Presence, common ground and self-containment

Humanity, intrinsically collective, requires a symbolic common ground to form society. This place must promote diversity of viewpoints rather than consensus, avoid insularity, and cultivate the authentic presence of each person.

Lies about the general interest

For humanity to make sense, it must engage constructively in its collective dimension, because it is essentially collective: parents give birth to children, who then become part of families, societies. Human life is intrinsically engaged in social relationships; without them, it would not exist. And for social relationships to be beneficial, serving the interest of each person—that is, the collective interest, since the two are intrinsic and one cannot exist without the other—we must create a “common ground.”

Many false values are transmitted that guilt people about working for their own interest. These false values do not nourish altruism as they claim, but rather dominations—that is, the power of those who dictate and organize the system of guilt and those who are subjected to it. The subjugated, believing they are doing good, believing they serve the general interest and thus forgetting to account for their own dignity, believing they are altruistic, are in reality under the influence of people who profit from their exploitation.

The good or bad common ground

Thus, for this to happen as little as possible and for the organizational system to be as virtuous as possible, we must create a common ground, a symbolic place, which is not necessarily a physical location. We must establish something common, words whose meaning we share, cultures that allow us to establish ourselves in our humanity through narratives we share with others—this is what I call the common ground.

This common ground is essential because without a symbolic commons, a shared culture, we will not know how to form society together, as we won’t even know what we’re talking about when speaking to each other. It often happens in assemblies that we struggle to understand the very subject of the assembly. I imagine what I’m saying might echo feelings we’ve all had, of not understanding what’s going on. Well, this is precisely because the common ground was poorly defined. I’m not saying someone is responsible, but it’s this lack of definition of the common ground that creates the difficulty of forming society together—the first obstacle.

But the common ground can also become normative and turn into a “commonplace,” in the other sense of the term—that is, a banality, something trite that has lost all its meaning and therefore no longer creates commonality at all, because it is devoid of meaning, even as what we ask of the commons is to allow for a sharing of meaning, that is, an understanding of what we are talking about or doing together.

This is why we must establish a common ground, but we must also be wary of the “commonplace,” which empties things of their interest for humanity. This is why what seems absolutely crucial to cultivate is the diversity of viewpoints. This common ground will not be a place of consensus, where everyone thinks the same thing, uses the same words, but without investing them with meaning. In consensus (or totalitarianism, often unconscious of being so, because it is well-meaning), one must use authorized words, because if one doesn’t use them, one gets excluded, even if one doesn’t know why one is using them.

Opposing consensus, which empties meaning and life

People who care about democracy, who care about human collectives that make sense, will struggle with all their might against this single thought, this doxa as they say, this consensus that empties the essence of the diversity of viewpoints and the enrichment that diversity produces. So, it is a common ground of compromise and not of consensus that must be built, for which, in my opinion, we must work. A common ground in which all expressions are possible. A place of rich debate. But a place of real debate, not a simulacrum.

I believe that to cultivate this type of space for which each person is responsible, we must never economize on the time devoted to redefining things, to redefining words, in order to identify the places of our disagreements, to always re-establish this diversified common ground, because there is no longer a “commonplace,” that is, a single thought within it, but this multiplicity all the more present and active as we work toward its formulation.

Cultivating “outside oneself” to create commons through presence

But, as we know, common grounds foster insularity. We gather among ourselves. We no longer want to see the outside, even if we say we are open to the world, to reassure ourselves in our commonplaces. And this is terrible because this insularity begins to empty the social space of its ability to nourish itself with other thoughts, other points of view, which is absolutely vital in the long term, even if in the short term it may seem destabilizing or even dangerous.

Assuming the creation and perpetual reinvention of common grounds where one can be outside oneself is particularly dangerous and destabilizing, which is why we tend to avoid it and slowly sink into insularity. Thus, what needs to be cultivated and encouraged, in my opinion, is presence, that is, anchoring in oneself, the radicality of our own thinking. Radicality is anchoring in oneself, it is the presence of a person who discovers themselves and dares to reveal themselves to others. It is in no way closed-mindedness. It is the generosity of exposing oneself and receiving the exposure of others. It is the possible enrichment from encounters, but enrichment chosen in complete freedom and autonomy, in complete presence.