Why do we see snow on mountaintops that are closer to the Sun but not near the ground? – Ms. Drews’ third grade class, Beechview Elementary School, Farmington Hills, Michigan
There’s not much better than a bluebird day in the mountains – a crisp, sunny day accompanied by a fresh blanket of snow. But why doesn’t the Sun quickly melt all that high altitude snow away?
It all boils down to our atmosphere, which is what I research as a scientist in Colorado. Let’s dive in!
Our atmosphere: Earth’s armor
Earth’s atmosphere begins right at its surface and extends to outer space, and it is filled with a mixture of many different gases. Gases in the atmosphere include the oxygen we breathe and the water vapor that makes it rain and snow. They are essential to supporting life on Earth in several ways.
One of the most important jobs those gases have is to protect us from harmful things in space, including our closest star: the Sun.
The Sun’s radiation provides heat to our planet, but too much of it can be a problem. If you’ve ever gotten a sunburn, then you’re already familiar with this idea.
Gases in the atmosphere warm the Earth by trapping heat close to the planet’s surface. Too much of those greenhouse gases can cause global temperatures to rise beyond normal and stay high. Climate Central, CC BY
Some of our atmospheric gases limit the amount of radiation from the Sun that can reach the Earth’s surface by absorbing some of it, which prevents temperatures from being way too warm in the daytime. At night, certain atmospheric gases also trap some of the heat that the Earth’s surface releases as it cools down, protecting us from unsurvivable cold.
The way the atmosphere regulates Earth’s temperatures is known as the greenhouse effect. You’ll often hear this term used alongside climate change or global warming. That is because global warming is caused by enhancing the greenhouse effect: As people burn fossil fuels in cars and factories, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases. These extra gases allow the Earth’s atmosphere to trap more heat, causing an increase in temperatures.
The atmosphere likes to stay grounded
If you were to compare the Earth’s atmosphere along a Caribbean beach to that surrounding the top of Mount Everest, it would look quite different.
That is because as you go higher up in the atmosphere, it gets “thinner,” meaning that there are less gases present at higher elevations and altitudes.
There are more atmospheric gas molecules present at lower altitudes, closer to sea level. But as you go higher in the mountains, atmospheric pressure and the density of air molecules decrease. It’s why climbers on Mount Everest need oxygen tanks.
In the same way that gravity keeps people and objects from flying away to outer space, Earth’s gravitational force pulls on the gases in our atmosphere, trying to keep them as close to Earth as possible.
As a result, there are fewer gas molecules in the atmosphere as you go higher up in altitude, making the air thinner, or less dense. Humans can sometimes experience altitude sickness at high elevations because there is less oxygen present in the air as a result of this phenomenon.
Closer to the Sun, but still cold and snowy?
Our high-elevation mountains protrude into higher altitudes of the atmosphere, where the air has fewer gas molecules. While this thinner air allows more of the Sun’s radiation to pass through compared with the atmosphere at sea level, thinner air tends to be colder for two reasons:
Second, a thinner atmosphere is less effective at maintaining heat because there are fewer molecules available to trap and hold on to heat.
Colder temperatures can create more opportunities for precipitation to fall in the form of snow rather than rain, which is why some mountains can be so snowy.
And if the ground is habitually covered in snow, as is the case in many mountain ranges, it can be even easier to maintain cooler temperatures. That’s because snow-covered surfaces are very reflective, making them highly effective at causing the Sun’s incoming rays to bounce back toward space instead of getting absorbed by the ground.
So if you visit the mountains to have fun in the snow, be sure to pack your jacket, but don’t forget that sunscreen too.
Allie Mazurek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sara Bannerman, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Communication Policy and Governance, McMaster University
Federal political parties are in the process of exempting themselves, retroactively, from a law that would require them to be governed by the same privacy principles as other organizations.
Parties may make political inferences and use the data to decide who to target with ads, who to exclude, whose doors to knock on and which ones to walk by.
The B.C. ruling is critical because no federal law requires federal parties to comply with the privacy principles that businesses and governments must follow. Federal parties have been in a years-long court battle to keep it that way.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gary Weatherill’s ruling that federal political parties are subject to the B.C. law was centred on three provincial residents who filed complaints in 2019. They accused three federal parties — the Liberals, New Democrats and Conservatives — of refusing to disclose or inadequately disclosing how they collected and used their personal data.
The parties argued the provincial law did not apply to federal political parties. They lost, and the case is under appeal.
Citing the constitutional principle of co-operative federalism, Weatherill ruled that both federal and provincial privacy laws could apply to federal political parties. Federal law did not override provincial law, the decision said, and the parties’ privacy policies could comply with both regimes at the same time without undermining the purpose of either.
With the prospect of further losing this court battle on appeal, the federal parties have banded together in an effort to retroactively change the law.
Exempting themselves
Bill C-4 would prevent provincial and territorial privacy laws from applying to federal parties and would apply retroactively all the way back to the year 2000. If successful, federal political parties wouldn’t be subject to either the basic privacy principles or third-party oversight that governments and businesses, big and small, are subject to.
Under C-4, federal political parties would not “be required to comply” with provincial or territorial privacy laws. B.C. and Québec laws do, at the moment, apply to political parties. They provide some of the only privacy protections applying to political parties in all of Canada.
If Canadians want privacy rights to apply to federal political parties, there is almost nobody to vote for who will support those rights. The federal parties and virtually all MPs are acting as a united front against Canadian voters’ privacy rights — fighting against those rights together in the courts and almost unanimously passing C-4 in third reading (with the exception of Green leader Elizabeth May).
If there has ever been a moment for the Senate to act as a check on political parties using their majority to legislate in their own self-interest — exempting themselves from laws that apply to everyone else — this was it.
The sunset clause would reverse C-4’s privacy exemption measures, potentially making federal parties once again subject to provincial privacy laws in three years.
Senators failed to go further to insist that the privacy exemptions for federal parties in Bill C-4 be entirely removed. Doing so would have allowed the provincial laws that provide virtually the only privacy protection Canadians currently have against federal political parties to continue to apply.
It would have also allowed the B.C. complainants’ court case to proceed — likely all the way to the Supreme Court, where Canadians’ privacy rights might have been upheld and the case might have shed light on the data federal parties collect.
If the sunset clause is retained, it means at least three more years of political parties working with data companies, harvesting and using unknown troves of personal data with no real accountability.
Sen. Pierre Dalphond’s stated purpose regarding the sunset clause was to put the onus on the government and the three political parties to come up with a meaningful privacy regime for federal political parties within a fixed time frame.
Anyone who’s optimistic that will happen has not been watching the parties fight tooth and nail to collect, keep and hide our data.
Sara Bannerman receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and McMaster University. She has previously received funding from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s Contributions Program and the Digital Ecosystem Research Challenge.
Since the 2010s, breakthroughs in AI have prompted discussion about their implications for work, including a possible “workless” future. Those forecasted to face replacement are no longer only the lower-skilled, but also professionals, once viewed as impervious to technological automation.
The commercialisation of imaging AI models is also fierce: between 1995 and 2024, 950 AI products were authorised by the US Food and Drug Administration, among which 723 were imaging-related. Of these 723, 690 were authorised between 2016 and 2024, compared with only 33 over 20 years from 1995 to 2015.
AI has long been discussed as a threat to jobs and livelihoods. But what’s the reality? In this new series, we explore the impact it is already having on different occupations – and how people really feel about their AI assistants.
The pace of innovation has provoked intense debates about the impact on healthcare professionals, particularly radiologists – doctors specialised in medical imaging. In 2016, Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton argued that people should stop training radiologists altogether as AI would outperform them by 2021. This hasn’t happened as yet. Others see AI functioning as an autopilot, deployed to help alongside radiologists.
I wanted to understand how and why AI products are developed, adopted, and used, and what the implications are for professionals. It led me to investigate two use cases in the NHS and to hear directly from radiologists and related health professionals.
Detecting breast and brain abnormalities
The AI products I looked at are designed to detect abnormalities such as tumours or vessel blockages on breast X-rays and brain CT scans, which are crucial indications for breast cancer and stroke.
Although the breast X-rays AI is intended to automate image analysis, in reality, both are only used to support decisions made by consultant-level professionals. This is partly because current UK regulationsblock automation due to a lack of high-quality evidence supporting its effectiveness.
When using AI, professionals are not so impressed with its performance either. While hospital auditing can suggest AI accuracy might be better than professionals’ perceptions, AI results often contradict judgements they believe to be correct. Without further analysis of which represents the “reality” better, we can only say that AI’s analysis can differ from that of a human.
The AI is theoretically useful, but actually in practice … I found it not as accurate as, or doesn’t necessarily correlate with, what my analysis would be (Dr A, consultant neuroradiologist).
[An image]… comes through, where [AI] has clearly interpreted bone, which is white on CT, as being blood, which is also white on CT (Dr D, consultant stroke physician).
Professionals can tell when AI is making mistakes in most cases, but they can also be biased – not only against but in favour of AI, regardless of whose analysis is better. Being selective about AI outcomes is becoming a crucial new skill in itself for professionals.
… it’s very easy to look at that [the pictures] face value and say, ‘OK, this is what it’s telling me, and therefore this is correct’.
… but you need to be able to selectively choose what is relevant, and that is a skill in itself – not to get overwhelmed by the information that you’re given and to know what is relevant (Dr A, consultant neuroradiologist).
As decision-supporting tools, AI doesn’t currently replace any tasks that professionals have been doing, though it does augment practices in certain ways.
When it [AI] picks up any abnormalities, it makes us think twice, basically to make sure that that area is either abnormal or not abnormal (Dr S, consultant stroke physician).
Sometimes I have missed very small areas, for example, and the AI has picked it up (Dr J, consultant stroke physician).
Yuxuan Wu presents her work at University of Birmingham 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition.
Reducing the workload
Considering the pace of AI improvement and an increasing number of trials, automation is possible, but mostly likely to be at a task-level, which can reduce the workload of image analysis for radiologists. Given a current workforce shortage, this would ease training and recruitment pressure, rather than creating redundancies.
We’re so grossly understaffed in the UK for radiology that, I don’t think we need a reduction [of radiologists]. We probably don’t need a huge amount more [radiologists], because the diagnostic work will slowly drop off (Dr D, consultant stroke physician).
The potential automation of image analysis could also be beneficial for interventional radiology, which uses real-time imaging techniques to guide live procedures such as tumour removal and emergency treatments such as blood clot removal during stroke.
[AI] is very useful for streamlining the workload for stroke intervention, and also for aneurysm work (Dr L, consultant interventional neuroradiologist).
However, by altering the type and number of images professionals analyse annually, task-level automation could pose challenges for professionals in acquiring and retaining skills, which are still needed for more complex tasks.
That’s a big worry … If AI does all the easy stuff, you don’t know what normal looks like anymore, and that becomes difficult, because you should be trained on what’s normal, or a combination of both [normal and abnormal] .
If AI automates half the analysis, you become less good at assessing, because you’re not seeing so many and not so familiar with the bigger range (Dr J, consultant breast radiologist).
The intertwining, non-linear relationship between medical imaging work and AI observed in my research mirrors situations in other sectors. Early findings from sectors such as accounting, finance and manufacturing show that, instead of mass replacement, the structure and practices of work are changing with AI at a pace and intensity that is much gentler than many predicted. Not only is there a lack of evidence supporting a net job loss due to AI, but benefits such as efficiencies or perceived workload reductions, were also found to be strongest with moderate AI use, than non-or-excessive use, in this pre-print study.
More research is needed to fully understand the future of work, but for now, apocalyptic predictions about professions in an AI era seem to be still some way off.
Yuxuan Wu is the Editor’s Choice award winner in Vitae’s 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition sponsored by The Conversation UK.
Yuxuan Wu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Millions of women go through pregnancy every year, yet science has only just begun to look at what it does to the brain – the organ undergoing perhaps the most remarkable transformation. Over the past decade, a small group of scientists in Spain and the Netherlands has been mapping those changes in unprecedented detail.
The researchers scanned the brains of 127 first-time mothers five times: once before conception, twice during pregnancy, and again at one and six months after giving birth. It is the largest study of its kind ever conducted.
Brain imaging studies that follow the same people across pregnancy – with scans before conception and after birth – are extraordinarily difficult to run. Researchers must identify women planning to conceive, begin scanning before pregnancy begins, and then track them across months of physiological upheaval.
When a landmark 2017 study published in Nature Neuroscience first showed that pregnancy changes the brain’s structure, it included 25 first-time mothers. The new study has more than five times that number. This is a substantial leap.
What these 127 women’s brains showed was consistent and striking. Grey matter – the part of the brain densely packed with nerve cells – decreased by nearly 5% in several regions involved in emotion, empathy and social perception during pregnancy, reaching its lowest point in the final weeks before birth.
“I like to use the metaphor of pruning a tree,” Professor Susana Carmona, co-lead author of the study, recently told the BBC. “Some of the branches are cut to make it grow more efficiently.”
After delivery, it began to regain volume, around 3.4% by six months after giving birth. This pattern of change appeared across almost the entire surface of the brain, and it was seen in all women in the study without exception.
Crucially, this pattern did not appear in women who became parents during the study period without going through pregnancy themselves – for example, same-sex partners who were co-parenting a newborn but had not carried the baby. This suggests the observed brain changes are driven by the biology of pregnancy itself, rather than simply by the anticipation of becoming a parent.
The researchers also measured hormone levels and found that two forms of oestrogen tracked the brain changes closely, rising as grey matter volume fell and then declining sharply after birth when the placenta is delivered.
This connection between hormones and brain structure bridges decades of research in mice, where increased hormone levels during pregnancy have long been known to rewire the maternal brain and switch on caring behaviour.
Does the grey matter volume ever fully return?
In their most recently published study, the researchers found that at six months, some grey matter recovery continued. An earlier study from the same research group that followed mothers for six years after giving birth found that the brain changes were still detectable and still predicted how warmly mothers related to their children.
That study was able to correctly identify which women had been pregnant, based on brain scans alone, with more than 90% accuracy, even six years after birth. Far from being a temporary disruption, pregnancy appears to leave a lasting mark.
A Dutch study published in 2026 extended these findings, examining women during a second pregnancy. The brain changes recurred, but with a different pattern.
The regions most dramatically reshaped in a first pregnancy, those involved in self-awareness and reading others’ emotions, showed rather modest changes the second time around, as though the initial transformation had already been made. Instead, areas involved in attention and responsiveness to the outside world were more strongly affected, perhaps reflecting the additional demands of caring for a first child while pregnant.
The most consistent theme across all this research is that the regions most transformed are those involved in understanding other people: tracking intentions, feeling empathy and recognising signals. An imaging study published in Nature Neuroscience in 2024 scanned a single woman 26 times from before conception to two years after giving birth, providing an unprecedented map of the changes unfolding inside one brain across pregnancy – a resource now freely available to other researchers.
Comparison with teenage brains
A comparison with adolescent brains threads through all of this work. When the researchers directly compared the brain changes of pregnancy with those of adolescence – another life stage defined by surging sex hormones and profound behavioural shift – the patterns of change were almost identical. The same thinning of the cortex, the same flattening of the grooves on the brain surface, the same rate of brain volume change each month.
If adolescence reshapes the brain to prepare it for adult social life, the evidence now suggests that pregnancy reshapes it again – more specifically, more deeply – to prepare it for something even more demanding: caring for an infant.
What remains to be understood is what these changes mean at the level of cells and circuits, how they relate to almost one in five women who experience depression around the time of birth, and whether deviations from the typical pattern leave women more vulnerable or more resilient. The tools to begin answering those questions now exist. For the first time, there is a map.
Birgit Derntl receives funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG, International Research Training Group IRTG 2804), Hans und Ria Messer Stiftung as well as EU (MSCA doctoral network MenoBrain).
Ann-Christin S. Kimmig receives funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG, International Research Training Group IRTG 2804) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Franziska Weinmar receives funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the International Research Training Group “Women’s Mental Health Across the Reproductive Years” (DFG, IRTG2804) and from the Hans und Ria Messer Stiftung.
Experiencing abuse at any age can have devastating consequences for physical and mental health.
But our new report suggests that what may happen to people in later life – including abuse, poverty and social isolation – plays a far bigger role in shaping health and wellbeing than is often recognised.
Understanding what can affect our health in later life is vital as we see increasing ageing populations. Globally, however, there is a lack of data on the number of older people who experience hardships such as physical, sexual or emotional abuse, and the effects they have. Abuse is also only one of a range of adversities that people can experience in later life.
To help address this, between February and May 2025, we surveyed 1,085 people aged 60 and over in their homes across Wales. We asked participants about their adverse experiences since turning 60. This included hardships such as exposure to abuse, feeling lonely or socially isolated, struggling financially, difficulties accessing health or social care, and feeling overwhelmed by caregiving responsibilities.
We also asked them about their general physical health, mental health, life satisfaction and behaviour such as smoking and alcohol use. For the first time in Wales, our survey also measured exposure to ageism using a new tool developed by the World Health Organization.
What emerged was a striking picture of how common later-life adversity is. Half of those surveyed reported experiencing at least one of the five adversities above. Many faced more than one at the same time.
More than one in ten people said they had experienced abuse since turning 60. Verbal abuse was the most commonly reported, followed by physical abuse and financial abuse. Around one in five of the people we surveyed reported having struggled financially or having felt lonely or socially isolated.
These experiences were closely tied to poorer health. People who had experienced abuse were more than twice as likely to smoke and more than four times more likely to report suicidal thoughts or self-harm. Those who had felt lonely or socially isolated were nearly three times as likely to report low life satisfaction, and more than four times more likely to have poor mental wellbeing.
Abuse and loneliness also increased the likelihood of experiencing ageism. For example, people who had experienced abuse were twice as likely to report ageist treatment. While older respondents were more likely to report ageism than younger ones within the sample, there were no differences between men and women.
Taken together, our findings demonstrate how deeply social experiences in later life shape health. Protecting wellbeing as people age is not just about medical care, it also depends on feeling safe, connected and financially secure.
Why this is important
This matters for society as a whole. Older people make an essential contribution to society, and with an ageing population there is increasing reliance on older adults to be well and economically active. Supporting people to live well for longer benefits everyone. Preventing abuse and addressing loneliness and hardship could reduce pressure on health services while improving quality of life for older adults.
In Wales, initiatives such as the Age Friendly Wales government-led strategy aim to help older people remain independent at home, stay connected to their communities and participate fully in society. Our findings reinforce the importance of this approach and the need to identify and support those facing adversity earlier.
There are also important gaps. Our survey included only people living in their own homes, meaning those in residential care were not represented. People with cognitive impairment were also excluded. Both groups may be at greater risk of abuse, underlining the need for further research.
We also need a better understanding of where abuse happens and who is responsible. Without this, prevention efforts will always fall short.
Later life should not be a time of hidden harm. By recognising abuse, loneliness and financial strain as public health issues – not just private problems – we can take meaningful steps toward ensuring people are able to age with dignity, security and good health.
This research was part funded by the ACE Hub Wales (hosted by Public Health Wales and funded by the Welsh Government). Part funding for the work was also provided by Liverpool John Moores University. Kat Ford receives funding from Public Health Wales NHS Trust. She is affiliated with Bangor University and Public Health Wales NHS Trust.
Karen Hughes is fully employed by Public Health Wales NHS Trust and is an Honorary Professor at Bangor University.
American photographer Catherine Opie’s new show at the National Portrait Gallery begins – or ends, depending on which order you explore it in – with her “interventions”. These photographic portraits are installed between the gallery’s paintings of Victorian leaders, captains, artists and politicians. They sit alongside them as though somewhat familiar.
This familiarity is, in part, down to the formal qualities of Opie’s portraits. It is also due to the depth of the prints, and to the ways in which the National Portrait Gallery appears to acquaint everyone on its walls with everyone else.
Most of Opie’s photos, however, are on display in another space that resembles a miniaturised version of the gallery. Prints hang in rooms and along constructed corridors that are reminiscent of both a domestic space and a museum. As well as portraits, there are cinematic images of American football fields; players standing during a break in play, or seen in practice. Also on show is a portrait of the ocean, the horizon almost indistinct from the grey-blue sky. Five small figures float in the middle distance, sitting on surfboards.
From Opie’s Walls, Windows and Blood series (2023), an image of the Vatican is on display, as are several of her documentary style photos. If Opie’s portrait studio photograph manages to momentarily exclude the outside world, then these images bring the outside world back in.
The idea of private space made public, and of inclusion and exclusion, underpins many of the works that feature in the show, which spans several decades of Opie’s life and career. Close attention is consistently paid to what is really involved in being represented. By extension, there’s a focus on what it means to have been misrepresented, projected onto and positioned politically.
Sitter and photographer
Some of Opie’s best-known images are her self-portraits. These include Self-Portrait/Cutting (1993) and Self-Portrait/Nursing (2004), which reflect, respectively, the desire for and arrival of family. But Opie’s portraits of other people also share something with the self portraits. Not only because many of the sitters are Opie’s friends and family, but also because the act of portraiture itself forms some hard-to-define connection between sitter and photographer.
Portrait photography is interesting this way. A portrait photograph seems to invite the imagination of an interaction that was both contained in, and extended beyond, the time of the exposure. It also suggests what was beyond the frame and behind the camera – including the photographer.
I imagine, looking at Opie’s portraits, how the sitter was directed, positioned and repositioned, the conversations that did or didn’t take place, the adjustments made to the lighting or backdrop. The portrait studio is a constructed space, but the formal portrait photograph does not pretend otherwise. It is a construction that is presented as such. This is the space in which photographer and sitter meet. Although this meeting is for the purpose of making the portrait, the portrait cannot quite show the extent of the exchange that takes place; it is necessarily a kind of reduction.
In Opie’s photographs, the constraints and limitations of the portrait are part of its potential. Its spatial and temporal boundaries allow for precision; the tilt of the head, the direction of the gaze, the colour of the light can all be controlled. The curation of this space, which is designed with the camera in mind, also frames an uncommon exchange between sitter and photographer. And the long history of the genre lays out a set of representational rules, long afforded to sitters with status, but which can be extended to people and communities that the society’s predominant visual culture has excluded.
Opie’s photographs extend the formality and visibility of classical portraiture to queer communities, as well as to friends, family and groups formed through sports, politics or shared passions. They also engage with broader ideas of identity, family, the body and politics. By working with – rather than against – the genre’s formality, Opie creates the possibility for many different interactions between her portraits and those that came before them.
This exhibition reminded me that the National Portrait Gallery was one of the first galleries I remember enjoying at 15 or 16. I loved it because there were faces everywhere. The faces on the walls began to change how I saw the faces of the visitors in the gallery.
As Opie has said of the gallery’s collection: “Everybody’s looking at everybody.” Perhaps everyone is also imagining everyone – not only in the moment their portrait was made, but also who they were when they left the studio and headed back into the world outside.
Dreaming in Colour, a new exhibition at the Opera Gallery in London, revisits the surrealists of the previous century, more in homage than imitation.
I suspect few of the emerging artists included here – and certainly none of those I spoke to on opening morning – would consciously describe themselves as surrealists. Yet the surrealist aspiration to evoke a sense of the marvellous and mysterious in the everyday is certainly present.
Take Sretenko (2025-2026) by the Spain-based Russian artist Sasha Zimulin, a vivid landscape of his home suburb of Moscow. In this piece, Zimulin conjures up not the sight of the city, but its ambience, and the feelings stirred in someone standing on the edge of the scene.
He is one of 25 international artists showcasing new works in this exhibition. These works are complemented by the inclusion of a range of historic pieces by figures such as Picasso and Ron Arad. Some of them, notably Chagall’s Multicoloured Clown (1974), certainly reflect the exhibition’s theme. Yet there is no attempt to place these in dialogue with the newer works on which I will concentrate here.
The artists on show
Probably the most consciously surreal work is that which also most directly addresses the exhibition’s theme: Dreaming of the Taste of Colour (2025) by the Dutch artist Arjen. This offers an exuberant expression of synaesthesia – a neurological phenomenon where stimulation of one sense triggers an experience in another sense that isn’t being directly stimulated, such as the sensation of tasting colour.
Exhibited nearby are the two paintings included from the Warsaw-born, Paris-based artist Oh de Laval. Taste has often been foregrounded in her work, as has the influence of Francis Bacon. The latter is palpable here, both in the colour palette used in Untitled (2025) and in the act of violation, minutely captured in a tear.
As with surrealism, the artists exhibited here use a range of styles and artistic language. For instance, Break in the Clouds (2025) by US-based Salvadorian artist Daniella Portillo typifies her emotional engagement with landscapes rendered almost abstract by her use of colour and form.
More consciously abstract are pieces such as Paraiso #33 and Paraiso #34 by American-born, Spain-based Adrián Navarro. The ironic titles add to their disturbing allusions to the familiar in unfamiliar settings.
This unsettling quality is also marked in the more figurative work in the exhibition. Mexican-American artist Anna Ortiz is known for her consciously surreal landscapes evocative of the erased pre-Columbian past, here reflected in the dream-like Jaguar Reflejado (2025). A similar uneasiness is also present in the contribution of London-based May Watson. She specialises in vibrant and humorous art of the everyday, but here is apparently Busy Dreaming (2025) of a shark, albeit one playfully surrounded by multicoloured balls.
Balls also feature prominently in Red Composition with Butter (2025) by Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based Andy Dixon. This voluptuous image reimagines the historic depiction of the reclining female nude, although this juxtaposition instead seems to ironically recollect seedy sex scenes from the movie Last Tango in Paris (1972).
There are several filmic references. Spanish artist Xevi Sola defines his work as being like “filming a horror movie using relaxing pastel colours”. His work sits squarely within a surrealist tradition in its efforts to provoke a Jungian exploration of the darkest areas of consciousness. Yet here he moves away from the collage-based approach of previous works. Instead, Backstage I (2024) and Backstage II (2024) disturb by depicting awkwardly adjacent figures, with one staring unnervingly straight out of the canvas at the viewer.
Eshu (2025) by the Brazilian artist Gustavo Nazareno is more subtly subversive. He has become rightly celebrated for lush, powerful depictions of Black bodies in works that challenge the canon of western portraiture and religious art. Black spirituality, dignity and beauty are all powerfully evoked in this richly textured painting.
Another artist who subverts historic images is London-based Greek artist Niovi Kafantari. Her work, He Was Already Leaving (2026) reverses the gaze in Titian’s Venus and Adonis (1553-1554) to focus not the energy of the hunter, but the protecting arms flung around him.
A different kind of subversion is presented in I’m Free Tuesday (2025) by Brazilian-American Jonni Cheatwood. He is noted for using a diverse range of materials and images, yet this is a more muted piece in which the colours of the food on the table recur in the faces of the diners. Capturing mood in the visage is also a feature of several other works here, not least those by Geneva-based Cameroonian artist Maurice Mboa and Nigerian portraitist Collins Obijiaku.
Not all of these works are colourful, particularly the sombre architectural forms of Misty Days (2025) by Spanish artist Borja Colom. Yet that certainly has a dreamlike quality.
Nor are all these works necessarily surreal. Some, such as Conjura (2024) by Spanish artist Miguel Sainz Ojeda, also draw on influences such as street art to create an image that is fantastical and disquieting.
This suggests that another theme of the exhibition is magical realism. More often seen as a literary or cinematic genre, magical realism is nonetheless invoked here in the filmic atmosphere and implicit storytelling embedded in many of these works.
In art, magical realism provides a haunting and distorting perspective that challenges our perceptions. This is most conspicuously the case in Hitchcock’s Glass (2025) by Italian artist Mattia Barbalaco.
Brilliantly hung to maximum effect as you descend to the lower ground floor, this luminous painting recreates both a scene from Hitchcock’s 1941 thriller Suspicion and conveys the suspenseful, unsettling quality of dreams.
Pippa Catterall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steven W. Kerrigan, Professor of Precision Therapeutics, School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences
Microscope image of neutrophils, immune cells that respond to infection. Severe infections can trigger sepsis if the body’s inflammatory response becomes uncontrolled.S.Toey/Shutterstock
Sepsis moves fast. A patient can arrive at hospital with what appears to be a routine infection and, within hours, develop organ failure. Survival often depends on how quickly treatment begins.
Across Europe, doctors are seeing increasingly complex cases. Populations are ageing and more people are living with chronic illness. At the same time, antimicrobial resistance, when bacteria no longer respond to antibiotics, is making infections harder to treat. Together, these pressures are reshaping the landscape of sepsis.
Older adults are more vulnerable to infection and less able to recover once organs begin to fail. Many also live with conditions such as diabetes, heart disease or kidney disease, which increase the likelihood of complications.
Antimicrobial resistance makes treatment more complicated. When first-line antibiotics fail, doctors may have to switch to broader or more powerful drugs. That process can take time, and delays of even a few hours can affect survival.
Sepsis is often the tipping point. It occurs when infection overwhelms the body’s defences and triggers a damaging inflammatory response. As resistant bacteria become more common, managing sepsis becomes more challenging.
Early treatment saves lives. But speed does not depend only on individual clinicians. It also depends on how well health systems are organised to recognise deterioration and respond quickly.
Why sepsis is hard to diagnose
Unlike a heart attack or stroke, sepsis does not have a single test that confirms it immediately. There is no scan or blood marker that provides a clear yes or no answer in the early stages.
Instead, doctors and nurses rely on patterns. Changes in breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature and blood tests can all signal that something is wrong. But these signs overlap with many other conditions, which makes early recognition difficult, particularly in busy emergency departments or hospital wards.
Because of this uncertainty, hospitals need clear escalation systems that define when staff must call for senior review, when antibiotics should be given and how quickly patients must be reassessed. Hospitals that implement these systems are more likely to avoid dangerous delays. Monitoring how quickly treatment is delivered, and publicly reporting that data, can also reveal where systems are failing.
Guidelines alone are not enough. What matters is whether they are applied consistently and whether performance is measured.
What Europe is doing, and where gaps remain
European countries differ widely in how they organise their response to sepsis.
Switzerland has developed a national action plan linking public awareness, hospital standards and research. France has incorporated sepsis into broader patient safety and infection control strategies that combine training, clinical guidance and surveillance. Sweden has introduced structured treatment pathways across regions, supported by clear indicators to track performance.
What these examples share is coordination. There are defined standards, ways of measuring performance and systems for reviewing outcomes.
In other countries, sepsis is addressed within broader infection or hospital quality programmes without a clearly defined national plan. Protocols may exist, but reporting and accountability are often unclear. As antimicrobial resistance increases and populations age, that gap becomes more significant.
Experience beyond Europe also shows what coordinated systems can achieve. In New York state, hospitals were required to introduce standardised sepsis protocols and report how quickly patients received treatment. Later evaluations found improvements in compliance and reductions in mortality. The lesson was not simply about regulation, but about clarity, transparency and follow-through.
Ireland has introduced several measures aimed at improving sepsis care. The country has a National Clinical Programme for Sepsis, updated clinical guidelines and routine audit in acute hospitals, where the most seriously ill patients are treated. Public awareness campaigns have been launched and staff training is mandatory. A new five-year strategy has also been signalled.
These steps are important. The next challenge is consistency. Are standards applied in the same way across hospitals? Are outcomes tracked and reported in a way that allows trends to be monitored over time? Are sepsis initiatives clearly linked to plans addressing antimicrobial resistance?
These questions are not unique to Ireland. They apply across Europe.
A key moment for sepsis
From July to December 2026, Ireland will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. Countries in this role cannot pass laws on their own. But they can shape the agenda and influence which issues receive attention.
Sepsis intersects directly with several major European health priorities, including antimicrobial resistance, cross-border health threats and the resilience of healthcare systems. Raising the profile of sepsis during the presidency would not require immediate legislation. It could encourage shared standards, better data comparison and closer cooperation between member states.
Issues highlighted at European level often influence research funding, policy coordination and political priorities in the years that follow.
Sepsis exposes how well health systems recognise serious illness and respond under pressure. It reflects the growing challenges posed by ageing populations, increasing medical complexity and antibiotic resistance.
Across Europe, efforts to improve sepsis care are already under way. The coming years will determine how well those efforts are coordinated and sustained. Infections will continue to evolve, and so will the pressures on hospitals. The real question is whether health systems are prepared to respond when minutes matter most.
Steven W. Kerrigan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
En pleine guerre contre l’Iran, Donald Trump s’est agacé du délai mis par Londres à autoriser l’utilisation d’une base militaire stratégique par les forces américaines. Il s’en est notamment pris au premier ministre Keir Starmer, regrettant que, en sa personne, les États-Unis « n’ont pas affaire à Winston Churchill » – façon de dire que Churchill, lui, se serait aligné sur Washington sans états d’âme. Cette comparaison repose sur une vision très simplifiée de l’histoire et du « Vieux Lion », qui dirigea le gouvernement du Royaume-Uni de mai 1940 à juillet 1945 puis d’octobre 1951 à avril 1955.
Lorsque, le 3 mars dernier, Donald Trump reprocha à Keir Starmer son soutien trop tiède aux opérations américaines et israéliennes contre l’Iran, il glissa dans son propos une référence historique. « Nous n’avons pas affaire à Winston Churchill », déplora-t-il, indiquant ainsi que, à la différence de l’actuel locataire du 10, Downing Street, Churchill, lui, se serait résolument tenu aux côtés de Washington lors de l’actuelle confrontation avec Téhéran. Mais Churchill aurait-il vraiment applaudi la guerre déclenchée contre l’Iran le 28 février ?
La réponse n’est pas aussi évidente que semble le croire Donald Trump. Si Churchill a toujours accordé la plus grande importance à l’alliance entre Londres et Washington, et eu volontiers recours à une rhétorique belliqueuse, il s’est également distingué par une prudence stratégique constante. Loin d’être systématiquement attiré par la confrontation armée, il avait plutôt tendance à considérer la guerre et la diplomatie comme deux éléments indissociables.
Son célèbre discours prononcé à Fulton (Missouri), le 5 mars 1946, en fournit une illustration remarquable. Chacun se souvient de la formule restée fameuse qu’il y employa pour la première fois ; « Un rideau de fer est descendu sur l’Europe. » Mais ce discours – officiellement intitulé The Sinews of Peace (Le nerf de la paix) – ne fut pas seulement un appel aux armes face à l’expansion soviétique. Churchill y souligna à la fois l’importance de comprendre ses adversaires et le besoin de renforcer les Nations unies. Il défendait l’idée que pour préserver la paix, les puissances occidentales devaient se montrer unies et fortes afin de dissuader toute agression.
L’Iran avait déjà été évoqué dans ce discours. À l’époque, les troupes soviétiques ne s’étaient pas retirées du nord de l’Iran malgré des accords conclus pendant la guerre. Cet épisode se trouva partiellement à l’origine des premières tensions qui allaient aboutir à la guerre froide. Churchill considérait donc déjà le dossier iranien à travers le prisme de la rivalité entre grandes puissances.
Cette vision des choses ne datait pas de 1946. Pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, en 1943, Churchill s’était rendu à Téhéran pour y rencontrer Frankiln D. Roosevelt et Joseph Staline lors de la première conférence des « trois grands leaders » alliés. Cette réunion se déroula dans la capitale de l’Iran car le pays était devenu un corridor logistique crucial permettant d’acheminer des équipements alliés vers l’Union soviétique.
Pour Churchill, la conférence fut une profonde désillusion. Roosevelt cherchait de plus en plus à s’attirer les bonnes grâces de Staline, parfois au détriment du Royaume-Uni. Churchill racontera plus tard avec amertume qu’il était assis « entre le grand ours russe et le grand bison américain » – un bestiaire où son pays à lui s’apparentait à « un pauvre petit âne britannique ». Cette remarque reflétait une prise de conscience : le Royaume-Uni ne faisait plus partie des grandes puissances dominantes du monde.
Ayant compris cela, Churchill décida, une fois la guerre terminée, de cultiver autant que possible la relation américano-britannique. Son appel lancé à Fulton en faveur d’une « relation spéciale » entre le Commonwealth britannique et les États-Unis n’était pas qu’un geste rhétorique. C’était une tentative d’assurer la sécurité future de son pays dans un ordre international dominé par l’émergence de la puissance américaine.
Churchill et le renversement de Mossadegh en 1953
Mais la réflexion de Churchill sur l’Iran ne s’est pas limitée à la diplomatie de la guerre froide. En 1953, lors de son second mandat de premier ministre, une opération clandestine renversa le premier ministre iranien Mohammad Mossadegh et rétablit l’autorité du shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Le coup d’État avait été principalement organisé par la CIA, sous la direction de Kermit Roosevelt Jr., mais Churchill l’avait soutenu avec enthousiasme. Lorsque Roosevelt lui décrivit plus tard l’opération lors d’une rencontre à Downing Street, le premier ministre aurait déclaré qu’il aurait volontiers servi sous ses ordres dans une telle mission.
Cet épisode, qui indique que Churchill n’avait rien contre le recours à la force lorsqu’il estimait que les intérêts occidentaux étaient menacés, allait avoir de lourdes conséquences : le renversement de Mossadegh devint l’un des principaux griefs mis en avant par les leaders révolutionnaires iraniens. Et depuis son instauration en 1979, la république islamique n’a cessé de rappeler les interventions étrangères – particulièrement le coup d’État américano-britannique de 1953 – afin de légitimer son pouvoir et se présenter comme le défenseur de la souveraineté iranienne contre une domination externe.
Autrement dit, cette interférence occidentale en Iran est devenue, avec le temps, l’une des armes politiques les plus puissantes du régime.
Churchill était bien conscient que les guerres et les interventions pouvaient entraîner des conséquences imprévues. En repensant à son expérience de jeune officier lors de la guerre des Boers, il écrivit qu’une fois le signal du conflit donné, les hommes d’État perdaient le contrôle des événements. La guerre devenait alors soumise à « la Fortune maligne, aux surprises malencontreuses et aux terribles erreurs de calcul politiques ». Ce n’était pas l’opinion d’un pacifiste, mais celle d’une personne ayant vu à quelle vitesse certaines décisions politiques peuvent devenir impossibles à maîtriser.
Que ferait Churchill aujourd’hui ?
Comment ces instincts pourraient-ils s’appliquer à la crise actuelle ? Churchill aurait presque certainement considéré le régime iranien avec une profonde méfiance. Sa vision de la guerre froide le poussait à interpréter la politique internationale en termes de confrontation idéologique et d’équilibre stratégique. Il aurait sans doute estimé que faire preuve de faiblesse face à des régimes jugés agressifs ne ferait qu’encourager ceux-ci à défier les Occidentaux toujours davantage.
Mais Churchill pensait rarement que l’action militaire, à elle seule, pouvait résoudre les conflits géopolitiques. Son approche consistait plutôt à allier fermeté et diplomatie : négocier à partir d’une position de force tout en maintenant des canaux de communication avec ses adversaires. Même au plus fort de la guerre froide, il espérait qu’une position de force des pays occidentaux pourrait, à terme, convaincre les dirigeants soviétiques de parvenir à un compromis.
« Nous n’avons pas affaire à Winston Churchill. »
Avant tout, Churchill estimait que l’influence du Royaume-Uni reposait sur sa relation étroite avec les États-Unis. Mais, dans son esprit, cet alignement ne devait pas se limiter à simplement suivre Washington : il devait également permettre d’orienter la puissance américaine. La « relation spéciale » devait être un partenariat et non l’octroi d’une liberté totale.
La référence de Trump à Churchill repose donc sur une image simplifiée du chef de guerre, présenté comme un partisan instinctif de l’action militaire. L’histoire montre en réalité un personnage plus nuancé : un stratège convaincu de l’importance de la force, certes, mais aussi de la diplomatie, des alliances et d’une gestion prudente des rivalités entre grandes puissances.
Si Churchill était encore vie aujourd’hui, il appellerait probablement les gouvernements occidentaux à faire preuve de fermeté. Mais il reconnaîtrait aussi que le système politique iranien s’est construit sur la mémoire des interventions étrangères passées – et que tout nouveau conflit risquerait de renforcer précisément les forces qu’il prétend affaiblir.
Churchill soulignait d’ailleurs que la guerre, une fois déclenchée, suit rarement les chemins bien ordonnés imaginés par ceux qui l’ont lancée. Un avertissement qui reste, encore aujourd’hui, d’une grande actualité.
Richard Toye a reçu des financements du Leverhulme Trust.
La vie familiale et domestique est-elle toujours plus libre et individualisée ou, au contraire, plus encadrée ? (*Le Gâteau des rois*, par Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1744.)via Wikimedia Commons
En France, le droit autorise les familles à organiser de larges pans de leur vie par contrat. Cela implique-t-il que la vie domestique soit un espace de liberté pour les individus ? Ou la contractualisation renforce-t-elle au contraire les contraintes et les normes ? Depuis le XVIIe siècle, cette évolution fait débat chez les philosophes. Explications avec Hobbes, Locke ou encore Rousseau, à partir du recueil la Famille des classiques (éditions de l’ENS-Lyon), qui explore ces pensées de l’institution familiale sous différentes facettes.
Si, au contraire de ce qui se fait dans de nombreux pays, le législateur français interdit les contrats de gestation pour autrui, il autorise les familles à organiser de larges pans de leur vie commune par convention et par contrat.
On connaissait depuis longtemps les contrats de mariage, qui organisent la distribution et la gestion des biens matrimoniaux. On voit apparaître désormais d’autres arrangements du même genre, comme ces « conventions parentales » par lesquelles les parents « organisent les modalités d’exercice de l’autorité parentale et fixent la contribution à l’entretien et à l’éducation de l’enfant » après leur séparation et qu’ils peuvent faire homologuer par le juge aux affaires familiales (article 373-2-7 du Code civil).
C’est vrai, on parle ici de « convention » parentale et le juriste distinguera le genre, à savoir ladite convention, qui désigne tout accord de volontés, de l’espèce, le contrat, qui accorde aussi des volontés, mais qui présente la particularité supplémentaire de créer des obligations. Il n’empêche, l’idée règne selon laquelle les liens familiaux seraient devenus toujours plus contractuels et, par là, toujours plus volontaires.
Mais qu’entend-on exactement par là ? La chose n’est pas toujours claire et elle peut revêtir plusieurs significations : que la vie familiale et domestique est devenue plus libre, qu’elle est devenue plus individualisée ou bien, au contraire, qu’elle est toujours plus formalisée et encadrée.
Les philosophes classiques nous aident à apprécier ce phénomène, son histoire et sa complexité. Les noms de Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau ou encore Montesquieu évoquent souvent la figure de philosophes politiques, de penseurs du droit, du pouvoir et du contrat social. On sait moins que ces auteurs ont tous été aussi des penseurs de la famille, qu’ils y ont consacré de nombreuses pages. C’est pour le rappeler qu’est publié le recueil de textes la Famille des classiques aux éditions de l’ENS-Lyon.
Contrat familial et contrat social
De fait, leurs propos sur la famille sont inséparables de leur pensée politique. Pouvoir, autorité, règles, intérêt, ces notions ne sont-elles pas communes à la famille et à l’État ? Soit qu’ils pensent la famille sur le modèle de l’État, le père constituant comme un petit souverain à l’égard de ses enfants, de son épouse et de ses domestiques, soit qu’ils les opposent parce que la famille, à la différence de la société politique, unit ses membres par les sentiments, la proximité et les affaires plus ou moins triviales qui ne concernent qu’eux (éducation, sexualité, subsistance), ces auteurs classiques ont tous été conscients que l’on doit y réfléchir ensemble.
On invite ainsi dans ce livre à relire les pages de Hobbes sur le pouvoir paternel, celles de Locke sur le pouvoir parental partagé et sur la possibilité de divorcer ou encore celles de Rousseau sur la maternité et l’enfance, puis à relier ces réflexions à la sphère politique.
Il ne faut pas exclure dès lors que la fameuse idée de contrat social, c’est-à-dire l’énoncé des conditions sous lesquelles nous sommes réunis dans un État, obéissons aux mêmes lois, bénéficions des mêmes protections collectives, ait trouvé sa source dans le modèle des contrats privés. Ainsi les notions de contrat et de contractualisme (l’idée de cadrer les relations entre des particuliers) fonctionnent à plusieurs échelles, privée et publique, familiale et politique.
Quand le contrat devient piège
L’idée de contrat attire et effraie tout à la fois ceux qui aspirent à garantir la liberté individuelle : le consentement n’est-il pas le meilleur moyen de la liberté ? Chacun ne souhaite-t-il pas définir et poser à l’avance les règles de son existence avec autrui ? Cependant le contrat n’est-il pas un piège et un moyen habile qu’ont trouvé certains pour nous asservir avec notre consentement en bonus ?
Le contractualisme familial a toujours trouvé des défenseurs (Daniel Borrillo le défend aujourd’hui dans la Famille par contrat) et des détracteurs (ainsi de Carole Pateman, le Contrat sexuel). Le savant Henry Maine affirme au XIXe siècle que la société moderne représente l’abandon d’un modèle social fondé sur des statuts rigides au profit d’une société contractuelle où la volonté individuelle prend toujours plus d’importance.
Les Accords, ou la Promesse approuvée, de Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié (1774). Wikimédia
Or, dès le XVIIe siècle, Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, explorent l’importance cruciale du consentement dans l’établissement des relations proprement humaines. Mais nous serons surpris de lire qu’ils le font pour le meilleur et pour le pire. Le contrat étant l’outil universel auquel ils recourent pour penser toutes les relations humaines, ils le mobilisent au sujet du lien conjugal ainsi que du lien parental.
Hobbes considère que, quoique les enfants soient longtemps incapables de passer de tels contrats, on doit faire comme s’ils avaient passé avec leurs parents des conventions qui assurent une obéissance absolue en échange de leur subsistance. Ce n’est pas tout : ces penseurs, philosophes (Hobbes) ou spécialistes du droit (Grotius et Pufendorf), recourent aussi au contrat pour organiser le rapport des maîtres à leurs serviteurs, voire pour penser les conditions juridiques de l’esclavage. Pufendorf va jusqu’à dire que l’esclavage lui-même doit être contractualisé. Ce rappel affligera certainement les partisans du contrat et confortera ses adversaires : le contrat a été bien des fois convoqué pour encadrer diverses formes de servitude domestique et économique.
De deux choses l’une : soit le fait de contracter est tellement général et ambivalent qu’il ne contient par soi aucune promesse de liberté, et peut engendrer le pire comme le meilleur, soit il faut rompre avec des conceptions du contrat qui admettent que l’on puisse contracter pour se donner tout entier à un maître et perdre sa liberté. C’est le second choix qu’opèreront Locke et Rousseau qui rompront avec leurs prédécesseurs, et qui ne pardonneront pas à Grotius, Hobbes et Pufendorf d’avoir fait servir le contrat à de telles fins. « Dire qu’un homme se donne gratuitement, c’est dire une chose absurde et inconcevable ; un tel acte est illégitime et nul », objecte vigoureusement Rousseau à Grotius dans le Contrat social.
Le contrat, moyen de lutter contre le pouvoir intra-familial ?
Ainsi, il serait outré de faire du contrat seulement un moyen habile d’obtenir l’obéissance sans avoir à recourir à la violence. Le contrat a aussi été un outil de lutte contre le patriarcalisme et le philosophe anglais Locke nous intéresse parce qu’il cadre le contrat : on ne peut contracter contre soi-même, on ne peut contracter pour se faire esclave et le contrat est plutôt l’expression d’un échange de bons procédés, d’une association humaine qui ne vaut que si elle se tient dans des limites et un cadre raisonnables.
Là où Hobbes pensait des pères exigeant tout, et ne devant rien à leurs enfants, des maris despotes autorisés par un contrat léonin passé entre puissants et vulnérables à obtenir ce qu’ils veulent des seconds, Locke voit dans le contrat le moyen de limiter le pouvoir intra-familial. Selon Locke, le philosophe de la modération, les époux ne s’associent que dans la poursuite de la subsistance, de la procréation et de l’éducation des enfants. Ils le font librement. Or, ce que la volonté a fait, elle peut le défaire. Aussi, une fois leur mission accomplie, et dans l’hypothèse où ils ne s’entendraient pas, les époux pourraient très bien divorcer si cela se présentait comme la solution la plus raisonnable pour tous. Le contractualisme a donc été l’instrument chez cet auteur, que certains considèrent comme un des premiers penseurs libéraux, d’un adoucissement du pouvoir marital, et d’une relâche de la contrainte s’exerçant au sein de la cellule domestique.
Le contrat reste un mot creux tant qu’on n’a pas identifié ce qui est essentiel pour ceux qui le passent : est-il un lien entre personnes qui cherchent leur subsistance comme chez Hobbes ? Unit-il des personnes dont la liberté est première et inaliénable, comme c’est le cas chez Rousseau ? Contracter ne signifiera pas du tout la même chose pour les uns et les autres.
Dernier point : certains auteurs, comme Grotius, Montesquieu, Rousseau, ne croient pas utile de penser intégralement la famille sur le patron de l’État et rappellent que ce qui peut se décider entre citoyens adultes et rationnels doit être réglé autrement en famille. Entre les époux, entre les frères et les sœurs, entre les parents et les enfants, ne faut-il pas plutôt rappeler l’importance des sentiments, du donné, des corps et pas seulement de la volonté, de tout ce qui nous échappe et aussi de tout ce qui ne se décide pas par un contrat ni par une volonté libre et éclairée, comme le plaisir d’être et de vivre ensemble, ou encore de converser ?
Gabrielle Radica ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
