Presence and Explanation

Faced with fears, we seek unique and reassuring explanations. Only “presence” opens us to multiple explanations and grounds critical thinking.

The universal need for explanation

All human beings, in their infinite diversity, children, believers, atheists, pro-vax, anti-vax, conspiracy theorists, flat-earthers, share a common trait: they seek explanations that give meaning to the world. This universal quest raises the question: why do we need so many explanations to understand the phenomena around us? Could we not simply accept the mystery of things?

The answer lies in the profound function of these explanations: they serve to legitimize our actions and guide our choices to give meaning to our existence. Explanations are not simple intellectual tools, but existential compasses.

The coexistence of multiple explanations

Certain domains of life reveal our natural capacity to accept complementary explanations. Take the example of civil and religious marriage: no one is surprised that the same act can receive two joint and complementary explanations. This common ritual demonstrates that we know perfectly well how to live with multiplicity of meanings.

This openness is also found among certain general practitioners trained in allopathy who have subsequently trained in homeopathy. They assume this dual practice despite the apparent antagonism between these two therapeutic approaches, one scientifically asserting the ineffectiveness of the other.

Yet, in most other domains, we do not manifest this same openness. We rather seek a unique explanation that helps us identify our social path and justify the meaning of our acts.

Presence as the key to openness

This variation in our capacity to welcome multiple explanations depends on what I call our level of “presence.” Each person, according to the domains of their life, can sometimes assume multiple explanations, sometimes need a unique explanation — particularly on their points of fragility or when facing their fears.

Presence is defined as a state of grounding in oneself, a form of inner confidence that does not depend on external criteria. It is not a support from the outside, but a serene acceptance of solitude, this feeling of existing by oneself, of sensing why one is here, without need for explanations precisely. It is precisely this presence that opens us to multiple explanations.

Conversely, when we are in fear, in apprehension or the feeling of fragility, we are no longer present to ourselves. We become dependent on external criteria that we will seek to reassure ourselves.

The illusion of rationality faced with fear

This lack of presence explains an apparently incomprehensible phenomenon: how can highly educated, qualified people, knowing science, let themselves be seduced by extremely simplistic explanations?

The answer lies in our very humanity. We are all beings with zones of strong presence where we manifest a great capacity for openness to various explanations, but also zones of weak presence, of fear and fragility. On these sensitive grounds, to regain a feeling of security, we adopt simplistic explanations without seeking information beyond what is presented to us.

Moreover, we assume we are right even while lacking information, because these simplistic explanations allow us to socialize. In a state of non-presence, incapable of assuming opposition to others, we seek the explanation that allows us to form a group, to belong to the “good camp,” always assimilated to the camp of the majority, confused with the values of the common good. This positioning radically differs from the camp of the “righteous” who accept to oppose.

The paradox of information

The example of flat-earthers perfectly illustrates this paradox: they generally inform themselves much more than those who are certain that the Earth is round. Yet, this intensive quest for information does not lead them toward scientific truth. Why? Because their approach and that of their opponents proceed from the same logic: both seek to reassure themselves.

Whether one informs oneself a lot or little, the quest for information does not necessarily equate to a high level of presence. It can also constitute a way to reassure oneself, a need for cognitive security. In both cases, this need for reassurance leads to rallying to a unique explanation, reassuring precisely because it is unique.

Conversely, in domains where we do not need to reassure ourselves, because we are already anchored in our presence, sure of ourselves, connected to our personal ethics and our critical mind, we become capable of thinking for ourselves. This capacity for opposition, this courage to risk ourselves in our profound human truth, allows us to welcome the knowledge that explanations are multiple.

The teaching of the Covid period

The Covid period offers a striking illustration of these mechanisms. Three groups distinguished themselves:

• Adherents to the official doxa: they believed in the dominant narrative of the capitalist system, including very well-informed scientists who let themselves be convinced by the unique “allopathic” explanation. Their adherence is explained by the fact that the fears cultivated by political and media systems — fear of dying, fear of giving death — touched in some of them a point of great fragility. They needed to feel they were in the good camp, associating with a unique explanation that gave them the illusion of being anchored in presence, when they were actually dependent on social judgment and pledging allegiance to the majority.

• The “conspiracy theorists”: just as sure of themselves on an opposite but equally unique explanation, they adopted exactly the same posture as their contradictors. They were neither worse nor better than those who believed in the Covid doxa — they functioned according to the same logic of the unique explanation.

• The third way: those who were better anchored in their presence on the question of fear of death yielded neither to one camp nor the other. Whether they were very informed or not, they accepted being in a framework of multiplicity of explanations facing the phenomenon. Among them, one found as many great scientists and intellectuals who immediately perceived the political biases presiding over the so-called “sanitary” choices, as people without particular intellectual training who sensed intuitively, thanks to their presence, that there existed no unique reassuring explanation.

Post-crisis reconciliation

A remarkable phenomenon is observed in the aftermath: once the fear has passed, certain members of the intellectual classes become aware that they sought no information at the time beyond the official sources of the capitalist system. This awareness accompanies their re-anchoring, their exit from fear. They then become capable again of perceiving multiple explanations and exit from belief in a unique explanation.

Toward a pedagogy of presence

These observations fundamentally question our approach to critical thinking. If we advocate for citizen emancipation, what needs to be worked on is not so much information or journalistic techniques, but the quality of presence.

The challenge lies in fundamental work on oneself: understanding the different aspects of our personality, identifying what frightens us, why and where it comes from. Training in critical thinking passes less through journalistic techniques or “fact-checking,” which often constitutes the opposite of critical thinking, than through shared reflection on presence to oneself and grounding in oneself.

It is at the heart of this grounding that the capacity is born to not need a single explanation to socialize. This presence allows us to exist in a social space without feeling obliged to accept all its rules to belong to it. It constitutes a form of personal legitimacy, a feeling of presence to oneself that grounds authentic critical thinking.

Information as an inner mirror

Cultivating presence proves essential to ground critical thinking, individual emancipation and a truly democratic society, that is to say diversified in all its aspects. For the question is not informational but existential: it concerns our gaze on information rather than information itself.

What truly matters is the way information enters us, the effect it has on us. In itself, it is only exteriority. Our presence determines how we welcome it, treat it and use it to construct our understanding