Leçons d'un Siècle de Vie

Edgar Morin is one of the great French thinkers of our time, and in this short book he distils profound lessons about the human condition in the history of his lifetime – I highly recommend it to any readers fluent in French. His thinking is underpinned by an understanding of complexity and duality (e.g. altruism and egoism) applied both to the individual and to society. Central themes include identity (I-Thou-We), navigating uncertainty and the unexpected, his engagement with communism and the Resistance, and the danger of underestimating the role of error –‘inseparable from human knowledge.’ (p. 127) Morin has been deeply engaged in the challenges and paradoxes of our time, repeatedly upholding his dignity and integrity in taking unpopular positions against the prevailing narrative. He characterises his approach in terms of reason, love and collaboration, scepticism, and a poetic mysticism of wonder. Nor is he afraid to admit his own mistakes and justify changes of course, for instance in relation to pacifism. He is deeply sceptical of centralised totalitarian, technocratic and dogmatic approaches. (p. 115)

One important insight concerns the correlation between increases in the standard of living and material well-being with diminished quality of life (bien-être) and what he calls existential ‘ill-being’ (mal-être). Structures and mechanisms eliminate the human: ‘technical and economic progress can include political and civilisational regress,’ – something we can all feel on an inner level in terms of fragmentation, alienation, uprootedness, distraction and disconnection. Capitalism has become hegemonic and wealth highly concentrated. Morin refers to paradigmatic blindness typified by compartmentalisation, lack of awareness of emergence and complexities, reductionism and disjunction, ignoring context, and absence of self-reflection. In his credo, he squarely faces up to contrary truths about reality and human nature: ‘Life is a gift and a burden (cadeau et fardeau), Life is marvellous and terrible.’ (p. 137) He writes that there is so much kindness, benevolence, generosity and devotion, but also so much wickedness, villainy, cruelty and egotism – the latter frequently and simplistically projected on the other, and in this respect ‘self-criticism is an essential form of psychic hygiene.’ The aphorisms at the end of the book are alone worth the price. Morin’s testament is profoundly wise, mature, measured and humane.