![\"Les](\"https:\/\/www.sciencespo.fr\/research\/cogito\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/non-fr\u00e8res-183x300.png\" "\\"Les")
<\/a>Does France, the so-called country of human rights, display exemplary equality? This is the question that R\u00e9jane S\u00e9nac seeks to answer in her book Non-brothers in the Land of Equality<\/i> (Les non fr\u00e8res au pays de l’\u00e9galit\u00e9) by analyzing \u201cFrench-style\u201d equality as a myth. Analyzing equality as a myth involves examining the contemporary implications of the conscious and unconscious legacies of the \u201cLiberty, Equality, Fraternity\u201d triptych. This approach focuses on a key question that addresses a blind spot: who are the brothers and who has been excluded from this republican fraternity \u2013 termed \u201cnon-brothers\u201d?<\/p>\nTo describe French-style equality as a myth is to recognize and condemn the idealization of an unrealized principle. This equality can be understood as a mythology along the lines defined by Roland Barthes: that is, as part of a hidden and depoliticized world of meaning.<\/p>\n
In order to break the taboo on the French Republic\u2019s original fraternal sin, she questions both the history and the modernity of the boundaries between \u201cbrothers\u201d and \u201cnon-brothers\u201d. Despite the fact that the Republic defines itself as \u201cone and indivisible\u201d, it has always classified and ranked citizens. It would therefore appear necessary to detect how this Republican paradox manifests itself today.<\/p>\n
According to S\u00e9nac current calls to strengthen fraternity in response to fears of segmentation and \u201csectarian breakdown\u201d of the population, reveal French society\u2019s blindness in pushing for a bond and unity under the term fraternity, which carries an exclusive conception of democracy.<\/p>\n
The temptation of equality subject to performance conditions <\/b><\/h3>\n
Does the dissemination of arguments in the public debate such as \u201cwomen do politics differently\u201d, \u201cmore women in corporate leadership positions add value\u201d and \u201cdiversity is good for business\u201d, reflect an effective and benevolent pragmatism with regard to non-brothers, or rather a conservative ideology reconfigured to appear more respectable?<\/p>\n
R\u00e9jane S\u00e9nac answers this question through a study of reports, speeches and qualitative research on public justifications for inclusion policies covering \u201cnon-brothers\u201d \u2013 the promotion of gender parity and of diversity for \u201cnon-whites\u201d. She thereby tests the hypothesis of cross-modernization of the myth of equality and of the complementarity of non-brothers.<\/p>\n
According to R\u00e9jane S\u00e9nac, the pragmatic dimension of the performance imperative for diversity should not obscure its political nature. In a context of crisis and distrust, the temptation is strong to portray equality policies as a social investment, without recognizing that equality then becomes subservient to demonstrating the performance of difference as a modern and pragmatic value.<\/p>\n
To overcome this temptation, R\u00e9jane S\u00e9nac analyzes the continuity between a historical process that excluded \u201cnon-brothers\u201d because of their alleged natural \u201clesser value\u201d (such as arguments justifying the exclusion of women from the right to vote) and the inclusion they are offered today because of the performance of diversity. She shows how and why it is a fallacy to believe that the end justifies the means without considering that the means determine the end.<\/p>\n
The time for resistance: Untethering equality from fraternity and from the market<\/h3>\n
R\u00e9jane S\u00e9nac believes that justifying equality policies with arguments citing the performance of diversity and anti-discrimination measures raises questions about scientific rigor, ideological reach and concrete consequences.<\/p>\n
The practical implications of this type of justification are twofold. First, when diversity demonstrably performs, non-brothers are included as complementary rather than as equals. Second, if the performance of equality or anti-discrimination measures cannot be demonstrated, then equality becomes an irrational option.<\/p>\n
Thus, according to R\u00e9jane S\u00e9nac, instead of sanctifying fraternity and seeking to rebuild it, the time has come to dismiss it, because it is excluding. Indeed, an alternative must be conceived to create a society without domination at both the individual and collective levels. To achieve this, a two-pronged resistance is needed to untether equality from fraternity and from the market.<\/p>\n
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