‘I always hope, today and every minute, for something other than what I see, another world than this one, repugnant in its violence and ugliness, another man than the one I believe myself to be …’ (Récits d’Humanisme, page 67).

Where to find hope? Serres can be accused of being naively optimistic. He admits he lives with a utopian imagination. At the same time, he does not just acknowledge the recent violence and abuse against each other and the world, he also traces this trait as fundamental to humankind, almost an essential definition of the human species.

In this video of an interview from late in his life (2016), Serres explains some of his key ideas and why he refuses to be a pessimist.

Serres was influenced by the work of his friend René Girard, an historian and philosopher who considered that humans have a deep-seated tendency to mimic and follow others. From studying ancient history, Girard traced how violence stems from imitating. Serres noted a craving to follow in terms of ‘belonging’ whether in the context of tribes, gangs, religions, ethnic groups, or nations. There are relatively harmless examples such as avidly supporting a football team, but for Serres the ‘libido of belonging’ breeds violence against each other and the world.

Turning to the planetary emergency, in The Natural Contract, Serres describes how in our overwhelming rivalry and competition between each other, we have at the same time neglected a third party, our planet. What is more, these fights for power, prestige, territory and resources are wrecking our planet. In turn, the Earth, which is far more powerful than human forces, is starting to destroy us. As parasites, we have taken but given nothing back.

Nevertheless, Serres, as the video above shows, remained hopeful. He saw great hope in young people who he considered were far more aware of what was going on in terms of the destruction of the earth and its effect on humankind. Serres sometimes gambles and considers that the risk of the destruction of the world might awaken us to how we have treated the planet and each other. This is his ‘bet’ and his ‘utopia’, In a final interview he sounds a more pessimistic note. Everything is preacrious and swallowed up by the Economy. Everything must change. 

Serres’ bet seems even more unrealistic today. War has returned to Europe and continues to decimate people across the globe. Inequalities within countries and between regions of the world increase. Poverty and malnutrition are rife. Floods, fires droughts, hurricanes, disasters caused by global warming gain strength. Ecosystems deteriorate.

How to respond?  In his later writing, he discussed the need for a new politics. He was adamant that any version of old politics will not make a difference. The depth and extent of the crisis must be matched in any response. He proposes that  a politics of hope could be built around an agreed natural contract, underpinned by a shared common story and promoted through new forms of global communication and information technologies.

Starting points

I recommend the short text Times of Crisis (2014) and Thumbelina (2015).  

Branching Out

In the 1960s, the slogan ‘the personal is political’ became fashionable. Could we turn to ‘the spiritual is political’? Pope Francis’s trenchant outcry against poverty, inequality, war and the abuse of the planet in his Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ might be an example here. As fundamentalism continues to grow, intensifying a sense of belonging, could a politics arise through the opposite, based on universalism of each individual?