Absence and privileges

I propose exploring two approaches to civic action: starting from one’s privileges to act altruistically, or opening oneself to the real needs of others. Without imposing a moral stance, I aim to illuminate their characteristics, biases, and complementarities, as good intentions can often lead to the opposite effect. The challenge is achieving lucidity for true humanism.

The two dynamics of civic action: privileges versus needs

Do we start from the privileges we enjoy to see what we can do with them in an altruistic sense, or do we first study the needs of a field, such as a city’s population, and then implement adapted projects? The same person, whether they have privileges or not, can work in both directions simultaneously. If I pose this question, it’s not to advocate for a prescriptive morality about what would be “better” to do for the good, but to invite awareness of these two distinct dynamics of civic action.

I seek to precisely outline their characteristics, biases, and potential complementarities. For, quite often, and unfortunately, as the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” That is, by sincerely wanting to do good, without realizing it, one can fall into superficial good conscience and implement social actions that produce exactly the opposite of the intended effect. In any subject concerning humanity, raising the level of knowledge, consciousness, and lucidity about the consequences of our actions remains, in my view, the surest way to work toward this “good,” even if what the concept of “good” covers obviously varies according to each person’s worldview.

Far from me is the idea of normalizing universal moral criteria defining good and evil. It is precisely in the diversity of perspectives and their complementarities that authentic humanity is woven. To support this idea, I think of philosopher Hannah Arendt, who in The Human Condition (1958), emphasizes that human action emerges from the plurality of beings, not from imposed uniformity:

“Plurality is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, without any man ever being identical to another who has lived, lives, or will live.”

The inherent biases of actions arising from privileges

Ontologically, starting from one’s privileges to act introduces profound biases. Take the example of a subsidized theater director, appointed on a convincing project, often open to the territory and citizen participation, because this is what attracts public funding today. The problem arises when action is driven by these privileges: a venue, a team, financial means. In all good conscience, this director, often a white man over 50, not originally from the place but “parachuted” there (which can actually enrich the context), will organize the expenditure of these resources as best as possible.

However, he unconsciously forgets a crucial element: this money is public, coming from taxpayers, not from the elected officials who delegate it. Elected officials are only temporary managers, but the purpose must remain linked to the origin and meaning of these funds. Starting from privilege to “spend optimally” carries inherent biases, such as the idea that the existing venue is designed to receive a passive audience facing “quality” artistic proposals, which these financial means should serve, as this would be most enriching for residents—this becomes an unquestioned dogma. Perhaps we could imagine something entirely different with these teams, this money, and these infrastructures. And this is what many cultural actors do, of course! The purpose of this text is not to offer easy criticism, but rather to clarify concepts, to support actions better anchored in citizenship.

Privileges impose a framework with unconscious objectives: their own reproduction. As Pierre Bourdieu notes in Distinction (1979), cultural privileges reproduce themselves through invisible social mechanisms, where agents act to perpetuate their position: “Privileges disguise themselves as personal merits.” Thus, even with altruistic intentions, action remains imprisoned within this framework, closing doors to innovation and alternative ways of doing things.

A concrete example: educational project and the power of complementarities

A few years ago, I accompanied artistic and pedagogical teams in a local project of making films in kindergartens and primary schools as well as in middle school, in a working-class neighborhood. This project had been running for 8 years and was beginning to run out of steam. The final presentation, in the theater, bringing families together, was a beautiful moment, but driven by teachers exhausted by everything they were taking on. Their method was limited to two thorough stages: filming and editing, where students produced several versions and then voted for the “best” one. Everyone—students, teachers—ended up tired, and organizing the evening required a colossal effort from adults.

I simply proposed, going into technical and methodological details, a different approach: instead of having all students do the same thing for later selection, and teachers bearing the organization alone, assign each person a specific role based on their interests. Thus, one handled lighting, another sound, editing, screenplay, costumes, sets, directing actors, etc. And for the event too, some managed the poster, communication, reception, presentation, exhibitions, scenography, etc.

Thanks to these complementarities, the project regained energy, diversity, rigor, and artistic quality. This illustrates how starting from needs and singularities, rather than from a uniform privileged framework, liberates unsuspected potential. As American psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi expresses in his concept of “flow” (in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, 1990), maximum engagement emerges when tasks correspond to individual skills and interests, fostering collective creativity.

The reproduction of privileges under the guise of altruism

Let’s return to our imaginary theater director: starting from his privileges, he produces sympathetic actions, such as partnerships with local associations for cultural workshops. These initiatives can offer openings, personal enrichment, or even social advancement for some participants—I don’t want to say at all that it’s useless. Yet, as he judges his action positive and sees the results, his objective becomes renewing his mandate within the institution, thus perpetuating the initial privileges.

These privileges carry their presuppositions: centralized expertise, programming “good” shows to enrich citizens, with the ideal of filling the “main hall.” This cultural form is not questioned, because the starting point is the privilege itself. Starting from there closes doors to imagining other practices, making innovation outside the framework impossible (which doesn’t mean that everything happening within this framework is intrinsically “bad”).

In sum, action arising from privileges is not useless, but it hinders social evolution. It defends not human dignity, but allegiance to a system. As philosopher Michel Foucault analyzes in Discipline and Punish (1975), institutions reproduce normalizing powers:

“Power is not an institution, and not a structure; it is the name we give to a complex strategic situation in a given society.”

Bill Gates’s ambiguous altruism: a paradigm of global reproduction

Consider Bill Gates, whom I qualify as malicious for having built illegal monopolies and captured profits through forced licenses, starting by manipulating IBM to derive immense benefits from it, to the detriment of this century-old company. His “altruism,” for example massively vaccinating Africa with sometimes experimental substances, has undeniable beneficial effects, but also health side effects due to hasty innovations. But above all, by virtue of this altruism, Gates builds zones of influence for his economic model, based on patents and private industrial development.

His ill-gotten money allows him to decide alone for a supposed common good, which is completely hypocritical. As the main private funder of WHO, he imposes a profitable allopathic paradigm, reproducing his privileges through other actors. As Lionel Astruc reveals in The Art of False Generosity – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (2019), this philanthropy acts as a strategic lever of power while bypassing democratic processes. Bill Gates doesn’t solve the structural causes of health or social inequalities, he “massively orients public policies toward private sector interests under the guise of humanitarian aid”. Astruc observes that “the Gates Foundation, by funding health programs, actually conditions the global health agenda to market logic: that of patents, vaccines, proprietary technologies”.

I don’t deny that there are certain positive aspects to these approaches, but action starts from privileges to perpetuate them. As economist Mariana Mazzucato also explains in The Value of Everything (2018), philanthropists like Gates mask private agendas: “Philanthropy is not neutral; it orients innovation toward private interests under the guise of public good.”

Starting from needs: the informal as a source of innovation and presence

If we reverse the perspective, by collecting needs through authentic connection, we then escape the biases of privileges. Certainly, such collection is often funded, thus tainted with privileges, but one can choose to undertake it without remuneration, outside the comfort zone. These informal approaches, based on chance conversations or encounters, reveal rich, surprising, and future-bearing ideas.

This is why work in the informal seems most constructive to me: it’s there that everything is invented, far from rigid frameworks. I myself have proposed atypical cultural survey methods, based on the informal, to link artistic projects and citizens with maximum innovative potential. Starting from privileges absents us from ourselves, inscribing us in a fundamentally inhuman social project: the reproduction of privilege, whether financial or symbolic.

Value is not only monetary; a social title or function confers privilege. Exercising privilege distances us from our humanity, favoring allegiance to an egocentric criterion. Social space can emancipate or alienate, depending on how we operate within it. Thus, privilege implies absence from oneself, rendering the agent static, not living.

Jacques Rancière’s lesson: the absence of the master for true emancipation

Jacques Rancière, in The Ignorant Schoolmaster (1987), perfectly illustrates this absence induced by privilege: in 1818, Jacotot, exiled in Holland, finds himself having to teach French to Flemish students without speaking their language. He gives them a bilingual book (Telemachus by Fénelon) and asks them to learn on their own, using the translation as help. To his great surprise, the students manage very quickly to express themselves correctly in French. This experience leads him to conclude that one can learn without explanation from the master, and even that one can teach what one doesn’t know.

The result is that learning is faster, more effective, and deeper than in traditional classes. Indeed, the “master’s” explanations reproduce privileges, hindering emancipation. Rancière writes: “To explain something to someone is first to demonstrate to them that they cannot understand it by themselves.” Here, the master’s skills become his absence, transforming him into an inhuman agent.

Since privilege induces absence and inhumanity, and since I believe in humanism to improve the world, we must cultivate the informal. To structure it, let’s legitimize it: tell its story, value presence, transformation, the unexpected. This implies constant changes in objectives, permanent questioning of “why” rather than “how”.