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Pascal Bruckner (; born 15 December 1948 in Paris) is a French writer, one of the " New Philosophers" who came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. Much of his work has been devoted to critiques of French society and culture.


Biography

Bruckner attended
Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
schools in his youth. After studies at the universities of Paris I and Paris VII Diderot, and then at the
École Pratique des Hautes Études École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...
, Bruckner became '' maître de conférences'' at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris and a contributor to the '' Nouvel Observateur''. Bruckner began writing in the vein of the '' nouveaux philosophes'' or New Philosophers. He published ''Parias'' (''Parias''), '' Lunes de fiel'' (''Evil Angels'') (adapted as a film by
Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański (; born 18 August 1933) is a Polish and French filmmaker and actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Roman Polanski, numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Britis ...
) and '' Les voleurs de beauté'' (The Beauty Stealers) ( Prix Renaudot in 1997). Among his essays are '' La tentation de l'innocence'' ("The Temptation of Innocence,"
Prix Médicis The Prix Médicis () is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by and .
in 1995) and, famously, '' Le Sanglot de l'homme blanc'' (''The Tears of the White Man''), an attack on narcissistic and destructive policies intended to benefit the Third World, and more recently '' La Tyrannie de la pénitence'' (2006), a book on the West's endless self-criticism, translated as "The Tyranny of Guilt" (2010). From 1992 to 1999, Bruckner was a supporter of the Croatian,
Bosniak The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia (region), Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who sha ...
and Albanian causes in the
Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of ...
, and endorsed the
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Serbia and Montenegro, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombing ...
in 1999. In 2003, he supported the
Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...
, but later criticized the mistakes of the U.S. military and the use of torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. In 2009, he signed a petition in support of Roman Polanski, calling for his release after Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.


''Le Sanglot de l'homme blanc''

'' Le Sanglot de l'homme blanc'' (''The White Man's Tears''), published by the Éditions le Seuil in May 1983, was a controversial opus. The author describes the anti-Western and pro-
Third-World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...
sentimentalism of the Left in the West. The essay had an influence on a whole trend of thought, especially on
Maurice Dantec Maurice Georges Dantec (; 14 June 1959 – 25 June 2016) was a French-born Canadian science fiction writer and musician. Biography Dantec was born in Grenoble, France, the son of a Journalism, journalist and a Sewing, seamstress. He grew up pri ...
and
Michel Houellebecq Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas on 26 February 1956) is a French author of novels, poems, and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker, and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. H ...
. The title is a variation on Kipling's " White Man's Burden".


''La Tyrannie de la pénitence''

Bruckner's 2006 work '' La Tyrannie de la pénitence: Essai sur le masochisme Occidental'' (''The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism'') focuses on the origin and political impact of the contemporary political culture of Western guilt.


Criticism of multicultural ethnocentrism

Bruckner's polemic stance against the ethnocentric nature of some discourses of
multiculturalism Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ''Pluralism (political theory), ethnic'' or cultura ...
has kindled an international debate.Pascal Bruckner
Enlightenment Fundamentalism or Racism of the Anti-Racists?
appeared originally in German in the online magazine '' Perlentaucher'' on 24 January 2007.
In an article titled "Enlightenment Fundamentalism or Racism of the Anti-Racists?", he defended Ayaan Hirsi Ali in particular against the criticisms from Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash. According to Bruckner, modern philosophers from Heidegger to Gadamer, Derrida, Max Horkheimer and
Theodor Adorno Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blue ...
have mounted a broad attack on the Enlightenment, claiming that "all the evils of our epoch were spawned by this philosophical and literary episode: capitalism, colonialism, totalitarianism." Bruckner agrees that the history of the twentieth century attests to the potential of modernity for fanaticism, but argues that the modern thought that issued from the Enlightenment proved capable of criticizing its own errors, and that "Denouncing the excesses of the Enlightenment in the concepts that it forged means being true to its spirit."


''Un bon fils''

Bruckner's book, ''Un bon fils'', was translated and published in English in 2016, under the title ''A Dutiful Son.'' It was first published in France in 2014. The memoir "charts his journey from pious Catholic child to leading philosopher and writer on French culture. The key figure in Bruckner's life is his father, a virulent anti-Semite, who voluntarily went to work in Germany during the Second World War. He is a violent man who beats his wife. The young Bruckner soon reacts against his father and his revenge is to become his polar opposite, even to the point of being happy to be called a ‘Jewish thinker’, which he is not. ‘My father helped me to think better by thinking against him. I am his defeat.’ Despite this opposition, he remains tied to his father to the very end. He has other ‘fathers’, men such as Sartre, Vladimir Jankélévitch and Roland Barthes who fostered his philosophical development, and describes his friendship with his ‘philosophical twin brother’,
Alain Finkielkraut Alain Luc Finkielkraut (; ; born 30 June 1949) is a French essayist, radio producer, and public intellectual. Since 1986, he has been the host of ''Répliques'', a talk show broadcast weekly on France Culture. He was elected a Fellow of the Ac ...
."


Books

*''Parias: roman'', Seuil, 1985, . *'' Lunes de fiel: roman'', Seuil, 1981, . *''Evil angels: a novel'', Grove Press, 1987, . *'' Les Voleurs de beauté: roman'', B. Grasset, 1997. *'' Le divin enfant: roman'', Seuil, 1992, . *''The Divine Child'', Rupa & Co., 2005, . *'' La tentation de l'innocence'', Grasset, 1995, . * *'' Le Sanglot de l'Homme blanc'', Éditions du Seuil, 1983; Simon & Schuster, 1986, . *'' The Tears of the White Man: Compassion As Contempt'', The Free Press, 1986, . *'' La Tyrannie de la pénitence: Essai sur le masochisme Occidental'' (''The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism''), Grasset, 2006, . * * *''The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse: Save the Earth, Punish Human Beings'', translator Steven Rendall = . *''The Paradox of Love'', translator Steven Rendall, Princeton University Press, 2012, . *''Has Marriage for Love Failed?'', translators Steven Rendall and Lisa Neal, Polity Books, 2013, . *''An Imaginary Racism: Islamophobia and Guilt'', translator Steven Rendall, Cambridge, UK, Medford, MA, Polity Books, 2018. *''They Stole our Beauty'', translator Stuart Bell, The 87 Press, 2019.


References


External links


''The Asterix complex''
interview with Pascal Bruckner at signandsight.com *

16 June 2008 * * On Islamic Terrorism: Interview for Croatian Television, November 2015 (French). http://www.hrt.hr/309915/vijesti/bruckner-za-hrt-dio-francuskih-muslimana-odlucio-se-odcijepiti-od-drustva {{DEFAULTSORT:Bruckner, Pascal Writers from Paris 1948 births Living people 20th-century French novelists 20th-century French male writers 21st-century French novelists French critics of Islam Critics of multiculturalism French agnostics Prix Médicis essai winners Prix Renaudot winners French male essayists French male novelists 20th-century French essayists 21st-century French essayists 21st-century French male writers New Philosophers