From one world to another

Foreword

“Dear Sir Elephant,

"I feel our destinies are intertwined. And yet you are considered incompatible with the current era.

"If the world can no longer afford the luxury of this natural beauty, it will soon succumb to its own ugliness and be destroyed by it. There is no doubt that your disappearance will mean the beginning of a world made entirely for Man. But let me tell you this, my old friend: in a world made entirely for Man, there might well be no place for Man either.

“You are our last innocence.

"So, Sir and dear elephant, we find ourselves, you and I, on the same boat, driven towards oblivion by the same wind of absolute rationalism. In a truly materialistic and realistic society, poets, writers, artists, dreamers and elephants are nothing more than nuisances."

In March 1968, Romain Gary wrote this moving Letter to the Elephant, from which we quote excerpts here. The situation has only worsened since then. It is precisely because we reject this inevitability that we decided to write this book with two voices. We intend to be among those "troublemakers" who denounce a system gone mad and the logic that drives it. It is extremely difficult to make things happen within the framework of the exercise of political power, so great is the mental and economic resistance. To make the necessary ecological and solidarity transition possible, we first need a new perspective and a profound transformation of mindsets.

Beyond the suffering it inflicts, may we see the current crisis as an opportunity to help us change our outlook on the world and modify our behaviors. May we no longer continue as if nothing had happened, in the same consumerist frenzy and destruction of the planet's ecosystems. May we be united and supportive in the coming period of resilience to tackle the root causes of the crisis we are experiencing. In just a few weeks, this crisis has led governments around the world to take measures that seemed unimaginable until then and that have shattered the economic dogmas that these same governments considered inviolable. The ecological challenge requires us to think differently and to revise all our habits, certainties, and lifestyles, as the 150 people drawn by lot for the Citizens' Climate Convention have clearly understood, and this is an encouraging sign. May we, together, move from one world to another.

This pandemic will have at least reminded us of our extreme fragility. We thought we were the all-powerful masters and possessors of nature, and nature reminds us, with a simple virus, how powerless and helpless we are. We thought that the globalization of the world, under the aegis of triumphant liberalism, was a force and we see that it makes us extremely vulnerable. This pandemic is probably only the prelude to many other possible disasters if we return to this same absurd logic of infinite growth in a finite world, of plundering and destroying the planet to the detriment of natural balances, of competition on a global scale to the detriment of social balances.

As long as we continue to think and act as before, nothing will be possible, and we will go from ecological disaster to ecological disaster, from health tragedy to health tragedy, and from social crisis to social crisis. Like many, we aspire to a different world, both more humane and more respectful of nature. A world founded not on force and competition, but on humility and collaboration. A fairer, more fraternal world, more connected to the Earth. A world where great joys would be more desired than fleeting pleasures. A world where religious beliefs and cultural origins would no longer be barriers between individuals. A world where money would be less coveted than the warmth of an embrace or the sharing of a smile. A world where elephants and poets would still have their place.

This other world is not a utopia. But it can only come about through "a global revolution of human consciousness," as Vaclav Havel wrote, which will radically change our way of life. This is the subject of this book, the fruit of more than a year of work. It begins with the question of progress—what constitutes true progress for human beings?—and ends with that of meaning: why live and on what values should we base our individual and collective existence? Between this inaugural chapter and the final chapter, we address the major themes that condition our lives and where current blockages lie, but also the keys to change: pleasure and desire, economics, politics, individual interest and the common good, unity and diversity, the real and the virtual, being and having. We have combined our thoughts, but also our experiences, drawn from so many encounters. Far from any incantatory or catastrophic spirit, we propose throughout this book principles and values which outline the contours of the world to which we aspire, but also realistic and concrete proposals which would allow us to bring about this necessary change without further delay.