André Glucksmann (; 19 June 1937 – 10 November 2015) was a French philosopher, activist and writer. He was a leading figure of the
new philosophers.
Glucksmann began his career as a
Marxist, but went on to reject
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society ...
in the popular book ''La Cuisinière et le Mangeur d'Hommes'' (1975), and later became an outspoken critic of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and post-Soviet Russian foreign policy. He was a strong supporter of
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
. In later years he opposed the claim that
Islamic terrorism
Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Incidents and fatalities ...
is the product of the clash of civilizations between
Islam and
the West
West is a cardinal direction or compass point.
West or The West may also refer to:
Geography and locations
Global context
* The Western world
* Western culture and Western civilization in general
* The Western Bloc, countries allied with NATO ...
.
Early years
André Glucksmann was born in 1937 in
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious commune in the Parisian area, located from its centre. It is a subprefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department an ...
, the son of
Ashkenazi Jew
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
ish parents from
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
. His father was from
Bukovina
Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter Berge ...
, which later became part of
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...
, and his mother from
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, which later became the capital of
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
.
Glucksmann's father was killed in World War II, and his mother and sister were active in the
French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
.
The family "narrowly escaped deportation to the camps" during the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, which influenced Glucksmann's developing ideas of "the state as the ultimate source of barbarism".
He studied at the Lycée la Martinière in Lyon, and later enrolled at
École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Sa ...
. His first book, ''Le Discours de la Guerre'', was published in 1968.
[
]
Career
Early career
In 1975 he published the anti-Marxist book ''La Cuisinière et le Mangeur d'Hommes'' - subtitled ''Réflexions sur l'État, le marxisme et les camps de concentration'', in which he argued that Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialec ...
leads inevitably to totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
, tracing parallels between the crimes of Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
and Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society ...
. In his next book ''Les maitres penseurs'', published in 1977 and translated into English as ''Master Thinkers'' (Harper & Row, 1980), he traced the intellectual justification for totalitarianism back to the ideas articulated by various German philosophers such as Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Ka ...
, Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
, Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, and Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ca ...
. In the years of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, Glucksmann rose to national prominence after expressing his support for Vietnamese boat people
Vietnamese boat people ( vi, Thuyền nhân Việt Nam), also known simply as boat people, refers to the refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its h ...
.[ He began working with ]Bernard-Henri Lévy
Bernard-Henri Lévy (; ; born 5 November 1948) is a French public intellectual. Often referred to in France simply as BHL, he was one of the leaders of the "Nouveaux Philosophes" (New Philosophers) movement in 1976. His opinions, political activ ...
criticizing Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society ...
. Both had formerly been well known Marxists
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
. Shortly afterwards they became known, along with others of their generation who rejected Marxism, as New Philosophers, a term coined by Lévy.
1980s and 1990s
In 1985, Glucksmann signed a petition to President Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
urging him to continue his support for the Contras
The Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to 1990 in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua, which came to power in 1979 ...
in Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean Sea, Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to ...
. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Glucksmann became an advocate for the use of nuclear power.[ In 1995 he supported the resumption of nuclear tests by ]Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac (, , ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as ...
. He supported the NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
intervention in Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hung ...
in 1999. He also called for Chechnya to become independent.
Philosophy
In his book ''Dostoyevsky in Manhattan'', Glucksmann asserts that nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by I ...
, particularly as depicted by Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
in his novels ''Demons
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in Media (communication), media such as comics, video ...
'' and ''The Brothers Karamazov
''The Brothers Karamazov'' (russian: Братья Карамазовы, ''Brat'ya Karamazovy'', ), also translated as ''The Karamazov Brothers'', is the last novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing '' ...
'', is the 'characteristic form' of modern terrorism. Drawing on Ivan Karamazov's dictum that "If there is no God, everything is permitted", Glucksmann argues that:
The inner nature of nihilistic terrorism is that everything is permissible, whether because God exists and I am his representative, or because God does not exist and I take his place.
His 2006 book ''Une rage d’enfant'' is an autobiography which talks about how his experiences as a young Jew in occupied France led to his interest in philosophy and his belief in the importance of intervention:
My style of thinking is to compare what happens on the TV, in the news and so on, and then extract what I can from books of philosophers to understand it. Philosophy for me is like subtitles. The problem comes from current events but the answer is supplied by philosophy.
Glucksmann criticises the notion that Islamic terrorism
Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Incidents and fatalities ...
is a product of the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West
West is a cardinal direction or compass point.
West or The West may also refer to:
Geography and locations
Global context
* The Western world
* Western culture and Western civilization in general
* The Western Bloc, countries allied with NATO ...
, arguing that the first victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abra ...
:
Why do the 200,000 slaughtered Muslims of Darfur not arouse even half a quarter of the fury caused by 200-times fewer dead in Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
? Must we deduce that Muslims killed by other Muslims don’t count – whether in the eyes of Muslim authorities or viewed through the bad conscience of the West?
Later years
Glucksmann supported military action by the West in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was highly critical of Russian foreign policy, supporting for example Chechen independence. However, he was against the Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence from Georgia, arguing that Georgia is essential to maintaining European Union "energy independence," vis-a-vis Russia, through access to oil and gas reserves in the former Soviet republics: "If Tbilisi
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...
falls, there will be no way to get around Gazprom
PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐzˈprom) is a Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. As of 2019, with sales over $120 billion, it was ranked as the largest ...
and guarantee autonomous access to the gas and petroleum wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an ...
of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan".[
]
As proof of Russia's plans to use energy blackmail, Glucksmann referenced a biting anti-Gazprom
PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐzˈprom) is a Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. As of 2019, with sales over $120 billion, it was ranked as the largest ...
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...
song performed at the annual satirical award show "Silver Rubber Boot", which made jokes like: "If the Eurovision Song Contest denies victory to Russia again, we are going to drive to their concert and block their gas with our bodies!" Glucksmann cited this as evidence that the Russian people want to cut off gas to Ukraine and Europe. He wrote:
Consider a popular song performed by a military choir in Moscow. Its chorus depicts the "radiant future" that Gazprom is preparing: "Europe has a problem with us? We will cut off its gas..." The Russian public loves the song.
Glucksmann supported Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012.
Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Sei ...
for the April–May 2007 presidential election.
In August 2008 he co-signed an open letter with Václav Havel
Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and the ...
, Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbish ...
, and Wei Jingsheng
Wei Jingsheng (; born 20 May 1950) is a Chinese human rights activist and dissident. He is best known for his involvement in the Chinese democracy movement. He is most prominent for having authored the essay " The Fifth Modernization", which ...
calling upon the Chinese authorities to respect human rights both during and after the Beijing Olympic Games.
He was a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism
The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism was a declaration which was initiated by the Czech government and signed on 3 June 2008 by prominent European politicians, former political prisoners and historians, among them former ...
.
Death
Glucksmann died in Paris on 10 November 2015 at the age of 78.
In reaction to his death, President François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle f ...
said that Glucksmann always "listened to the suffering of peoples". Former president and opposition leader Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012.
Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Sei ...
commented on Glucksmann's death by saying: " lucksmannturned a page in French thought from the second half of the 20th Century".
Works
*Voltaire counter-attacks (Voltaire Contre-Attaque) (2014)
*A Child's Rage (Une rage d'enfant) (2006)
*The Discourse of Hate (Le Discours de la haine) (2004)
*West Versus West (Ouest contre Ouest) (2003)
*Dostoevsky in Manhattan (Dostoïevski à Manhattan) (2002)
*The Third Death of God (La Troisième Mort de Dieu) (2000)
*Silence, Killing in Process (Silence, on tue) (1986) (with )
*Stupidity (La Bêtise) (1985)
*Cynicism and Passion (Cynisme et passion) (1981/1999)
*The Force of Vertigo (La Force du vertige) (1983)
*The Master Thinkers (Les Maîtres penseurs) (1977)
''Note: Many of his works were translated into German by his long-term colleague Helmut Kohlenberger.''
Interviews
* "An Interview with Andre Glucksman". ''Telos
Telos (; ) is a term used by philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause of a natural organ or entity, or of a work of human art. Intentional actualization of potential or inherent purpose,"Telos.''Philosophy Terms'' Retrieved 3 May 2020. ...
'' 33 (Fall 1977). New York
Telos Press
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Glucksmann, Andre
1937 births
2015 deaths
People from Boulogne-Billancourt
20th-century French philosophers
21st-century French philosophers
Jewish philosophers
category:Jewish anti-communists
French people of Romanian-Jewish descent
French people of Czech-Jewish descent
ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud-Lyon alumni
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 3rd Class
Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
New Philosophers
Tibet freedom activists
French Maoists
20th-century French writers
21st-century French writers
Former Marxists
French Zionists
20th-century French essayists
21st-century French essayists