Читать книгу Politics and Scepticism in La Mothe Le Vayer - Ioana Manea - Страница 13

According to La Mothe Le Vayer, only weak minds let themselves be deceived by appearances that seek to make believe in the deep thought that supposedly underlies the decisions taken by politicians:

But if there is a place where the weakness of man’s mind appears, that concerns, after careful consideration, the high regard that it has for everything that is related to the governments of the earth, by whose splendour and grandeur it is easily dazzled, imagining that all their movements are made with weights and measures and that the most insignificant things are arranged after extraordinary reasoning.

Mais s’il y a lieu où la petitesse de l’esprit de l’homme paraisse, c’est, à le bien prendre, en l’estime qu’il fait de tout ce qui regarde les dominations de la terre, de l’éclat et grandeur desquelles il est aisément ébloui, s’imaginant que tous leurs mouvements se font avec poids et mesure, et que les moindres choses y sont concertées avec une extraordinaire ratiocination.1

Political leaders surround themselves with splendour in order to try to conceal the true reasons that determine their choices. It is only in the eyes of the people who are incapable of distinguishing between the form and the content that the luxury displayed by the rulers stands in for the reflection that should be at the origin of political decisions. Expressed through a series of synonyms (weights and measures, reasoning), the thought of the powerful is supposed to be endowed with an extraordinary quality, which allows it to analyse even the most insignificant details of the situations to which it is applied. The luxury that dazzles most of the public when leaders show themselves in front of the people is a current practice of power, which as it is shown by Aristotle, dates back to Hippodamus of Miletus, the inventor of politics:

In this respect it reminds me of what Aristotle noticed in the second book of his Politics, that this Hippodamus of Miletus, the first to turn it [politics] into an art and to write about it, was otherwise a man so foolishly ambitious and so full of vain superfluities that he was wearing magnificently fur-lined coats in Greece, not only during what could have been the rigours of winter, but even during the most beautiful days of the summer solstice.

Il me souvient à ce propos de ce qu’a observé Aristote au second [livre] de sa Politique, que cet Hippodamos de Milet, qui fut le premier qui la réduisit en art et en écrivit, était un homme d’ailleurs si sottement ambitieux et si plein de vaines superfluités qu’il portait en Grèce des robes superbement fourrées, non seulement pendant ce qu’il peut y avoir là de rigueur de l’hiver, mais même aux plus beaux jours du solstice d’été.2

For a clear-sighted viewer, Hippodamus was making a fool of himself because of the exaggerated and sometimes clearly inappropriate opulence of the clothes that he used in order to assert the pretended superiority on which he established his power. The ridicule of his governing methods is likely to extend to most politicians, including those who are contemporary with La Mothe Le Vayer. As a matter of fact, the experience of the political world enables the writer to conclude that the exterior signs of distinction or wealth are, in most of the cases, in inverse proportion to the quality of the men who display them: “having nevertheless noticed that a hundred times one […] the silk, the purple, the flashy, or the cordon bleu covered often nothing else than what is very base and popular” (“m’étant néanmoins aperçu que de cent fois l’une […] la soie, la pourpre, le clinquant, ni le cordon bleu, ne couvraient souvent rien que de fort vil et populaire”).3 In politics, like in other fields, appearances are misleading or “The cowl does not make the monk” (“l’habit ne [fait] pas le moine”).4

Besides the splendour of the clothes, the ritual of the rulers’ public appearances also involves the staging of the knowledge that is supposed to underlie their actions:

And indeed there are few of this profession who disown their first founder in this exterior parade, which they know how to couple not only with sententious gravity, when they condescend to utter their political axioms, but also with mysterious taciturnity, […] when they pretend to suppress by their silence the State misfortunes.

Et véritablement il y en a peu de cette profession qui démentent leur premier fondateur en cette parade extérieure, laquelle ils savent accompagner non seulement d’une gravité sentencieuse, quand ils daignent prononcer leurs axiomes politiques, mais encore d’une mystérieuse taciturnité, […] lorsqu’ils font mine de supprimer par leur silence les fatalités de l’État.5

When they actually have to speak about the pretended science that underpins their exercise of power, self-important rulers either remain silent about it as if it were sacred and forbidden to the wide public, or utter its principles with a grandeur that is worthy of the greatest truths. Given the solemnity with which it is enacted, so-called political knowledge can be compared to the oracles that claim to transmit pieces of information, which are normally inaccessible to ordinary individuals. Nonetheless, despite their pretences of being different from those they govern, leaders are far from being endowed with exceptional qualities. The intelligence that supposedly allows them to own and to put into practice knowledge of a superior level is usually nothing more than mere mediocrity:

We believe that all these gentlemen possess the most beautiful minds of their century, or at least that those who are the first among them have a reasoning which is differently excellent from the ordinary one of other people. On the contrary, it can often be seen that those who are the most successful in this type of affairs are the persons who reason the least highly in the rest of their life conduct.

Nous croyons que tous ces messieurs-là possèdent les plus beaux esprits de leur siècle, ou pour le moins que ceux qui sont les premiers [d’] entre eux aient la ratiocination tout autrement excellente que le commun des autres hommes. Il se voit souvent au rebours que ceux à qui il réussit le mieux dans cette sorte d’affaires sont les personnes qui raisonnent le moins hautement dans le reste de la conduite de leur vie.6

Actually, the success of political actions does not seem to be too dependent on the intelligence of the politicians who initiate them. Rulers with an average mind succeed in turning to good account some of the circumstances that they have to deal with precisely because, given their weak capacity for analysis, they are content with letting themselves go to the twists of fate. Unlike them, rulers endowed with intelligence act more prudently and may risk missing situations that could prove profitable.7 In spite of the prestige that surrounds their preparation, political actions are hardly the consequence of operations that put to work extraordinary intellectual capacities in order to obtain carefully elaborated reasoning. In contrast to the belief held by most people who have to submit to the decisions taken by the powerful, the secret that envelops them, in fact, covers their random character:

We believe that everything that is being made with respect to the State is the result of councils that are easier to enforce than to fathom, and that all the things are led to an ending that has been planned a long time ago and that is almost infallible; while you can consider as very certain that just like the wave of a hat is capable of diverting the greatest stroke of lightening, often a reason of no importance, a very slight and peculiar interest, a moment that has been in no way premeditated, hastens or delays, does or undoes the most important actions of a Louvre; although in every case are being given as a pretext very high causes and very misleading motives.

Nous croyons que rien ne se fait en matière d’État, que par des conseils plus aisés à respecter qu’à pénétrer, et que toutes choses y sont portées à leurs fins de long temps prévues, et quasi infaillibles ; là où vous pouvez tenir pour très sûr que, comme le vent d’un chapeau est capable de détourner le plus grand coup de foudre, souvent aussi un respect de nulle considération, un intérêt très léger et particulier, un moment nullement prémédité hâte ou recule, fait ou défait les plus importantes actions d’un Louvre ; quoique toujours prétextées de causes très élevées et de motifs très spécieux.8

The thoughts that give substance to the rulers’ judgements rely neither on subtle and long time nurtured reflections, nor on reasons that are at the height of their often major influence on people’s lives. Unlike the profound reasons that are attributed to them, political decisions are often taken on the spot and can derive from causes that are insignificant in comparison with the effects that they trigger. For instance, despite what the very young Louis XIII thought, his 1620 expedition to the Béarn, which “has been followed by the most remarkable changes that have been seen in France over the last five hundred years” (“a été suivi[e] des plus notables changements qui se soient vus en France depuis cinq cents ans”), was, in fact, brought about by the desire of the Duke of Luynes to remove from the Court the Marquis de Montpouillan, whose influence he feared.9 Hence, the reasons that sometimes determine even the most extraordinary actions of rulers do not result from a rigorous examination of the situation, but from passions that are by definition irrational. Unlike the leaders, ordinary individuals, who are used to facing the hostility of fate or of their fellows know better the limits of their capacities to act and show themselves wiser in the preparation of their actions: “there being maybe none of us who, while running his small family, wanted to yield so much either to his passions, or to fortune, as are doing daily all these great State guardians while governing their kingdoms” (“n’y ayant peut-être aucun de nous qui en la conduite de sa petite famille voulût avoir tant donné à ses passions ni à la fortune, comme font tous les jours ces grands tuteurs des États dans le gouvernement des seigneuries”).10

Despite their arrogance and the exceptional qualities attributed to them by their subjects, rulers possess a knowledge that actually amounts to “I do not know what cabinet routine” (“je ne sais quelle routine de cabinets”) and “I do not know what State chicanery” (“je ne sais quelle chicane d’État”).11 The political know-how, which is without doubt possessed by the leaders, is foreign to the theoretical thought that is appropriate to sciences and that is based on accurately elaborated principles:

For it happens daily that in the context of a kingdom disarray excellent negotiations will be conducted by people who, except for a certain understanding of persons, and some negotiation routine that they have achieved in time, can only be said to be individuals of very poor talent and of small or no significance at all. Just like in the game of cards, wherein there are people who know tricks and ways of deceitfully shuffling them, although they do not have a good understanding of the game and are obviously witless with respect to it.

Car il arrive tous les jours que des hommes négocieront excellemment parmi les confusions d’une Seigneurie, lesquels hors de certaines intelligences qu’ils ont des personnes, et de quelque routine de négociation qu’ils ont acquise par le temps, ne peuvent passer que pour personnes de très médiocre talent, et de petite ou nulle considération. De même qu’au jeu de cartes, il y en a qui y savent de piperies, et des façons de les brouiller trompeusement, bien qu’ils n’entendent guère bien les jeux, et qu’ils y soient manifestement impertinents.12

Far from being the result of a speculative intelligence, the supposedly noble knowledge thanks to which politicians exert their power consists in a habit acquired through practice and small-scale swindle. That is why political science can actually be considered a mere “resourcefulness” (“débrouillardise”),13 unable to dominate the reality it claims to govern or to ensure the success of those who are using it.

By covering in mystery the reasons of their actions, leaders act similarly to the divinity, which seems to be willing to keep the secret around the strings that it pulls in order to run the theatre of the world. Nevertheless, the only true mystery that the people in power possess is that they are unable to exert a deep influence on the political stage. Far from fulfilling the noble function of stage directors, they are simple actors in a play whose script they ignore and whose plot progress they find out almost at the same time as their subjects.