Graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, philosopher, head of research at the CNRS [Centre national de la recherche scientifique], Marc Crépon is today one of the great voices in French philosophy, identified by the media and the public as the thinker on violence. He is director of the Master de Philosophie at the PSL [Paris Sciences et Lettres University]. Known for his reflections on violence, but also on totalitarian forms of power, he studies in depth collective and individual identities, and our way of being in the world. He teaches in the United States and lectures throughout the world. He is the author, published by Éditions Odile Jacob, of La Vocation de la littérature [The Vocation of Literature] (2014), l’Épreuve de la haine [The Challenge of Hatred] (2016), and Inhumaines conditions [Inhumane conditions] (2018). He also studies the issue of incest (Ces temps-ci. La société à l’épreuve des affaires de moeurs [These Times: Society Challenged by Matters of Morality], Rivages, 2020).

How can we overcome the historic melancholy that today assails us from every direction? How can we resist the culture of fear, avoid discouragement, the hateful? By choosing to resist, by cultivating a mind critical of our times, says the philosopher M. Crépon.

After looking at various forms of violence, here Marc Crépon reveals the other side of the battle. He describes where the refusal to submit is lodged and the forms it can assume. Taking back control of our lives and giving them meaning involves a dual resistance. The first aims to thwart all forms of power, economic or political, that attempt to convince us of the insignificance of our lives. It implies a struggle against all authoritarian forms of power and the populisms connected to them. The second calls directly upon us as individuals and implores us to think for ourselves. Because Marc Crépon is convinced of this: only a politics of singularities will enable us to escape our demons and the despair of our times. Our future depends on our desire to resist.