Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
The notion of ‘gentle barbarism’ was developed during our critical analysis of the discourses and mechanisms of ‘modernisation’ that emerged in the context of the movement for permanent reform (in education, the public services and business management), in which public bodies and businesses have been engaged since the 1980s. These discourses and mechanisms of modernisation seem to us to represent a blind spot where sociological analysis is concerned.
1. Paul Ricœur, ‘Travail et parole', Histoire et vérité, Paris, Seuil 1955, p. 212.
2. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago & London, University of Chicago Press, 1969.
3. See the work of Pierre Legendre, particularly Le Désir politique de Dieu. Étude sur les montages de l'État et du droit, Paris, Fayard 1988; Dieu au miroir. Étude sur l'institution des images, Paris, Fayard 1994.