Defending civilization in the face of globalization, of Emile H. Malet - Paris: Editions du Moment, 2014, 267 p.
Looking at the present in the light of a past that spurred great revolutions in Europe and the Americas may seem obsolete, so much so that we are foretold of the great upheaval of the world and the enjoyment of short time. All the more reason to take a close look at this homo economicus, present everywhere, twirling and enjoying repeated consumptions and crises in a universe that is increasingly resembling a world circus.
Emile Malet tackles this economic circus that has freed itself from the culture of the ancients and universal values to impose its plus-de-jouissance: consumption; its minus-de-cohesion - the inequalities of situation and the elusive fluidity of speculative finance. For the moment, no regulatory ideology seems capable of hindering this consumerist drift and an abyssal asymmetry of development between North and South, but also between an emerging Asia and a Europe in difficulty. Money and violence are also part of a world now deprived of any leadership - political, moral, cultural... strategic - which sees conflicts getting bogged down and, according to the Marxist prediction, "everything goes through trade".
Faced with a world in full decay, we need a new start on new foundations: a culture of risk, social equity, cultural cosmopolitanism and, above all, defence of the values of our civilization.
About the author :
Emile H. malet is the director of Passages magazine. He holds a doctorate in economics and was a journalist for Les Echos, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Paris Match and France Culture in 1980. In 1987, he founded the magazine Passages and since 2005 he has been writing a column on the Radios chrétiennes de France (RCF). He founded the ADAPes think tank in 1988 and is director of the World Forum on Sustainable Development. He is notably the author of Essai sur ce qu'est la peur de l'autre, Al Qaïda contre le capitalisme (2004), Mobilités et vies contemporaine (2008), Le Capitalisme contre le monde (2009).