Rhetoric and Its Abuses: How to Oppose Liberal Democracy While Speaking Its Language

I try to analyze the rhetoric that is being used in contemporary debates concerning the defense of the values of liberal democracy. My main point is the following: nowadays, human rights and liberal democracy constitute, as it were, the fundamental values of the political sphere. But, as we know, people very often only pay lip service to these political values. Schematically speaking, there are two opposed ways of trying to evade the constraints of human rights and the values of liberal democracy. I shall call the first one the frontal attack : the enemy explicitly defends values that are radically at odds with liberal-democratic principles. Such a rhetoric is very influential today, for instance—but not only—in the Islamic world. As everybody knows, it raises very serious problems for peace and security. But this is not my present topic. I am interested here in the second, totally opposed, strategy: in order to be at least heard by the democratic community, the enemy uses the language of liberal democratic values. By doing so, he or she very often succeeds in radically distorting the language of human rights. I shall call that strategy: the Trojan horse, or, to use another metaphor, the wolf in sheep\u27s clothing. The strategy is fundamentally related to demagoguery and, more subtly, to a sophistical distortion of reasoning. The more we consider the values of liberal democracies to be simple, clear, and distinct, the less we can see behind these apparently unproblematic notions, which so many people seem to respect, some hidden controversies, or a sheer manipulation of the language of human rights. In our times, dominated by political correctness, when so many deeply controversial notions are superficially considered clear and distinct, Vico\u27s lament keeps all its topicality

Rhetoric and Its Abuses: How to Oppose Liberal Democracy While Speaking Its Language

I try to analyze the rhetoric that is being used in contemporary debates concerning the defense of the values of liberal democracy. My main point is the following: nowadays, human rights and liberal democracy constitute, as it were, the fundamental values of the political sphere. But, as we know, people very often only pay lip service to these political values. Schematically speaking, there are two opposed ways of trying to evade the constraints of human rights and the values of liberal democracy. I shall call the first one the frontal attack : the enemy explicitly defends values that are radically at odds with liberal-democratic principles. Such a rhetoric is very influential today, for instance—but not only—in the Islamic world. As everybody knows, it raises very serious problems for peace and security. But this is not my present topic. I am interested here in the second, totally opposed, strategy: in order to be at least heard by the democratic community, the enemy uses the language of liberal democratic values. By doing so, he or she very often succeeds in radically distorting the language of human rights. I shall call that strategy: the Trojan horse, or, to use another metaphor, the wolf in sheep\u27s clothing. The strategy is fundamentally related to demagoguery and, more subtly, to a sophistical distortion of reasoning. The more we consider the values of liberal democracies to be simple, clear, and distinct, the less we can see behind these apparently unproblematic notions, which so many people seem to respect, some hidden controversies, or a sheer manipulation of the language of human rights. In our times, dominated by political correctness, when so many deeply controversial notions are superficially considered clear and distinct, Vico\u27s lament keeps all its topicality

Liberté religieuse contre liberté d’expression ? Pressions de conformité et rhétorique politiquement correcte

Les dangers que court la liberté d’expression ne sont pas toujours liés à des attaques frontales, comme l’est l’accusation de blasphème. De plus en plus souvent, la rhétorique liberticide se présente comme une illustration de la défense des droits de l’homme. Ainsi la liberté religieuse, le refus du discours de haine et le droit à la réputation (corrélatif de la notion de diffamation) – pour ne citer que ces trois notions – peuvent-ils servir à une mise en danger de la liberté d’expression. Péril quasi invisible pour qui ne critique pas sérieusement les concepts utilisés, puisque le « vilain mot » de blasphème n’est plus prononcé et que des concepts très politiquement corrects viennent à sa place jouer le rôle de « censeurs » de l’expression libre. Je voudrais dans le présent article fournir quelques éléments de déconstruction de cette rhétorique périlleuse pour les libertés.The dangers to freedom of expression are not always linked to frontal attacks, as is the charge of blasphemy. The freedom-destroying rhetoric increasingly takes on the appearance of the defence of human rights. Thus, religious freedom, the rejection of hate speech and the right to reputation (a correlative of the concept of defamation) – to name but three notions – can serve to endanger freedom of expression. This is almost invisible for those who do not seriously criticize the concepts used, since the “ugly word” of blasphemy is no longer pronounced and very politically correct concepts come to play the role of “censors” of free expression in its place. In this article I would like to provide some elements of deconstruction of this perilous rhetoric for freedoms

La liberté académique

This book analyses the threats to academic freedom in the twenty-first century across the globe, and the various ways to face them

L'esprit révolutionnaire: le désenchantement du monde et la culture

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Autorité et raison en philosophie du droit

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Philosophie de la justice et droits de l'homme

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