In her latest book, L’insurrection des particularités (“The Insurrection of Particularities”), French philosopher Chantal Delsol examines the renewed tensions in Western societies between universalism and what she sees as a “triumph of particularities”. Heir to a liberal-conservative philosophy fiercely critical of post-modernity, she fears that egalitarian demands, the “tyranny of feelings”, and the value placed on subjectivity and personal beliefs have now gained political and intellectual ascendency over the founding principles of Western modernity: rule of law, scientific thinking, reason, and humanism.

According to Delsol, in venerating individual liberty without responsibility, Western individualism has unmoored and disorientated our societies. Yet it is within the limits imposed on the individual by the universal that our liberty takes root and flourishes.

Edouard Gaudot: You describe a West shaped by a “passion for equality” stretching from Christianity to Marxism and today perpetuated by “woke” culture. Even so, in both the French Republic’s motto and the foundational values enshrined in European treaties, liberty comes first. How is this tension between equality and liberty reconciled? How can we explain this obsession with equality, and why do you think it is unique to the West?

Chantal Delsol: Liberty does indeed come first, because it’s what sparked the revolutionary revolt against oppressors (external in America, internal in France), and equality comes second. In France, equality was as important as liberty, and eventually surpassed it. That said, we can’t use France to generalise. Equality is invoked and championed far less in other European countries and North America. So why this French obsession with equality? We can only suggest a few possible answers.

First, it’s likely that the French nobility behaved particularly badly over the centuries, abetted by an absolute monarchy that did all it could to cut off the gentry from the people. There’s also a religious factor: France, a country that was first fervently Catholic and then fervently revolutionary, transposed the Catholic principle of equal dignity into society. Let’s take the example of a current advert for [the French supermarket chain] Carrefour, which tells us, “We all deserve the best” – an egalitarian slogan if ever there was one. And, of course, before God, we all deserve the best, we all deserve his love. But that’s not how it works in the supermarket…

Can the universal exist without the imposition of a uniform norm by an authority, whichever authority that may be? How should we interpret the construction of the post-war European order and the nationalist backlash that it provokes?

The universal can never come through the imposition of a norm from without; it can only come from within — at least if it’s authentic. Scientific truth is universal because it is a quality of things, not the diktat of our desires. Natural law (such as the prohibition of incest) is universal because it is shared by all peoples, not because it is imposed by an authority.

That’s why I’m very critical of European integration that seeks to impose a universal order, which clearly doesn’t work – just look at the news. The universal is not decreed; it is discovered. All that desires can do is impose particularities.

The question of subsidiarity is a core hypocrisy in the European project. In the nineties, Jacques Delors wanted to put subsidiarity on the agenda, because it is a system for autonomy at the lowest level, and this perfectly fits the European mindset of liberty for individuals and community groups. Culturally, there is nothing more Western than the principle of subsidiarity. But when it came to turning it into “directives”, the Brussels technocracy got the upper hand. They managed to make subsidiarity a Jacobin principle!

It’s easy: simply set the standard required for a common good very high. If the EU says that all countries must have Denmark’s environmental standards, nobody will be able to achieve them, and everyone will have to ask Europe for help. That’s what happens everywhere. Our most cherished, most fundamental value has been perverted by people who believe that local communities are “incompetent”. It’s a form of post-modern despotism, a return to Plato’s enlightened despot.

The universal is not decreed; it is discovered. all that desires can do is impose particularities.

You also highlight the social fragmentation caused by the rise of particularisms. Admittedly, as an end in itself, diversity can be pointless, but do you think it’s impossible to be “united in diversity”, as the EU’s motto proclaims?

I think that the motto “united in diversity” is more than empty words, and that it is achievable. But like all paradoxes, it can only become true if considerable conscious effort is devoted to either side: we must foster, celebrate and love unity – and we must foster, celebrate, and love diversity. Yet Europe only fosters unity.

I agree that particularisms also erupt in reaction to excessive centralisation and, in Europe’s case, to authorities’ normative desire to govern every aspect of our lives, to a technocratic approach that sees politics as science and dismisses citizens’ common sense and consciences (turning them into pseudo-citizens).

You give a compelling analysis of the difference between integration policies and the requirement for inclusion. But if we accept that inclusion, which preserves people’s individual characteristics even at the expense of common values, hinders the building of a political community, how do you suggest we reconcile respect for every citizen’s integrity in a society that is not based on discrimination? How can we be free in a world where a panoply of absolute powers is wielded over each of us?

Here, too, we face a paradox – or a social tragedy – to which we can only respond with a great deal of effort on either side. Respect for the integrity of differences must be backed up by debate and reasoning, not just by insults and opprobrium as it is today. The limits of inclusion, necessary for building a community, are only acceptable if there is cultural proximity and an effort at connection – not rejection. In other words, it takes huge human efforts of tolerance and understanding, as well as composure and firmness. It’s very hard, that I won’t deny. But I believe it’s the only way. For concrete examples, we should look to great teachers: they can be both truly loving and truly strict. This is not a job for armies of bureaucrats – it takes heart and soul.

Liberty is not the ability to do and think whatever we want but to act and think in line with our own conscience and sense of responsibility. It does not mean that each of us is all powerful. It does not tear down social hierarchies; it watches over them to prevent their abuse. I listen to my doctor because he knows my disease better than me, or I take advice from an admirable friend because he helps me think. It is the definition of liberty that has gone astray. It is autonomy, not independence.

The limits of inclusion are only acceptable if there is cultural proximity and an effort at connection.

In the postmodern era, as collective narratives have run out of road and the narcissistic individual has come to the fore, what alternatives are there? Must we try to re-enchant the world at all costs? Or resign ourselves to a choice between dogmatism, nihilism, and cynicism? Do you see other paths? Do you think that ecology and the green agenda — a worldview that values scientific knowledge, respects natural limits, and seeks social equilibrium — offers a story powerful and relevant enough to unite individuals without sacrificing them to the collective?

Re-enchanting the world is not a plan, it can’t just be decided! We’re at a moment of change, disorder and, worryingly, meaninglessness: contemporary Westerners no longer know what they’re living for. As for the future, we have the impression that it’s something that will happen to us, rather than something that we will decide, because everything is so muddled, so confused. Incidentally, I love the thesis of Jan Patočka, an agnostic philosopher who proposed a “solidarity of the shaken”, a sort of sharing of anxieties, a coming together of endangered beings. In times like these, we need lots of clear thinking and courage, because 70 years of laziness have left us soft and afraid.

We’re at a tumultuous moment where counter-currents are colliding and multiplying: religions, wisdoms, magical beliefs, and others. It’s a moment of reconfiguration. The most powerful current is environmentalism. Environmentalism [“l’écologie”] tends to become a pantheist religion that worships nature, which it sanctifies. We have no idea where it will lead us, nor whether this current will keep growing, because it is going so far that it’s discrediting itself.

Environmentalism should accept what it is: a set of scientific propositions that are debatable (in the sense that advances in science may challenge them) and neutral. Instead, it has become an impassioned and fanatical discourse that brooks no dissent and vilifies dissenters. In other words, it behaves like a religion. Perhaps in 50 years’ time we’ll live in a new age of druids. Or perhaps we’ll laugh at today’s environmentalist idiocies. Who knows?

Resentment and populism, despair and war have marked the return of tragedy to our societies, shaking collective certainties and threatening the stability of democratic regimes. What future do you see for democracy in Europe?

It’s less the return of tragedy and more the return of the awareness of tragedy. Because tragedy never ceased to exist in the human world; we just thought it could be eliminated. The human world is no worse than it was before; it continues “as usual”, but we can no longer cope with it, because we’ve been living in a magical and utopian interlude: for 70 years, we thought democracy would spread everywhere and wars would end with the rule of law. Reality has hit us smack in the face.

Democracy can no longer be considered the end of history’s regime, to which all peoples are inevitably destined. Our contemporaries are beginning to grasp that it’s a rather fragile regime, which must be defended with both intelligence and courage – neither alone is enough. Intelligence means the lucidity to escape excesses – democracy is threatened by technocracy, for example, which is the fanatical certainty of being right and the transformation of politics into science. Courage is the ability to defend oneself, even by force, which is to say by exactly the means that democracy rejects.

Democracy is fragile because it is built on liberty, which makes decisions uncertain and volatile. But it is strong, too: in the 20th century, democracy triumphed over the two totalitarianisms.

For 70 years, we thought democracy would spread everywhere and wars would end. reality has hit us in the face.

What do you make of the “dark enlightenment” writings of Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land, the radical libertarian agenda brought to power by America’s new tech barons, their rejection of democracy and equality as a moral philosophy, and their espousal of a master-slave morality? How can we Europeans stand up to them?

The libertarians you’re talking about are today’s Nietzscheans, advocating an ideology of power, the idea that might makes right. Against people like this, we have to respond in kind: with force. We didn’t defeat Hitler with justice, ethics, and posturing. First, we must be stronger than them. The rest will come afterwards. That said, I think these currents are motivated more by an excess of law and ethics in our evolution and less by a desire to get rid of them.

The dark enlightenment is a reactionary current in the sense that it advocates a return to the past by legitimising monarchist, authoritarian regimes and rejecting democracy as we know it. The alt-right, on the other hand, is anti-capitalist. As often happens in history, this period of breakdown and disarray is spawning a multitude of contradictory and overlapping currents, and we don’t yet know which will come out on top. Everything’s a mess. It’s a state of thought as chaotic as that following the French Revolution in Europe.

You paint a positive picture of the enlightened conservatism of Asian cultural traditions, especially their agnostic modesty and rejection of competitive victimhood. Is rediscovering a sense of moderation and distance from absolutist representations a path for Europe to follow? You say that through the exercise of power, contemporary China is taking up the torch of universalism from the West. What role will be left for Europe and Europeans in a world dominated by China?

China is not taking up the torch of universalism from the West but instead wants to show that it represents the one true universalism: that of foundations. Our universalism, on the other hand, is that of promises. Yes, I think we have lots to learn from Asian thought and wisdom, given its deep roots in anthropology. They begin with the human condition as it can be observed, and they’re right to. We’ve strayed too far from this precisely because we only believe in promises. We must hold on to both. And we must look towards permanent human characteristics, such as universal morality.