Georges, you present yourself today as a mythologist: what is a mythologist ... and above all, a mythologist in the 21st century?
There are or have been famous mythologists such as Roland Barthes, who gave this definition of myths It is myths that make events intelligible, that transform reality into language. And today, in the digital age, we could add language as a reality. Humans have been thinking for 100,000 years, and their anxieties and hopes have remained the same ever since. They situate themselves in relation to the world, in relation to natural forces, in relation to some of their fellow human beings. And since time immemorial, these human beings, that is to say you and me, have always seen ourselves in relation to the same binary oppositions. Technology evolves, but human beings have the same way of thinking, which is reflected in a number of myths. "these stories that men believe to be true". that structure our minds. I'm a mythologist, but I'm also a specialist in brands, branding and the very specific marketing of brands. Most consultants work on ruptures; I work on continuities. When we unveil the myth behind a brand, three quarters of the work has already been done, because the myth pre-exists the brand; it is the myth that will drive the brand.
- Today you're tackling one of the oldest stories, that of Moses' flight from Egypt: why?
As a "mythical benchmark", I took the figure of Moses as the symbol of the leader who wants to try and free the world; Moses frees his people from slavery and brings both monotheism and rules for freeing life for human beings: the Sabbath day off, rules to protect against debts, rest of the land one year in seven...
Moses, like other leaders who later marked their era, went beyond the rules for "his" people to generate universal rules that are still in force. Steve Jobs, the other Moses and, like him, an orphan, not only freed computing from its cumbersome nature, but also freed people from the material world by spreading digital culture.
I wanted to write today, with yesterday's characters, to rewrite (always with this desire to show the continuity of human situations) the myth of the leader faced with all the hassles of 'normal' humans faced with a giant. My world is that of business. This Moses, who intuitively understands marketing and consumers, will be confronted by marketing people who want to apply worn-out formulas.
It's not easy to win against an organised company!
- Behind this new story of Moses lies transhumanism: isn't that the ultimate modern myth?
The "real" Moses freed humans from the powerful on earth, from Pharaoh, by substituting a single god in the sky, the only one before whom people can bow down. Steve Jobs frees people from matter. My Moses dreams of bringing humanity the end of death and in particular the end of suffering. Thanks to his discoveries, human beings will be able to live longer and in good health. This dream is undoubtedly the last human folly, the last dream of men who think they are gods and want to become eternal in their own way. But do they really want it? Or are they dreaming in the hope of achieving this unattainable goal?
If I had a single message to convey - authors often only have one thing to say - it would be that the human foundation rests on hope, that second instinct that undoubtedly differentiates us from animals. It is also our driving force. It doesn't matter if we live forever! But what extraordinary hope it is to be able to keep that dream alive, especially if we are convinced that we will never be able to achieve it. That's the beauty of the human tension between hope and the certainty that it's not possible. But hope all the same, the myth of myths!
