The head of the Green Party's list for the next European elections has just published his book, "Que faire?" ["What to Do?"]. A dialogue with the pioneer of environmental politics, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, as well as Edgar Morin.

    Le Nouvel Observateur: Edgar Morin, do you recognize yourself in the "politics of civilization" as they are developed by Daniel Cohn-Bendit in his new book?

    Edgar Morin: Yes, with this difference: Daniel integrates the politics of civilization into his ecology; I integrate ecology into politics and policy. The politics of civilization means that our Western civilization produces positive effects, but also, ever-more-important negative effects. So individualism gives rise to autonomy, but also to the disintegration of solidarities. Material well-being is accompanied by psychological malaise and depression. On a planetary level, the uncontrolled spread of science, technology and finance is leading humanity up to the abyss. What we have in common is the conviction that we must reverse the hegemony of the quantitative in favor of the qualitative, i.e., the full development of the human being. That does not prevent us from wanting to confront poverty, underconsumption, and unemployment by a great public works policy for the rehumanization of cities and the reduction of inequalities, as I indicated in my 2007 article, "If I Were a Candidate."

    Daniel Cohn-Bendit: Edgar Morin's "civilization project" as I understand it is at the heart of my political history, which goes from reading "Socialism or Barbarism" on communism to the environmental critique of modernity: put the human being at the center of policy and not the market system. In a few years, we went from a social economy of the market to a market economy of the social, in which everything had to be quoted on the stock market and made profitable. A madness that reigned up until only a few months ago. The response to the conjunction of economic, financial, social and environmental crises cannot be handled in segments, but must be met with an integrated strategy. And one that above all is not quantitative: to constantly work and consume more in the Sarkozy manner is to slam into a wall! I also don't believe in the Socialist Party's recovery by unbridled consumption. Today, we must live and work in a different way. And this different way must be the object of a great negotiation on a European level between all the actors involved (management, unions, NGOs, politicians).

    LNO: Nonetheless, it's necessary that the electorate, traumatized by the social crisis, be on board and not feel that this "sober growth" or "selective shrinking" will precipitate job destruction ...

    E. Morin: The politics of civilization requires that we not forget the new and former victims of reduced consumption. I believe that the recovery must coincide with the launch of a new economy in the service of a better life. The economic crisis is the aspect that has become acute of a whole related plethora of crises. We must change our path to change our lives; we must change our lives to change paths. You know, it takes time for awareness to dawn. Look at the first Club of Rome report, in 1972, which indicated that the degradation of the biosphere was going to impact our own lives. That awareness progressed slowly and under the impact of highly visible catastrophes. But we still haven't become fully conscious of Ivan Illich's 1970 message which insisted on the interior deterioration of our existence under the impact of hyper-specialization, mechanization, generalized commodification, and who proposed a civilization of conviviality. Unfortunately, "expertocrats" - technocrats and politicians - remain blind to that option.

    D. Cohn-Bendit: Our society already excludes one-third of its members who live badly or barely survive. For us, social justice and solidarity are central. Apart from the establishment of a minimal existence income (RME), we propose a maximum income and consequently a surtax on amounts more than twenty times the minimal income. But the major interest of ecological measures is to improve the conditions of life of those most at risk: a car and lodging that consume half as much represent more income. And while we're at it, we're preparing the future: it's not a question of comfort, but of survival. Reread the Stern report: without decisions to erase the causes of warming, the economic crisis will be five times worse than today's. That's why we demand a European loan of 1,000 billion "Eurobonds," part of which will be applied to the immediate renovation of housing. I add that the exclusion of one-third is, broadly, as much due to money as to knowledge: investing 10 percent of that sum in training and 10 percent in research to democratize access to knowledge also constitutes a response to the social question.

    E. Morin: Here again, the quantitative solution is insufficient. We must reform our very mode of knowledge, that is, reform teaching and research from the inside. That also means reeducating educators and evaluating evaluators.

    D. Cohn-Bendit: Perhaps, but by excessive hierarchization of the universities and elite institutes and by funding them pro-rata based on their "performance," we reproduce social inequalities and fail the challenge of the knowledge economy.

    LNO: How do you explain that the institutionalized Left, in spite of André Gorz, René Dumont and yourself, Edgar Morin, should be so petrified by the environmental question?

    E. Morin: In 1972, in "Le Nouvel Observateur," I published "Year 1 of the Environmental Era." It still holds true. We were marginalized, René Dumont, Serge Moscovici, André Gorz ... because a sclerotic structure of thought makes people blind to a vital message.

    D. Cohn-Bendit: The absurd reproach that falls like an excommunication, is always: "You don't deal with the social issues." In fact, what bothers the censors is that we don't content ourselves with a dozen environmental measures in a government program, but want to reinvent the fundamentals of governance with respect to development, growth and the organization of economic life solely around productivity, by integrating complexity.

    LNO: In his book, Daniel Cohn-Bendit makes wide use of the metaphor of the bee. What counted for a long time was its honey, the market value of which could be calculated. Pollination was accessory. Only now, here we are: we can do without the honey, but not without the buzzing from flower to flower, which allows the tree to produce fruit ...

    D. Cohn-Bendit:It's more than a metaphor: the decline of this species is a fact. Einstein said that our own species could not survive five years after the disappearance of the bees. More broadly, the pollination of intelligences by putting them into a network is as incommensurable as it is essential. That's the model for Google and the immaterial economy. That type of dissemination may constitute an eco-compatible chain, allying researchers, engineers, artisans. We must give oxygen to these individual initiatives that invent, that construct the collective. Small and medium-sized companies in solar energy are more numerous in Sweden than in the south of France!

    E. Morin: As they buzz from flower to flower, the bees work more for the health of the entire living world than for their own sole subsistence. Now everything that is socially compartmentalized resists pollination. Ideas spread like pollens, but can germinate only on fertile ground.

    LNO: With frequently technocratic procedures, Europe has imposed the first environmental norms on its members, notably with respect to automobile emissions. Now Brussels' authority is no longer respected ...

    D. Cohn-Bendit: Yes, even though the "energy-climate package" - in spite of its lacunae - was, in fact, voted in. Let's stop the lament over Europe. Fifty years after 1789, we were still far away from equality of rights ... The financial "September 11" has amplified the urgency. So a European Parliament in the forefront and in synch with citizens is necessary. We must also give ourselves the means: I want coordination between the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Euro Council to create a financial tool powerful enough to adapt our productive systems.

    E. Morin: The European level is obviously relevant with respect to challenges that exceed the competence of nation-states. Yet, it's these same nation-states that must find the path to this self-limitation. The solution will come only under the pressure of danger and at the edge of the abyss.

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    Daniel Cohn-Bendit is a European deputy and co-president of the Green Party in the European Parliament. He has just published "Que faire ?" ["What to Do?"] with Hachette.

    Edgar Morin is a sociologist and philosopher and a pioneer of environmental thought. His great oeuvre, "la Méthode" ["The Method"], has been republished in a two volume edition by Le Seuil.

    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.