Walk, walk, it will do you good. Is this the health slogan that motivates the Saturday afternoon walkers? Those who always find a reason to protest against someone or something.
Right now, it’s the security law (under discussion in Parliament) that’s in their sights. Tomorrow, who knows… as they say, if you search, you’ll eventually find something! With a bit of imagination, we should be able to get there! Yesterday, there were between 300 and 500 of them strolling along the usual route, Thiers station, Place Masséna, Promenade du Paillon, Place Garibaldi.
Why deprive them of the hubris that motivates them and makes them puff out their chests?
We could present them with the popular saying: “the freedom of some ends where the freedom of others begins”, that is to say, the vast majority of the population that has to endure their urban wanderings.
If we wanted to play the intellectual game, we could pull out of the library the masterful essay by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty” published in 1859, which clearly outlines the limits of individual freedom in relation to society.
But, given the subjects protagonizing these marches, we end up turning to a less demanding book with an evocative title: “The Tyranny of Buffoons” which makes us reflect on grotesque power. As Michel Foucault wrote: “the grotesque is one of the essential procedures of arbitrary sovereignty.”
The one that citizens have to endure on Saturday afternoons by the buffoons who protest.
