Return to Reims

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Return to Reims (Original: Retour à Reims ) is an autobiographical-political bestseller by Didier Eribon , which was published in French in 2009 and in German in 2016 in a translation by Tobias Haberkorn. Eribon examines the development of his own homosexuality in connection with the political culture of his milieu of origin, the northern French working class. He has expanded self-exploration several times by combining homophobia and racism in his milieu of origin with the contradiction between the left self-image and currently right-wing voting behavior. In the book Society as Judgment , published in German in October 2017 . He connects classes, identities and paths with his return to Reims .

In the tradition of Marxism without prejudice, he seeks a left theoretical perspective between social democracy and dogmatic socialism . It integrates approaches and results from Pierre Bourdieu , Jean-Paul Sartre , Michel Foucault , Antonio Gramsci , Paul Willis and Stuart Hall , who z. B. with his analysis of Thatcherism also explained the right turn of the voters through the failure of the left. The downfall of the new approaches censoring Marxism of the 1960s and 1970s was a necessary prerequisite for this broadening of perspectives.

content

Re-encounter and shame of origin

In his opinion, defining factors of origin cannot be excluded, but only "built in" - one comes into the world with a social past and constructs one's meaning in life in a milieu-bound narrative: the class position determines the framework of individual development. In doing so, he turns against the neoliberal myths of individualism and equal opportunities , which are in fact canceled out by the "social capital" of the upper class (strategies, connections, role models):

"From birth we carry the history of our family and our milieu within us, are determined by the place they assign us."

He felt the "social shame" because of his origin from the lower class more deeply than the sexual shame of deviance because of his homosexuality, although he was repeatedly the victim of discrimination and violence in Paris. But he has z. B. have to learn a sophisticated language and an interest in art and music late and with great effort.

Eribon describes education as a distinguishing feature and principle of exclusion that would only superficially be shared with all parts of society. Rather, the lower classes would be kept away from education through self-exclusion: "School selection is often based on self-exclusion and self-elimination, those affected claim their exclusion as a result of their own freedom of choice. A long school period is" only for others "" who can afford it can "and who coincidentally are mostly those who" have more desire to learn "."

The joy of learning and education "is not evenly distributed throughout society, on the contrary, it correlates particularly strongly with the social environment and social affiliation."

In order to recognize this process, the "logic of the obvious [...] and the unfair distribution of opportunities", one has to "cross the demarcation line, as I have done, and switch from one camp to another."

Shame of homosexual deviation

Homosexuality is only the superficial cause of the break with his family and has supported the development of his cultural orientation; conversely, his educational orientation was also a factor in the demarcation from the homophobic milieu of the family. An upper-class childhood friend and secretly adored was an important factor in the educational orientation in contrast to the almost successful self-exclusion from school, the usual school career of his peers and milieu.

The political consciousness of the popular classes

The self-assignment to a social storage successes pragmatic from everyday life, but that does not mechanically with the assignment to a political camp was connected. He explains the change of the popular classes from the left to the camp of the right, among other things, with a deep-seated, original nationalism and racism that emerges spontaneously in the social milieu: Chauvinism and homophobia can be understood as part of the male struggle for a fragile, endangered pride.

Using the example of his parents, Eribon describes that the left-wing of the lower classes consisted of "very pragmatically rejecting what you suffered from in everyday life. It was about protest, not about a political project inspired by global perspectives." The change in the left political forces, which "from now on no longer spoke the language of the governed, but that of the rulers" created a gap in the political representation of the lower classes that could be filled by the right: "Who fulfills the function today who held "the party" at that time? By whom are the exploited and defenseless today allowed to feel represented and understood? To whom do they turn to and on whom do they rely in order to exist politically and culturally, to feel pride and self-respect because they each other legitimate, as legitimized by an authority, feel? "

It is naive to assume an automatic left-wing orientation in the working class: The "spontaneous consciousness" is always contradictory and unstable and only becomes a left or right political orientation through a certain conceptual structuring. The discourse of the right skilfully addressed the spontaneous consciousness of the popular classes and formed them into a new historical block with new, more conflicting layers . He understands the political swing to the right as a movement of self-defense, the defense of dignity and pride in what is now a national “we”. Without this understanding of the logic or the mechanisms of spontaneous self-reproduction of subordination, a change in the political climate would not be possible.

The strategy of the left

The attractiveness of the right can be explained by the failure of the left, more precisely: its turn to neoliberal policy content. Real exploitation, along with the concepts of class and interests, has disappeared from the vocabulary of the left Leftists could disappear, although it is precisely here that the actual existence of people - their health, for example - is at stake. "

The class relations are no longer analyzed as a war of the superiors against the ruled - the neoconservative discourse of individualism has even been adopted by parts of the left: "The socialist left underwent a radical transformation that became clearer from year to year and was indulged with questionable enthusiasm on neoconservative intellectuals who, under the pretext of spiritual renewal, set out to empty the essence of the left. There was a real metamorphosis of ethos and intellectual coordinates. There was no longer talk of exploitation and resistance, but of "necessary reforms "and a" reshaping "of society. No longer of class relationships or social fate, but of" living together "and" personal responsibility "."

Eribon understands the postulate of an end to the right-left scheme as a neoliberal process in which the political left was pushed to the right with its consent: "The intentions were hardly veiled: the evocation of the" autonomous subject "and the accompanying adoption of everyone Considerations based on the determining power of historical and social circumstances aimed to dispose of the idea that there was such a thing as social groups ("classes") once and for all, in the name of a supposedly necessary "individualization" (or decollectivization) , Desocialization), which affected labor law, social security systems and, more generally, the mechanisms of social solidarity and redistribution, the dismantling of the welfare state was legitimized at the same time. A large part of the left suddenly took up the old project of social cuts, the previously represented and forced exclusively by right-wing parties aft was repeated ("personal responsibility" vs. "Collectivism" etc.). "

The left must learn again to fight with a coherent discourse for political awareness and the establishment of a left hegemony . What is essential is a restructuring of the unstable spontaneous consciousness: above and below are more important political criteria than the distinction between ethnic groups or skin color or gender . The spontaneous narratives from below (chauvinism, racism, patriarchalism, homophobia ...) must be countered by a coherent left-wing discourse.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 237 .
  2. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 16 f., 138, 23 .
  3. ↑ See also the interview by Felix Stephan in Zeit-Online "You can't believe you were the people" , July 4th, 2016
  4. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 234 .
  5. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 11 f., 88 f., 166, 229, 232, 237 .
  6. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 .
  7. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 19th ff., 25 f., 232, 236, 237 .
  8. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 38 .
  9. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 108 .
  10. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 120/121 .
  11. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 36, 44 ff., 151 .
  12. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 30th f., 48 ff., 91 .
  13. ↑ Michael Sandel explains the resentment of the US working class against welfare measures with a spontaneous pride in income from their own work: social assistance for the unemployed or the sick undermines this pride; Approval can only be won with a "policy of honor". That could perhaps explain the success of D. Trump's 2016/17 presidential campaign. (Michael J. Sandel, Moral and Politics. Thoughts on a Just Society, Berlin: Ullstein 2015, p. 154f) ISBN 978-3-548-37682-0
  14. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 38 .
  15. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 121 .
  16. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 39 .
  17. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 38 f., 128 f., 130, 138 ff .
  18. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 128 f .
  19. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 122 ff., 138 f .
  20. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 78/79 .
  21. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims. Translated from the French by Tobias Haberkorn . 14th ed. 2017. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 78 f., 111 ff., 140 ff., 233 .
  22. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 120 .
  23. ↑ Didier Eribon: Return to Reims . 18th edition. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-518-07252-3 , pp. 120/121 .

Web links

  • On the stage ; Evaluation and criticism of the return to Reims after Didier Eribon, Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin, director: Thomas Ostermeier, premiere: September 24, 2017