Sociologist and historian Gérard Bouchard, co-signatory of the famous 2007 report on “accommodation practices linked to cultural differences”, is releasing this week the fruit of various reflections on the collective life of Quebecers. Interview with a leading thinker.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
There are angers which, like certain revolutions, are calm. That of the sociologist and historian Gérard Bouchard, for example.
After an hour of interview during which he notes and analyzes several unfortunate trends in society without ever raising the tone of his unique voice, we ask him if he ever feels angry.
The answer is not long in coming.
“I spend half my day angry,” he says. And the other half to calm me down. I am a bloodthirsty [rires]. But I know that to write, the job I do, you have to master that. You have to try to get something out of it. »
Anger is not bad. It’s a very good fuel, provided you don’t stop there.
Gérard Bouchard
Carried out a few days before Christmas, the interview takes place as part of the release of Mr. Bouchard’s new book, Visions of Quebecin which chronicles written since 2021 are collected in Duty.
The 56 texts gathered here are divided into 11 thematic chapters: Memory/History, The founding myths of Quebec, Quebec values, Ethnocultural diversity, The situation of our language, etc.
From one chapter to another, the future of Quebec is omnipresent. This is the constant, the common thread of the work. “I am worried about the future of culture [du Québec]a small minority nation,” says the sociologist whose career includes around forty essays, three novels and hundreds of articles and conferences.
Quebec, he said, has always been a “nation under tension”, a “society threatened” by various factors: colonialism, American capital, domination of English Canada, local elites on the wrong path. “And with the storm that is coming, what we are currently experiencing, we perhaps have more reason than others to be worried. What is happening to our language? What happens to our values? What happens to our founding myths? “, he asks himself.
Storm ? Oh, yes! We immediately think of the return of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. But the sociologist analyzes the situation on a planetary scale shaken by “tectonic movements”, notably attributable to a utopia born with neoliberalism which “has not delivered the fruits it had promised”.
“Until the end of the 1980s, the nation-state was the main actor,” explains Mr. Bouchard. It gave citizens the impression that they had control over their destiny, that they could define their future. Then, with globalization and neoliberalism, another utopia was formed. A utopia that now we can extend the borders of the nation practically to the scale of the universe […] Neoliberalism applied this utopia. It removed trade barriers. It widely opened the planetary space to the circulation of goods, people and capital. »
However, in recent years, the decline has been brutal! “We see protectionists getting tougher, we see democracies declining. We see international organizations losing their authority,” believes the sociologist and historian.
Take the example of immigration. You have to live on another planet not to see a general backlash in the face of migratory movements. However, according to Mr. Bouchard, we have not seen anything yet.
“With everything that is happening in African countries, in the East, the terrible poverty, the droughts, the floods, there are a lot of people who will have to immigrate,” he notes. But where will these people go? They will knock on the door of the West, as is happening now, and more and more. »
But the doors are closing almost everywhere, which outrages him.
Currently, we see countries chasing immigrants, which is completely contrary to human rights, of which the West was so proud.
Gérard Bouchard
Bad times for intellectuals
In his preface to the book, Brian Myles, director of the daily Dutyintroduces Mr. Bouchard to readers by evoking an “intellectual appointment that you have chosen to make with his thoughts”. A fine tribute to which we must return, because in his essay, Mr. Bouchard also evokes the intellectual environment which is becoming blunted.
Bad times for intellectuals? we ask him. He laughs at this turn of phrase which, he says, “makes him think of French film titles”. It is nevertheless true that times are tough…
Generalist intellectuals (for example, Aron, Sartre, Camus in France; Guy Rocher, Léon Dion, Jean-Charles Falardeau in Quebec) who think about society as a whole have been very listened to for several decades, he says. But nowadays, their space of influence has diminished with the emergence of new “specialists” such as influencers and bloggers.
Scholarly culture has lost a lot of ground. Intellectuals and researchers feel more isolated. They are less listened to, they have less influence. We feel like we’re talking to each other.
Gérard Bouchard
“It’s not very pleasant because we are there to debate ideas for the whole of society and to be understood by as many people as possible,” says Mr. Bouchard.
Despite this, the man of letters, who celebrated his 81st birthday on December 26, is not about to stop. For him, the act of writing is fuel, a driving force, a passion. “Writing is creative,” he defends. By writing, we can modify the idea we initially had. There is a kind of astonishing allegory. It’s a bit mysterious. There is a kind of dialogue that begins between writing and the thoughts of the living. »
As soon as he has a free hour in front of him, he writes. “When we write, we think. You have to think. So we stay alive like that. We stay alive. »
Extract
“New France is very largely a French story. It was a colony managed from Paris and in its sole interests. The explorers worked for the expansion of the Empire and the glory of the King. With few exceptions, the aristocratic leaders (and autocrats) stayed there temporarily, working to enrich themselves and raise their rank in anticipation of their return to France (the majority left after the Conquest). The wars against the Iroquois and the English were conducted for the benefit of the mother country…”
Who is Gérard Bouchard?
Born on December 26, 1943 in Jonquière, Gérard Bouchard studied sociology at Laval University before obtaining a doctorate in social history at the University of Paris (Nanterre). Retired professor from the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, author and co-author of numerous scientific works and articles, he is interested in collective imaginations. In 2007-2008, he co-chaired, with Charles Taylor, the commission on reasonable accommodation in Quebec.
Visions of Quebec
Gérard Bouchard
All in all/The Duty
276 pages
What do you think? Participate in the dialogue
