284 pages
ISBN : 978-2-31500-149-1
« The word « liberty » and its spin-off like « liberal » may have never been used so much, however, we got used to wear a collar, the one we are tied to. Are there still wolves to notice our mangy neck, and if so, for how long ? It seems, indeed, that even the rebels make a habit of negotiating their chains length. »
Denis Collin wonders about the conditions of a true human liberation. What is a free man’s life ? Are we only left to negotiate the lenght of the chain we are tied to ? The author shows it is only up to us to break it.
From a political point of view, the nowadays triumphant democracy would only be a con game. Equality between individuals is the first condition of political freedom, preventing from every form of domination. The author suggests, at every level of the political organization, the setting up of « partial associations » composed of citizens of various origins which would guarantee people’s autonomy and development. He also suggests to rethink the economic system and labour. It is up to men, prisoners of consumption and liberal society, to rethink the way labour is organized : the end of salaried labour, a cooperatives organization, the suppression of the profit quest, the disappearance of the consumption society, the man’s realization through his economic activity whom the border with leisure is meant to disappear.
From a philosophical and metaphysical point of view, the combination of the procreation’s help techniques, the genetic engineering and neurosciences turns Huxley’s worse nightmares into a completely realistic perspective. When procreation gives way to a human factory, freedom in his metaphysical acception may become an unsignificant word. And yet, those new technologies take place in a global society. If the watchwords of this society are subjectivity and freedom, then science will also be its bondsman.
Born in 1952, Denis Collin is a philosophy professor, doctor in Litterature and Social Studies and the author of Le Cauchemar de Marx (Max Milo, 2009) translated into Tamul and of Comprendre Marx (Armand Colin, 2006) translated into Brazilian.
