**Title**

Review: Nous sommes des révolutionnaires malgré nous. Textes pionniers de l'écologie politique [We are revolutionaries, however unintentionally. Pioneering texts in Political Ecology]

**Permalink**

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6p02k35b

**Journal**

Electronic Green Journal, 1(38)

**Author**

Laberge, Yves

**Publication Date**

2015

**DOI**

10.5070/G313826243

**Copyright Information**

Copyright 2015 by the author(s). All rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. Contact the author(s) for any necessary permissions. Learn more at https://escholarship.org/terms

Peer reviewed
Review: Nous Sommes des Révolutionnaires Malgré Nous. Textes Pionniers de l'écologie Politique [We are Revolutionaries, However Unintentionally. Pioneering Texts in Political Ecology]

By Bernard Charbonneau and Jacques Ellul

Reviewed by Yves Laberge

Centr'ERE Québec. G1V 0A6, Canada

Charbonneau, Bernard and Ellul, Jacques. *Nous sommes des révolutionnaires malgré nous. Textes pionniers de l'écologie politique [We are revolutionaries, however unintentionally. Pioneering texts in Political Ecology]*. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2014, 218 pp. ISBN 9782021163025, paperback. €18.00. This title is part of the *Anthropocène Series*. This text is written in French.

This new book reunites four rare (or unpublished) essays written individually or
conjointly by geographer Bernard Charbonneau (1910-1996) and philosopher Jacques
Ellul (1912-1994). Titled "We are revolutionaries, however unintentionally: Pioneering
texts in Political Ecology", these short essays were written in France between 1935 and
1945, thus its allusion to an unintentional revolutionary spirit and inspiration. No English
translations are available.

In the opening essay (in the form of a manifesto), Charbonneau and Ellul discuss issues
and social problems through critical lenses that derived from the philosophy of the
environment. The underlying concept for most of these essays is the sense of nature
("sentiment de la nature"), presented as a kind of admiration for landscapes and the
untouched nature (p. 124). Their overall sentiment regarding human actions is rather
critical although not Marxist, and partly influenced by Catholicism. In fact, only one text
is written conjointly; most essays only bear the unique signature of Bernard
Charbonneau.

In the following essays, Bernard Charbonneau comments on various naturalistic trends
and movements such as scoutism, rousseauisme, nudism, and others (p. 168). Within
the context of capitalism, they even criticize tourism as a "bourgeois derivation of the
sense of nature" (p. 156). Charbonneau questioned whether this sense of nature could
be inscribed within the Left or the Right (p. 112). Elsewhere, the author's critique of
common sense (p. 121), the myth of "progress" (p. 104) or the ideology of "progress" (p.
112) could seem simplistic for some 21st Century experts, but since these burgeoning
texts date from seven decades ago, they can be seen as pioneering within the field of
political ecology. Their overall attitude was best exemplified in the final speech from the
fall of 1945 in which Bernard Charbonneau tried to moderate the general sentiment of a
new technical prodigy as felt by the French media just after Hiroshima (p. 197). This
vertiginous quest for technical progress in the new emerging nuclear era was tempered
and nuanced with some basic preoccupations related to human dignity and resources for everyone (p. 214).

This lesser-known book could possibly be helpful for historians of environmental thought in search of other perspectives related to the ideals and critiques of nature prior to the mid-20th Century, when even the term “ecology” was not commonly used. It is obvious these essays contain some ideas that are still valid today in fields related to political ecology. For example in a text from 1937, Bernard Charbonneau even referred to new ideals such as vegetarianism, pacifism, and social justice (p. 169). One should remember that Charbonneau and Ellul’s early exposés were not very popular outside France in the late 1930s, a troubled era when France had to face war and Occupation. Nevertheless, some of their intuitions can now be seen as innovative from a philosophical point of view. Perhaps some readers expecting more thoughts from Jacques Ellul might be disappointed to only find here one essay co-written by this influential philosopher and prolific writer.

Yves Laberge, PhD., <yves.laberge.1@ulaval.ca>, Centre de recherche en éducation et formation relatives à l'environnement et à l'écocitoyenneté – Centr'ERE Québec. G1V 0A6, Canada

Electronic Green Journal, Issue 38, Spring 2015, ISSN: 1076-7975