“Midnight will soon strike in the century”. These are the words of Edgar Morin who, at 104 years old, continues to show his lucidity in a long interview with Le Monde. Concerned “about the neo-authoritarian regression that is spreading across the world” and which favors “one of the two Frances: the one that was for a long time monarchical, aristocratic and religious, a Petainist France, as opposed to the republican, secular and social one”, he regrets that humanists find it difficult to unite at a time when “a conscious regenerationism of the original identity and the common destiny of all humans” is essential. And all this in “a catastrophic process underway. And although Trump and Netanyahu are not eternal, right now there is no option for salvation. We can only bear witness to impotence. The only hope is the improbable. Let's resist”.
Edgar Morin has never denied the existence of Israel, but he specifies: “I identify with the line of humanist Jews, from Baruch Spinoza to Hannah Arendt, but also with Israeli intellectuals, such as Shlomo Sand and those from the newspaper Haaretz”. There is often contamination “between anti-Semitism, anti-Judaism and anti-Israelism”, and one must “know how to distinguish”.
He declares himself an heir of Montaigne, but regarding human possibilities “faith and doubt dialogue without interruption: I doubt humanity even though I believe in it”. In fact, doubt is the basis of knowledge and true progress.
“The male-female relationship is biologically sex and culturally gender, and it must reach a stage where women are recognized as both equal and different from men”. And beyond that: “I am in favor of everything that is trans, that is to say, that connects”. And if we talk about transgender, “I want to recall that in the male condition there is an atrophied female part, which physically includes breasts, and in the female condition an atrophied male part, physically the clitoris”. Hence “the desire to change sex or to fully embody both sexes”.
And to conclude, a warning with the authority that seniority gives: “Artificial intelligence confirms that we can be instrumentalized by our instruments”. That is to say, we can lose the ability to think and decide for ourselves, which is the noblest expression of the human condition. And a recommendation: How can one grow old without becoming old-headed? “By keeping love and curiosity present”. A piece of advice, in conclusion: “Resist”.
