"forward", to say "we still can".

"Forward" was Barack Obama's campaign slogan, a fitting and very contemporary one. More than a slogan, it is a call to mobilise, to energise, to conquer, to fight against defeatism and fatalism.

When times are hard, there is a great temptation to stop, to freeze in immobility, both disillusioned with the future and nostalgic for the past. But the past can also be a strength, a foundation, an inspiration to build and build again, on solid foundations.

There is a great temptation to try desperately to preserve what has been achieved, dreaming it to be immutable, in a world that cannot be immobile, neither economically, politically nor physiologically. Life is a movement, a succession of strata, geological, genealogical too.

Barack Obama's 2012 campaign slogan "Forward" is apt and very contemporary.

More than a slogan, it is a call for mobilisation, for energy, for conquest, for the fight against defeatism and fatalism, for collective and individual responsibility, and finally for goodwill.

We will not find innovative solutions from a social, economic or ecological point of view by looking backwards, by turning in on ourselves.

This is also why, a few weeks ago, I wrote that I preferred the idea of "made in France" to that of "made by France", which encompassed it and, above all, was more in keeping with a spirit of conquest rather than defence, of strength and affirmation rather than withdrawal. It is amusing in retrospect to note that this article was spotted by Yale University and translated into their publications, perhaps because of this more Anglo-Saxon state of mind.

"Forward', for a banner rather than a barricade, a standard carried on the front lines. When Obama calls "forward" he is carrying the star-spangled banner, he is saying both "follow me" and "stand up".

But this "forward" must not be just a heroic, desperate charge, throwing its last forces into a thick fog, it must set a course, a horizon, a perspective. And this ambition does not necessarily require knowing in advance in detail all the means to achieve it.

When Kennedy launched the Apollo programme, challenging America to walk on the moon, he did not know how. Too often today we self-censor our ambitions by trying to control them in advance, and this tends to discourage us before we even begin to face our great contemporary challenges. Mark Twain warned us, however, that our ambitions do not always have to be rational: "they didn't know it was impossible, so they did it".

We are condemned to be ambitious, to move forward. From the 15th to the 20th century we conquered space. From Christopher Columbus to America, to Vasco da Gama to the Indies; from Auguste Piccard and Jacques-Yves Cousteau to the depths, to Hillary and Tenzing on the roof of the world and then Gagarin and Armstrong to space; From Richard Byrd, Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Jean-Louis Etienne towards the ice zones to Haroun Tazieff towards the volcanic abysses; from Max Planck towards the infinitely small of quantum physics to Hubert Reeves towards the infinitely large, we have explored and pushed back the limits of our frontiers. Even if they remain infinite,

We are now like Jim Carrey in 'The Truman show': we are running up against the limits of our globe, which is also our bubble.

Having conquered the surroundings, we must now manage the common home, to live there sustainably and harmoniously with each other. We must conquer time, not to lengthen it but to last, not on the scale of a lifetime but on the scale of humanity, by finding new technological and ecological resources, new habits of living together socially, that is to say, of living with the other, and even thanks to the other, and not against the other, as both the extreme right and the extreme left movements may call for.

However, moving forward is a struggle, a fight, sometimes a test, which requires enthusiasm, faith and perseverance, and above all, which requires us to project ourselves into a project, into a future, in order to move forward.

Because the future must be made desirable in order to move forward, forward!

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First edition: May 2012 / edito #61 on atlantico