Adorno interculturel. La langue comme idéologie dans la pensée arabe contemporaine (original) (raw)

In this paper, I will discuss the discourse of authenticity in contemporary Arab thought as a cultural pathology and its ideologized concepts and idioms, such as heritage, identity, and origin. It is a vocabulary that is strongly present in the public arena, in the speeches of politicians, in the press, in school curricula and party programs, and, of course, in religious discourse. Without casting a shadow, this ideological vocabulary has left no place in society and its institutions, practices, and values. And when I say authenticity jargon, an expression I borrow from Theodor Adorno, I mean to say that it is linked to an alienating and utopian conception of authenticity, hostile to the logic of modern society. In other words, the exaggeration of its use and its sacralization corresponds to a process of alienation from reality and retreat in the face of the challenges of modernity.