The utopian movement Koogle
KOOGLE PEOPLE
March 7, 2006
People have seen fit to put their names down, to create a page allowing access to their possessions, their material situation. They do this of their own accord. It will be an interesting experiment. For Koogle, a modern utopia serving as a manifesto, to “work,” it would be necessary for people earning more than the minimum wage—and even well-known individuals, especially those who play the role of good apostles—to have the courage to “speak up.” Will they do so? In France, people are very discreet about their income. In any case, this is an idea one might call “philosophical.” Imagine if this became a law, a requirement: that everyone be obliged to reveal to anyone who asks the state of their possessions, assets, income, and expenses; that this demand for transparency applied not only to ordinary folks, or increasingly to “people on the street,” but also to the wealthy, the privileged—including those who make use of their talents by giving much of themselves (both literally and in a “Christian” sense: the parable of the talents), as well as those who are mere parasites and profit-seekers. Imagine it affecting banking networks, businesses, credit agencies, institutional bodies, and obviously the political world and the media. Imagine that, suddenly, all masks must fall. Our French society would become a pariah. That would be far worse than avian flu. Capital would flee to regions of the globe where money could find a more peaceful refuge and “prosper in peace.” Our economic, political, and social world is one of secrecy, of utter opacity. Only what one decides to show becomes visible, often because one knows impunity is guaranteed.
I’ll include anyone who wants to, including foreigners. Koogle is an international-scale utopia. But I suspect that those willing to take part in what my first “client” called a “game” will be just the outcasts of our society. That would merely highlight further the misery we’re sinking into. Another reader told me (and, a humble retiree, he didn’t earn a fortune): “If people reveal the extent of their wealth, they risk becoming targets for kidnappings and ransom demands?” A frightening realization. Not only are social inequalities spreading in our world, but does this mean soon the world will be divided into two groups: those who extort and those who are extorted, or at risk of being extorted? True, recent tragedies testify to the emergence of this phenomenon, worthy of the worst sci-fi movies. Are we sliding toward “a criminal society” where there are only two kinds of criminals: those living in the slums, in the suburbs, and “tie-and-shirt” types who plunder and extort, feet on their carpets, fingers on their computer keyboards; both assured of some degree of impunity—the former because prisons are full and police overburdened, the latter because prisons aren’t meant for them.
We’re sliding toward a society without laws, without rights, worshipping the golden calf, advocating cutthroat competition; its only truly structured and organized counterweight is made up of people practicing a certain form of charity where it’s tragically and scandalously absent, but who, in return, propose medieval and rigid structures; and when they push their dogma to delirium, they behead, as recently happened in Afghanistan, a teacher who dared teach little girls.
Once upon a time I made a lithograph of a street in old Montmartre, Rue Chevalier de la Barre. I didn’t know his story. He had his head cut off on July 1, 1776, in his town of Abbeville. The sentence was pronounced. Justice followed procedure. This sentence, handed down in Abbeville, was confirmed on appeal at the Paris Parliament. King Louis XV, “the beloved,” refused to grant mercy to this 19-year-old aristocrat. Before being beheaded, de la Barre underwent torture, the boot. His tongue and hands were cut off; his body burned.
His crime: blasphemy. In Abbeville, a statue of Christ had been damaged with knives; communion wafers broken and desecrated by youths. Calls for denunciation were issued during Sunday services. Thus, decrees issued by Louis XIV in 1666 and 1670 were enforced: any desecrator must have his upper lip cut off and be placed in the pillory; repeat offenders would have their tongues cut off. Those who, by their actions, “wished to kill God in his representation” had to die.
Doesn’t this remind you of anything? Before condemning, shouldn’t we briefly recall history?
Rumors circulated. The young Chevalier de la Barre and his friends hadn’t uncovered themselves, hadn’t knelt ostentatiously at the passing of a religious procession. He was arrested based on denunciations. A copy of Voltaire’s Portable Philosophical Dictionary, published in 1764, was found in his possession (Voltaire, despite his protections, now prefers to deny authorship!). De la Barre denied everything. Members of “the gang,” aged 15, managed to escape. Another “confessed his impiety.” But the denunciations sufficed to send de la Barre to the stake.
That happened here, just over two centuries ago.
I saw a program recounting the life of Jean-François Champollion. As we know, he discovered the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Jean-François Champollion 1791–1823
Of modest origins and penniless, he wished to be sent on a mission to Egypt to document inscriptions, accompanied by a team of artists. He got funding only in 1828, on the express condition that he publish nothing about his discoveries that might challenge the Biblical account of the flood—which could destabilize Church authority. Forced to honor his promise, he died of exhaustion in 1823; his findings were made public only after his death, thanks to his brother.
That happened here, 183 years ago.
Researcher Michel Bounias died in 2003 from cancer (link). That was three years ago. His research focused on the impact of insecticides on the main pollinator: the bee. Twenty years earlier, he was one of the first to sound the alarm, but went unheard. He also studied the impact of nuclear radiation on plants, working for the CEA. His death went unreported by any print or broadcast media. In 1981, he analyzed a supposed UFO landing in Trans-en-Provence, Var. He showed that this phenomenon caused a massive disturbance in the pigment structure of alfalfa (measurements taken every meter, up to ten meters from the event’s epicenter, observed by retired Renato Nicolaï); this correlation with distance was unbelievable (correlation coefficient: 0.965), totally inexplicable. No chemical “effector” capable of reproducing the phenomenon could be found. Bounias spoke, published, dared assert that these analyses favored the material reality of the object—two-meter-diameter—that an Italian-born retiree saw perform a “touch and go” on his property. Fierce repression immediately descended upon him, amidst general indifference. As Rémy Chauvin used to say:
“– We often criticize the morals of our university-research milieu. One shouldn’t exaggerate. It never goes beyond murder!”
Nowadays we no longer crucify or burn people. We despair, we strangle silently amid general indifference and ignorance. Bounias, research director at the National Institute of Agronomy, was stripped of his equipment, staff, and premises; confined for life to a single office. I see no way his “long illness” can be separated from this witch-hunt I endured, along with my companion Jacques Benveniste, who was killed on the spot, targeted for over a quarter-century. In 2006, Sillard, founder of Gepan in 1977 (thirty years of flawless inactivity), and now of Geipan, admitted to me in January 2006 that “he wasn’t aware of this deplorable turn of events.” I believe him. And I’d say that’s the worst part.
On all levels—economic, scientific, ecological, genetic, medical, religious—we’re increasingly sliding toward a duality:
(corruption, selfishness, cynicism, irresponsible laissez-faire) – (retrograde, obscurantist orthodoxy)
And no one seems truly aware of this, or willing to face the truth.
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