L'héritage prépolitique chretien de l'engagement écologiste

Mathieu Gervais (1, 2)

1 GSRL - Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités
2 LCSP (EA_7335) - Laboratoire de Changement Social et Politique

Jurgen Habermas states that religion and philosophy are engaged in a mutual talk that participates in producing modern states norms. From this hypothesis of contemporary society “prepolitical sources” we explore the specificity of French “agriculteurs paysans” commitment. Based on peasants interviews and Christian thinkers writings we show the links existing between an ecologist ethos build around the concepts of autonomy and coherence and a particular Christian thought that emphasizes the importance of action and thought unity. The peasants’ wish of doing agriculture in a not-conventional way is to be linked with their moral motivation of “doing what one should”. Their actions take the form of their moral and philosophical quest. That unity between what one does and what one thinks or believes can be found in the personnalist’s thought of Jacques Ellul, Bernard Charbonneau or Denis de Rougemont. Thanks to Christian interpretations, they all depict human freedom as being the fusion between acting and thinking. Finally, we propose the idea of an affective affinity between the “agriculteurs paysans” ecological ethic and a Christian eschatology spelled out by personnalist thinkers.

Mots clés: Sociologie environnementale; Agriculture; écologie politique

Domaines: Sociologie; Science politique

Mathieu Gervais. L'héritage prépolitique chretien de l'engagement écologiste. Contemporary Sociological Global Review, 2012. ⟨halshs-01444602⟩