Michel Serres does not put humans at the centre or pinnacle of evolution. He invented a neologism biogea to produce a levelling ground for all creation. The gea refers to the earth and bio to all forms life including human life. He derives the meaning of the word nature from it’s Latin root-natura which means natal-which itself indicates rebirth. In biogea, he says that we have to end the game of masters and slaves that we play among ourselves as well as with the earth and its inhabitants. It is because of this that nature is reduced for humans alone. Nature can go on without humans. This parasitic relation has put us into precarious situation. It has arrived on the shoulders of social contract. Social contract has been a mixed bag. It has alienated humans from other humans, non-humans, the earth and the divine. The social contract and its allied notion, the state of nature that warrants the need of a social contract as in the case of Thomas Hobbes to escape a Leviathan society unfortunately produces a human monster driven by profit who is oppressing the poor and weak humans and the non-human community of the earth. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s positive positioning of the state of nature as an era before the fall from its grace also does not help much as he says that it is not possible to return to the benevolent state of nature. He seems to indicate that humanity is condemned to the condition that is fallen from the state of nature. One can easily decode his defeatist view if one listens to him saying, ‘ man is born free but finds himself in chains everywhere’.
Although , we cannot find a linguistic parallel in the teachings of Pope Francis with the radical thinking of Serres, we can still locate some conceptual and notional resonance between them. Pope’s doubling of the cry of the earth with the cry of the poor in Laudato Si already rings in the ugly and deadly consequences of the unilateral parasitical relations that are taught by Serres. The unearthing of the human roots of the ecological crises that is threatening us today, manifests how the holy father’s views can be interpreted as one that accept the failure of the social contract and we can also say that his championing of integral ecology seems to be tilting to the natural contract taught by Serres. Pope also is concerned with the rapidifcation of our society but stops short of taking it further by placing it into realm of the need to sign a new global compact on education. Serres on the other hand, thinks that due to the rapidification and digitalization, the classroom that was modelled unto the cave of Plato has broken down. The children who were chained to the rows and bound by the discipline of the time table are no longer wanting to be bound to the cave of the classroom and they move out of the caves on the wings of digital world to face the sun of knowledge rising on their thumbs. This is why Serres names the present generation as Thumbelinas and says they are walking like the proverbial decapitated Archbishop Dennis of Paris with the head in their hands. To Serres humanity has outsourced their head to the computer. Our memory, computational ability and even understanding is extended into the computer. This is why he thinks that our children are walking headlessly with the computer ( head ) in their hands. Pope Francis on the other hand still believes in the classroom that we might say in modelled on the cave of Plato. His invitation to sign the global compact on education is driving this home. But he wishes it to be more inclusive and become an educational village. We can see this taking concrete shape in his invitation to the representative of world religions, exponents of international organizations and various humanitarian institutions from the economic, cultural, academic, and political world to sign the global compact of education to build new humanism.
Serres even moves further when says that humanity has leaped into hominescence. Hominescence is a neologism, thanks to which Serres is able to express the fact that for the first time humanity in history is no longer inheriting its condition but has begun to produce it by entering a new relationship with one’s body ( subjective dimension), the world ( objective dimension) and the other humans ( collective dimension). It is because of human exceptionality which the holy father calls for courage to put human at the centre that does not ignore the interconnectivity of everything in our common home as well as do away with the throw away culture of the capital driven world we are confident to respond to the crisis that is facing us. Serres wishes to build a political ecology through his natural contract while holy father puts integral ecology as the goal for humanity. Thus, although there are differences between the two, we can still see lines of convergence between Serres and Pope Francis. They have several converging nodes and junctions that are manifesting ontological permeability of the new humanism of Pope Francis and the Post-humanist humanism of Serres.
Both of Pope Francis and Serres seem to tend toward a post- of the social contract thinking of modernity and invite us to the original contract or covenant with creation or nature. Serres says that it is the nature that needs humans today. We may see a similar note ringing when the holy father speaks of the cry of the earth. It is by signing the natural contract that the old subject/object asymmetry will be dissolved and interweaving relationships between humans, earth and its inhabitants will be established and become operational. This is why we have the challenge to move post- of the modernist exclusivism and acosmism and embrace the logic of a symbiote by living a life of fidelity to the natural contract. Both Pope Francis and Serres seem to agree that this life of fidelity to the natural contract is the only chance of humanity’s survival.
