Vive la liberte: Georges Bernanos political thoughts and ideas May 5, 2018

India Insight

Lived from 1888-1948 Christian Writer, Political Agitator, Whistleblower, WWI Soldier, and Human rights defender
The French Catholic Novelist and Thinker Georges Bernanos was not just a free man, but he was indeed a man of the people, the greatest representation of France's coinciding spirit of liberty. For Bernanos, writing was indeed a transformative process for him and was emblematic of "individualism without selfishness," a value he wanted to proliferate among his entire audience so people do not merely settle to work out their own salvation without helping others.
He was certainly a man with one foot in the past and another in the future, represented by his place as a man of the "Declaration of Rights" a true explosion of hope as well as being a prophetic visionary of the crisis of conscience and civilization that was occurring and just what it was ultimately going to become. Bernanos knew that there was a conspiracy against the inner life of man, on conscience. Moreover, Bernanos knew all too well that to combat the negatives of legality, obedience, and conformity, man needed to take risks in the name of hope and freedom throughout history.
Similar to Indian spiritualist Osho, Bernanos echoed the notion that in the Age of Aquarius saints are meant first and foremost to be our friends, something he articulated in one of his last essays. As a man of common sense and reason, Bernanos was not only against systems and placing a constitution on his conscience, but he also understood the importance of the Bill of Rights to protecting individual liberty. Moreover, Bernanos, like Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, knew that constitutions can only truly function with the spirit of man and spirit of liberty (when there are enough free thinking persons in society willing to live up to the aspirations of liberty).