Régis Debray – författare

The election in Chile of the Marxist leader of the Socialist Party, Salvador Allende, to the presidency in October 1970 inaugurated a political situation unique in Latin America and of world-wide significance. Allende's Popular Unity coalition embraced Socialists and Communists and campaigned on an election programme of unprecedented radicalism - nothing less than the abolition of monopoly capitalism and imperialism in Chile. In this book, Régis Debray, recently released from his Bolivian gaol, questioned President Allende about his strategy for socialism. These discussions ranged widely over the history of the workers' movement in Chile, the strength of imperialism in Latin America, the experience of the first months of the Allende government, the role of the Chilean armed forces, Allende's personal background and friendship with Che Guevara, the seizure of land by peasants since the Popular Unity victory, and the international outlook of the new Chile.In an introductory essay, Debray furnished an analysis of Chilean history and politics which situated Allende in the past and present of the country and explored the dynamics of the class struggle now unfolding there. For this new anniversary edition, leading Chilean leftist scholar Camila Vergara has written a new introduction which appraises the book in the light of recent political developments in Chile.

How do we explain the fact that certain ideas, at certain moments in time, can have earthshaking effects? Or that some cultures have left an indelible mark while others have not? Why did Jesus, rather than Mani the Mesopotamian or the Eastern god Mithra, take hold among masses of people? Why did Karl Marx instead of Pierre Proudhon or Auguste Comte leave his mark on the century? Behind these questions lies the matter of the human need to conserve, hand down, and transmit cultural meanings - the study of the means of transmission and of the long evolutionary history of media. In a departure, Regis Debray redefines communication as the inescapable conditioning of civilization's meanings and messages by their technologies of transmission and lays the groundwork for a science of the transmission of cultural forms - in a word, mediology."Transmitting Culture" examines the difference between communication and transmission and argues that ideas and their legacies should be rethought not in terms of "communication" from sender to receiver but of "mediation" by the vectors and messengers of meaning."Transmitting Culture" stresses the technologies and institutions long overlooked by philosophy and the human sciences in the study of symbols and signs throughout the history of civilizations. Ranging widely from the history of religion and the printing press to the French and industrial revolutions, from the role and place of authority to scientific inquiry, "Transmitting Culture" establishes a new approach to the cultural history of communication.

In this elegant and original book, Régis Debray argues that for two hundred years the defeats of the left have stemmed from its failure to understand what it likes to call the 'national question', while equally its successes have grown from an unacknowledged liaison with the 'unreal reality' of the nation.According to Debray, Charles de Gaulle was no narrow nationalist. By grounding his actions in a generous philosophy of the nation he was able to wed boldness to insight: on 14 June 1940 he appointed himself leader of the free French, disregarding the overwhelming parliamentary and legal mandate according to Petain. This intuitive action was to be resoundingly vindicated in the resistance and liberation of France.This study of De Gaulle is offered as an indictment of the shallowness of contemporary politics in the West. For Debray, De Gaulle is not only the last statesman in the classic mould, he is also the first to anticipate the politics of the twenty-first century. De Gaulle's aloofness from the media and disdain for the base arts of electioneering have an exemplary quality, Debray believes, reaffirming the vocation of political leadership as something other than adapting to popular preferences or allowing professional communicators and opinion pollsters to set every agenda.

Régis Debray's major new work is an exploration of the foundations and limits of political discourse and action. Focusing, with his familiar verve and fluency, on the mechanism through which ideologies mobilize historical subjects, Debray argues that there is a common pattern in all great political or religious movements. Each possesses an apparatus that releases affective charges of belonging and closure; each is tended by bodies of functionaries who maintain its continuity and transmit its doctrines. The great mobilizing ideologies-Christianity, Islam, Marxism-deploy corps of priests, teachers, cadres. The real foundation of "political reason", for Debray, lies in the human need to participate in closed groups, denying or mitigating the harshness of the external world and the fact of death.

Revolution in the Revolution? is a brilliant, pragmatic assessment of the situation in Latin America in the 1960s. First published in 1967, it became a controversial handbook for guerrilla warfare and revolution, read alongside Che's own pamphlets, and remains fully as important as the writings of Guevara. Lucid and compelling, it spares no personage, no institution, and no concept, taking on not only Russian and Chinese strategies but Trotskyism as well. The year it was published, Debray was convicted of having been part of Guevara's guerrilla group and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was released in 1970, following an international campaign, which included appeals by Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux, General Charles de Gaulle and Pope Paul VI.

Revolution in the Revolution? is a brilliant, pragmatic assessment of the situation in Latin America in the 1960s. First published in 1967, it became a controversial handbook for guerrilla warfare and revolution, read alongside Che''s own pamphlets, and remains fully as important as the writings of Guevara. Lucid and compelling, it spares no personage, no institution, and no concept, taking on not only Russian and Chinese strategies but Trotskyism as well. The year it was published, Debray was convicted of having been part of Guevara''s guerrilla group and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was released in 1970, following an international campaign, which included appeals by Jean-Paul Sartre, Andr� Malraux, General Charles de Gaulle and Pope Paul VI.

The election in Chile of the Marxist leader of the Socialist Party, Salvador Allende, to the presidency in October 1970 inaugurated a political situation unique in Latin America and of world-wide significance. Allende''s Popular Unity coalition embraced Socialists and Communists and campaigned on an election programme of unprecedented radicalism - nothing less than the abolition of monopoly capitalism and imperialism in Chile. In this book, R�gis Debray, recently released from his Bolivian gaol, questioned President Allende about his strategy for socialism. These discussions ranged widely over the history of the workers'' movement in Chile, the strength of imperialism in Latin America, the experience of the first months of the Allende government, the role of the Chilean armed forces, Allende''s personal background and friendship with Che Guevara, the seizure of land by peasants since the Popular Unity victory, and the international outlook of the new Chile.In an introductory essay, Debray furnished an analysis of Chilean history and politics which situated Allende in the past and present of the country and explored the dynamics of the class struggle now unfolding there. For this new anniversary edition, leading Chilean leftist scholar Camila Vergara has written a new introduction which appraises the book in the light of recent political developments in Chile.

''Civilisation'' - a hard term to define. But while every society has a distinctive culture, authentic civilisations must offer those they subjugate an attractive way of life. Their imprint outlasts their imperium.A century ago, Debray argues, there was a European civilisation of which America was an outlying culture; but today the relationship is reversed. ''In 1900, an American of taste was a European in exile; in 2000, a trendy European is a frustrated American - or one waiting for a visa''. Characteristic of American civilization is its three overarching fetishes: space, image and happiness. America is a civilization of space and image, whereas Europe was one of time and writing. And its kitsch infantilism blinds itself to the tragic complexities of human life. A measure of America''s success is how its ''globish'' jargon has so successfully infiltrated European languages.For Debray, the dominance of American civilisation is a historical fait accompli, yet he sees a model for Europe in Vienna after its exclusion from the German Reich. For decades to come, Europe can still offer a rich cultural seedbed. ''Some will call it decadence, others liberation. Why not both?''

R�gis Debray is one of France''s leading intellectuals, whose life has intersected with key moments of the twentieth century.In this explosive memoir, Debray recounts his journey from Louis Althusser and the Parisian lecture theatres, to Cuba and the revolution of the 1960s. From Debray''s torture and imprisonment in Bolivia while in search of Che Guevara, to the corridors of power in the Elys�e Palace-where he served as advisor to President Mitterrand-Praised Be Our Lords is an account of an extraordinary life and an exploration of the mechanisms of political passion.

R�gis Debray''s major new work is an exploration of the foundations and limits of political discourse and action. Focusing, with his familiar verve and fluency, on the mechanism through which ideologies mobilize historical subjects, Debray argues that there is a common pattern in all great political or religious movements. Each possesses an apparatus that releases affective charges of belonging and closure; each is tended by bodies of functionaries who maintain its continuity and transmit its doctrines. The great mobilizing ideologies-Christianity, Islam, Marxism-deploy corps of priests, teachers, cadres. The real foundation of "political reason", for Debray, lies in the human need to participate in closed groups, denying or mitigating the harshness of the external world and the fact of death.

In this volume Régis Debray sums up over a decade of his research and writing on the evolution of subjects of communication and the technologically transmitted interventions of the modern intelligentsia in France. Media Manifestos announces the battle-readiness of a new sub-discipline of the sciences humaines: "medialogy." Scion of that semiology of the sixties linked with the names of Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco-and affiliated trans-Atlantically to the semiotics of C.S. Pierce and media analyses of Marshall McLuhan ("media is message")-"mediology" is in dialectical revolt against its parent thought-system. Determined not to lapse back into the uncritical empiricism and psychologism with which semiology broke, mediology is just as resolved to dispel the cult or illusion of the signifier as the be-all-and-end-all, slough off the scholasticism of the code, and recover the world-in all its mediatized materiality. In this enterprise its ally is the work of French historians of mentalités, of the hard and evolutionary sciences, and of the technologies of transmission (from stylus and clay to quill and parchment to press and paper to mouse and screen).Written with Debray's customary brio, Media Manifestos is no mere contribution to the vogue of "media studies." It remains steeped in the intellectual culture of Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault, indebted to the neolithic anthropology of Leroi-Gourhan and the study of science and technology of Serres and Latour, informed by the material histories of the Annales school, yet plugged into the audiovisual culture of today's "videosphere" (as against the printerly "graphosphere" of yesterday, and the scriptorly "logosphere" of the day before that). Debray's work turns a neologism ("mediology") into a tool-kit with which to rethink the whole business of mediation from the city-state to the internet.

Dans leur ouvrage polémique contre la philosophie postmoderne française, Impostures intellectuelles, où ils dénonçaient l’usage métaphorique de notions scientifiques comme autant d’arguments d’autorité, Alan Sokal et Jean Bricmont avaient critiqué, entre beaucoup d’autres, Régis Debray pour son emploi du théorème de Gödel. Une discussion s’était engagée entre eux, que Jean Bricmont et Régis Debray poursuivent ici sous la forme d’un dialogue exigeant, passionné et passionnant, sur la Raison sous toutes ses formes et dans toutes ses ambiguïtés. Quel sens attribuer aujourd’hui aux Lumières, au positivisme, aux sciences humaines ? Comment penser les révolutions de la biologie ou des neurosciences ? Qu’en est-il de l’idéologie et du politique face au retour du religieux ? La notion de progrès est-elle toujours de mise ? Et peut-on établir une anthropologie fondamentale et universelle ?Dans ce nouveau livre, Régis Debray le philosophe et Jean Bricmont le physicien se rencontrent, se confrontent et s’affrontent à la confluence des deux cultures, la littéraire et la scientifique. Pour mieux donner l’exemple de la nécessité et de l’urgence du libre débat intellectuel, sans préjugés ni présuppositions. Régis Debray est agrégé de philosophie, président de l’Institut européen de l’histoire et sciences des religions. Il est, entre autres, l’auteur de Dieu, un itinéraire. Jean Bricmont est professeur de physique théorique à l’Université de Louvain et président de l’Association française pour l’information scientifique. Il a notamment publié avec Alan Sokal Les Impostures intellectuelles.

" Déambuler à travers champs ; susciter les rencontres entre des arts, des métiers et des hommes qui d''ordinaire préfèrent s''ignorer ; aller et venir, car les idées viennent en marchant " : telle est la méthode de Régis Debray. Passeur des savoirs, méditant sur les anges et les visages, mais aussi témoin engagé, le voici en toute liberté rebondissant sur Debord et Benjamin, le Che, Lévi-Strauss ou Malraux, sur la guerre a l''âge des réseaux et la politique de la technique, sur les métamorphoses du paysage ou encore sur le poids du livre dans nos fluidités numériques. " Ici le lecteur est invité à faire l''école buissonnière, à se donner de petites récréations en forme d''échappées, pour mieux approcher de la vérité. "

« La République n''est pas un régime politique parmi d''autres. C''est un idéal et un combat. Elle requiert non seulement des lois mais une foi, non seulement des services sociaux mais des institutions distinctes dont la première de toutes est l''École, non seulement des usagers ou des consommateurs mais des citoyens... » Un cri d''alarme, en forme de lettre ouverte « au Président respecté d''une République humiliée ».

« Penser l''Europe de la défense, n''est-ce pas respecter l''Europe d''aujourd''hui à la manière de ce que pourrait être un jour sa défense ou encore dessiner ce que devrait être l''Europe de demain pour qu''elle puisse se défendre après-demain ? Qu''on nous permette alors de reprendre, vingt ans après, une alternance pertinente qui valait alors pour la France : ou bien s''en remettre à un système priori, à une alliance et perdre toute indépendance continentale, ou bien se constituer un système propre, qui ne soit dirigé contre personne, mais mondial et tous azimuts... »

« Il n''y a pas de culture sans transmission, l''incessant transfert d''un passé vers un avenir. Mais il n''y a pas de transmission qui ne soit une constitution d''héritage, aux conditions fixées par les moyens de transmission, où se rangent vecteurs techniques et corps politiques. Transmettre s''attache à rendre compte de ce processus complexe, parce qu''à la fois matériel et institutionnel, dont il n''est pas exagéré de dire qu''il est au principe de toute histoire civilisée. Cet ouvrage inaugure une collection intitulée « Le champ médiologique », soit la zone cruciale, encore obscure, que dessinent dans notre savoir les intersections et interactions entre Technique et Culture. « Médiologie » : sous ce terme nouveau, voudrait s''opérer la mise au clair des médiations, parfois sous-estimées, parfois inaperçues, dont dépend notre vie religieuse, artistique, idéologique ou politique. » (Régis Debray)

« L’enseignement du fait religieux dans l’école du peuple n’exige pas moins mais plus de laïcité. C’est notre façon de poursuivre le chemin des Lumières que d’ouvrir au savoir les “mystères” du croire. Je ne sais si “le XXIe siècle sera religieux ou ne sera pas”. Je sais seulement que fermer les yeux sur ce qu’il est déjà ne peut qu’assimiler ce qu’on appelle “la revanche de Dieu” à un retour de bâton en pleine figure. » Régis Debray « L’école a besoin de sérénité. Seul un débat apaisé et une plus grande rigueur, à l’écart des emballements médiatiques, nourriront cet enseignement de l’histoire des religions qui fortifie le citoyen et doit faire consensus, au-delà des croyances et des opinions de chacun. » Jack Lang Régis Debray est professeur de philosophie. Il est notamment l’auteur de Dieu, un itinéraire. Jack Lang, ancien ministre, est président de l’Institut du monde arabe.

Kärleken och politiken, åtrån till kvinnorna och den kollektiva hänryckningen i den revolutionära kampen. Oförsonliga motsatspar eller två sidor av samma personliga drivkraft? I första delen av sin självbiografiska trilogi, Maskerna, söker Régis Debray reda ut vad som förde honom bort från den borgerliga tryggheten i det tidiga 60-talets Frankrike till en äventyrlig odyssé i de latinamerikanska revolutionernas kölvatten. Därefter tillbaka till författarskap och politiskt engagemang i Mitterrands socialistparti. Desillusionerad av mötet med den nordamerikanska kapitalismen fångas han i tjugoårsåldern av den karibiska vinden och beger sig mot revolutionens och Castros Kuba. I sällskap med en mörk skönhet, hans blivande hustru, genomkorsar han sydamerikanska nationer i uppror. Oväntat blir Fidel hans förtrogne och Che Guevara hans kamrat i gerillakrigets Bolivia. Priset är tre år i militärens fängelse. I Chile väntar Salvador Allende och tron på en fredlig väg till socialismen. Även den stora passionen. Silvia, kvinnan i hans liv. Men vad vet vi egentligen om den vi älskar? Vi bär alla masker. När de faller... När man lärt sig att leva, är det redan för sent. (Louis Aragon).