All centaurs – Praise of hybridization, from Gabrielle Halpern – Le Pommier/Nouvelle Édition editions, 2025 – 176 pages (first date of publication: February 12, 2020)
To all bastards, all the half -breeds, all the centaurs, all the sirens, to all variegated, heterogeneous, variegated, crossed and mixed beings, who have always heard themselves that they did not have or that they had too much identity (s), it is high time to ensure that you have the right to exist … “
Gabrielle Halpern, doctor of philosophy, offers a reflection on hybridization as a major principal of the 21st century. By relying on the mythological figure of the centaur-half-man, halfway-it develops a powerful metaphor: we would now be all “centaurs” in a world that is no longer made of waterproof categories, but fertile mixtures.
The book explores how hybridizations – between sectors, professions, cultures, technologies, disciplines – transform our societies, our organizations and our identities. Rather than seeing a threat or confusion, the author praises it and defends the need to cultivate this Centauric spirit to invent the future.
For the author, we live today in a time when everything is mixed: professions, cultures, technologies, lifestyles. Hybridization is no longer an exception, but the rule. However, we often continue to want to store things in well -ordered boxes. Halpern, on the contrary, invites us to learn to accept – and even cultivate – these friction and interbreeding areas.
The image of the centaur illustrates concretely what Morin calls the complex dialectic: the coexistence of heterogeneous elements which do not merge into each other, but create a living unity. The centaur is neither only a horse nor only a man: he is both, in a dynamic relationship. In the same way, complexity does not remove the differences, but articulates them. This is why Halpern values ​​hybridization: it obliges to think about the relationship, the tension, the incompletion. It makes uncertainty a creative resource.
His book is a praise of “creative disorder”, a plea to embrace complexity and invent new ways of thinking, working and living together.
The author develops a reflection that combines philosophy, economics and sociology, without ever losing sight of very concrete examples. Here are some essential points to remember:
The power of the metaphor of centaur
The centaur symbolizes duality, the cohabitation of two realities that everything apparently opposes. He reminds us that purity is a myth and that wealth is born from crossing. This figure becomes the common thread which sheds light on the transformation of our societies.
Hybridization as a 21st century engine
The author shows that hybridization affects all areas: the workplaces are transformed into third places that combine offices, cultural spaces and shops, professional careers become multiple and non-linear, technologies combine with our most daily gestures. In this context, hanging on fixed categories amounts to denying reality.
Complexity as a condition of reality
Edgar Morin has devoted most of his research to show that reality is multiple, woven from interactions and contradictions. He opposes complexity to simplification, that is to say the tendency of Western thought to isolate, cut and reduce phenomena to a single explanatory factor. In the method, He writes:
“You have to learn to link what is disjoined and to distinguish what is confused. »»
Gabrielle Halpern is in this same line. Its centaur is precisely a complex figure, which refuses evidence, binary and purity. The hybridization she defends is an assumed form of complexity: accepting that things and beings are in tension, in motion, and never perfectly stored in clear categories.
Complexity against the temptation of simplism
Halpern denounces a “temptation of purity”: the need to classify realities according to closed and reassuring huts. This temptation joins what Edgar Morin calls simplifying thought, that which eliminates ambiguity and contradiction to reassure itself. From the perspective of Morin as in that of Halpern, this simplism is dangerous: it prevents to grasp interconnections (for example, between technological innovation and social issues), it produces decisions unsuitable for a moving world, it creates conflicts where gateways are needed.
Halpern proposes to oppose a thought of reliance, which accepts complexity as horizon.
A plea against boxes and partitions
Halpern criticizes the tendency to want to separate everything: the private of the professional, the analog of digital, the old of the new. According to her, it is an impoverishing vision. She invites everyone to accept uncertainty, to confront the discomfort caused by hybridization, because this is where new ideas are born.
A philosophy of plasticity and invention
What makes the subject living is that it is not only an observation. The author proposes a true philosophy of transformation: to be a centaur is to be curious, capable of reinventing oneself, of creating bridges between universes that were believed to be irreconcilable.
Concrete tracks for tomorrow
Finally, the book opens up perspectives: how to design more flexible organizations? How to train individuals who will sail in complexity? How can we prevent the technique from replacing humans, but on the contrary enrich him?
How does the praise of hybridization complete Morin’s thought?
You could say that All Centaurs Extend the complex thinking by making it more accessible and endowing it with a strong image. The centaur becomes a modern symbol of what Morin calls dialogic: “Two opposite logics which not only clash, but associate to produce a new reality. »»
By deepening the theme of complexity, we see how the book by Gabrielle Halpern dialogues with Edgar Morin: both refuse the simplification and artificial separation of knowledge. Both invite you to think of reality as a fabric of interactions and contradictions. Both encourage cultivating intellectual flexibility and inventiveness. If Morin offers a method to “think of complexity”, Halpern offers a living and inspiring metaphor to live it: that of the centaur in each of us.
All Centaurs is both a philosophical essay and a guide to better understand and live in the coming world. Gabrielle Halpern defends a simple, but deep idea: hybridization is not a weakness, it is a force. It is the key to inventing new solutions and building more open and more creative societies.
It is a book that encourages you to go off the beaten track and embrace complexity with confidence and curiosity.
Doctor of philosophy, associate researcher and graduate of the École normale supérieure, Gabrielle Halpern worked in several ministerial firms, before participating in the development of startups and advisor to companies and public institutions.
