Editorial
This issue further explores the multiple interpretations of cosmopolitanism and the phenomena referred to as “development” in contemporary contexts.
Alain Policar points out that cosmopolitanism cannot be practically conceived without suspending the sense of belonging to a community or genealogical ancestry linked to history, as well as the interests and values attached to it. Reason states the original fact of belonging to the human species, which underpins an ethic that presupposes extra-community and extra-national solidarity, without which no cosmopolitical right guaranteeing individual rights can exist.
François Rastier analyses the dilution of the classic notion of culture in the multiple and fragmented interpretations that characterise many sociological, philosophical and artistic currents. Post-colonial studies, in particular, reduce the scope of culture to its national or ethnic origins, forgetting that colonialism and slavery are not limited to the Western world. More generally, the obsession with identity is one that undermines any cosmopolitical or simply human vision.
Melik Özden examines the question of development limited to a single neo-liberal model, which threatens its very survival, undermines all forms of aid and the rights applicable to humanity as a whole. The latter imply the participation and contribution of all individuals and populations to the various factors of development, whether economic, social, cultural or political.
François Misser focuses on cocoa cultivation to highlight the economic problems facing West Africa, due in particular to climate change, deforestation, the way the country is governed and illegal activities such as gold mining. The resulting lack of investment is weakening the economy, with local cocoa production competing with inferior products from elsewhere.
Hubert Landier underlines the inadequacy of company management methods, often due to a utilitarian objective that cannot respond to some of the human situations they face. The two cases cited illustrate the need to draw on knowledge that differs from or contradicts the dominant doxa of management schools, in order to combine it with a form of empathy that resolves latent conflicts by opening up to a global and more human appreciation of the situations encountered.
Christian Tremblay looks at the decline in knowledge and skills in literary, scientific and mathematical subjects in the West, to assess the educational effects of plurilingualism, as well as its social impact. The negative economic and social effects may be due to excessive contact with screens or frequent use of social networks, but understanding the world also depends on refocusing on language, languages and the cultures they express.
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In the ‘Debates and documents’ section, Nandita Bajaj and Kirsten Stade point out that the lack of family planning and birth control has negative effects on women, but also on children. Pronatalist norms in patriarchal societies give free rein to population growth, high fertility and the violation of children’s rights, undermining all development aid.
Vincent Lemire looks back at the Israeli response to the tragedy of 7 October 2023, which saw the massacre of more than 1,100 Israelis, including nearly 800 civilians, a third of them women and children, and resulted in another massacre, that of Palestinians, which, according to the UN, amounted to more children killed in the first four months of the war alone than in the previous four years in all armed conflicts throughout the world.
Paul Ghils