Interview with Luc Ferry

Richard J. Golsan (R.G.): How do you see the role of the intellectual—and writer—in contemporary France? How has that role changed over the last twenty years?

Luc Ferry (L.F.): Generally speaking, the twentieth century was the century of all deconstructions: deconstruction of tonality in music, of figuration in painting, of chronology and psychology of characters in the novel, but also deconstruction of traditional values in the fields of ethics, religion and politics. Intellectuals have always been or tried to be in the forefront of this avant-garde. Nietzsche invited us to "philosophize with a hammer" and, indeed, we have experienced what he called the "twilight of the idols," that is to say the end or, at the very least, the undermining of most transcendent ideals. This enormous work of deconstruction—the term does not come at all from Derrida as so many students think, but from his master, Heidegger, who assigns explicitly to philosophy the task of the "Abbau der Métaphysik," of the "deconstruction of metaphysics"—was the work of the main currents of avant-gardism. In this perspective, deconstruction was meant to be situated in the "margins" rather than in the mainstream. It was linked to the "bohemian life" rather than the philistine one, was subversive rather than bourgeois, was revolutionary or rebellious rather than established in institutions, etc.

This general cultural context obviously had a great influence on the practice of philosophy, which became terribly elitist when avant-gardism reached its high point, that is to say in the 1960's. Why this elitism? In his book entitled On the Spiritual in Art, Kandinski already says it very well; he compares cultural, artistic and intellectual life to a big triangle that moves and rises over time. At the apex of the triangle, there are the geniuses, who are inevitably solitary: as he sees it, Schönberg and Picasso. At the base of the triangle, there is the people, which he calls the "mindless mass," which obviously understands nothing about the avant-garde's subversions. But as the triangle moves higher over time, one day or another the base meets up with the point that the top used to occupy . . . and Picasso is then understood, widely acclaimed, museified! As seen in this metaphor, according to avant-garde ideology, the genius is necessarily a solitary being! Moreover, that is the title of an essay by Schönberg, who revives one of Nietzsche's aphorisms.

By definition, he who is at the high point of the triangle cannot be understood by his era. What we have been experiencing for twenty years is the death of avant-gardes, their terminal dialectical inversions: innovation has become our tradition, and as a result, intellectuals are unashamedly agreeing to reconcile with the general public. What characterizes the intellectuals of my generation in France—beginning with Pascal Bruckner—is that after the death of the avant-gardes, they are getting back in touch with the cultivated public, even the public at large. The writing is clear, the desire to speak to others is present. We are reviving a certain Enlightenment ideal in which the intellectual was someone who participated in public debate, who did not scorn his role as "scout", or even as teacher, because he believed in the virtues of democracy rather than in the triangular elitism of the "inspired guide." That is what has changed. If Bruckner's books get such a response, it is because they are also interventions in the public sphere. This in no way means that the critical spirit is being renounced, quite the contrary, but only that the hatred of democracy that dominated the twentieth century and found its apogee in totalitarian ideologies is over and done with.

R.G.: For an American audience, the distinction between "right" and "left" in French politics and culture has become increasingly difficult to understand, especially in the wake of 1989 and the fall of communism. In your opinion, what would be the defining distinctions between "left" and "right" in France today? Do you believe those distinctions are substantial?

L.F.: Alain, a philosopher who influenced France in...