* * *
Today, out of concern for equality, parental authority has replaced paternal authority in the law. But childhood development would be more balanced if children felt, in their daily life, the presence of the paternal authority; of the head of the family (a term reviled by the spirit of the time) — unless, of course, it is a Muslim family, for whom everything is permitted. The counterpart of masculine authority in the middle and lower classes was the respect due women — politeness, gallantry, precedence in social ritual — and especially the duty to protect them. The formula for access to life boats in case of shipwreck is well-known: Women and children first! This was not simply because adult men were thought better able to fend for themselves physically, but because children represented the future and women were the givers of life. The very idea of a woman soldier, exposed to all the violence of combat, would have seemed absolutely unimaginable to our near ancestors, and even barbaric.
There were far fewer battered women in France during the first half of the twentieth century (until just prior to demographic colonisation and the massive decline of morals) than there are today, and the phenomenon was limited to couples in which the husband was alcoholic. To mistreat a woman, to speak unkindly to her, to use bad language in her presence was considered something horrible. In the popular novels of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (today completely forgotten, but upon which the historian of social mores might usefully rely) marital tragedies were often the subject. The prose and the dramaturgy were wrought to perfection, with a care infinitely greater than the slipshod works that carry off the Prix Goncourt in our day.
One situation recurred frequently: the betrayed wife slapped her unfaithful husband, that is, she raised her hand against him, insulted him. The man did not dare respond. In the converse case, where the woman was guilty of adultery, the man collapsed, without revealing the least anger, in order to elicit the pity of the unfaithful wife, to shame her, to threaten her morally with her own wrongdoing, blackmailing her with the possibility of suicide. Of course, in the plots of many of these novels, the wronged husband does not take his revenge on or do violence to his unfaithful wife; he issues a challenge to the rival and puts a bullet through his heart. The woman, in tears, torn up by the death of her lover, returns to her duty; submissive, she is nevertheless condemned to be left untouched by the husband who now views her as tainted. She ends her days busying herself about her children and meditating upon her fault. The moral to these customs of prior days was that women were never dealt with violently.
* * *
In the course of a Parisian dinner party comprised of bobos (bourgeois-bohemians: bourgeois of the elitist Left, trendy, anti-populist, and anti-European, despite being a native) the conversation turned to the subject of women battered and raped in the family home. A fetching young woman of the feminist intelligentsia was present. One of the attendees remarked that he could never let himself hit or even insult a woman, and that he made it his duty always to protect women.
The young woman rose up against him, pronouncing the following incredible words, which I summarise: ‘You are an outdated macho man. You could hit a man but not a woman. So you consider women weak and inferior beings.’ This remark enlightened me as to the real nature of militant feminism: a psychotic rejection by women of their femininity and their biological condition; a desire to be considered like men. This is one of the themes of the next chapter: the paradox of feminism, which wants to masculinise women.
Love, Money, and Interest
The notion of love between man and woman (as in certain regards the notion of friendship between two persons) obviously has a sexual and/or affective dimension, but the latter is often overwhelmed by financial interest. Money is involved as an intensifier or a turn-off, as the case may be. But very often money and wealth are the main pillars of love, as of friendship.
One member of a couple wants a separation; if the other suddenly has a stroke of good financial fortune, the one who wanted the separation will think twice. From Aristophanes and Plautus to popular theatre and movies, this plot has become banal, especially when it comes to the old story of the heir/heiress, which gives rise to endless gags. Inheriting a large sum inevitably leads to an influx of (perfectly sincere) new friends, to the reactivation of weakened bonds of friendship, and especially to ease in finding candidates for an amorous connection. If a couple of whatever sort is doing badly, and one or both of the partners win a big prize in the lottery, all sociological studies reveal that the couple will get along better.
A rich man has more chance of success in courting a woman than a similar man who is poor or of modest circumstances, regardless of physical or intellectual qualities. A rich woman, other things being equal, will more easily find a husband than a poor woman. An attractive but poor man or woman is at a disadvantage on the market of love. At one time, a pretty girl without a dowry could not find a taker. On the other hand, a spouse (man or woman) can be led to divorce his/her partner if he/she hopes to get a large alimony payment, something that happens frequently in the United States. A daughter or son will love their father or mother all the more — measured against a number of manifestations of filial piety — if the parents are rich, and if they hope for their speedy death and an inheritance favourable to them. The strongest intra-family hatreds are more often brought about by conflict over money than over anything emotional. Similarly, romantic, filial, and friendly attachments are greatly strengthened by the prospect of financial gain.
Many women act lovingly toward a spouse they detest because he has them in a state of economic dependence, that is to say, in a state of a sort of blackmail. On the other hand, women about to leave their husbands have rethought it if the latter suddenly becomes rich (though this remark also applies to men, obviously). Money stimulates a mimesis of love as of friendship, whether upwards or downwards.
The behaviour of show business personalities is emblematic in this respect (as is, increasingly, that of political personalities) as revealed by the tabloid press: they get married, they divorce, they make up, they redivorce — all this being almost exclusively dependent on their partner’s financial position and notoriety. Attraction is thus strongly influenced by the external socio-economic element. This occurs in all orders of society (though with variable intensity) and is based on ethological dispositions thousands of years old. The erratic romantic behaviour of the showbiz world resembles what happened in all the courts of the old, monarchical Europe, and even among the lower orders. One of my principal theses is that only bourgeois marriage more or less escaped this pattern for a century-and-a-half because of its extraordinary solidity, based on an alliance (very zen, at bottom) between love tempered by self-interest (as properly understood), restrained passion, and family interests. But only the middle-class bourgeoisie could accomplish this, for complex psychological reasons mentioned above.
In any case, money (which is the central pole of all social position and determines 70 percent of personal happiness) plays a role in romantic feeling just as the orbit of a heavenly body is altered by the gravitational force of another. Material interest is a powerful influence on behaviour commonly thought to be spontaneous and gratuitous. This is a constant of human behaviour which neither pagan philosophers nor monotheistic theologians have been able to correct through their reasonings, exhortations, or imprecations.[28]
Romantic (or friendly) feeling is never pure except in novels, movies, or in the lives of saints. It exists, however, like an inaccessible sun, but is very dangerous because it has something disarming about it which runs counter to the natural law of perpetual conflict. Just as theories of absolute war, hatred, and aggression are absurd explanations of human behaviour, so too are absurd all theories which see a human ideal in loving empathy. Loving empathy exists, but is always subordinate to self-interest, apart from in pathological cases. The individual logic of love (romantic love, friendship) f
ollows the same paths as the collective logic of love (humanitarianism, charity), that is to say, it is mixed with the logic of money and self-interest. Let us take an example: the millions of people who — in Western countries innervated principally by Christianity — donate to humanitarian and third-world causes and associations are usually quite sincere but, despite all the evidence, they are unable to admit that the beneficiaries of this money are the charitable organisations themselves, that is, business enterprises frequently operated by crooks. That a political-business personality who has built his fortune on the humanitarian industry (‘love’) can be a favourite of the French public according to opinion polls tells you a lot about popular naïveté.
* * *
Entirely disinterested love or friendship could only come about between two beings possessed of all wealth and without any material need of one another. In such a case, love or friendship would also be extremely fragile. The most stable couples, according to statistical studies of marriage and divorce, are those in which the woman depends economically on the man. Absolute sincerity in love and friendship, in the sense of a gift without return, does not exist apart from in exceptional cases. The only case that escapes this rule of calculation and self-interest (albeit not always) is filial love, that is, love for one’s children. It is possible to love one’s children unconditionally and sacrifice for them. This is genetic programming which affects all mammals and even other species, and affects humans past the stage of weaning.[29]
Love is more fragile than friendship, for one of its pillars is sex. But love, like friendship, is conditioned by relations of self-interest, and thus by power relations, even if transfigured by discourse. Concrete, material self-interest is the basis of all human feeling and behaviour apart from in two important cases, those of patriotism and religious fervor (even if exceptions to these kinds of disinterestedness are common). Absolute gratuitousness is highly uncommon when it comes to human nature.
Sincere love and sincere friendship are, moreover, weaker than pure hatred, which does not require any return. Hate can develop on its own; it is a pure gift, the gift of death. Love and friendship, on the other hand, are a transaction, a gift and a return. I love you, so you owe me something. Hence the well-known direction in which romantic disappointment develops: a person who loves another without being loved in return feels that he/she has been stolen from, and tries to punish the beloved that he/she cannot have.
Money is almost everything. Someone with money is free of all threat of blackmail, in friendship or love. He can demand anything; he is always respected; he is always loved. Someone without money, especially a woman, is a victim of all possible blackmail, all possible slavery.
From the moment you sexualise romantic love, or rather attachment, and forget the dimension of self-interest, you render it fragile. For the pleasure in sexual attraction is by definition tied to immediacy, and attachment is tied to length of time. Sexual attraction can, of course, endure and even grow exceptionally stronger, but in general it is a fragile and ephemeral feeling, extremely vulnerable to habit. This is why couples that form on the basis of sex are less durable than those which form on the basis of self-interest, and why husbands in Christian couples based on lifelong sexual fidelity are unable to keep from seeking prostitutes.[30]
[1] Pen name of Georges Soulès (1907–86), French novelist, essayist, memoirist, and esotericist. –Tr.
[2] In Rome during the first century AD, reports Jérôme Carcopino (Daily Life in Ancient Rome), there existed a coterie of women of good society who wanted to live like men, who frequented taverns and demanded the right to divorce. These proto-feminists had a slogan: homo sum (‘I am a human being’), which meant that the condition of homo should equalise vires (men) and mulieres (women).
[3] Princesses setting up house with bodyguards, famous fashion models marrying football players, etc.
[4] Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, better known as Juvenal, was a Roman poet from the first and early second centuries AD, best remembered for having written the Satires. –Ed.
[5] Alexandre-Pierre Georges ‘Sacha’ Guitry (1885–1957) was a French actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright, son of the famous French actor Lucien Guitry. –Ed.
[6] Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (1766–1817) was a revolutionary writer in France and an active participant in the political and intellectual life of Switzerland and France during her time. She was well-known as being a principal opponent of Napoleon. –Ed.
[7] Le Corbeau et le Renard, one of the best-known of Lafontaine’s Fables. –Tr.
[8] Faye is, presumably, referring to Spinoza’s Political Treatise in which he denies women political rights on the grounds of there being a necessary inequality between the sexes. –Ed.
[9] To summarise and toughen our position, we may also say that the great majority of fundamental creations in all domains which have left their mark on humanity since antiquity have been the work of White males — and, in a far smaller measure, of Asiatic males. As for Africans, there role is virtually non-existent. Hence the resentment against the White male. The consultation of any encyclopedia that covers works and creations of all kinds in all domains — including politics — from the beginning of historical time leaves no doubt about the statistical facts.
[10] ‘Macho men’. –Tr.
[11] Marie-Ségolène Royal is a member of the French Socialist Party and current Minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development, and Energy. –Ed.
[12] First Secretary of the French Socialist Party and daughter of ex-President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors. –Ed.
[13] Peter Sloterdijk is a professor of philosophy and media theory at the University of Art and Design Karlsruhe. His writings are categorised as belonging to the schools of phenomenology, philosophical anthropology, and posthumanism. He is perhaps most notable for formulating the foam metaphor as a means of illustrating social relations, with the individual human being characterised as a bubble into which signals (from, for example, the media) infiltrate. The foam, comprised of a multitude of bubbles (the community), is said to be that which shelters the individual bubble from these signals. –Ed.
[14] Racaille. This most inegalitarian of expressions was given new life by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who employed it to describe those responsible for the French riots of 2005. –Tr.
[15] Parity in France refers to the principle of mandating equal representation of men and women in various domains. More specifically, it refers to France’s ‘Law on Equal Access by Women and Men to Electoral Mandates and Functions’, passed 6 June 2000, which requires all political parties to put forward equal numbers of male and female candidates. –Tr.
[16] Michèle Lasserre, founder of a high-end matrimonial agency, has remarked that very beautiful women are harder to marry off than average-looking women.
[17] Especially due to the mobilisation of men during the First World War.
[18] Mahatma Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2005). –Ed.
[19] A collection of Napoleon’s memories written down by Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases, with whom he conversed almost daily. –Ed.
[20] The wolf said to have found and cared for the twins, Romulus and Remus, after they had been cast into the river. Known as the Capitoline Wolf, she is frequently depicted with young children suckling her teat. –Ed.
[21] Goddess of truth, balance, order, law, morality, and justice. –Ed.
[22] Goddess of the hunt, the moon, and childbirth. –Ed.
[23] The State’s official goal, according to the National Police Administration, which sent a memo on the subject to the trade unions (24 March 2004), is the feminisation
of the police. By 2015, one policeman out of three is to be a woman. At present, the security police are 22.08 percent women according to the Minister of the Interior. But this causes problems on the ground. Martine Veillard of the union Synergie Officiers admits in Le Figaro (7 April 2005) that ‘women are not cut out for forcible actions against crime’. In a communiqué published by Agence France-Presse (6 April 2004) the General Secretary of the Syndicat National de la Police, Nicolas Comte, stated: ‘it is not merely a question of physical strength. In certain neighbourhoods where part of the male population has difficulty imagining a woman in any way other than veiled, they find it hard to accept the authority of a woman in uniform’. Western armies now accept women in ground combat units despite the enormous problems they have been met with.
[24] Exactly as in official contemporary (‘conceptual’) art where ugliness is imposed as the norm, clothing styles are undergoing a sharp aesthetic decline in the West. The fashion shows of Paris, Milan, New York, etc., are merely exhibitions of ridiculous outfits, disguises, and jokes treated seriously. Particularly since the 1980s, the world of fashion has favoured ugly, uncomfortable, and absurd outfits for the young generation (very expensive, though, which is an obvious swindle on the part of the ‘designer’ labels): slashed or torn blue jeans; baggy trousers whereby the crotch comes down to the knee, in imitation of American jailbirds; trousers belted below the pelvis, falling in accordion folds to the ankles, dragging upon the ground; shapeless ‘sports’ shoes of canvas or imitation leather; horrible t-shirts made in China for a quarter of a dollar, embellished with a ‘designer’ label and sold to Western suckers for $80; etc., etc.
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