Esprit (magazine)

Last updated
Logo of Esprit Esprit magazine.svg
Logo of Esprit

Esprit is a French literary magazine. The magazine also deals with current events. [1] It is based in Paris.

Contents

History and profile

Founded in October 1932 by Emmanuel Mounier, it was the principal review of personalist intellectuals of the time. [2] From 1957 to 1976, it was directed by Jean-Marie Domenach. Paul Thibaud directed it from 1977 to 1989. Since 1989 Oliver Mongin has been the director of the magazine. [1] The philosopher Paul Ricœur often collaborated with it. Esprit is a member of the Eurozine network. [1]

Personalism and the non-conformists

In the 1930s, Esprit was the main mouthpiece of the Personalists and of the non-conformists of the 1930s. A presentation of the magazine by its authors in 1933 stated that it opposed the "compromission" (compromising) of spiritual values with the established order (which Mounier called "established disorder") and aimed at denouncing their "exploitation by the powers of Money, in the social regime, in the government, in the press, etc. [2] " Esprit opposed partial reforms and aimed at a global rebuilding of the basis of the social edifice. It targeted as opponents "individualist materialism", claiming that the "capitalist jungle was its ultimate product"; "collectivist materialism", which linked both Communism and Capitalism, despite their oppositions, in the "same metaphysics"; and the "false Fascist spiritualism," which seemed to share the same opponents, but in reality turned towards the "tyrannic idolatry of inferior spiritualities: racist exaltation, national passion, anonymous discipline, devotion to the state or the leader" or plain "safeguard of economic interests. [2] " The magazine posited itself for the "rebirth" of a "community of personalities," in opposing of both liberal individualism and collectivism, in one word, mass society:

"Tout homme, sans exception, a le droit et le devoir de développer sa personalité." (Every man, without exception, has the right and the duty to develop his personality.) [2]

Post-War

Esprit broke with part of its legacy following the Liberation of France, and involved itself in New Left movements. The review criticized the systemic use of torture during the Algerian War, publishing for examples articles by Pierre Vidal-Naquet. It would also influence in the 1970s the "Second Left," gathered around the Unified Socialist Party (PSU).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Adrien Helvétius</span> French philosopher (1715–1771)

Claude Adrien Helvétius was a French philosopher, freemason and littérateur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henri de Man</span> Belgian politician

Henri (Hendrik) de Man was a Belgian politician and leader of the Belgian Labour Party (POB-BWP). He was one of the leading socialist theoreticians of his period and, during the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, was heavily involved in collaboration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Groupe Bull</span> French-owned computer company

Bull SAS is a French computer company headquartered in Les Clayes-sous-Bois, in the western suburbs of Paris. The company has also been known at various times as Bull General Electric, Honeywell Bull, CII Honeywell Bull, and Bull HN. Bull was founded in 1931, as H.W. Egli - Bull, to capitalize on the punched card technology patents of Norwegian engineer Fredrik Rosing Bull (1882–1925). After a reorganization in 1933, with new owners coming in, the name was changed to Compagnie des Machines Bull (CMB). Bull has a worldwide presence in more than 100 countries and is particularly active in the defense, finance, health care, manufacturing, public, and telecommunication sectors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">André Comte-Sponville</span> French philosopher

André Comte-Sponville is a French philosopher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personalism</span> Philosophical and theological school of thought

Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human persons. Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement. Friedrich Schleiermacher first used the term personalism in print in 1799. One can trace the concept back to earlier thinkers in various parts of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmanuel Mounier</span> French philosopher, theologian, teacher and essayist

Emmanuel Mounier was a French philosopher, theologian, teacher and essayist.

Jean-Marie Domenach was a French writer and intellectual. He was noted as a left-wing and Catholic thinker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thierry Maulnier</span>

Thierry Maulnier was a French journalist, essayist, dramatist, and literary critic. He was married to theatre director Marcelle Tassencourt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party</span> Political party Can Lao in Vietnam

The Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party, often simply called the Cần Lao Party, was a Vietnamese political party, formed in the early 1950s by the President of South Vietnam Ngô Đình Diệm and his brother and adviser Ngô Đình Nhu. Based on mass organizations and secret networks as effective instruments, the party played a considerable role in creating a political groundwork for Diệm's power and helped him to control all political activities in South Vietnam. The doctrine of the party was ostensibly based on Ngô Đình Nhu's Person Dignity Theory and Emmanuel Mounier's Personalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Gide</span>

Charles Gide was a French economist and historian of economic thought. He was a professor at the University of Bordeaux, at Montpellier, at Université de Paris and finally at Collège de France. His nephew was the author André Gide.

20th-century French philosophy is a strand of contemporary philosophy generally associated with post-World War II French thinkers, although it is directly influenced by previous philosophical movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torture during the Algerian War</span>

Elements of both sides in the Algerian War—the French Armed Forces and the opposing Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN)—used deliberate torture during that conflict (1954–1962), creating an ongoing public controversy. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, a renowned French historian, estimated that there were "hundreds of thousands of instances of torture" by the French military in Algeria. The FLN engaged in the use of torture against pro-French and uncommitted members of the Algerian population in retaliation for the French's use of torture.

The non-conformists of the 1930s were groups and individuals during the inter-war period in France that were seeking new solutions to face the political, economical and social crisis. The name was coined in 1969 by the historian Jean-Louis Loubet del Bayle to describe a movement which revolved around Emmanuel Mounier's personalism. They attempted to find a "third (communitarian) alternative" between socialism and capitalism, and opposed both liberalism/parliamentarism/democracy and fascism.

Raymond De Becker (1912–1969) was a Belgian journalist, writer, and intellectual. He became closely involved in Catholic and anti-parliamentarian politics in the interwar years and is notable as the editor of the daily newspaper Le Soir and a leading exponent of "intellectual collaboration" in German-occupied Belgium during World War II.

The Popular Democratic Party was a Christian democratic political party in France during the Third Republic. Founded in 1924, it represented the trend of French social Catholicism, while remaining a party embodying the ideology of centrism. The party's ideology was inspired by the popularism of Luigi Sturzo's Italian People's Party. The PDP was a co-founder in 1925 of the International Secretariat of Democratic Parties of Christian Inspiration (SIPDIC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">French Left</span> Left-wing politics in France

The Left in France was represented at the beginning of the 20th century by two main political parties, namely the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), created in 1905 as a merger of various Marxist parties.

Alexandre Marc, was a French writer and philosopher. He was the founder of personalist, federalist, communitarian thinking.

The Person Dignity Theory was a Vietnamese political doctrine and ideology coined by Ngô Đình Nhu in 1954, based on Emmanuel Mounier's works. It was also the official ideology of the Cần Lao Party, a former political party.

Francis Jeanson was a French political activist known for his commitment to the FLN during the Algerian war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interwar France</span> 1919 to 1939 in France

Interwar France covers the political, economic, diplomatic, cultural and social history of France from 1919 to 1939. France suffered heavily during World War I in terms of lives lost, disabled veterans and ruined agricultural and industrial areas occupied by Germany as well as heavy borrowing from the United States, Britain, and the French people. However, postwar reconstruction was rapid, and the long history of political warfare along religious lines was finally ended.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Members". Eurozine. Archived from the original on 20 November 2014. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Prospectus de présentation de la revue "Esprit" Archived 29 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine , presented by Alain-Gérard Slama, on-line course of Sciences-Po, 18 May 2007 (in French)