Barbaries et violences : une histoire égoïste

EnglishThe term “barbarity”, as is well known, is inseparable from the idea of violence. In the eighteenth century such violence was, however, perceived and judged in a different way whether one applied it to remote Barbarians (Iroquois, Hottentots, etc.) or to the barbarians of times past, Francs and Germans, the proud and brave ancestors of the French nobility. Furthermore, as a synonym of impoliteness and ignorance, barbarity, in this instance, caused confusion and disgrace which, in the France of the Ancien Regime, intensified the exclusion of all those who were victims of violence in a non-egalitarian society. Finally, from the middle of the eighteenth century, in the field of arts and letters, barbarity was also the word used to designate a creative energy opposed to the ideal of temperance and balance inherited from classical poetry. Thus, dislocated between these different violences, barbarity, far from being just the one, multiplied in the age of Enlightenment francaisLe terme barbarie est, on le sait, indissociable de l’idee de violence. Toutefois, au 18e siecle, cette violence est percue et jugee de maniere differente selon qu’on l’attribue a des barbares lointains (Iroquois, Hottentots, etc.) ou aux barbares anciens, Francs et Germains, fiers et courageux ancetres de la noblesse francaise. Par ailleurs, synonyme d’impolitesse et d’ignorance, la barbarie est dans ce cas le terme de l’amalgame et de l’opprobre qui, dans la France d’Ancien Regime, vient redoubler l’exclusion de tous ceux qui sont victimes de la violence d’une societe inegalitaire. Enfin, a partir de la mi-18e siecle, dans le domaine des arts et des lettres, barbarie est egalement le nom donne a une energie creatrice antinomique de l’ideal de mesure et d’equilibre herite de la poetique classique. Ainsi, disloquee entre ces differentes violences, la barbarie n’est pas une mais multiple au siecle des Lumieres