Pacificism is not a conjunctural accident. It is not a sudden fever preceding the installation of the Persing and Cruise missiles in the NATO countries. The “double decision” of 1979 — to install missiles capable of crossing the continent if the negotiations concerning the SS20's are not concluded in 4 years — has raised protests that go beyond simple anti-militarism: these protests have upset political life in at least two countries (West Germany and the Netherlands); they have spread to all (...) of Western Europe; they have no equivalent in Eastern Europe (where a non-structured pacificist movement is weak and/or difficult to interpret) but they do have an equivalent in the U.S. in the Freeze and No-First-Strike pledge. (shrink)

When she was interviewed by Bernard Pivot, Marguerite Duras professed to be a “Mitterrandist” — not a socialist and she added: “Before '81 we were undergoing the crisis, now we are thinking about it.” True, the socialist government now admits its perplexity and the emptiness of its ideology. There is, as it were, a pause for breath, an attempt to conceptualize not exactly the “crisis” a catch-all word, but the sort of journey toward an unknown shore. The change of political (...) values obliges politicians and journalists to do and proclaim the opposite of their former creed. It would be a mistake to see the new mode of the “entrepreneur” (a word which seems to capture the new state of mind). (shrink)

For our contemporaries, daily life is no longer the peaceful world of small concerns and minor questions. Everything becomes a problem when one can no longer explain the sense of life by reference to great ideological institutions (for example, the republican system of education) or great religious institutions. This is why it is more and more difficult to separate “intellectuals” who, alone, would have the capacity to put into question the foundations, from the “others” who would simply take the world (...) as it comes. All live in the same universe, crossed by radical questions that are posed the moment one undertakes the least action—be it as an educator, doctor, parent or activist. (shrink)