Lifestyles and arts of living

Le Regard Libre N° 66 - Jonas Follonier

Lifestyles are the products of civilizations. This is what Robin Parisi's article on page 16 of this issue, «European Civilizations», opened my eyes to. Contrary to what I had taken for granted for some time, there is no such thing as a European civilization. from civilizations that intersect in Europe. There are three: Latin, Slavic and Germanic. All three correspond broadly to the main branches of Christianity: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. No wonder: there's a strong link between religions and lifestyles.

But aren't there lifestyles specific to nations? Wrong, according to my colleague's reasoning. You could say that some 19th-century nation-states^th century empires, such as France and England, wanted to think of themselves as civilizations, but the only thing they were able to do was to specify which is above all the work of civilizations. The nation doesn't forge a way of life, it refines it. There's a Spanish way of being Latin, just as there's a Swedish way of being Germanic. What makes these differences? Language, on the whole.

This is why we could say that the art of living is to the nation what the way of life is to civilization. L’art de vivre, by definition, has something more aesthetic than mode de vie, which has more to do with ethics. If the way of life is the way of being in the world, the art of living is the way of being in that way of life, and this is largely determined by language. To speak in a language is already to think, and above all to think. in a way. Long before the individual, long before ideology, long before family conditioning, there is the fact of the linguistic community.

The French-speaking community: this expression is close to my heart. We put it into practice every month in this magazine, albeit with nuances, but with the same spirit. Among other things, we address French speakers as French speakers. What does that mean? Well, as Francophones, we're dependent on a way of looking at the world that has its roots in Latin, and which at the same time links us to the French-speaking world. Latin civilization. Rome conditions us through the very words we use. Just as a Franco-Provençal dialect refers to a certain environment and tools that only this language expresses, so a language is, a fortiori, A deep-rooted, colorful and fragrant way of thinking.

As nation-states have established the novelty of linking language not to civilization, but to the state, there has inevitably been a divorce between written languages and religions and, as a result, the emergence of different lifestyles within the same civilizational space. Hence, for example, gallantry as a hallmark of the French art de vivre. Things get more complicated - and therefore more exciting - when several civilizations merge into a single state. Switzerland is a case in point. Let's remember that lifestyles and the art of living complement the only thing the state can shape: the norms of life, the rules. In short, the law. Lifestyles and lifestyles influence the law, of course - we speak of custom as one of the sources of law - but they are not limited to it. Let us be sensitive to this. And add your own individual touch.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Drawing: © Nathanaël Schmid for Le Regard Libre