MICHEL MAFFESOLI: BETWEEN CIVILIZATIONAL CRISIS AND SOFT TOTALITARIANISM, A LOOK AT TODAY'S FRANCE, BOTH CONFLICTUAL AND COMMUNITARIAN

Abstract

Sociologist, Professor, and, among other positions, holder of the “Emile Durkheim” chair at the Sorbonne, and director of the Center for Research on the Imaginary, Michel Maffesoli is an essential personality in the French academic-media landscape. Although he is often contested as a scientist, he nonetheless remains an enlightened observer of postmodernity and his socio-political analyzes on various themes linked to societal developments remain references with strong prophetic value, whatever his detractors may say. In his essay The era of uprisings (Maffesoli, 2021), he is a critical observer of the growing divorce between political-media elites and French citizens which is manifested by the multiplication of protest movements. This thesis leads us to go beyond conventional interpretations of poverty or inequalities in order to understand the extent of the civilizational crisis we are experiencing and the transition to after-modernity. The latter serves as a preamble to a denunciation of ‘soft totalitarianism’ and the rejection of human finitude which are rampant today in France since the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, and perhaps paradoxically, it fuels ‘the trial of utopian imagination’ (Wunenburger, 1978) while calling for the revival of a revolutionary spirit. This review essay aims at 1) putting the author's arguments into perspective with previous but also current works in order to gain impartiality, and 2) comparing the achievements of the work with socio-political aspects touched upon or even ignored, this which makes it possible to extend the political and social scope of the analysis.