Messianism conveys anti-culture: ‘Every culture relates to the eternal, demystifying what is current and resisting the pressure it exerts. Anti-culture, which longs to ignore the past, is also ignorant of the fact that with every generation, mankind reverts to childhood and is in need of a past of some kind so as to avoid confusing nursery school games with ingenious intentions’. In the past, people used to say that ‘the trees conceal the forest’; nowadays, it is topicality that conceals the presence of history. Anti-culture proceeds to artificially exaggerate both the value and the weight of the present moment; by the same token, topicality is no longer put into perspective: ‘Short-sighted thinking bans us from attaining more extensive thoughts’. Hence the perpetual agitation and hysterical worship of ephemeral trends: ‘Each passing day is only an absolute to those that have something perishable to sell’.
The deceptions of historical messianism generate three ‘pestilences’: Rousseauian folly, utopian delirium, and a destruction frenzy.
Regarding ‘ecological’ protests, Mr Pauwels highlights some obvious facts: ‘That nuisances can only be reduced through increased expansion; that pollution is largely due to everyday commodities (heating, transport) which no one is willing to live without; and that what the West’s destitute, and particularly the poor who inhabit underdeveloped countries, are actually demanding is not antipollution, but anti-rationality’.
We encounter such delirium on a daily basis: ‘Puritanism has shifted its focus, relinquishing the sexual for the sake of the social’. As for the above-mentioned ‘destruction frenzy’, it is the work of the great simplistic unilateralisms, of all the theories which Louis Pauwels rightfully labels ‘reductionistic’ and which claim that ‘man is merely an ensemble of various mechanisms (as stated by behaviourists and those that espouse Pavlovian theories); that man is defined by his sole actions (French existentialists); that man is nothing more than an economic dependency (Marxists); and that man is merely the embodiment of his own libido’s avatars (Freudians)’. All of these theories share the common habit of ‘explaining the high through the low’: momentum through frustration, the will through mental complexes, the elites through the masses, and quality through quantity (‘Psychoanalysis, whose scientific career was so short-lived, has enjoyed a huge one in the field of literature. And this literature is a genuine hymn to reductions that are carried out from below, a long saga of degradation’).
Taking a stand against man’s pseudo-sciences (‘dead man’s sciences’), Mr Pauwels makes the following affirmation: ‘What we lack are two kinds of science: that of a strong and healthy Earth and that of crowning points’.
Perceiving Work as Wisdom and Spirituality
Christianity is assessed on the basis of the Church’s crisis: ‘Have you ever noticed how easy it has become to be a Christian? All it takes is for one to read the papers and take sides; but do you know what countless men seek? They seek to become something that is not easy for anyone to be’. A ‘secular’ and socialised type of Christianity, perhaps? ‘A neo-zealotism — after 2000 years of Christic symbolism, one that has often garnered admiration, is this a renewal or the end of Christianity? That is the question’.
Louis Pauwels contrasts one’s unwillingness to make efforts and one’s contempt for work with a perspective in which work acts not only as a source of material goods, but also as an embodiment of wisdom and spirituality. ‘To use a word which, although Christian in essence, no Frenchman will be able to comprehend today, I am convinced that work does indeed act as a path towards personal salvation’. He evokes the memory of his adoptive father, who was a common man, a spiritual aristocrat, and who taught him that angels have no wings of their own and that it is through one’s hands that one can ascend to the heavens. His job involved manual work: ‘His workbench was an altar’. Work ennobles those who act upon themselves when doing their job. Those with a predilection for well-done work are the saints of our age.
Last but not least, the author enumerates the ‘rights of the living man’: the right to be indifferent, the right to laugh, the right to behave naturally and the right to indulge in the joy of life. Just like the Ancients, he celebrates ‘the virtues and intelligence of happiness’ in the face of the new prophets that long to subject us to misery due to their own disappointment with history.
Ideologists strive to change man without impacting our ‘nature’ — our surrounding world — in any way. Mr Pauwels suggests that we reclaim the ‘eternal man’ and leave the imprint of our superhuman will upon our world, a world that is ever in a state of becoming (‘Nature is a power just waiting to be humanised’).
Epicurus on one side, the Stoics on the other. ‘I am not a determinist. I doubt that there is an actual direction that history is meant to follow. What I do believe in is individual consciousness, personal determination and free will’, Louis Pauwels proclaims. In a time and place ‘where culture is infused with a certain dose of civil war’, it is high time someone introduced a principle of uncertainty into history. As Paul Nizan841 used to say, ‘to know what one will become is to lead a dead existence’.
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Ce que je crois, an essay by Louis Pauwels. Grasset, 301 pages.
Président Faust, a scenario by Louis Pauwels. Albin Michel, 170 pages.
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Louis Pauwels pursues his ‘credo’ in Blumroch l’admirable ou le déjeuner du surhomme842 (Gallimard, 1976). In it, he reaffirms his confidence in the powers of the spirit and humanity’s regeneration at the hands of the ‘superhuman’. Without fear nor hatred, he resorts to a specific formula to declare himself in favour of a certain social hierarchy: ‘Equality is an injustice committed against the capable’. He then specifies that ‘man can indeed be transformed. Modifications do take place, whether by mere chance or as a result of some unknown forces at play. The purpose of science is to make such modifications voluntary. Mankind strives never to be in want of anything but may well end up missing its mark. To render modification voluntary: such is the coming century’s Promethean project’. Finally, he adds: ‘There is only thought if there is a challenge’.
As regards the doctrine of the ‘soul’s spark’, one must obviously refer to Meister Eckhart’s ‘Treatises’ (Seuil, 1971), translated by Mrs. Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache. Unfortunately, the ‘Of the Perfection of the Soul’ sermon is not included in this edition, a sermon that one can only find in an older collection entitled Oeuvres de Maître Eckhart, Sermons-traités843 (Gallimard, 1942). Concerning Meister Eckhart, see also Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache’s Maître Eckhart et la mystique rhénane844 (Seuil, 1956 and 1961), as well as Reiner Schürmann’s Maître Eckhart ou la joie errante845 (Denoël-Planète, 1971–72).
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Against Love, Youth and Plebes
Anti-authority, anti-literature, and anti-psychiatry: dissent is all the rage these days. Mr Robert Poulet846 thus plays the game with calculated naivety. He tackles the three fanciful attitudes which are always adopted by societies that have run out of breath: sentimentality, pedolatry,847 and populocracy. His book brings together three essays published in the 1960s, several months apart: Contre l’amour,848 Contre la jeunesse,849 and Contre la plèbe.850
Could we be dealing with taboos here? These three topics seem to have evaded the attention of dissenters, who do not usually do things by halves. This is because these fantastical attitudes are henceforth part of the landscape, only surfacing as propaganda topics and with such power that the author insisted on explaining himself.
He writes: ‘I have travelled the length and breadth of the world, seen every conceivable milieu and experienced many an adventure and misadventure, which has allowed me to acquire the most complete information on childhood and the phantom of passion. As for the third point, it would very hard indeed to claim that a man who has successively been a soldier, a worker, a peasant and a convict could ever be ignorant of the people’.
Born in Liège into an old family from the Charolais region, Mr Robert Poulet entered t
he sphere of literature through the most circuitous of paths. Having been, in turn, a patrol officer, an agricultural worker, a turner at a garage and an actor, he met Robert Denoël851 in 1931. He is now a literary critic for Rivarol852 and Spectacle du Monde.853 According to his own words, he is married, joyful, mystical and pessimistic.
Love does exist, but it differs from what people believe. The love that Mr Poulet attacks is written with a capital letter; with a capital ‘H’,854 as Flaubert855 used to say. It is the alliance of convenience passion with pastimes and tickles.
The word itself has been misused for an entire century now. An alibi: ‘Everything will turn out fine, we love each other’. Interpretative delirium: ‘The heart has spoken’. In the expression ‘crazy love’, there is a word that is used twice. Blindness. ‘One enjoys friendship because of certain facts; love, by contrast, is enjoyed in spite of certain realities’ (Montherlant). There can be no excuses for incoherence, even when the heart is at its very source.
Lamartine’s ‘Crazy Love’ for Photo Novellas
Love has been dishonoured as a result of being forced to aim higher than it ever could. Young Werther856 is consumed by passion, I see — well, good for him; or not. ‘It is not Phaedra that is sublime, but merely the way she is depicted by Euripides857 and Racine.858 In actual fact, Phaedra is sick, no more, no less’. In this respect, Talleyrand’s words are truer than ever: ‘All that is excessive is insignificant’. What Mr Poulet dreams of is Japanese-style literature, a poetic art without superlatives in which Petrarch859 would say the following of Laura:860 ‘I am rather fond of her and would be quite willing to spend a moment or two with her’; or perhaps: ‘I will make her life most pleasant, as long as she does nothing to inconvenience me’.
Love-induced despair is the fate of weak souls. ‘One slides into despair; it is an all too easy solution; at the slightest pruritus of the heart, one surrenders to sadness just as one would blow their nose’. Those whose hearts are ‘as vast as that’ are ripe for conquest. They turn into anvils, awaiting the fall of the hammer. Our society, however, is moved to tears whenever required. Love Story and Mourir d’aimer861 both achieved exemplary cinematographic success, each acting as the embodiment of a different kind of stupidity.
Falsely romantic foolishness thus ends harshly and depressingly, stretching from Lamartine’s works to photo novellas.
None of this would be a serious matter if the experience were understood once and for all, but despite having been taught the lesson a hundred times over, people still ask for more. When Christopher Columbus got off his ship in America, he thought he was in the Indies. When setting foot upon the soil of life, a woman lover is ever convinced that she is in Cythera.862 Does clairvoyance condemn one to solitude? Montesquieu used to say: ‘What a ridiculous sex woman is’. Montherlant offers the following clarification: ‘Such a claim is not entirely accurate. A woman only becomes ridiculous when she is in love’ (Le démon du bien);863 to which Mr Poulet then adds: ‘When one attempts to open the eyes of a woman that has fallen in love, she proceeds to cover her ears. What she loves is an image, and the truth is of no interest to her’. The conclusion? ‘There are none that can answer for another’s heart, nor for their own in 10 years’ time. A well-bred person can, however, answer for their own honour during their entire lifetime’.
Blind to his own desire, man is equally blind to his past. Childhood drifts ever further away, and nostalgia sorts out all the memories. In Mr Poulet’s view, to project one’s dreams of purity into childish ‘green paradises’ is but a mistake.
Psychoanalysts have given credence to the myth of children’s ‘polymorphous perversity’; there is, however, an opposite myth, namely that of ‘childish innocence’ and the child-king. This myth prevails in the United States, where all that is adult arouses horror. In actual fact, the only reason why children come across as being innocent is because they lack the necessary means to impose their own whims (‘There are no wise children, only docile ones’). And unlike what is sometimes believed, it is only through practice that they acquire qualities: ‘Not only are honour, bravery and pity manly notions, but are specific to judicious men with sufficient experience of life’.
‘Standing in a corner and believing themselves sheltered from the eyes of others, three boys immediately put on a show where genuinely unimaginable brutalities, cowardly behaviour and perfidies are on full display’.
Yet children have rosy cheeks and smooth skin. Adults are affected by this and give in to the blackmail that these smiling little beings resort to. There is some cowardice to be found here. One purchases their own good conscience using caramel toffees and pocket money. The fact of considering children to be geniuses and addressing them as if they were savant poodles is, incidentally, a source of reassurance for them. The concern felt by a father upon hearing his son utter something reasonable will undoubtedly trigger a feeling of ‘dethronement’ on that day.
Teaching has replaced education. Our century has decreed that brains are worth more than spines; but what is knowledge in the absence of character? Mr Poulet affirms: ‘Intelligence among young boys is akin to a fast car driven by a negro’.
Universities are increasingly isolating their students from the realities of existence. They act as the extension of the familial cocoon with false impressions of ‘life’. This is why, despite having reduced the illiteracy rate, compulsory education has done very little in terms of eradicating inanity. The line that separates childhood from adulthood has gradually been erased (one has, for instance, simultaneously sexualised childhood and infantilised sex). It is our entire society that is (pathologically) reverting to childhood. As a result, the notion of ‘majority’ has, naturally, undergone a certain transformation.
There is a grave consequence to this: power is being granted increasingly early, yet people are becoming adults at an increasingly later age. Student syndicalism gave us a foretaste of what the juvenile Republic would be like: sects, palavers, and hollowness.
Having targeted young people, Mr Robert Poulet naturally moves on to plebes — with the word itself referring to ‘all that is below a certain level of sensibility’. Between the age of fifteen and twenty, everyone is, in fact, somewhat plebeian. ‘It is an age when, under the illusion of rising above themselves, one actually crawls beneath’.
The parallel is a striking one indeed. Disappointed with the fact that life does not reflect their idealised and reassuring conception of things, young people have temper tantrums and stamp their feet. Likewise, ‘our people hate thinking because, as an emancipation tool, thoughts have been a source of disappointment to them’.
Mr Poulet knows that the manner in which one defines ‘mankind’ is but a matter of opinion; or perhaps a zoological concept. The only fact of life is the existence of people, i.e some people. Different ones. Well-bred or poorly bred men in all milieus. Men who do build their own selves, but among whom certain things cannot be achieved through education; which is true of both the quality of their souls and the very shape that their instincts take. The author writes: ‘What accounts for the passion with which today’s thinkers and politicians reject all racial considerations is not the memory of the conflicts and crimes that such ideas have inspired; for there are other ones that have had the same impact. The real reason lies in the prevailing feeling that if the essential differences between men were to be recognised, the entire undertaking that aims to construct a universal society founded upon egalitarianism would end in miserable failure’.
To Achieve a Certain Level of Incompetence
There is a certain logical continuity that pervades the whole book, for individuals abide by the ‘Peter principle’: they have an irresistible propensity for wanting to access their own sphere of incompetence. What they want is to become something that they were never meant to be. Women thus want to replace men, masses the elites, and the young the adults. Mr Poulet was most accurate in detecting this desire’s profound essence: ‘What the plebeians want i
s not to take the place of the patricians, but to be patricians themselves. This has turned social justice into a pipe-dream’.
Such thoughts are part of a dissension style that one may label reactionary. And yet Mr Poulet does not fulminate against commencing loves. He is fond of the humble and knows that youthfulness is pleasant to look at. He does, however, want to reinstate a certain equilibrium: ‘One may strike a match at the age of 4; wield a pistol at the age of 9; copulate at the age of 13; come up with one’s own ideas at the age of 16; but such behaviour can only lead to accidents’.
It is of course easy to adopt an ironic attitude and only see the bad side of things, but these words were written years ago. Since then, we have witnessed the booming of the masses, the ‘liberation of women’, and the revolutionary uprising of schools. Current myths are no longer covered by ideological immunity. This might explain why the book has been republished. Mr Robert Poulet only exaggerated through anticipation. He conjugated the future using the indicative, and it is now the past simple that applies to his words.
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Contre l’amour, la jeunesse, la plèbe,864 an essay by Robert Poulet. Denoël, 368 pages.
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Having previously published a philosophical novel (Histoire de l’être,865 Denoël, 1973) in which he developed a personal ontology that implied the redefinition of logic as rationality, Mr Poulet went on to release an autobiographical book entitled Ce n’est pas une vie866 (Denoël, 1976). In the former, he proceeded to push his own will to detachment to its very limit: ‘I want to be a rock, to become a rock as soon as I set eyes on any object that is foreign to my nature. I shall seal all my orifices with utmost power and put a stop to the restlessness that spreads within the confines of my own skull. I shall not be anything but the embodiment of Being. How could I not! I must now sink into my own destruction, or into a state that borders on nothingness as much as at all possible’.
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