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-I would like to know your opinion or... what emerges from it...
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... about this small reading; that's going to be very short.
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Then: "Freedom of expression is applicable not only to information or ideas
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that are favorably received or regarded as inoffensive or indifferent,
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but also to those that offend, shock or disturb.
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So... So goes with pluralism, tolerance and open-mindedness
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without which there is no democratic society."
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This is the European Court of Human Rights who wrote that in 1976.
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What does that inspire you?
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- Eh, I go back in time... further, because...
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... I find this idea... in Athens, 2500 years ago.
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The Athenians cared about the isegoria, the right to speak for everyone, about every subject,
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and at any time, the right to public speech.
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They cared about it more than about the isonomia, equality before the law and...
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They cared about it because, in fact, it was as an hygienic measure,
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a measure of protection, safeguarding democracy.
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Because when we call on everyone...
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... we... it makes the citizens sentinels.
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Every citizen can become a ... a guardian of democracy
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and a whistleblower of... drifts.
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And... the Athenians were well aware that... there were going to be... false alarms,
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dissident thoughts that would be... stupid or... hostile or ...
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... but it doesn't matter, it doesn't.
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It is better... As we don't know in advance what are the thoughts
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that will be useful and those that will be harmful or... inappropriate,
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as no one can say in advance what are the dissident thoughts
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which are going to be useful or not,
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well then they are given... we call on everyone, they are allowed all.
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And...
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... many great thinkers have... defended this freedom of expression as ...
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... a ... a base part of a free, pacified society.
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So... So on the one hand, this freedom of expression,
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it allows every citizen to become... a sentinel of democracy
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but it is not everything; there is also the will of...
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which... is in the background... which comes because a democracy ...
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... bets that we can, we all together,
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gathered in an assembly,
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not by officials but all of us directly.
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So not all, because everyone doesn't come, but anyone who wants.
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In a democracy, necessarily direct...
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... indirect democracy is an oxymoron; democracy is mechanically
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by definition, direct, direct democracy, this is a pleonasm.
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In a direct democracy, we ... we bet that we are able
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to make the right decisions for ourselves.
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So of course, the oligarchs or representatives, ... elected officials...
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... claim that we are incompetent
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and we will make bad decisions.
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And the democrats know that... there is a risk of making bad decisions,
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to be... embedded by rhetoricians, ... speakers,
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people who ... who, speaking well, will misguide us, will deceive us,
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will take us into the wrong... decisions. We know that:
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So there are rules to protect against demagogues.
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And we also know we can make mistakes.
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And then there are procedures to change our mind, to...
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... make other decisions later, once we realize we made a mistake,
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we... there are procedures for that. And above all... before making a decision,
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democrats, real democrats, who... organize direct democracy,
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that of Athens, not even that of Switzerland, eh, it's more...
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... more generalized, more structurally...
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... popular, a real democracy, than Switzerland, eh.
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Switzerland is the best we have on Earth at the moment but...
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... it's very very very flawed!
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True democracy, therefore, as we decide our laws,
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directly, without representatives - representatives do something else, they ...
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... but they don't make the laws - since we make our laws,
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it is important, before making a decision,
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to hear all viewpoints.
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Even the views we loathe.
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Above all,
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especially the views we loathe.
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And there are plenty of moralists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
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Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy,
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we find... aphorisms, ... proverbs,
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in all civilizations, almost, where... sages point out that ...
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... we'd better listen to people we don't want to hear.
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It would be better, it is worthwhile to listen to people we don't want to hear.
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And that often... those who...
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those who speak ill of us, those who talk bad about us...
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.. are those whom we have the most to draw to progress.
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And that those who flatter us and speak well of us are those who...
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... take us to the bad roads, bad habits.
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Well, but then the democracy, by obliging us to listen publicly...
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... to people we don't want to listen, to people we hate,
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people we would put in jail...
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I exaggerate, but just barely.
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Forcing us to it, it pacifies the group.
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Each individual doesn't want to hear such and such he hates,
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but the group is going to benefit from the fact that conflicts are staged
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- this is an important word, that - in democracy ...
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The democracy stages the conflicts. It doesn't hide them, it doesn't overshadow them,
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it doesn't put them under the rug.
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A democracy gives voice to all dissident thoughts,
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in order to enlighten the decisions so that the decisions are...
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... the least bad possible.
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And we don't seek perfection, we know we will make mistakes, it does not matter,
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we will be mistaken. We try to get it right,
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then if we're wrong, well we will change.
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Then the elected officials representatives shall not try to persuade us that they don't make mistakes,
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They make mistakes... as much as...
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... as we will make mistakes when... the people will decide.
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- I just interrupt... couple of seconds.
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Don't you believe that today, there is a direction of..
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... there is a direction, first of all, which is made by the media?
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- Yes. But there, you think of manipulation.
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A direction is not necessarily a manipulation. It is not necessarily a...
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... trickery. A direction, it can be...
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... a...
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... a decoration set, a...
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... an emphasis that is used to show something important.
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Not necessarily with an intention to lie.
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It can be...
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the...
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the show in Athens, Greek tragedy,
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was an educational tool to highlight,
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In a caricatural - but at the same moment clear - way,
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the values defended by democracy.
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And... this is very important, it was not at all...
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And I think that even today, the culture as...
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... folk art that serves to...
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... to show to children and young adults
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- and even to adults - the ... values that the City acknowledges,
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this art is very important.
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And the... the ideology of management,
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our current ideology, there, the one of... merchants who can only count,
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who only focus on that which is profitable,
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only that which is profitable and... who destroy everything that is not profitable,
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everything which is outside from... market logic,
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these people are crazy! They are hemiplegic, they have only ...
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... half a brain, and yet... And when they destroy everything that is cultural
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because it is not profitable, it is madness.
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- What is called culture, according to you, today?
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- So you must see the work of Frank Lepage, which is really exciting in this field.
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Culture should be political,
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it should be about the political education of young adults.
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Our grandparents, Franck... Franck explains that,
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Franck Lepage explains that... our grandparents, at the end of the war,...
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... understood - the war had been a lesson -
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that one could be extremely cultured
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and Nazi.
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And so the... democracy is... to save a democracy,
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to preserve a free society, it was not enough to have a cultured elite,
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that... you could get cultured little rascals.
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And therefore, they deduced that it was necessary to educate children...
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not... to literature, to art but to politics.
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Then possibly to art and literature but also...
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... especially to politics, to the values of democracy.
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A bit like the Greek tragedy did.
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And...
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He explains that Malraux and his successors depoliticized the culture,
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reduced - and it is a disaster - the culture in the art;
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and that... depoliticizing the City,
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it's political. This is very conservative
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to depoliticize.
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It's very interesting. So today, culture is ... it was reduced in ...
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... heavily in... intellectual tools that are not interesting
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in the... in terms of social justice and resistance to...
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... the various projects of domination, the various ... various injustices.
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It is no fate, it is the popular universities...
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There are still many of artists who fight on the political front.
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But ... it's difficult, it is increasingly difficult for them today,
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because ... merchants have colonized our imagination in taking the power,
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because representative government empowers merchants,
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including money merchants who are the richest.
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As they have power, they also have the power to suffocate...
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to suffocate... true culture,
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culture worth the name, which would be a political culture.
