Dear Editor,
I try to keep informed of the publications of this eminent French philosopher-social activist, and was taken aback when I recently came upon this book published two years ago, (Plon: 2016). When I read it recently in its second edition, I understood why, contrary to his earlier works, this one was not trumpeted by the media in France, and nowhere else. It was, as it remains today, 230 pages of Picric Acid (TNT) and a wake-up call to the citizens of France. But given the speed, the power and profusion of propaganda nowadays, patriots everywhere, and nowhere more so than in the USA these last months in 2018, should pay heed to this very live burning worldwide issue, and to this author’s urgent call for vigilance.
A “Letter to the Editor” cannot do full justice to this kind of book, but at the very least, I will have tried. The text is a mixture of autobiography, philosophy and political discourse, all intertwined. Onfray is using the lark-mirror, “le miroir aux alouettes,” metaphorically. His main topic is hypocrisy, deceit, luring, baiting and trapping: the ensnaring of people – not of birds. He quotes from a hunter’s handbook that informs: “The lark-mirror is the doom of the lark that can’t resist the strange attraction the mirror exerts on it. The fascinating power of the mirror on the lark is limitless (Le miroir aux alouettes, Préface, édit. Pluriel: 2017).”
Research on the matter suggests that the eye (the sight) of some birds, the lark in particular, is highly sensitive to the rays of light from the bits of mirror on the rotating or spinning lark-mirror. The larks, usually in flocks, fly close by or onto the lure where they are ensnared in a net, or killed with shotguns. Bird lovers must bear in mind that, like swarms of locusts, flocks of larks can decimate a farmer’s crop if they are left unchecked. Some French folks are very fond of their flesh, seemingly delicious morsels prepared with spices in a heavenly sauce. Today, trapping/hunting of the bird is a matter of fierce debate. One cannot access any “recipes for larks” online: the Internet police, the World Wide Web (WWW) enforcers may have seen to that.
This is my belated reaction to Onfray’s book subtitled “Principles of Social Atheism”. I have found no serious review of it online, in French, in Spanish or in English, but my search was not exhaustive. The author also espouses what he calls “positive anarchism”. Atheism and anarchism can evoke irreverence; religion bashing and violence: the smashing of things and heads. But Onfray’s atheism is nonviolent and respectful of all religions. His “social anarchism” calls to mind Thoreau’s civil disobedience: a refusal to submit to what he regards as injustice, tyranny. As for his declared nihilism, it is that of Albert Camus, the world acclaimed, the celebrated 1957 laureate of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The Lark-Mirror is packed with edifying-explosive material: eight chapters and a conclusion. Chapter 1: “Hitler Is Not Dead: Semantic Dereliction” argues that France is obsessed with its post-war history. “One cannot research and discuss issues without being labeled a Nazi, a Fascist, a Racist, an Anti-Semite, an Islamophobe (...) There is a mythology created by the Communists (...) The true Resistance was a minority, less than one percent (...) There is semantic dereliction, words no longer have meanings (...) The dereliction of an era goes hand in hand with a dereliction in language: words have no meaning when everything else is meaningless.”
Chapter 2: “Philosophy Is a Combat Sport: The Rank-Smelling Arena” holds that “philosophy has a double linage: Socrates and Plato. Socrates speaks to everyone in the public square; Plato’s logic is aimed at the elites, the rulers (...) Socrates lives his philosophy for which he is accused of corrupting the youth, condemned to death, and dies in prison (...) Plato teaches one thing, lives another, and he dies at a banquet [At the ripe old age of 84] thus inaugurating the famous saying of a lot of Platonists: ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ (...) Socrates philosophizes in the street, Plato in the academy, his school.” Follows Onfray’s illustration of how and why he is more in the line of Socrates than in that of Plato, and because of this, he “is viciously attacked by the intellectuals and political leaders of the Left who are, in fact, Liberals.”
Chapter 3: “Anatomy of a Scapegoat: Genealogy of the National Front” is a savage critique of the National Front, and of François Mitterrand’s checkered past in l’Action Française; of his relationship with Jean-Marie Le Pen; of his jealousy and dislike of General De Gaulle; of his ‘clinging to power by all means necessary,’ of his liberalism (espoused in 1983); of his treason [selling out] of the Left and of the principles of the French Republic [The Fifth Republic established by President De Gaulle]”.
Chapter 4: “The Decrepitude of the Old World: The Custom-made Suite of the General” contrasts “the high ideals and probity (words and actions) of De Gaulle” with “those of Mitterrand who accused the General (In a book) of wanting to establish a permanent coup d’État” [...] Onfray argues that “the Left and Mitterrand were Liberals who never cared for De Gaulle. They lived on the Right, thought on the Right, placed their money on the Right, slept and dreamed Right, but they spoke Left (...) When Mitterrand converted to Anti-Gaullism (in 1983), the [so-called] Left rejoiced.”
Chapter 5: “The Taste of Voluntary Servitude: On the Beautiful Word Sovereignty” is a strong advocacy for a French nation-state. “After near a quarter of a century, this ideology [that of Maastricht 1992-2016] has demonstrated its incompetence. It is time to admit that it has failed.”
Chapter 6: “The Machine that Makes Morons: Media Propaganda” is a master lesson on the origins and nature of modern propaganda as it relates to education in France, to French politics: “the deliberate manipulation of the media by a very small number of men who select candidates, so-called representatives of the people.”
Chapter 7: “Neither God nor Master: Can We Still Be Atheist?” is a riveting review of his position on religion, on the Christian and Muslim faiths, in particular, in response to numerous accusations and press attacks on him over the preceding years. (...) “In Europe, moraline [Nietzsche’s satirical pharmaceutical term] has replaced morality (...) There was a time when the inquisitors had their men of arms and their jail houses to stop people from thinking, nowadays, it is journalists who are the enforcers; these are nasty times for someone [Himself] who, since adolescence, has decided not to kneel in front of anything or anyone. But all storms must pass.”
Chapter 8: “Hummingbird and Lark-mirror: Gulliver’s Principle” “At least, I’m doing my part,” says the hummingbird to all the other creatures of the forest who keep insisting that the drops of water [from its beak] on the flames that are consuming the jungle, is a waste of time, and will not change anything.” Here, Onfray invokes “the wisdom of First Nations’ mythology [Pierre Rahbi’s firefighting colibri, and of Jonathan Swift’s Lilliputians [who overpowered the giant Gulliver],” in an appeal to the individual, the ordinary French citizen, to “beware of lark-mirrors,” and to unite in an effort to put out the fires that are consuming the Republic: “A hummingbird theory is required, a hummingbird noria [waterwheel]”.
In his conclusion (”Positive anarchy: Praise of the anarchist order”) Onfray quotes Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s (1809—1865) famous description of what it means “to be governed,” and he briefly reviews his own “peaceful anarchy.” He singles out for praise John Holloway’s “Change the World Without Taking Power” (2002), and more importantly, Montaigne’s friend, Étienne de La Boétie’s “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” (1576) ─the book that inspired and nurtured Proudhon’s “anarchism.” I will wager that, for Michel Onfray, his storms may have abated some, but that the fires are still burning intensely today, in France and in a lot of other places.
Gérard M. Hunt
