Inclusion, an imperative of law and spirit

When we currently speak of inclusion, we mean the integration of all diversities, on the basis of differences of sex, age, ethnic origins, religious persuasions, etc. Integration prohibited by law.

This is particularly what happens in economic life: players who want to be “inclusive” follow current trends – and the rules. This, sometimes superficially or exclusively to comply with emerging standards, without measuring how the notion of inclusion is absolutely fundamental.

What is demanded nowadays, of course rightly but insufficiently, are the inclusion of people with disabilities, women, young people, the elderly, etc. And this way theinclusion and diversity made up of people from different backgrounds are addressed amounts to forgetting that inclusion is in principle that of each and everyone, regardless of any characteristic, physical or psychological (sex, age, skin color, religion, sexual orientation, etc.).

In other words, true inclusion consists in the universal recognition of the irreducible individuality of each person. Without the inclusion having to do with such sex, such age, such ethnic origins, such religious obedience, etc.

Understanding inclusion requires understanding how we listen to each other. However, it suffices to observe that when one has been dating someone for a long time, one believes that one knows the person, to notice the problem. Because when we believes know someone, whether we like the person or not, most often we no longer address the person during the exchanges we have with him, but the idea that we have acquired from past experiences that we have had with it.

This is where most of the misunderstandings come from, because then we don't listen to each other. We prejudice what the other is or wants or will do based on the past. And we are locked in the idea that we have of the other. We don't listen to each other anymore at present.

The above has some commonalities with life policy.

Inclusion and Politics

When we prejudice of the other – of his identity, his intentions, his projects, etc. – we lock it in the projections we have and make of him or her that depend on the past. One is oneself engulfed by the past. We then drag the other into the black hole of our remorse, our resentment, our hatred, our habits of considering the other “like this or that”.

The example of war waged by Russia against Ukraine eminently shows that what is in question here is unfortunately just as valid, if not even more so, in politics than in terms of right and individual morality. To fully understand what is at stake with the idea of ​​inclusion, it is essential to understand what can be called the “tension” between Law and Politics.

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Life policy is sooner or later conditioned by two couples of categories: the friend/enemy pair on the one hand, and the governing/governed pair on the other. One of the most complete thinkers on this subject is the German jurist Carl Schmitt. It's unfortunate to say, because he chose Nazism during the Second World War. But he remains one of the most important thinkers on the question (see on this subject the correspondence between Alexandre Kojève and Leo Strauss, of tyranny)

But if, in our democracies, we know in principle how to bring into play the governing/governed couple on the basis of listen through each other, and in particular through the right to vote, it is quite different for the friend/enemy couple. Because if a diplomatic solution to a conflict is not found, what counts then is no longer “listening” to the other. What matters is to fight and win the fight.

However, fighting to win presents exactly the same characteristic as what we have just seen about relations between people, or between communities according to a past which – in the case of political conflicts – compromises any listening: we know the “other” in advance, what he will do, what he will say, and we do not consider any other possible.

Most of the time, the conflicts not only do not find a diplomatic solution because they result from a lack of listening, but they radicalize it, by reinforcing the conviction that one knows "in advance". other, and in particular his intentions, his perversions, his desires for power, etc.

We can go so far as to say that political life passes through the institution of public enemies as such - scapegoats. Wars or individuals in conflict, the same deleterious logic plays out. From Schmitt's point of view, the political even stems from the institution of the public enemy as such by which a community of friends is structured. The question of inclusion therefore becomes that of the relationship between the Right (to inclusion) and (life) Politics.

irreducible individuality

This inseparability between tensions and prejudice fact that the second couple in political life, the governing/governed couple, finds itself more than frequently caught up in this same movement towards a lack of listening, and as a result a structural rise in tensions. What is the point of this remark?

If the “West” is problematic to say the least – it suffices to be convinced of this to think of the major events of the 1947th century –, it conceals just as many marvels. He is indeed at the origin of the notion of "universal recognition of the irreducible individuality" of each and every one, as the philosopher Alexandre Kojève pointed out in XNUMX in his Introduction to reading Hegel.

In other words, whether we like it or not, the "West" is originally of the contemporary concept inclusion.

It took centuries of awareness and political struggles for recognition, so that the concept of the rule of law becomes possible, which is the only form of state capable of legally defending and protecting the respect and dignity of each and everyone, that is to say the inclusion of all and all.

The rule of law is the only form of government to have as its mission the universal recognition of the irreducible individuality of each and everyone – therefore inclusion of all diversities, those already known and those to come. It is essential, if we want to defend the inclusion of diversities, to defend and protect in return the notion of the rule of law – that is to say democracy.

It is therefore decisive, on the political level, to defend the reality of the rule of law existing in the world, and to do everything to multiply them. This means, beyond fashions and their appropriation by the social and economic worlds, to be aware of the political underpinning of the notions of inclusion and diversity.

It is essential, if we want to preserve the possibility of real inclusions of diversities, to have a constantly sharpened awareness of the conditions policies of their possibility. And this is essential: defending the possibility of the inclusion of diversities requires a policy – that is to say a struggle.

The policy or Lutte for the recognition of each and everyone is the means. The inclusion of each and everyone in their irreducible individuality protected by the education of all and the Law is the result. We must be ready and ready to defend inclusion and therefore the Law – including, if the circumstances require it, arms in hand, as the Resistance during World War II.

The Law is us

Beyond the weapons and beyond the Law, the first weapon, the most fundamental and the most effective, is made of our hearts. She is us believed all and all including all. In other words, that inclusion is not a wishful thinking: 1) that it does not remain a dead letter (as can be some of the announcement effects of all kinds of organizations, from private companies to public bodies); 2) nor should it be the sole act of armed public power. But let it be for everyone.

If we want the remarkable possibility of respect for each and everyone by everyone to persist in France, we must not only respect the Right-footedMore the mind of the democratic regime for which entire generations have fought. And this, day by day, in the most daily life.

It is the duty of everyone in civil society to work to safeguard the rights of everyone in families, neighborhoods, businesses and the country.

In life.

The Law is us, day by day.

Laurent Bibard, Professor of Management, holder of the Edgar Morin Chair in Complexity, ESSEC

This article is republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.