The Mystique of Esprit de Corps in France in the Twentieth Century

The traditional critique of esprit de corps in the name of egalitarianism and personal freedom never ran dry in France, contrary to the UK or the USA. While the idea of esprit de corps maintained its strong critical aspect for example in Zola’s J’accuse or later in Bourdieu, a certain mystique of esprit de corps emerged in Bergson and later in Deleuze & Guattari. Esprit de corps was a fundamental notion in Bergson’s The Two Sources of Morality and Religion,whichtransposed to philosophical discourse the individualist idea according to which only a few can innovate, while the masses need esprit de corps. Deleuze and Guattari, in Mille plateaux,proposed a ‘revolutionary’ laudative reading of esprit de corps in their influential chapter on the ‘war machine’. The authors opposed nationalist hegemonies and the state ideologies of grands ensembles by advocating a return to the esprit de corps of small-scale autonomist and creative communities.