weeks were an opportunity to hear the voices of certain artists who wanted to express their disgust with the world as it is. Thus, comedian Blanche Gardin announced that she had waived the sum of 200,000 euros to participate in an entertainment program on the Amazon platform. Some of the reasons she mentions in a letter she wanted to make public are understandable. She points out in particular the fact that working for Amazon would amount, in a way, to endorsing this company which emits 55.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gases per year and uses the workforce of the Uighur concentration camps. … She points out, moreover, that she aspires to have her works shown in cinemas rather than offered on streaming platforms.
As an intelligent woman, she does not fail to note the fact that “the level of cognitive dissonance is very high in our time”. And, indeed, some sneered at moral justifications that contradicted previous – but recent – choices of the actress. For example, she did not refuse to broadcast her comedy series (where she stars) The best version of myself on Canal +, which represents the double characteristic of being a streaming platform and of being supported with the money of Vincent Bolloré, of which it is assumed that Blanche does not approve of all the ways of doing things and the marked political opinions.
Exit from the game
More recently, director Justine Triet wanted to take advantage of her Palme d’Or at Cannes to also make her voice heard against power in general which, by a “neoliberal logic”, would seek to “break the cultural exception”. . It turns out that his film received 900,000 euros from France Télévisions, half a million from the CNC in advance on receipts, tax credits, regional aid and more money from the producer support account. From this point of view, it is difficult to present Anatomy of a fall like a work left to the sole laws of the market.
These two stories, although different, illustrate the difficulty of claiming a form of purity in a world that has become globalized and complex, which means that the smallest object produced involves a mountain of possible recriminations. Under these conditions, any moral position in the public space – except if one is a young bird that has emerged from the egg that the world has left immaculate – is exposed to insoluble contradictions. It is precisely this difficulty that inspires some to release the game (exit, Hirschman would say). Thus the decision of actress Adèle Haenel to stop making films can be interpreted in this way. In his text addressed to Telerama, she specifies that it is now impossible for her to work with an environment that “collaborates with the racist ecocidal deadly order of the world as it is”. She concludes: “I cancel you from my world.
This decision was applauded or mocked, it depends. All of these situations pose a nagging question: how to be morally consistent in a world hemmed in by innumerable causal links that make it difficult to clearly identify a way to behave. As soon as a public individual tries to perform a moral act, he is almost immediately overtaken by internal contradictions that make the social networks sparkle with joy. The most intransigent are driven to secede from the world. These situations lead individuals to go ahead of what Gregory Bateson, one of the founders of the Palo Alto school, called paradoxical injunctions or double constraints, that is to say inextricable situations where individuals are required to do contradictory things at the same time. Obviously, where there is drama, there is comedy; therefore, alongside beings who sincerely suffer from this contradictory injunction, we bet that many tartufes will be held.