Le Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Francois, Duc de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) is considered France’s greatest writer of maxims. By necessity we over-simplify a complex reality; and, some have argued that the corpus of writing left by Rochefoucauld is merely a one-note song whose essence boils down to this: Everything we do is driven by self-love. Although Rochefoucauld’s notoriety rests upon his ability to capture key elements of human life in sharply focused words, reducing his message to one idea is as unsatisfactory as reducing Hillary Clinton to “the mother of all liars,“ Barack Obama to “an empty suit,” or John McCain to “a cranky old man.” Certainly when Rochefoucauld looked for the roots of some branch of human behavior, often he found it to stem from self-love; but, his brilliantly distilled observations of human social psychology are more justly characterized as studies in the tension between the grand and fateful arena of outward actions and appearances and those internal realities of thought and feeling known, if at all, only to the actors in the game. Moreover, considering only one or a few maxims in isolation fails to show the interrelatedness of the strands in Rochefoucauld’s tapestry. His collected Maxims form a body.

Reading Maxims is like opening a box in the attic and finding it full of diamonds, each articulated from a lump of coal. Every sentence is the expression of a brilliant mind honed by a lifetime of carefully watching himself and others on the turbulent political stage of the seventeenth century French royal court, noting remarkable patterns, and transforming his observations into striking aphorisms. Rochefoucauld’s Maxims anticipates by two centuries modern concepts of defense mechanisms, self-awareness and unconscious behavior, as well as the critical role of appearances and manipulation. He shows us that in our folly, we are both intelligible and predictable.

Rochefoucauld saw, listened to, and plotted with and against such giants of his time as Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, and Marie d’Medici. Though known as a brave and honorable man, Rochefoucauld suffered from maddening twists of fate, losing more often than not in both love and war. But his genius was to be a perennial student, diligently learning valuable lessons regardless of the fickle lurches of Fortuna’s wheel. He sought after truth and found consolation in the love of wisdom. For this reason, applying the Duc’s analysis to the contemporary sport of politics is not only a propos, it is a study whose lessons may be applied profitably by those hoping to find something lasting in the disillusioning transience of the political game.

Crossposted on TPM and Dkos

Cynicism and the Modern Art of Politics

Cynicism and the Modern Art of Politics: the 2008 Presidential race through the lens of La Rochefoucauld

Owen Scott, Ph.D.

“1.--What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste.”

The Germans have Nietzsche, the British Bacon, America produced Ben Franklin, and the French have La Rochefoucauld. Each of these men made a reputation with his ability to distill gems of wisdom into pithy sayings. With this post, I launch a series devoted to discussing la Rochefoucauld’s famous maxims in the context of the current race for the Presidency of the USA. What does a seventeenth century French nobleman have to teach us about presidential politics? Possibly quite a lot.

From his own time to the present, La Rochefoucauld has been controversial, some believing his insights provide invaluable training in the hidden realities of power and ambition, others claiming that by denigrating much of what we put forward as virtue, he has done humanity a disservice. In a letter to Dr. Price arguing for a system of government with built in checks and balances, John Adams quoted La Rochefoucauld:

The ambitious deceive themselves, when they propose an end to their ambition; for that end, when attained, becomes a means.

If la Rochefoucauld’s arrows of wisdom were on target, they should still hit the mark today, i.e., his maxims should be applicable across time. They should help us understand our own political world without the need for a deep knowledge of the author’s life, times and circumstances. But was La Rochefoucauld right? Do his maxims contain wisdom that can help make sense of the relentless back and forth volleys of spin, plays and talking points? Answering this requires knowledge of our lives, times, and circumstances. To facilitate a debate on the truth and universality of La Rochefoucauld’s assertions, each installment will present one or two maxims along with a significant and widely-reported event from the current race. The exploration will be done by posing questions, suggesting some answers, and inviting interested readers to fight it out in their comments.

Oh, yeah, BevD?

"34.--If we had no pride we should not complain of
that of others.

132.--It is far easier to be wise for others than to
be so for oneself."

La Rochefoucauld, Maxims.

Since you have not met my demand to show me some credentials, what say we stick to discussing ideas instead of engaging in unsolicited psychological profiling? Nevertheless, you did me a favor by giving me feedback (you think I’m kidding but I’m not), so let me again say “thank you” for caring enough to posit your arguments and to correct me in my foolishness. Also, I apologize for misunderstanding your comments on the poetry slam contestant and judging you unfairly.

Now, let’s take some of your statements and examine them. In your original critique, you said,

“Everyone thinks he is the one who is loyal only to principles and reason and not to the fallible individual, but principles and reason are the affairs of humans and will always be what the individual says they are and will always be one of the individual's self interest compromised with society's interest.”


The first assertion in the above sentence is not true, BevD. Keeping in mind we’re discussing politics, many people are not very thoughtful when it comes to principles, even if they believe they care about them. Many more give lip service to principles but lack insight into what they really believe; and, this type often discovers when the chips are down that their principles actually didn’t run very deep. A good example is the character of Kurtz in “Heart of darkness” In the world of politics, reason is often used primarily to rationalize ones actions, often after the fact (perhaps the abundance of attorneys in the political world is a factor here). However, in every camp, some minority of individuals truly are committed to core values. Effective use of reason requires that one be scrupulous in testing the truth of ones assumptions, ever mindful of the fallibility of human cognition (see previous comments about developing an accurate map). Finally, there are two types of people, plain fools and fools who realize they are fools. I aspire humbly to be among the latter.

“That great army you see, those "new people" are as far ranging in beliefs, in principles, in reason and in self-interest as they've always been and I hope, will continue to be, because the alternative is unbearable - who will decide those principles and reason that will rule the "new people"? You? A politician? A mob? The majority? What will happen to those individuals who step outside of your vision of reason and principles? Reason and principles are as fallible as the individual who makes them.”

Yes, exactly so. My post argues that grassroots movements such as the supporters of B. Hussein Obama have the potential to empower their members to hold candidates accountable. Perhaps you have been watching the HBO special on John Adams. John and Abigail were highly concerned about powerful people who had insufficient accountability; and, their conversations contributed to the presence of checks and balances in our Constitution (feel free to correct any historical inaccuracies you spot). However, the accountability in our governmental system seems to have broken down. A huge percentage of US voters believes we should get out of Iraq and the Democratic majority in Congress has been used by Bush and Cheney the way Gov. Spitzer used that call girl. The optimism in my post stems from my belief that coalitions of voters may be able to increase the accountability of government officials and reduce the influence of the wealthy and connected. Some one has to be in charge, don’t they? Who do you think it should be? On the one hand, you argue for the altruistic nature of people (which often is potentiated by witnessing disaster); yet, you seem to believe that people who organize in order to influence political causes are necessarily going to pursue narcissistic agendas.

“Your concept of the millions with the money and the networks to enforce their will upon society is as tyrannical as the millions with money and networks are now, and the only hope we have is that there is a fallible individual to recognize tyranny in all its forms, even that of the "new people…”

I'm really not seeing how you think political networks are going to impose their will on the country. Are you talking about the manner in which Sen. Obama has nearly secured the Democratic nomination? Wise people understand that compassion and justice for others is also self-interest and that the objects of greed and lust don’t satisfy our appetites but rather leave us feeling empty. My vision is of people who care getting involved, identifying leaders who appear to have “the right stuff,” and viewing part of their role as supporters being to stay informed and hold the leaders accountable. Technology can serve an important role is helping democracy work better. I see Sen Obama’s movement as having many of the qualities I’m looking for. He is an inspiring leader whose success depends upon retaining the support of those millions of small contributors who also love to get involved in his mission. This appears to me to be democracy working better than I’ve ever seen it in my 55-years of life.

We could discuss your other remarks having to do with susceptibility to spin, the way Ramesses got more credit than he deserved, etc; but, it’s late and I need to get to bed. I’ll just add here that certainly everyone can be manipulated and it is important to be skeptical and to utilize sound research methods in coming to any major conclusions. Of course, if one is omniscient, one doesn’t have to be bothered with the challenges of testing ones hypotheses.

BevD has more to say to that

My, you're excitable when your principles and reason are challenged, not to mention your lack of historical knowlege which is frighteningly superficial. Your projections of your own fears upon me is a case in point, your fear of getting older, your own irrelevance looming over your keyboard, it is discouraging, I'm sure. Your silly deflection of a comment made in another thread, which you completely misunderstood, because in your arrogance you think you have all the specimens pinned to the board demonstrates your hardened, cynical view of humans. You could have asked what my comment meant, but you cannot. You have alreadly filed it under "older person who doesn't understand hip, young black poets" (like you do, I suppose) when, if you had not stopped to file your assumption and slam the drawer shut, it might have occurred to you that the my comment was this - "urban poetry?" Why marginalize it, why not call it poetry? Or even call it what it really is - prose poetry.

So once again, I congratulate you on your deflections but you still must answer the questions - whose principles and whose reason will rule humans, who decides what those will be? What happens to those without the money and resources to inflict their will on the people in your brave, new world? Will there be a vote at some progressive website where the majority decides, and who selects those principles and reason which will guide the "new people"? Will it be the fallible individual who spurs all keyboards to type in unison to those principles and reason? And what happens to those who can't afford to donate money or have no access to the internet? Who will represent them and who will represent those who don't think your principles and reason are good and in fact think they might be bad? Like all totalitarians, you truly believe that by eliminating the individual from the human equation you will make society a corruption free, infallible machine in which all citizens think alike, have the same goals and want what you want.

And no, we don't all start out as purely narcissistic, we are a combination of nature/ nurture and children learn from the very beginning the meaning of reciprocity. We evolved as a species not because we were driven by self interest, we survived because we were not. We are driven by an innate need for co-operation and interdependence and knowledge that we each have to ensure our survival. That is why we find crippled arthritic older humans carefully nurtured by our ancestors as well as children with bones healed - someone cared enough to value their contribution, no matter what the burden it placed on the group.