I wrote this paper for a class entitled "From Diogenes to Bart Simpson," an excellent class with Dr. Greg Salyer covering cynicism and stoicism as interpreted throughout the ages and in modern life. I never felt like this paper was finished to my satisfaction, but my professor enjoyed it enough that I reproduce it for you here.
The Relevance of Satire as Exhibited in Gustave Flaubert’s Dictionnaire des idées reçues
or
Vive la satire!
by
Deborah J. Brannon
Introduction
As members of our American society (at least in the Southeast), we generally go along blithely accepting a few core ideas:
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The French are despicable.
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Black people are lazy.
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Blondes are idiots.
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A liberal education teaches you nothing.
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If you do not vote, you do not have a right to complain.
Au contraire, logical thought tells us that you cannot stereotype people on the basis of outward appearance: not on skin color, hair color, or nationality. A liberal education, arguably, equips an individual much better to evaluate and further her life and her culture. Also arguably, not voting is a statement of disagreement: the individual does not agree that any of the candidates should hold office. Therefore, such an individual would have every right to speak out stridently against the status quo.
These accepted ideas saturate everything. Many of us don’t even think of these assumptions we carry around inside us (though I would hope that those intelligent Americans who attain higher education would have the wit to recognize these accepted ideas for the ridiculous ignorant assumptions they are). Besides these blatant examples, this banal and unquestioned thinking penetrates even deeper. For example, how would your response to the following term, in a socio-cultural context, best be worded?
Female politician.
A. A female who engages in political activity.
B. Harridan. Harder than a man as she demonstrates a perversion of nature to be able to abandon her own family for politics. To be talked about with approval when concerned about political correctness.
If you chose A, you’re either a Skeptic, or extremely literal-minded and objective. If you chose B, you’re more than likely a typical American. And if you composed the second answer choice (with a satirical gleam in your eye), you have a cynical interpretation of culture’s accepted ideas on the level of Flaubert.
Flaubert was not ignorant of the accepted ideas in his own culture. As a matter of fact, he set out to unmask them and parade their ridiculous ideas about for (mainly) his colleagues to see. He used satire, that brand of cynicism lite, in a revel of mockery and an effort at reform.
Allow me, for a moment, to digress. In order to understand the intent and possible effectiveness of our subject—Flaubert’s post-humously published Dictionnaire des idées reçues—we must first briefly introduce the relevant philosophies.
Cynicism
Cynicism, as a philosophy, rejects all institutions in the belief that the goal of existence is but to satisfy basic natural needs. Therefore, one need not pay social conventions or institutions any heed. As a matter of fact, institutions often require individuals to compromise the pursuit of their basic needs, which stifles humans and makes them miserable. Cynics perceive institutions as negative feedback loops in which those miserable in the system support the system and draw others in, spreading the misery.
Cynics hung around together on the street in packs, much like dogs (the Greek word for dog is a possible origin for their name), ridiculing the passersby. They ceaselessly hounded those automatons of society with razor-sharp wits for their mindless lives.
Cynics are truth-tellers with an absolute disregard for diplomacy. In fact, diplomacy would be against this philosophy as it panders to the soft minds of those people who uphold the institutions Cynics spurn.
It's hard to talk about Cynicism without telling a story. After all, there are no extensive writings of the Cynics to refer back to for a reason: they let their actions speak for them. Therefore, I must offer you a story. Regardless of whether the events depicted are fact, the message sent by the story is the essence of what it means to be a Cynic. Diogenes and Alexander the Great:
One day, the Cynic Diogenes sat in the sun before his home. The clay of his home was warm on his back and the sun warm on his face.
A shadow fell over him, and a young man declared, “I am Alexander the Great.”
Diogenes declined to react as the man continued, “Who are you?”
“I am Diogenes,” said Diogenes.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Diogenes?” inquired the great king.
“You can move out of my sunlight.” Diogenes replied shortly and with no respect.
Diogenes is considered to be one of the greatest cynics of the Hellenistic age. There are many stories attached to this extremely caustic man who lived in a wine jar on the street and begged for his food in between haranguing all who he encountered.
Due to the particularly abrasive nature of the Cynic philosophy, it seems impossible for many Cynics to coexist long with society. In fact, the need has arisen to identify more little-c cynics than big-c cynics. This is the only way that the philosophy survives today: this modified form.
Without engaging in a lengthy discussion on the modified forms of Cynicism and whether Cynicism still exists, allow me to point out that one type of the modified form is the literary device of satire.
Cynicism Lite
Satire is defined by the online American Heritage Dictionary as:
sat·ire n.
1. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
2. The branch of literature constituting such works.
Satire is cynicism lite. Satire, as a process, rejects the typical assumptions of culture. It holds the ridiculous conventions of society up and presents them as gaudily arrayed paper cutouts.
However, the agenda of satire is not so straightforward as simple lambasting of all and sundry. Satire has the greater cause of provoking change, wheedling away at those it ridicules to make them understand their own incoherent pointless lives or customs so that they may better themselves.
Great satirists through time have included: Juvenal of first century Rome, who wrote virulent verse attacking Roman society; Voltaire of eighteenth century France, who originated the concept of optimism (scathingly) and found himself jailed for his writings; Mark Twain who wrote in nineteenth century America, a time and place closer to us than any, castigating the American lifestyle in speech and writing.
Flaubert is also counted among one of the great satirists. His last novel was Bouvard et Pecuchet, about which the author has to say: "I am planning a thing in which I give vent to my anger... I shall vomit over my contemporaries the disgust they inspire in me... It will be big and violent (Flaubert)." The story followed two simple copiers who met by chance, received good fortune by chance, and attempted to follow their dream of essentially comprehending the whole world. Of course, the copiers (and the author, who never completed the book) failed and returned to their dull lives. Appended to this last grand undertaking in its post-humously published state was the collection of defined clichés termed the Dictionnaire des idées reçues.
Satire and Flaubert
It is said that Flaubert never suffered fools gladly: this attitude of not sitting down for the world’s idiocy yielded the Dictionnaire des idées reçues, the dictionary of a lifetime. The collection is stuffed with definitions that are knowingly contradicting and ignorant and slyly humorous (Barzun 2).
From his school days, Flaubert noted down the inanities of his age. Throughout the letters exchanged between him and others, we can observe the true nature of Flaubert’s regard for those inane clichés that plagued his waking life. As quoted from Flaubert’s letter by Barzun in his introduction of an independent publication of the dictionary: “All our trouble comes from our gigantic ignorance… When shall we get over empty speculation and accepted ideas? What should be studied is believed without discussion. Instead of examining, people pontificate.”
As explored by the translator, Jacques Barzun, there are two main themes to Flaubert’s dictionary: the first is the attack of all clichés (at least those relevant to his society at his time) and the second is a further attack on “misinformation, prejudice, and incoherence as it involves matters of fact (Barzun 8).”
In other words, the repetition of repeated clichés in Flaubert’s life drove him crazy. The ironic recording of them in his dictionary was but a small defense to prevent him from being driven mad by the utter ignorance of his crowd. He also, as revealed in the above quote, railed against the simple acceptance of so-called facts.
Though Flaubert persistently toyed with the idea of a catalog of his society’s inanities, he never did consciously publish this dictionary. Yet they truly characterize Flaubert as the satirist and passive aggressive social revolutionary (also known as: crabby old man – one who will not accept the acceptable mores and clichés of his time) that will survive time’s march.
The Reception of the Dictionary in America
As ethnocentric as it sounds, we are not truly interested in how Flaubert’s work was accepted or adapted in France. What we are concerned with is the adaptation of the philosophy and how this relates to a European mutt taking a philosophy class involving Diogenes and Bart Simpson at a Methodist-affiliated liberal college in Montgomery, Alabama, USA.
Not having a wealth of information handy regarding the attitudes of Americans toward Flaubert’s private collection of observations on triteness, I pondered what uses of satire I could perceive.
Flaubert’s dictionary has no merit in itself. The man who bore the opinions it harbors is dead, and only his succinct ridicule and sometimes confused phrasing remain to further his philosophy. The collection is but a catalyst. This is both the threat and the beauty of satire. One supposes that the intelligent mind must read the satire and recognize the inherent ludicrousness of that being observed, and sometimes this is so. However, those prisoners of a clichéd society may recognize everything within the satire and realize nothing beyond the satire. In other words, the satire may be misinterpreted (as being straightforward, perhaps) and nothing learned.
My point is that the philosophy, the use, of satire relies on the continuance of satirists. We semi-Cynics who stab poniards with our pens must continue exterior to our works or they will fail as social exhortations and end as humorous literature.
Flaubert’s dictionary must be found humorous by Americans, a light and entertaining read. The introduction, thorough and interesting to a scholar, nonetheless does not guide a reader to take anything from the text except humor and meaning for only a French context. Americans have no guidance, and so they laugh, and maybe they perceive some relation between the accepted ideas so ironically lamented in Flaubert’s book and our American society.
Conclusion
After all, what is a satirist?
A. Do-no-gooder. Tongue-in-cheek, superior-acting whiner who pursues art forms in an attempt at social change. To be imprisoned, dismissed, and criticized by upstanding members of society.
B. A person (writer of plays, scripts, or literature) who attacks human vice or folly through irony, derision, and wit.
C. A and B.
Both definitions are accepted ideas. Both are partially true. Both are more than accepted by our society. The world needs the satire (the definition) and the satirist (the wit who can lightly make such definitions) with equal desperation. Vive la satire!
Works Cited
Barzun, Jacques. Introduction. The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas. By Gustave Flaubert. New York: New Directions, 1954. 2 – 8.
Flaubert, Gustave. “Web resources for Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet and Dictionary of Received Ideas.” The Robot Wisdom Pages. Online. 26 Nov. 2002.
“Satire.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. 2000. http://www.yourdictionary.com. Online. 03 Dec. 2002.