What are our moral values worth when tested by reality? Between deep conviction and reassuring conformism, how do we distinguish authentic engagement from the illusion of good? What separates those who risk for their ideas from those who follow?
The fundamental distinction
The distinction between political conscience and good political conscience immediately comes to mind. Political conscience constitutes a deep anchoring within oneself: it manifests through the capacity to assume social risk in defending one’s convictions. Good political conscience, conversely, reflects an attachment to reassuring discourses that allow one to feel integrated into a protective community, providing the illusion of being on the side of good through pure social conformism. Within the same political camp, people apparently defending the same ideas can thus coexist: some take risks for their convictions, others conform to avoid any danger.
Good political conscience maintains in its adherents the illusion of embodying good, when they are merely aligning with a power, which is not necessarily dominant. Take the example of a student evolving in a predominantly left-oriented university: they will naturally defend left-wing ideas, even actively campaign, in order to integrate into this social space. They may even unconsciously, or sometimes consciously, be intimately convinced of possessing authentic political conscience, without perceiving that they are actually bathing in good political conscience.
The test of critical situations
This is where the subject reveals all its richness. For it is not simply a matter of opposing the good to the bad. Considerable complexity hides behind this apparent dichotomy. The true nature of political conscience reveals itself in critical situations, when consistency with one’s ideas requires taking social risk, when one suddenly tips to the side of resistance against oppressive power rather than remaining in its wake.
It is in these moments that deep nature reveals itself beyond discourse, through acts. Those who fail this test do not thereby become monsters: they simply reveal their submission to social conformism, which can indeed lead them to participate in the worst while they were thought exemplary. Conversely, people judged to lack political conscience can reveal themselves, in action, to be far more authentically politicized than those who loudly proclaimed their engagement before turning their coat in the face of adversity.
It would be tempting to severely condemn those who cultivate this conformist good political conscience, knowing they can, through obedience, participate in the worst crimes with a clear conscience, and often unconsciously. They are not even aware of the potentially monstrous or dictatorial nature of what they follow, convinced as they are of working for good. In the name of this supposed good, human beings show themselves capable of the worst, for this good guarantees their belonging to the social space that power represents for them.
One could qualify this good political conscience as cowardice, collaboration, opportunism, or, following Hannah Arendt, the “banality of evil,” all qualifiers true in their essence. But let us be careful not to be too severe toward these potential executioners: tomorrow, perhaps we ourselves will be, unconsciously, in this good conscience while believing we embody true conscience. In a difficult situation, we might not even be aware of our own “coat-turning.” We can be intimately convinced of our authentic political engagement even as we swim in the vilest good conscience.
Revealing reversals
Consider the case of Ariane Mnouchkine, director of the Théâtre du Soleil, an artist seemingly eminently engaged in left-wing politics, who revealed herself to be a zealous collaborator in Macronist security policy during the Covid crisis, when she was believed to be a defender of freedoms. Or Noam Chomsky, major political activist who taught so much to rebels, author of works on the manufacture of consent, and who, during this same crisis, became a defender of authoritarian health measures. He became a victim of the very phenomenon he had so precisely documented: obtaining his consent, convinced that these ideas were his when they had been, if I dare say, inoculated by the capitalist domination system that finally turned against him.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, author of Journey to the End of the Night, a monument of world literature and pacifist manifesto of unequaled force, later became a supporter of Nazism and anti-Semitism. The temptation is great to completely tear down these idols whose authentic political conscience seems to have evaporated. But reality is much more nuanced.
Noam Chomsky’s writings prior to his recent reversal remain essential, formative and true. The man may have lost certain faculties with age, but this does not invalidate the qualities that enriched us so much. The Chomsky of the present has passed to good political conscience, but the writings of the Chomsky of the past offer truly inspiring political conscience.
The same goes for Ariane Mnouchkine: some of her shows before the health crisis, as it has become difficult to believe after, constituted for some aesthetic and political shocks that were very formative. They may even have helped build the critical spirit that now allows us to perceive her own reversal, what a paradox!
Conversely, people apparently little engaged or little concerned with the common good, having never manifested expression of political conscience, can in times of crisis find themselves taking considerable social risks to defend their ethics, which reveals itself to be true political engagement. I think of this doctor of my acquaintance, not at all a political activist, who during the Covid period found himself, almost despite himself, establishing false vaccination certificates to allow his patients who refused to be injected with an experimental product with uncertain effects, to keep their jobs and their place in social space, restoring their right to freedom, which was during this period confiscated by a corrupt State. Caught in the act, he had to face very significant difficulties. His engagement revealed itself in acts, unveiling a dimension of his being, capacities for risk-taking in the name of anchored values, that he himself was unaware of.
Human complexity and the path of conscience
Thus, each person can oscillate between conscience and good conscience without always being fully aware of it themselves. It is only when faced with the wall, facing situations requiring acts, that their nature reveals itself, but only their present nature, for the same individual can, according to their personal journey and contexts, sometimes be on the side of good and sometimes on the side of evil. The stock image of the Nazi who cruelly executes thousands of innocents then returns home to tenderly cherish his children illustrates this duality. This man certainly committed these crimes through good conscience and vital conformism, even if morbid enjoyment may have been mixed in. But it was above all good conscience that presided over his acts, which did not prevent him from being otherwise and fully a healthy and benevolent individual within his family. He was not a monster all the time, and this was made possible by his good conscience. When he was accused of his crimes, made guilty of obedience, he could not understand, for he had done what he was ordered to do, and thus thought himself on the side of probity. It is very disturbing, and yet true, the understanding of this phenomenon owes everything to Hannah Arendt, who also risked her reputation to defend these ideas, at a time when all former Nazis had to be considered monsters and certainly not anything else.
During the Covid crisis, we could see anarchists or far-left activists transform into avant-gardists of the condemnation of the unvaccinated. They denounced them, dehumanized them, devoted them to destruction, in absolute contradiction with their proclaimed values of humanism, democracy, freedom, equality and fraternity. Even more astonishing: after the crisis, these same people could become tolerant, open, human and benevolent again.
This perspective is disturbing, and it is not at all about forgiving everything to everyone. But perhaps we must avoid fixing roles and essentializing a person to only one of their facets. This tolerance toward good conscience, that is, toward what is worst, could paradoxically be the sign of authentic political conscience: the absence of the need to denigrate the other, the absence of the need to attach oneself to an excluding community to remain anchored in oneself, with one’s own ideas, in respect for the dignity of those who can change their minds, a category to which we perhaps belong ourselves without knowing it on certain subjects.
We would like others to allow us our errors, forgive our faults, help us become aware of them and grow rather than banish us at the first misstep. This is precisely solidarity. This is precisely fraternity. Political conscience is perhaps also taking the risk of respecting those whom it would be easier to hate, while good conscience indulges in reassuring rejection.
The key to progress on this question undoubtedly lies in authentic encounter with the other: meeting their gaze, shaking their hand, establishing dialogue, listening to the one who appears to us as antagonist. Knowing them, listening to them and offering them to listen to us in mutual respect. It is perhaps thus that we leave formatted good conscience to enter into personal conscience in perpetual journey.
