Human Behavior

Video Review: A French Village (rerun)

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The Paris-based writer Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry said (on X)  that he “casually mentioned to an educated American that the Vichy Regime was voted into power by a left-majority Assembly and most of its political personnel was left-wing, while the Free French were overwhelmingly right-wing reactionaries, and he was totally stunned. I thought I was stating the obvious.”

The mention of Vichy reminded me of this series, set in the (fictional) French town of Villeneuve during the years of the German occupation and afterwards, which ran on French TV from 2009-2017.  It is simply outstanding–one of the best television series I have ever seen.

Daniel Larcher is a physician who also serves as deputy mayor, a largely honorary position. When the regular mayor disappears after the German invasion, Daniel finds himself mayor for real. His wife Hortense, a selfish and emotionally-shallow woman, is the opposite of helpful to Daniel in his efforts to protect the people of Villaneuve from the worst effects of the occupation while still carrying on his medical practice. Daniel’s immediate superior in his role as mayor is Deputy Prefect Servier, a bureaucrat mainly concerned about his career and about ensuring that everything is done according to proper legal form.

The program is ‘about’ the intersection of ultimate things…the darkest evil, the most stellar heroism….with the ‘dailyness’ of ordinary life, and about the human dilemmas that exist at this intersection. Should Daniel have taken the job of mayor in the first place?…When is it allowable to collaborate with evil, to at least some degree, in the hope of minimizing the damage? Which people will go along, which will resist, which will take advantage? When is violent resistance…for example, the killing by the emerging Resistance of a more or less random German officer…justified, when it will lead to violent retaliation such as the taking and execution of hostages?

Arthur Koestler has written about ‘the tragic and the trivial planes’ of life. As explained by his friend, the writer and fighter pilot Richard Hillary:

“K has a theory for this. He believes there are two planes of existence which he calls vie tragique and vie triviale. Usually we move on the trivial plane, but occasionally in moments of elation or danger, we find ourselves transferred to the plane of the vie tragique, with its non-commonsense, cosmic perspective. When we are on the trivial plane, the realities of the other appear as nonsenseas overstrung nerves and so on. When we live on the tragic plane, the realities of the other are shallow, frivolous, frivolous, trifling. But in exceptional circumstances, for instance if someone has to live through a long stretch of time in physical danger, one is placed, as it were, on the intersection line of the two planes; a curious situation which is a kind of tightrope-walking on one’s nerves…I think he is right.”

In this series, the Tragic and the Trivial planes co-exist…day-to-day life intermingles with world-historical events. And the smallness of the stage…the confinement of the action to a single small village….works well dramatically, for the same reason that (as I have argued previously) stories set on shipboard can be very effective.

Some of the other characters in the series:

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Terrorism and the Weaponization of Empathy

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An interesting article by neuroscientist Orli Peter:

Across the Middle East, militant groups from Hamas to the Syrian rebels orchestrate calculated psychological operations. Seen from a clinical point of view, they demonstrate exceptional skills in cognitive empathy, which they use to manipulate our emotions.

Cognitive empathy is the ability to accurately understand and model the thoughts, feelings and values of others. It’s like hacking into someone else’s algorithm for how they think and feel, enabling you to predict their reactions to your actions. On the other hand, emotional empathy – what the West excessively values – is the ability to feel what you believe the other person is experiencing.

Cognitive empathy takes effort to construct, whereas emotional empathy is involuntary. Anti-Israel militants have been able to turbo-charge their propaganda by using their cognitive empathy to manipulate Westerner’s emotional empathy.

Using cognitive empathy, militants have learnt to present their cause as aligned with Western humanitarian values, carefully curating their image as champions of freedom and justice. This dynamic is rooted in asymmetrical power relationships, where weaker groups often develop a detailed understanding of powerful parties, using cognitive empathy to identify and press the psychological buttons that influence those in power. These terrorists often possess a stronger cognitive grasp of Western psychology than Westerners understand jihadi psychology.

I think there is a lot of truth in this. However, many of those who project sympathy for the jihadis are not doing so because they have emotional empathy, but because they want to be believed to have emotional empathy.  This is particularly the case, I think, in the case of media people and academics.

Also, empathy toward one group of people can serve as a self-justification for the unwholesome pleasures of cruelty–direct or vicarious–toward another group of people. See my post Conformity, Cruelty, and Political Activism. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the anti-Semitic behavior which is being justified by claims of empathy toward people in Gaza.

I remember something Chesterton said:  ”

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

There is today way too much latching onto pity toward a socially-acceptable set of designated victims and closing of minds toward the facts of the case (Chesterton’s “untruthfulness”)….and closing of hearts toward other groups of people who are being harmed by the policies purportedly intended to protect those designated victims.

The distinction among cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and pretended emotional empathy is an important one. 

Worth Pondering

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The envious man seeks not his own gain, But the fall of another, And in his malice, loses his soul, For the gods despise such hearts. 

-Euripides

Quoted by @windduststars at this thread.

As Michael Gibson of 1517 Fund says, greed may not be good, but envy is evil.

Previous worth pondering post.

The Social Engineers and a Synthetic Candidate

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Gad Saad, a Canadian professor who seems a lot saner and more courageous than the general run of academics, has published an article in Newsweek:  Kamala Harris is Hoping You Turn Your Brain Off and Vote on Emotion.  He cites actor Ben Stiller on the reasons for his support for Harris:  “All the energy and excitement that is around this movement right now.”

Emotional appeals are of course nothing new in politics: Plenty of people surely voted for John F Kennedy because he seemed more ‘youthful’ and ‘vigorous’ than did Nixon.  And, as Professor Saad noted, emotional appears are also common in commercial marketing–“Sell the sizzle, not the steak” is an old saying in sales and marketing. And constructed iconic figures such as Betty Crocker have long been common.  Still, it is also true that the marketing had better not depart too far from the truth about the product: if the steak is no good, the restaurant isn’t going to be getting a lot of return visits. If the cake mix results in an inedible cake, the customer is probably not going to buy that brand again.

Although emotional appeals are nothing new in politics, it seems clear that the Harris/Walz campaign is taking such appeals to new heights/depths. The characters projected for Harris and Walz has been constructed by some very smart people based on their assessment of what will sell.  Does ‘opportunity’ poll well? Then have her talk about the ‘opportunity society.’  Is ‘freedom’ valued by most Americans?  Then have her use that word a lot, regardless of how disconnected it may be from her actual policies.  Indeed, the strategy appears to be to have her delay talking about policy as long as possible, similar to the way an overpriced restaurant may want to avoid having you see the actual menu until you’ve already made a reservation, parked (with valet parking) and have your entire party sitting down at the table.

There’s a pulp novel from 1954, Year of Consent, which projects a future United States which is nominally still a democracy–but the real power lies with the social engineers, sophisticated advertising & PR men who use psychological methods to persuade people that they really want what they are supposed to want. When I reviewed this book in 2021, I saw some disturbing parallels with our present society.  Today, and especially in the context of the Harris/Walz campaign, the parallels are even more disturbing. Review is here.

In the world posited by this novel:  While the US still has a President, he is a figurehead and the administration of the country is actually done by the General Manager of the United States, who himself serves at the pleasure of the social engineers. Don’t we see a great deal of this today, with the increasing power of the administrative departments–and, especially, the figurehead nature of the current President, all highly dependent on the goodwill of the Communicating Classes?  And isn’t the rage against X/Twitter and Elon Musk driven by the perception that this platform dares to defect from the unity of those Communicating Classes?

Are there enough people in the US today who are willing to seriously think about issues and policies, rather than just supporting and voting for what gives them a positive instantaneous feeling of some kind?  By analogy, will they evaluate the car for reliability, performance, mileage, and crashworthiness, or will they just go with the model that shows the car with happy and attractive people?

And how can rational candidates do a better job of coupling solid policy stories with emotional appeals that are truly relevant as well as hard-hitting?

Goethe, the Original Gretchen, and the Hackers of 1764 (rerun)

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When Goethe was 15, he was already recognized by friends as an exceptional writer.   One of these friends, “Pylades,” told Goethe that he had recently read some of his verses aloud to “some pleasant companions…and not one of them will believe that you have made them.”   Goethe said he didn’t much care whether they believed it or not, but just then one of the “pleasant companions” showed up, and Pylades proposed a way of convincing the fellow of Goethe’s abilities:  “Give him any theme, and he will make you a poem on the spot.”

The disbeliever asked Goethe if he “would venture to compose a pretty love-letter in rhyme, which a modest  young woman might be supposed to write to a young man, to declare her inclination.”

“Nothing easier,” said Goethe, and after thinking for a few minutes commenced to write. The now-former disbeliever was very impressed, said he hoped to see more of Goethe soon, and proposed an expedition into the country.   For this expedition, they were joined by several more young men “of the same rank”…intelligent and knowledgeable, but from the lower and middle classes, earning their livings by copying for lawyers, tutoring children, etc.

These guys told Goethe that they had copied his letter in a mock-feminine hand and had sent it to “a conceited young man, who was now firmly persuaded that a lady to whom he had paid distant court was excessively enamored of him, and sought an opportunity for closer acquaintance.”   The young man had completely fallen for it, and desired to respond to the woman also in verse…but did not believe he had the talent to write such verse.

Believing it was all in good fun, Goethe agreed to also write the reply.   Soon, he met the would-be lover, who was “certainly not very bright” and who was thrilled with “his” response to his inamorata.

While Goethe was with this group, “a girl of uncommon…of incredible beauty” came into the room.   Her name was Gretchen, and she was a relative of one of the tricksters present.  Goethe was quite smitten:

“The form of that girl followed me from that moment on every path;   it was the first durable impression which a female being had made upon me: and as I could find no pretext to see her at home, and would not seek one, I  went to church for love of her, and had soon traced out where she sat. Thus, during the long Protestant service, I gazed my fill at her.”

The tricksters soon prevailed upon Goethe to write another letter, this one from the lady to the sucker.  “I immediately set to work, and thought of every thing that would be in the highest degree pleasing if Gretchen were writing it to me.”  When finished, he read it to one of the tricksters, with Gretchen sitting by the window and spinning.   After the trickster left, Gretchen told Goethe that he should not be participating in this affair:  “The thing seems an innocent jest: it is a jest, but it is not innocent”…and asked why “you, a young man man of good family, rich, independent” would allow himself to be used as a tool in this deception, when she herself, although a dependent relative, had refused to become involved by copying the letters.

Gretchen then read the epistle, commenting that “That is very pretty, but it is a pity that it is not destined for a real purpose.” Goethe said how exciting it would be for a young man to really receive such a letter from a girl he cared about, and…greatly daring…asked: “if any one who knew, prized, honored, and adored you, laid such a paper before you, what would you do”…and pushed the paper, which she had previously pushed back toward him, nearer to Gretchen.

“She smiled, reflected for a moment, took the pen, and subscribed her name.”

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