Chapter 5
Mental representations of the world

In Chapters 2 and 3, we saw what is inherent in human nature, namely widespread nepotism and cognitive dissonance. Then, in Chapter 4, we illustrated how this translates naturally into the current decision-making mechanism. In this chapter, we will address the cultural aspect, namely the way in which we represent the world. These representations influence our decision-making process just as much, but they are the particular result of our common history. They could therefore probably have been completely different, and above all, they evolve over time.

A very brief history of humanity

In Chapter 1, we indicated that we are arriving at the second industrial revolution, that of computing as an amplification of our cerebral capacities for certain elementary tasks, the first having been that of the motor as an amplification of our muscular capacity. This is a perspective on a historical scale.

If we now take a step back and move to the scale of human history, we can see that we are also arriving at a second revolution.
The first was that linked to the emergence of agriculture, that is to say the transition from a nomadic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers to a sedentary lifestyle of farmers leading to the birth of villages then cities. From this first revolution resulted on the one hand the organization into larger social groups, which took us from the family clan to empires, and on the other hand the social organization in the form of the tripartition described by Dumézil, which we will present in this chapter.

The second revolution is that linked to the emergence of modern science, which began in the 17th century, and which will probably end in the 21st or 22nd century. What characterizes this second revolution is that man has acquired a technological level allowing him to exempt himself from the obligation to work to meet his basic needs. On the scale of humanity, the two industrial revolutions are therefore part of a single revolution, caused by the emergence of modern science. This revolution will result in a second change in modes of production to meet our basic needs, and consequently a second change in our social organizations. However, this social change has not yet taken place. Indeed, the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment, which we will also present in this chapter, certainly produced democracies in certain parts of the world, but today clearly shows its limits. This second revolution will therefore end when, on the one hand we have massified robotic production, and on the other hand we have adopted a new system of social organization whose balance is not based on mass work but on Optimum and reasoned use of our technological know-how, for the benefit of all.

The tripartite

Tripartition, or Indo-European tripartite functions, constitutes our long-term cultural heritage. This is a concept of comparative mythology, put forward by Georges Dumézil, which asserts that the myths of Indo-European societies are structured on the basis of three functions, which result in a social organization into three classes.
The first function, called priestly, corresponds, in the French Ancien Régime, to the clergy class.
The second function, called martial, corresponds to the nobility.
Finally, the production function corresponds to the third estate.

To be more understandable, the priestly function must be understood as containing beliefs, but also knowledge and reason.
The martial function includes action.
Finally, the production function includes abundance and love.

We are not seeking here to take a position on the level of universality or relevance of Dumézil's proposal. What interests us is that it makes it possible to include the cultural aspect, that is to say, to clarify widely shared mental representations. However, even if they are not inherent to our nature, that is to say do not constitute invariants, like what we saw in chapters 2 and 3, it seems important to us to take into account the mental representations resulting from our cultural heritage. Indeed, this allows us to propose a social organization which produces as little cognitive dissonance as possible, therefore facilitating its acceptance. In other words, Chapters 2 and 3, which introduced social ambition and its consequence widespread nepotism and then cognitive dissonance, dealt with characteristics of human nature identifiable by the modern scientific method. Conversely, the tripartition deals with a simple cultural heritage, made up of symbolic representations, which we can therefore only observe, and not demonstrate by the application of the scientific method, even if in chapter 1, when we have addressed the philosophical question emanating from progress, we saw that the emergence of three social classes was probable in any agricultural society benefiting from favorable natural conditions.

To illustrate the importance of the three functions in our common perception of social organization, we will take the example of Christian mythology which supplanted Roman mythology in the 4th century. The starting point is Judaic monotheism. A prophet appears, Jesus Christ, who announces the imminent coming of the kingdom of heaven (1), and creates a sect which progresses rapidly in the empire, in part because the proposal of a paradise where we will find all its dead loved ones is very attractive. However, as Alfred Loisy shows in The Gospel and the Church, for it to be able to impose itself, the new religion must become intelligible to the Romans (2), therefore include the three functions. To this end we add the Holy Spirit. From there, the new religion also became attractive and intelligible to the Roman elites. Indeed, God represents the priestly function. The prophet Jesus Christ represents the martial function in an inverted form, therefore easily assimilated, but weakened, which can be desired in an empire which has completed its expansion, therefore seeks to shift the main power from the military function to the priestly function . Finally, the Holy Spirit represents the production function.

Let us finish the history of the evolution of the three functions up to the present day.
Throughout the Middle Ages, in the West, following the legacy of the shift that took place in the Roman Empire, the priestly function was the most powerful, symbolically at least. As proof, the king is crowned by ecclesiastics. Likewise, it is often the monasteries which organize the initial economic development of the territories.
The situation began to change in the 15th century with the great discoveries, which were financed by emerging capitalism, which thus reinforced the martial function. The industrial revolution marks the shift in dominant power from the priestly function to the martial function embodied by its economic component that is capitalism, and the new dominant class that is the bourgeoisie. Capitalism thus moved from the conquest of resources, initially gold, to the conquest of markets: the term 'conquest' well characterizes its warlike nature. Furthermore, it gradually emancipates itself from priestly, then political, supervision to become self-justified in the form of the economic system presented as the most efficient. This is evidenced by the famous phrase “The state cannot do everything” pronounced by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in 1999, which ratified in France the shift from the preeminence of economics to politics.
At the same time, the French Revolution marked a rise in power of the third estate, whose mythology would become Marxist class struggle.
Ultimately, the 20th century saw the collapse in the West of the priestly function in its ecclesiastical form, so much so that we switched from tripartition to a binary system. On the one hand, 'the right' represents a coalition of priestly and martial functions, with a hegemony of the martial function in its capitalist form. On the other hand, 'the left' represents the production function, with the class struggle as mythological support. The priestly function was therefore in some way absorbed by the other two.

However, during this same period, we can see the so-called 'extreme right' nationalist ideologies as an attempt to restore the priestly function in the form of the myth of races and nations, which clearly shows that even when the political system seems to have shifted towards bipartism, the tripartition remains very strongly anchored in our mental representations.
Likewise, in the first chapter we saw that the main practical heritage of Marx's thought expressed in Capital is social democracy. However, at the level of popular representation, Marxism is class struggle. This comes from the fact that the notion of class struggle is a mythological notion, and that it has been adopted as a priestly substitute by the production function.

The philosophy of lights

In very few words, we can see the philosophy of enlightenment as the upheaval of mental representations induced by the emergence of modern science.
At the level of the tripartite organization of the society of the old regime, the rise in power of science, and of the rationality which characterizes it, undermines the bases of the priestly function based on dogma, by nature irrational, and increasingly seen as unacceptable arbitrariness. This results in an increase in power of the other two functions. First of all, the martial function, via the rise of nationalism which will be the basis of 20th century wars. The production function then, via the primacy which will gradually be granted to the economic.

To fully understand the philosophy of enlightenment, and its evolution up to the present day, we invite you to listen to the remarkable courses entitled Legal figures of economic democracy, given by Alain Supiot at the Collège de France in 2016, available on the Internet (3). It presents to us the birth of democracy in Greek Antiquity, then its slow maturation in the Church and the free towns in the Middle Ages, its conceptualization in the Age of Enlightenment, and finally the evolution up to the present day.
The central point of the democracy of the Age of Enlightenment is the emancipatory training which must, on the one hand allow access to independence in terms of work and the associated decent income, and on the other hand give the capacity to exercise fully his role as a citizen at the level of deliberative assemblies. It is therefore not surprising that this representation emerged at a time when the birth of modern science suddenly increased the social prestige of knowledge to the detriment of belief.
Next, Alain Supiot shows us how the industrial revolution of the 19th century suddenly brought to center stage the question of the risk that the excessive concentration of economic power posed to democracy. The problem arose in ancient Greece, and was solved by forced redistribution. It also arose in certain Italian Republics of the Middle Ages and led to the election of a strong man, and ultimately to the end of democracy. This risk was recalled by Roosevelt during his 1938 State of the Union speech: "The freedom of a democracy is not assured if the people tolerate private power growing to such an extent that it become stronger than the democratic state itself. »
However, after having been at the center of the debate for more than a century, this question was settled at the end of the 20th century, with the advent of ultra-liberal globalization: not only all the legal barriers limiting the concentration of power economic have jumped, but in addition the ideal conveyed by the philosophy of enlightenment has changed. The goal is no longer the emancipation of citizens: only the freedom to undertake remains, which obviously only addresses those beings best endowed by nature in terms of personal abilities or heritage. The others “[The workers] give up their freedom in exchange for economic compensation”. The role of the State and intermediary bodies is no longer the organization of this emancipation and the animation of public debate but the simple collective defense of the price and duration of work, salaried employment having become the norm.
Finally, Alain Supiot notes that this deviation from the ideal of enlightenment is accompanied by a profound transformation of mental representations, which consists of seeing everything as a market, even that which initially was not commercial, whether it be non-profit missions such as unemployment insurance, or even public debate which becomes the marketplace of ideas. By the same movement, the citizen finds himself largely reduced to his status as a consumer.

 

(1)
All mythologies predict some form of life after death. What is specific to the message of Jesus Christ is to predict the imminent advent of the kingdom of heaven, that is to say the imminent end of historical times. In this sense, his message can be described as millenarian, and is closer to that of current Jehovah's Witnesses than to the message of the Roman Catholic Church.

(2)
Alfred Loisy speaks of “Hellenization of Christian doctrine” p134

(3)
Several elements contribute to making these courses remarkable. First of all, having chosen as the central point of social organization the way in which people work together. Then, the use of legal texts to factually illustrate changes in society seems much more interesting to us than that of wars or the lives of great men. Finally, the clear formulation of mental representations, and especially their evolutions, which lead to these laws.
Ultimately, from our point of view, if the objective is to allow young citizens to fully exercise their responsibility as voters, a simple explanation of the first lesson would advantageously replace the entire introductory economics program given in class. of second year, and all of these courses would advantageously replace all or part of the history courses given at the Lycée. In particular, course 8 describes very well the ideological shifts that reshaped the conception of democracy at the end of the 20th century.