I would venture to say that we will always refuse to worship events, facts, wealth, power, history as it unfolds, and whatever the world becomes. We want to see the human condition for what it is. We know what it is. It is this terrible condition that takes truckloads of blood and centuries of history to arrive at some imperceptible shift in human destiny. Such is the law. For years during the 18th-century heads fell like hail in France. The French revolution inflamed all hearts with enthusiasm and terror.
Eventually at the start of the next century, we eventually replaced traditional monarchy with constitutional monarchy. We who lives in France in the 20th century know this terrible law only too well. It took war, the occupation, massacres, a thousand prison walls, and a Europe wracked by grief for a few of us to finally grasp 2 or 3 insights that might slightly diminish our despair.
In a situation like ours, optimism seems scandalous. We know that those of us who are dead today were the best among us, since they appointed themselves. And we who are still living must remind ourselves that we are only alive because we did less than others. And this is why we continue to live a contradiction. The only difference is that this generation can now join this contradiction to an immense hope for humankind.
Since I wanted to tell you something about French sensibility, it will suffice that you will remember this. Today in France and in Europe, there is a generation who thinks that anyone who places his hope in the human condition is mad, but that anyone who despairs of events is a coward. This generation refuses absolute explanations and the rule of political philosophies, but wishes to affirm men and women in their flesh and in their striving for liberty. This generation does not believe the achievement of universal happiness and satisfaction is possible, but it does believe in diminishing human sorrow. It is because the world, in its essence, unhappy, that we need to create some joy. Because the world is unjust we need to work towards justice. And because the world is absurd, we must provide it with all its meaning.
In the end what does it all mean? It means that we must be modest in our thoughts and our actions, stand our ground and do our best work. It means that we must create communities and think outside parties and governments in order to foster dialogue across national borders. The members of these communities will affirm, by their lives and their words, that this world must cease to be the world of police, soldiers and money, and become the world of men and women, of fruitful work and thoughtful leisure.
This is where I think we ought to direct our effort, our thinking, and if necessary, our sacrifice. The corruption of the ancient world began with the murder of Socrates, and we killed many of him in Europe over these few years. That is the sign. It is the sign that only socratic spirit of indulgence toward others and rigor toward one’s self can truly threaten murderous civilization. It is the sign that only this frame of mind can repair the world. All other efforts, however admirable, that rely on power and domination can only mutilate men and women more grievously. This, in any case, is the modest revolution that we French and Europeans are experiencing now.
Perhaps you are surprised that a French writer on an official visit to America does not feel obligated to present you some idyllic portrait of his country and has made no effort thus far what is generally called propaganda. But perhaps, when you reflect on the issues I have raised it will seem obvious why.
Propaganda, I suppose, is designed to provoke within people feelings that they don’t possess. But the French people who have shared our experience ask neither to be pitied nor loved by decree. The only national problem of concern to them was not dependent on world opinion. For 5 years what mattered to us was to know if we could save our honour. That is, if we could preserve the right to speak for ourselves the day the war was over. We weren’t looking to anyone else to grant us this right. We needed to grant it to ourselves. This was not easy. But in the end if we did give ourselves this right it is because we know, and we are the only ones who know, the true extent of our sacrifices. Yet we are not entitled to give lessons. We have only have the right to escape the humiliating silence of those who were beaten and vanquished because they disdained humankind for too long. Beyond this, I ask you to believe that we will know how to keep our place.
Perhaps, as some have said, there is indeed a chance that the history of the next 50 years will be made in part by nations other than France. I have no personal opinion on this question. I know only that our nation, which lost 1,620,000 a quarter century ago, and which has just lost several hundred thousands more volunteers must recognized that it has exhausted, or allowed others to exhaust, its strength. That is a fact. And the opinion of the world, its consideration or disdain, cannot change that fact. That is why it would seem to me ludicrous to solicit or try to affect it. But it does not seem ludicrous to me to underline how the present world crisis stems from these quarrels about presidents and power.
To summarize this evening and speaking now for myself, I would like to say just this: whenever we judge France, or any other country, or any matter, in terms of power, we are aiding and abetting a conception of man that leads inevitably to his mutilation. We are reinforcing the thirst for domination and we are headed towards the sanctioning of murder. What goes for the world of action goes for ideas. And those who say or write that the end justifies the means, those who say and write that greatness is measured by force, they are absolutely responsible for the atrocious accumulation of crimes disfiguring contemporary Europe.
I think I have expressed everything I felt duty bound to tell you. My duty was to remain faithful to the voices and the experiences of our European comrades so that you not be tempted to be judge them out of hand, for they sit and judge men over no one. No one, that is, except the murderers. And they regard all nations with the hope and certitudes that each are capable of finding the human truth that each contains.
Speaking in particular to the young Americans in the audience this evening, I can say that the people I have spoken about have great respect for your humanity and your taste for freedom and happiness, which can be discerned among the faces of great Americans. Yes, they expect from you what they expect of all men of goodwill: a loyal contribution to the spirit of dialogue that they want to infuse the world with.
Our struggles, our hopes, and our demands seen from afar may appear confused or futile to you. And it is true that on the road to wisdom and truth, if there is one, these men have not chosen the straightest or the simplest path. This is because neither the world nor history have offered them anything straghtforward or simple. They are trying to forge with their own hand the secret they could not find in their given condition. And perhaps they will fail. But I am convinced that if they fail, so will the world. In a Europe still poisoned by violence and deep seated hatred, in a world torn apart by terror, they try to save for mankind what can still be saved. And that is their only ambition. If such an effort can find some expression in France, and if this evening I have been able to give you a faint idea of the passion for justice that inspires all French people, it will be our sole consolation, and my humblest source of pride.
The End
