It must be acknowledged that the concept of submission occupies an increasingly prominent place in the cultural and social landscape of our country. So much so that its rejection has become the rallying cry of a political force mobilizing several million citizens.
Although it seems unlikely that these ideas will reach the second round of the presidential election in the current state of affairs, this does not exempt us from reflecting on what submission and its refusal mean. On one hand, the game is not yet lost, as some alliances remain possible and many undecided voters can still be convinced. On the other hand, the issue of submission will remain on the agenda as long as the concentration of power and capital prevails over social goods, democracy, and the entire planet.
The demand to do better and think better remains. If we want the issue to gain full scope and become a central concern for a majority of voters, we need to give more substance and depth to this concept that has haunted our consciousness since Etienne de la Boétie’s Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548).
We must free ourselves from systems that address submission exclusively from a sociological or economic perspective, as these define counterproductive and sometimes unfounded fault lines that weaken the cause they seek to promote. To be convinced, one only needs to observe that a significant portion of the country’s intellectual elite—often of bourgeois origin—shares the analysis of the “Insoumis,” while half of the working class supports a family of millionaire and authoritarian landlords.
Therefore, it is not on the sociological or economic level that the refusal of submission will become universal and redefine the system in which we live, but on the psychological level and—by extension—the biological level.
The Figure of the Committed Biologist
Surgeon and neurobiologist Henri Laborit was among the most famous French scientists of the second half of the 20th century, having discovered, among other things, the first neuroleptics (molecules used in the treatment of schizophrenia). But he was also a great theorist of social hierarchies, from their evolutionary origin to their neurobiological instantiation, including their anthropological study and cinematic representation (in Mon Oncle d’Amérique, for which he won the Palme d’Or in 1980 alongside Alain Resnais).
Laborit saw dominance and submission as two sides of the same scourge that he fought to the end with the tools at his disposal. It is even said that his aversion to the flattery and academic bowing necessary to gain the favor of the Parisian medical intelligentsia deprived him of the Nobel Prize (source, see also the obituary published by Libération on May 20, 1995).
Despite strong involvement in public debate, his independence of mind kept him away from any political party: Henri Laborit harshly criticized both capitalism and communism. He argued that building a new ecological and social path would depend on our ability to integrate—into political construction—the discoveries from the “biology of behavior” (which we would call today cognitive neuroscience), cybernetics, and complexity sciences, of which he was one of the pioneers.
Due to the richness and multiple levels of description that distinguish Henri Laborit’s thought, it is very difficult to synthesize it. Furthermore, as some of my works aim to deepen, test, and modernize several hypotheses and theories that pervade his work, I would always be tempted to substitute my thinking for his, at the risk of distorting both his legacy and my own understanding of the problem.
Therefore, I propose that the reader remember Henri Laborit or become familiar with him through a series of quotes from his most widely circulated book: La nouvelle grille (1976). These fragments are organized into eight major themes. More relevant than ever, I hope they will provide food for thought, both for those who defend defiance and for those who believe they can do without it.
Submission as a Means of Domination
“Culture of an era represents […] the rules to which an individual must submit […] to rise in hierarchies and achieve dominance.” La nouvelle grille (p107, Folio essais).
“Every little French child is told they can hope to one day become president of the Republic. But they forget to add: if they respect the rules of the game, the value judgments institutionalized by the bourgeoisie, particularly private property, including that of the means of production.” La nouvelle grille (p109, ibid.)
“Thus, we will see individuals who are particularly effective […] on a technical level and perfectly obtuse on a political level, as they are sufficiently satisfied with their dominance not to seek to lucidly see its causes, meaning, or especially to question it.” La nouvelle grille (p143).
“A prisoner inside the walls of his prison is free to dream, and a CEO, apparently free to move, will only do so by obeying the alienating myth of property, profitability, and production. The pursuit of dominance leads us to the most primitive mechanisms of our central nervous system as inexorably as police handcuffs.” La nouvelle grille (p160)
Submission as Existential Diversion
“This anxiety that grips every human being by the throat as soon as they become aware of being, and that does not leave them until death, contemporary societies make a constant effort to obscure because it hinders their production-oriented goal. One might even wonder if it is not an important factor in the establishment of hierarchies. When one is preoccupied with social promotion, one is less concerned with the meaning of one’s own existence and becomes more efficient in a production process. One might wonder if the one who succeeds best in such a process, whose hierarchical elevation is the most assured, is not ultimately the least human, the least conscious, the most blind, I would be tempted to say the least ‘intelligent,’ the most automated, the most satisfied, the most gratified by their dominance, the least anxious, the true ‘happy fool.’” La nouvelle grille (p201).
“It should be noted that while hierarchical systems are sources of conflict and anxiety, they are also a source of security. The creation of conceptual and behavioral automatisms of sociocultural origin allows the concealment of existential anxiety by providing simple explanatory frameworks, responsible and reassuring leaders, and most often smaller individuals to patronize to satisfy congenital narcissism. Unfortunately, it stifles all creativity by punishing any project that does not conform to the value system imposed by the dominants.” La nouvelle grille (p71).
The Figure of the Submissive Intellectual
“The one commonly referred to as the intellectual, especially specialized in a certain technique, would benefit, for some, from power. Indeed, one can admit that if they prove to be an effective propagandist of the value judgments that constitute the framework of the society in which they live, they will be gratified accordingly: means of work, access to means of disseminating the commonplaces they express, ‘honors,’ academic satisfactions will be granted to them for having played this role of honest man, true humanist who has shown so much elevation of spirit. Indeed, the elevation of spirit is only achievable, as we know, within the dominant ideology, the one that ensures the solidity of the hierarchical structures in place.” La nouvelle grille (p201).
Consumption as Submission
“All advertising is based on this need to make known to create the need. One cannot desire what one is unaware of. Conversely, one can desire what another possesses and what one does not possess. Especially if the possession of the object allows one to position oneself in a hierarchical order and participates in establishing dominance.” La nouvelle grille (p104).
“As long as value hierarchies persist and are established on property through the possession of specialized information acquired by manual or conceptual learning, the dominated will seek to conquer a false power that is consumption. However, consumption has no end, and real equality of chances and power can never be established through consumption. The real power that the dominated demands is less that of consuming than that of participating in decision-making. For this, it is generalized information and not just specialized information that they must acquire.” La nouvelle grille (p156).
From Class Struggle to Functional Classes
“On the political level, that is to say, in terms of the meaning of each person’s work integrated into a whole and the purpose of this whole in the higher complexity ensembles that encompass it, a highly specialized engineer often has no more knowledge than a specialized worker, although different, as they are dictated by value judgments and prejudices necessary to maintain their hierarchical dominance.” La nouvelle grille (p119)
“In a living organism, functional specialization, which in a social organism is equivalent to professional specialization, is accompanied by no particular value and […] it provides no possibility of acting apart from the organic whole.” La nouvelle grille (p120)
“These functional classes have nothing to do with the hierarchical classes of ‘class struggle.’ But as we have seen, by introducing the notion of information in human sociology, hierarchical scales are so progressive that it is impossible to know at what point one leaves the proletariat to enter the bourgeoisie, impossible to know on what criteria an individual can be classified in one class or another, except for a state of mind or party affiliation. One might wonder if the notion of class as it was understood and experienced at the beginning of the century still has any reality other than affective.” La nouvelle grille (p154).
Dominating Others, Dominating Nature
“The benefit of increased industrial production is often only a short-term benefit and a long-term tragedy […]. Other consequences of growth have also been cited: depletion of energy resources, accelerated accumulation of non-recyclable waste in the great cycles of matter. Thus, the pursuit of dominance through the myth of consumer goods production, also requiring large human concentrations within modern megacities, polluting to the benefit mainly of the dominants (since it is the pursuit of dominance that is the motivation) collective goods such as air, water, built space, and sound space, […] today constitutes a real threat to the entire human species.” La nouvelle grille (p156).
“The problem is therefore to understand how the myth of growth for growth’s sake, not only for the satisfaction of fundamental needs, has been established, obscuring motivations to such an extent that it is taken as the basis of social behavior in industrialized countries, and can today be defended as an end in itself, as the very purpose of the human species, enveloped in affective-mystical notions such as happiness, needs, progress, the domination of man over mother nature, if not the genius of the white race, or a particular ideological regime.” La nouvelle grille (p105).
The Insufficiency of Sociological Defiance
“Believing that one has gotten rid of bourgeois individualism because one expresses oneself in the protective shadow of social classes and their struggles, seemingly acting against profit, the exploitation of man by man, the powers of money, established powers, is to show perfect ignorance of what motivates, directs, orients human actions and above all what motivates, directs, and orients our own judgments, our own actions. This does not mean that one should not express oneself and act in this way, but it means that it is useful to know that behind a supposedly altruistic and generous discourse, there are hidden instinctual motivations, unfulfilled desires for dominance, cultural learnings, a submission rewarded by their prohibitions, or an ineffective revolt against the alienation of our gratifying acts to the social order, a search for narcissistic satisfactions, etc. So that when a community of interests allows a human group to overthrow the established power one day, a competitive struggle for dominance is immediately born within the new power, a new hierarchical system appears and institutionalizes itself. The cycle begins again.” L’Éloge de la fuite
The Importance of Transmitting Neuroscientific Knowledge
“It is […] through an increasing knowledge of the structures of the world around him that [man] has been able to structure it in return to the best of his thinking. At least until a recent era. But the ignorance he still has of the functional structure of his nervous system has prevented him from effectively acting on himself and on his relations with his contemporaries.” La nouvelle grille (p135)
“When the laws of gravitation were known, man was able to go to the moon. By doing so, he did not free himself from the laws of gravitation, but he was able to use them to his advantage.” La nouvelle grille (p161).
“Ignorance of the biophysiological bases of behaviors means that any benefactor of the people, if they do more than just talk in their name and engage in action, will quickly act for themselves or for the concepts they manipulate, which are generally not those of the common people.” La nouvelle grille (p171)
“Perhaps it is time to tell them […] that there is also an emerging science whose foundations urgently need to be disseminated, as arithmetic foundations were disseminated, indispensable to mercantile civilizations to ensure their accounting, and that this science is that of the living world.” La nouvelle grille (p100)
Conclusion
Henri Laborit did not hesitate to call revolutionary the idea that the neuroscientific analytical framework—once integrated and understood by a majority of citizens—would not only allow the construction of more effective institutions but also a society more resilient against the drifts associated with the exercise of power. On a smaller scale, he believed that knowledge of human motivations and (cognitive) biases should also enrich our social interactions, liberate our inner lives, and increase our capacity to undertake together.
In this regard, it is exciting to observe the proliferation of initiatives aimed at disseminating knowledge in (neuro)cognitive and social sciences. These include events like Brain Week (March 13-17, 2017) and the Cognitive Sciences Forum (April 29, 2017), very active associations like Cog’Innov, collective blogs such as Cortex Mag, but also numerous individual blogs run by researchers, journalists, or ordinary citizens passionate about the human mind.
As the phenomenon is young, the connection with more politically oriented citizen initiatives has not yet occurred. But there is no doubt that the movement will continue to expand and that neuroscience will occupy an increasingly important place in future public debates. Beyond understanding (and disarming) the mechanisms responsible for the perpetual recurrence and reinforcement of dominance and inequalities, many other issues bring us back to it: new forms of addiction, aging population, cognitive enhancement, brain-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence, etc.
That said, this tribute to Henri Laborit would not be complete without a warning against any dogmatic use of neuroscientific knowledge. Indeed, he always decried blind adherence to grand discourses and definitive utopias, in which he saw a promise of intellectual and social stagnation. In all his works, the reader is invited to think beyond ideologies and commonplaces and to use existing frameworks (including his own) only to enrich new analyses and define new objectives adapted to present contingencies.
“When the attraction of myths, of the irrational, is not sufficient to gain its adherence, contemporary youth ‘satisfies’ itself by using known frameworks, the Marxist framework or the psychoanalytic framework which seem to provide a coherent answer to the fundamental questions posed by any conscious man at the end of the 20th century. These frameworks unfortunately refuse permission to seek beyond them and further. They themselves are indeed at the base of individual and group hierarchies.” La nouvelle grille (p99)
“The danger of a framework, whatever its temporary effectiveness, is to facilitate conceptual sclerosis, as Aristotle’s framework before that of Marx or Freud’s framework froze millions of men in an incomplete conception of facts.” La nouvelle grille (p157).
Let us therefore be careful not to repeat the same mistake with the “new frameworks” from neuroscience research. Even if they allow us to explain the world’s evolutions better than before, they will never replace the effort of imagination and intellectual cooperation on which our common future depends.
Original Article (Wayback Machine)
