(Sub-Saharan) Paths of PraxisSupport

Civil society

état civil

Worked through in 17 videos · 25 passages.

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani approaches the civil state through Rousseau's Social Contract. There, the passage from the state of nature to the civil state substitutes justice for instinct and duty for appetite, and turns a "stupid and limited animal" into an intelligent being12. He specifies that the civil state is not the town hall: it is the anthropological order of language, love and marriage3. In it, man loses natural liberty, bounded by his strength, and gains civil liberty, limited by the general will4. This passage, in his view, did not happen once and for all. It is renewed with each birth and each education, and goes on unceasingly56. He also dwells on the abuses of this condition. To abuse the civil state is to restore the law of the strongest while passing it off as right, which can degrade man below the animal7. Evil therefore comes from these abuses, not from nature. He sees the restoration of a state founded on force as the programme of today's governments.

  1. 1#2 Rousseau, un monde qui commence20 Sept 2014 · 12:29
  2. 2#4.3 Angélique (de Nerval)11 Dec 2017 · 53:52
  3. 3Que faire ? 2/329 Jan 2016 · 17:20
  4. 49 #18 Le Crépuscule des dieux ou de la répétition à la libération3 Apr 2021 · 1:20:43
  5. 5Que faire ? 2/329 Jan 2016 · 24:44
  6. 6#5 Bien-et Mé-faits de l'amnésie...19 Nov 2020 · 1:30:17
  7. 7Assemblée nationale24 Oct 2018 · 1:27:29

Summary produced automatically from 25 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Talks · 6 Oct 2018Dominique Pagani "On Marx"
  1. 20:11In Rousseau, the passage from the state of nature to the civil state substitutes justice for instinct and turns the limited animal into a man.
  2. 37:25Abusing the civil state means restoring in it the law of the strongest and making people believe they are in a state of law.
Season 3 · 1 Aug 2017#3.6 From Ulysses to Daedalus
  1. 1:11:21The passage from the state of nature to the civil state is made at every instant, between two legislations, that of hunger and that of society; regression toward force remains possible.
  2. 1:26:53Every upbringing relaunches hominization, which is not only genetic but pertains to the relation from subject to subject.
Series · 29 Jan 2016What is to be done? 2/3
  1. 17:20The civil state is not the town hall but the anthropological order: language, love, marriage, whereby man becomes an intelligent being.
  2. 24:44The text is ternary: its object is the passage from the state of nature to the civil state, which is remade at every birth.
Series · 2 Jan 2015S for Savagery
  1. 3:47The danger that makes the savage flee comes from civil society, from men against men, not from the state of nature.
  2. 4:45The passage to civil society substitutes justice for instinct, ennobles the passions, and turns the limited animal into an intelligent being, except in cases of abuse.

Search any author, concept or word across all of Dominique Pagani's videos and writings