It took a word from the President of the Republic decreeing the end of abundance for the word sobriety to be on everyone’s lips since the start of the school year. Under the energy sobriety plan presented by the government on October 6, companies must build their energy saving plan, administrations eliminate hot water in their toilets while the French are invited to lower the temperature of their radiator at 19°C this winter.
But this call for sobriety goes beyond practical work. The word crosses society through and through. The controversies are linked to this yardstick. Private jet trips, the watering of golf courses or the filling of luxury swimming pools have been in the crosshairs since this summer. New popes in this area, such as the engineer Jean-Marc Jancovici, are also highly solicited. At the start of the school year, bookstores saw an avalanche of books revolving around this idea of moderation.
In short, we feel that sobriety is becoming a contemporary mantra. Life insurance in the face of crises. The horizon line to hold on the individual and collective level, even the new moral imperative to have a good life. However, the term has bad press. Amish model, return to the oil lamp, tightening of the belt, loss of desire, cache-sex of decline, it drags behind it many negative representations. It comes up against our growth model which pushes us to always want more. To our desire for excess and intensity, experienced as a manifestation of our power to live.
At the same time, the war in Ukraine and the stoppage of Russian gas deliveries, combined with the fight against global warming, have placed us at the foot of the wall. Reducing our energy consumption is necessary if we want to avoid sudden cuts this winter and huge increases in bills at the end of the month. The incendiary and scorching summer pushes us resolutely to be reasonable in our lifestyles and to enter into a “logic of sobriety”to paraphrase the president.
Frugality, self-limitation, temperance…
It remains to be seen how to make sobriety a chosen and desirable project. And not suffered. The enterprise is difficult, because, in the first place, the word is vague; its contours, ill-defined. Other terms like frugality, self-limitation, temperance, are close to it. “ There is a sobriety of small gestures and a more systemic one. The temptation is strong to confuse this notion with that of efficiency, and thus to still believe in the miracle of technological innovations. to get out of the climate crisis”warns Philippe Bihouix, promoter of low-tech (useful, sustainable and economical technologies) and co-author of The Stationary City (Actes Sud, 2022).
Between anti-waste hunting and the art of consuming less but better, everyone has their own definition. “ The equivalent word in English is sufficiencybut it means “sufficiency”, points out the essayist Navi Radjou, co-author with Jaideep Prabhu of Frugal Innovation Guide (Diateno, 2019). The closest meaning would be the interjection Sober up!whose translation could be “sober up, get out of drunkenness and dizziness!” A state in which fossil fuels and our consumption model have certainly put us.
For the essayist Patrick Viveret, “ it is an indicative term, which gives direction. It could be summed up as moving towards fewer goods and more links, while respecting social justice”. The peasant philosopher Pierre Rabhi, who died in 2021, clearly saw in it the engine of a “ civilization policy ». In his work Towards happy sobriety (Actes Sud, 2010), he believes that sobriety is resolutely “of the mystical and spiritual realm”. “ This one, by the inner stripping that it induces, becomes a space of freedom, freed from the torments with which the gravity of our mode of existence overwhelms us. »
“Consuming less releases vital energysupports Navi Radjou. And what do we do with it? Maslow’s pyramid must be inverted to reflect our primary need for spirituality. » A statement that echoes the scientific analyzes of neurologist Sébastien Bohler on the functioning of our brain.
In Rome, a virtue to counter excess
To see more clearly, let’s go back to the origins of this decidedly polysemous notion. The word has its roots in antiquity. Sobrietas, in Latin, is an essential virtue of temperance and moderation to counter excessiveness. It concerns first of all the use of drinks and food. It resonates with the idea of self-control and individual sovereignty. In that it summons the body and the spirit, it is a globalizing notion. At IIe century BC. J.-C., frugality is a duty, which first serves the elites, explains historian Juliette Gaillemain. By prohibiting ostentation, Rome allows the nobles not to ruin themselves in an escalation of prestige. This then becomes a morality praised as much by the Epicureans as by the Stoics. It helps to achieve wisdom and peace of mind.
Sobriety also abundantly nourishes spiritual wisdom and religions. And Christianity in the first place. In the encyclical Laudato si’, the pope reminds us: “ Christian spirituality offers growth through sobriety, and an ability to enjoy with little. » For Lifethe theologian and rector of the Catholic University of Lyon Olivier Artus shows how the idea of moderation runs through many pages of the Bible.
The enemy of productivity
His path in history is, on the other hand, more tortuous. Until modern times, reasonable accommodation was the cardinal value. “ In view of the 150 millennia of the presence ofHomo sapiens on Earth, it is the regulation of human existence through collectively organized sobriety […] which overwhelmingly predominates. The contemporary consumerist structuring of our lives is like a parenthesis.recall Christian Arnsperger and Dominique Bourg in Integral Ecology (PUF, 2017).
Change of perspective from the 19th centurye century and the rise of productivism: sobriety is depreciated. “ The promoters of coal, oil, nuclear were celebrated as heroes bringing wealth and abundance while their opponents and all those who sought other paths were forgotten and thrown into the dustbins of the past.underlines the historian François Jarrige in the online review AOC.
It was not until the 1970s and the first oil shock that a handful of philosophers such as Jean Baudrillard (The consumer society)André Gorz (Praise of sufficient)Jacques Ellul (Who what do we work for?) or Ivan Illich bring sobriety back into the debate as a response to an economic system that they consider alienating. Following them, in 2006, economist and degrowth theorist Serge Latouche (the Decrease bet). But these voices carry little.
personal ethics
Thanks to the financial crisis of 2008 and greater visibility of the impact of greenhouse gases, the concept is of greater interest. In 2010, Pierre Rabhi scored a hit with Towards happy sobriety. A year later, the Civic Pact collective, led by Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld, close to Jacques Delors, built a set of proposals to regenerate society and public policies by spreading the values of creativity, sobriety, of justice and fraternity.
“ Sobriety thus conceived encompasses a personal ethic, a social concern and an ecological obligation. »notes the author of Frugal Abundance (Odile Jacob, 2010). Is for example proposed in the book of the Civic Pact, the choice of sobrieties (ed. de l’Atelier, 2021), an individual carbon card, assigning each person an emissions quota, because “ the exhortation to sobriety is too vague, we need to be guided”, think of Foucauld.
In the scientific community, there is also agitation. Since 2003, engineers grouped together in the Négawatt association have been developing precise carbon exit scenarios for 2050. “ Sobriety comes from the angle of uses, the choice of sizing and better sharing », notes one of its spokespersons, Thierry Salomon. Their proposals are beginning to spread beyond the circle of those in the know. Jean-Luc Mélenchon was inspired by it for his last presidential program.
On the public policy agenda
Now, leading institutions are seizing the concept. In 2021, the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) presented four scenarios in the “Transition(s) 2050” report, including that of “Frugal Generation” involving the drastic reduction in mobility, housing construction and energy consumption. meat to achieve carbon neutrality.
The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of April 2022 follows the same line by devoting an entire chapter to sobriety, which it defines as “ a set of everyday measures and practices that avoid the demand for energy, materials, land, water and other natural resources while providing well-being for everyone within planetary limits”. The definition, which combines awareness of limits and the quest for happiness, is this time clearer and more attractive. Is it the one chosen by the government? The future will tell, but the urgency of the situation does not give him the choice of controversy.
To read
Economy :
How to consume with sobriety, by Valérie Guillard, DeBoeck, 2021.
Limits to growth (in a finite world), by Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows and Jorgen Randers, Rue de l’échiquier, 2022.
Slow down or perish. The economics of decline, by Timothée Parrique, Seuil, 2022.
Strive for digital sobriety, by Frédéric Bordage, Actes Sud, 2021.
Ways forward:
Thinking about the climate threat. The time for solutions by Jean-Michel Vincent, Dawn, 2022.
The Collapse (and after) explained to our children… and to our parents, by Pablo Servigne and Gauthier Chapelle, Seuil, 2022.
Ethnographies of worlds to come, by Philippe Descola and Alessandro Pignocchi, Seuil, 2022.
Philosophical and spiritual testimonies:
In the heart of wounded nature, by Alexandre Lacroix, Allary, 2022.
earth sickness, by Nikolaj Schultz, Payot, 2022.
Autonomous Lives, a poetic investigation, by Clara Breteau, Actes Sud, 2022.
The River and the Bulldozer, by Matthieu Duperrex, Premier Parallèle, 2022.
Happy the sober, by Loïc Laîné, Salvator, 2021.