Fabienne Brugère: "Humanity is vulnerable"

The philosopher and author of L’éthique du care calls for a society that is concerned with the care and attention of others.

INTERVIEW

Sustainability MAG: The crisis we are facing reminds us of our deep interdependence. It has thrown an unprecedented spotlight on our vulnerability and the importance of "care". Has the invisible become visible?

Fabienne Brugère: Humanity is vulnerable in the face of life: illness, accidents, sanitary, ecological or industrial disasters. Generally speaking, individuals give themselves the means to forget this vulnerability. Wealth, power and knowledge greatly help them to do so. The global coronavirus pandemic, which first affected the deaths of major economic powers, reminds us of the value of life and how close it can be to death. It has also shown that the accumulation of globalisation and the virus makes us doubly dependent on each other; contaminating, contaminated or contaminable, we need others to take care of us, from our loved ones to institutions. Today, we are experiencing the importance of care : both those who heal and those who repeat practices that show concern for others. Gestures as simple as washing our hands are not only good for ourselves but also for those with whom we come into contact. With the pandemic, we are losing control over the world, over others and ourselves. We become non-sovereign individuals, vulnerable to whatever jabs, attacks or diminishes us. We experience dispossession while we have been taught possession: possession of self, possession of property... 

What are the underlying reasons that, according to you, have led to the care professions being overlooked so far?

Historically, cleaning tasks related to bodily functions have always been devolved to beings without social recognition, often women. The nurse’s care (in French “infirmier”, which is lexically close to the word "infirm" and indicates a lack of strength) and the doctor’s care (who is capable of healing) are not considered with the same values. In the context of a health crisis, all these practices finally appear through their usefulness to the cleaning of hospitals and all places where the virus may be rampant. Social class and gender are fundamental markers of care. In the context of globalisation and North-South relations, care is also a matter of migrant or immigrant populations. It is necessary to insist on the assignment of women to care. These professions are generally considered not to be sufficiently specialiced and are considered to be of a supposedly feminine nature that would allow them to be easily exercised. The work of Pascale Molinier shows how little use is made of the discourse of competence to evoke these professional careers. 

Precisely, how can we evolve with the assignment of women to care tasks? How do you see the revaluation of this field possible?

Women have been assigned care tasks for a long time and in very different societies, the so-called "primitive" societies studied by anthropologists as those typical of today's financialised capitalism. However, it is essential to note the role played by the political space structuring, which results from both the contract theorists, the French Revolution and industrial capitalism dominated by the ideas of the European bourgeoisie. While women were denied political rights in the name of various forms of dependence (on their husband, on species, on feelings or impulses), they were confined to the domestic space in the name of a strict division of the sexes within public and private space. Women were denied the right to educate children, help their elderly parents, or the daily care of dependent persons. The confinement that many countries have experienced in 2020, bringing the whole world almost to an economic standstill, is surprising from this sharing, since in many cases, women and men found themselves together at home. Two perspectives can be analysed: the new egalitarian practices of sharing domestic tasks and bringing up children and, more massively, an accentuation of a very traditional sharing of roles between men and women that has sometimes led to real exhaustion among the latter. How do we get women out of what Simone de Beauvoir called destiny? By encouraging women to promote their careers more, by penalising companies that pay women less than men, by making the care professions more  attractive to men and by no longer accepting any forms of harassment or violence against women.

You say "Vulnerability is the common lot of humanity". Are we thus moving away from the idea of an autonomous and efficient individual?

Absolutely, definitions of the human being oriented towards vulnerability undermine the unwavering belief in an all-powerful and independent individual such as the theories of the social contract and sovereignty were able to deploy in the 17th and 18th centuries, starting with Hobbes and Locke. The sovereign individual is a fiction. However, refusal to consider all individuals as fundamentally vulnerable is deeply rooted in our various collective narratives. On the one hand, the birth of political liberalism and its reactivations up to John Rawls poses an ideal of autonomy or sovereignty through which any form of dependence or vulnerability is considered a loss of control or rationality, an impossibility to decide precisely, and therefore to participate in public affairs. Richard Sennett recalls how much political liberalism has glorified the perspective of a free subject, forgetting that autonomy cannot be decreed and that it does not concern all the moments of life: "The dignity of dependence has never appeared to liberalism as a valid political project." On the other hand, the development of neo-liberal ideas, analysed by Michel Foucault and many others since then, elaborates the norm of an efficient individual capable of converting all spheres of life to the laws of the market alone. The individual calculation, by which interest is rationalised, becomes omnipresent to the point of glorifying individual responsibility as the sole source of responsibility. With this reasoning, being poor is a matter of individual conduct: the poor are solely responsible for their situation; social assistance is then obsolete and becomes a paying service to the person. How, then, can we deal with an essentially interdependent individual, which is the hallmark of globalisation and its domino effects? The ethics of care are concerned with our present: an interdependent, interconnected world where relationships cannot be limited to selfish interests alone. If only to ensure that humans develop from birth, we cannot live without care, without attention, without support from others and collective structures, without taking into account our environment.

As we know, the observation of our vulnerability goes beyond the strict perimeter of inter-individual care. What is the scope of care in your opinion?

Even when people in many countries were confined, they found themselves listening to birdsongs, looking at trees or enjoying a garden where spring was doing its work. They realised that they could form relationships with other living things, plants, etc., and that they were able to do so. The relationships between oneself and other living things or the earth are altered as a result. Care is then an attractive model for valuable relationships that are as horizontal as possible against any centralising verticality. Good care consists in inhabiting the world with its subjectivity, its imagination, its affects, being wary of all markers of power. It is a question of appreciating and recognising differences, of composing worlds in the name of a common, always to be modified with the newcomers, and what surrounds us. Philippe Descola's work has taught us how much the West has stuck to the idea that human beings live in a world separate from that of non-humans. Today, care participates in resistance to this form of human supremacy and joins ecological concerns starting, on the one hand, from a highlighting of the interdependences and vulnerabilities which puts us all of us in relation to the earth, however, on the other hand, from a deconstruction of various forms of control of humans over the world: of the productive over the carers, of men over women, of humans over non-humans. This resistance took the form of the expression of a "different voice" in Carol Gilligan's research that defines the contours of an ethic of care: "the different voice is a voice of resistance" to dualities and hierarchies.

Can we talk about "planet caregivers"? What are these jobs?

Such professions exist and will exist more and more as we become more aware of living in a damaged world, in degraded environments: concrete cities, deforestation, senseless production of plastics, polluting industries, etc. Fighting practices are gestures to protect the planet in the name of respect that we owe to the world we inhabit. The fight against climate change or the loss of biodiversity is becoming a global issue among young people who are demanding accountability in the name of the future. Greta Thunberg is a symbol of the tenacity and seriousness of this generation for whom caring for the earth or concern for the world is not an empty word. These professions of care on behalf of the planet are driven by an ideal and they can exist at all levels from a municipality fighting against environmental incivilities or developing ecological management of green spaces (municipalities without pesticides), to a region developing a truly eco-responsible economic policy, that of a State deploying renewable energy policies, that of a company committing to sustainable production. However, even more so, they have long existed in environmental NGOs, without which none of these struggles or activities would be possible. They are the watchdogs of our times.

Beyond the initial perimeter of the care functions in healthcare, isn't there a particular difficulty in defining the scope of the care professions?

As soon as we consider the ethics of these professions, we highlight the attention to others that is required, the concern, the preoccupation, or the fact of feeling concerned. This is what I had named from the old word "caring" in 2008 in Le sexe de la solicitude. The practices of care then extend to many elements of ordinary life in the name of a response that is given to our needs, to our forms of life that without we would be in danger. For example, without the garbage collectors, we would be invaded by garbage and prey to the return of old diseases, without the farmer we would no longer be able to feed ourselves, and would die of hunger and without the engineer who transforms our waste, we would no longer have in the long run pleasant living spaces.This type of "taking care" is local: it addresses the environment; it aims at responding to concrete needs and at ensuring that under certain conditions, our lives remain viable. It is, however, also global in its ultimate meaning: the unconditional response to beings in need. It concerns victims of COVID-19 as much as the people under the rubble of the recent explosion in Beirut or the inhabitants of any country at war or subject to a climate catastrophe.

If we look at the care professions related to sustainable development, they seem to escape from a devaluation in society? Is it because we are leaving the strictly domestic sphere?

Sustainable development has a noble purpose, that of promising a better future according to the definition given by the Brundtland Commission under the aegis of the United Nations: "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Like care, sustainable development involves needs: for food, shelter, and education. As such, it involves a typical horizon that can be shared by all; a harmonious development of humanity that respects its environment. Moreover, it cannot disconnect from the progress of science: renewable energies do not exist without prior scientific research to make them useful. There is no sustainable development without engineers, technicians and ecological experts. This is an essential point of difference: the expertise and scientificity of sustainable development are praised. Care is only rarely perceived through its expertise and intelligence. It is still referred today to the silence of the domestic sphere and the supposed emotionality of women, to the special relationship they maintain with their bodies.

In your book, you see the ethics of care as a way of "imagining our common destiny differently". Is this a real social project, a way of reconnecting with the collective?

The ethics of care leads to care policies that are not merely soul supplements stuck as patches on current capitalism or increasingly unfortunate globalisation. It is a question of carrying what I have called a "sensitive democracy". For me, it is defined based on three axes on the premises of political action. First of all, listening: the mission of those in power is to listen to the expertise of the actors, to recognise the importance of use-value before making a decision, and to propose new laws in this context. Even more, it is necessary to take into account angry voices, and not to stifle them, but to evaluate their relevance in order to broaden what is expected. The second axis is the equality of voices: listening implies practicing the equality of voices. In a democracy, the value is justice and not what determines a social order acquired through statutes and hierarchy. As long as the equality of women and men is not a reality, democracy stricto sensu does not exist. Finally, the third axis is support: vulnerability can only be lived if policies to support the most vulnerable individuals are implemented in a concerted manner within the framework of a State that promotes initiatives of collective work, solidarity, and mutual aid.

Is there a real awakening today?

There is no doubt that the ethics of care has attracted many people for many years: constituted bodies such as NGOs, associations, numerous collectives fighting in the name of the environment, social justice, feminism or any other causes and companies. It is interesting to note that the countries that have so far been able to best combat COVID-19 are for the most part countries governed by women, with good coordination of state and regional levels, public institutions and cooperating companies. It is more important than ever that those in power be as close as possible to the needs of the governed, listening to them so that their ordinary lives are facilitated and not hindered. However, it is not enough to consider the needs of hospitals or city medicine just as it is irresponsible to arouse fears related to the disease. A policy of care must also be deployed in the face of the ecological emergency, the needs of education (the number of illiterates is still very high in many countries) or against all forms of discrimination and violence.

To be read also in the dossier "Towards a Society of 'Care'?": 

• Our Chains of Vulnerability
• Envisioning a World for Tomorrow
• Sociology of "Care"