Gilles Lipovetsky

Gilles Lipovetsky , born in 1944, is qualified schoolteacher of Philosophie at the university of Grenoble. He is also member of the Conseil of analysis of the company and consulting Association Progress of Management.

Theses and sets of themes

In one of his principal works ( the era of the vacuum ), Gilles Lipovetsky analyzes a “post-modern” company marked, according to him, by an investment withdrawal of the public sphere, a loss of direction of the great social and political collective institutions, and an “open” culture containing “cool” regulation of the human reports/ratios (tolerance, hedonism, personalization of the processes of socialization, permissive education, sexual release, humor). Vision of the company which proposes néo-individualism of a narcissistic type and more exactly than Lipovetsky calls “the second individualistic revolution”.

For Gilles Lipovetsky this second individualistic revolution is expressed in manners ( the Era of the vacuum ), in fashion ( empire of transitory the ) but also in the ethical sphere ( the twilight of the duty ) marked by the collapse of the sacrificial ideals and the rise of the painless and circumstantial, plural and emotional ethics. He refuses however to compare this individualization at the “end of morals” and the forfeiture of all the values.

In its last work, Lipovetsky calls into question the concept of post-modernity regarded as ambiguous and even inadequate: it is a hyper-modernity, a " modernity superlative" ( Times hypermodernes ) and unrestrained which characterizes, in its eyes, new historic moment of the liberal companies. All the old brakes with modernization fell and there does not exist any more credible and legitimate alternative system with democratic and commercial modernity: it is the time of completed, without opposite, dérèglementée and globalized modernity. The second modern revolution is that which, reconciled with its basic principles (techno-science, the democracy, human rights, the market) is carried by a hyperbolic process of modernization of modernity it even. What wants to say always more competition, always more competition, of marchandisation, mobility and flexibility.

In the middle of the “hypermodernity”, it analyzes the metamorphoses of the capitalism of consumption, called in its ultimate phase “company of hyperconsommation” and being characterized by the increasingly manifest colonization of the daily life by the marks and the paying exchange. In this age hypermarchand, émancipé of the old regulations of class asserts itself, increasingly unforeseeable a néo-consumer, décoordonné, mobile in his tastes and his purchases: a hyperconsommator less obsessed of standing than of permanent changes and emotional experiments, of quality of life, health and virtual call. For him, this company of hyperconsommation is that of “paradoxical happiness” because the greatest number is declared rather happy whereas it there forever have as many depressions, of evil of living, concerns, anxieties. The company of hyperconsommation would multiply the private pleasures but would be unable to make progress the love of life.

Exploring the various faces of the hypermodernity, G.L also analyzes with Jean Serroy to become to it culture per hour of the proliferation of the screens. Become ecranic the hypermodernity seems to sign the death of the cinema which was the first incarnation. However, this thesis is rejected, the time of the all-screen recording the greatest change never known of the cinema which was metamorphosed in hypercinéma. The age hypermoderne is that where all the screens are reprofilés by logic even cinema, i.e. the starification, the hyperspectacularisation, entertainment. From now on the cinema is everywhere, including where it is not, in the fashion, the luxury, the sport, the telereality, publicity, architecture, the looks, visual arts. And each one in this context tends to becoming object to be filmed and subject which films.

Here as in its other books, Lipovetsky points the dangers of the hyperindividualism, the commercial and cultural hypermodernity but without sinking in the catastrophism and radical pessimism. The world of the hyperconsommation, the " totale" mode; , of the " screen global" , of l" individualism extrême" is well " the worst of the scenarios, except for all autres".

Works

the era of the vacuum: Tests on contemporary individualism , Gallimard, 1983 (rééd.poche)
Empire of the transitory one: fashion and its destiny in the modern societies. Gallimard, 1987 (rééd.poche)
the Twilight of the duty , Gallimard, 1992 (rééd.poche)
the Third woman , Gallimard edition, 1997 (rééd.poche)
Metamorphoses of the liberal culture - Ethics, media, company, Montreal, Edition Liber, 2002.
the luxury eternal , (with Russet-red Elyette) editions Gallimard, 2003
times hypermodernes , Grasset editions, 2004 (réed pocket)
paradoxical happiness. Test on the company of hyperconsommation , Gallimard editions, 2006
the company of disappointment , editions Textual, 2006
the total screen. Culture-media and cinema at the age hypermoderne (with Jean Serroy), Threshold, 2007

Distinctions

Chevalier of the Legion of Honor
Docteur Honoris Causa of the University of Sherbrooke (Canada)
Docteur Honoris Causa of the new Bulgarian University (Sofia)

External bonds

Gilles Lipovetsky interviewed by Denis Failly for his book '' paradoxical happiness, test on the company of hyperconsommation ''

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