An essential complement to structural measures for the climate, “sobriety” has become a common term, the meaning of which can be very different depending on the situation. The fact remains that explaining the social conditions of sobriety is not so simple.
Sobriety calls for consuming differently, connecting less, recycling, taking the time. But this moderation has its source somewhere: a social origin, a life trajectory, material conditions. Even if everyone should be able to contribute to the collective effort, talking about sobriety without naming this starting point suggests that the effort has the same price for everyone. This is however far from being the case.
“People’s experience and their real relationship to sobriety are essential sources of lessons.”
According to Amartya Sen, Indian economist and philosopher, a functioning is distinguished from a freedom to accomplish, according to “the reasons” to act of each person. For example, a person who does not eat can do so for various reasons: aesthetic (losing weight), spiritual (a fast) or deprivation (starvation). It is by focusing on these reasons that we can truly understand people and thus define their role and that of institutions. According to Mr. Sen, the latter must be based on more information, and in particular social inequalities, to be democratic and achieve their goal.
Sobriety is not just a horizon. People who have low means may consume cheap products, but at a harmful ecological and human cost. What do they think of their lack of choice? What do they think of the relationship they have with nature? Will they come and say it in a citizen forum? For lack of feeling legitimate, for fear of expressing oneself in public or for other reasons which often lead to regret that these forums are taken over by “insiders”, those who have little or no choices share little of their reality. We must therefore find relays.
The role of social actors
How could social actors play this role? Schools, daycares, employers? For example, how do sales staff, forced to do this work for a living, think of their place in an ecological project? And those who, like the protagonists of the film “Attention! Danger travail»*, have made the choice to live with little and to exchange money earned from doing absurd and underpaid work for time? People’s experience and their real relationship to sobriety are essential sources of lessons, to concretely define what we are talking about.
In a world that devours itself, sobriety is a starting point, more than an end, like the threshold of the corner café, where we would have an aperitif together but paying according to our means, to elaborate a common project. If sobriety draws a climatic horizon, it must also serve to recognize the social differences that slow it down, and allow a dialogue where they have their place.
* “Warning! Danger travail”, by Pierre Carles, Christophe Coello and Stéphane Goxe, 2003
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– “Sobriety” is a term to decline socially
Karine Clerc wonders about the conditions allowing everyone to participate in the moderation of consumption.
Karine Clerc