Page 46 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 46
Slovenian Lectures
most reasonable, the most intelligent king, seeing that men are fundamen-
tally unfair, they would never reach an agreement as to whom to elect. It is
therefore wholly desirable to have a completely absurd society, consisting in
naming the precedent king’s eldest son king: one thus knows who is going
to reign, immediately, without strife, without civil war. Having observed
the injustice of society, the wise conclude therefore that one must submit to
society, because an unfair society is perfectly in accordance with what hu-
man nature is fundamentally: it is especially desirable that society should be
governed by force, because we have a natural tendency towards submitting
to force and a society which is ruled by force has a greater chance of being
peaceful whereas a society claiming to be ruled by justice would be a socie-
ty constantly dominated by anti-establishment activity. Anti-establishment
in his opinions, Pascal was not at all so in practice: he was as conservative in
fact as he was a revolutionary in his ideas.
I can now label my three enunciators E1, E2 and E3 as the people, the
semi-wise and the wise, for I think that enunciator E1, according to whom
one must be elegant, is the people. The people consider elegance as a value,
the effect of which is that it respects people who are indeed elegant, for it
sees a proof of their superiority in their elegance. Now the semi-wise come
in: they have noticed that elegance proves rigorously nothing – one can be
elegant and perfectly stupid – and they conclude that one must dress in any
old way, that one must make fun of elegant people, etc. Finally, we have the
wise, that I identify with enunciator E3, and so with Pascal. The wise agree
with the semi-wise on one point, in so much as elegance has a certain van-
ity in it, but from that vanity of elegance, the wise do not draw the same
conclusion as the semi-wise do: the wise draw the conclusion that one must
try to be elegant, at least to the degree that your social situation imposes
upon you, in order to make the position you hold in society visibly clear.
For there to be peace and order in society, one must be able to guess what
someone’s social situation is on seeing him: one way of showing a superior
social situation is to dress in a luxurious way, because that shows wealth. So,
it seems to me that my analysis in terms of three enunciators enables one to
relate Pascal’s text with his political theories in general.
More precisely now, that polyphonic description makes one understand
the title of the fragment, which could seem quite astonishing, if one had
not carried out that polyphonic analysis. The general title is Sound Opin-
ions of the People. Suppose that you do not have enunciator E1: well then,
one no longer sees those sound opinions of the people appear. The idea that
elegance is vain is an opinion of the semi-wise, it is not an opinion of the
most reasonable, the most intelligent king, seeing that men are fundamen-
tally unfair, they would never reach an agreement as to whom to elect. It is
therefore wholly desirable to have a completely absurd society, consisting in
naming the precedent king’s eldest son king: one thus knows who is going
to reign, immediately, without strife, without civil war. Having observed
the injustice of society, the wise conclude therefore that one must submit to
society, because an unfair society is perfectly in accordance with what hu-
man nature is fundamentally: it is especially desirable that society should be
governed by force, because we have a natural tendency towards submitting
to force and a society which is ruled by force has a greater chance of being
peaceful whereas a society claiming to be ruled by justice would be a socie-
ty constantly dominated by anti-establishment activity. Anti-establishment
in his opinions, Pascal was not at all so in practice: he was as conservative in
fact as he was a revolutionary in his ideas.
I can now label my three enunciators E1, E2 and E3 as the people, the
semi-wise and the wise, for I think that enunciator E1, according to whom
one must be elegant, is the people. The people consider elegance as a value,
the effect of which is that it respects people who are indeed elegant, for it
sees a proof of their superiority in their elegance. Now the semi-wise come
in: they have noticed that elegance proves rigorously nothing – one can be
elegant and perfectly stupid – and they conclude that one must dress in any
old way, that one must make fun of elegant people, etc. Finally, we have the
wise, that I identify with enunciator E3, and so with Pascal. The wise agree
with the semi-wise on one point, in so much as elegance has a certain van-
ity in it, but from that vanity of elegance, the wise do not draw the same
conclusion as the semi-wise do: the wise draw the conclusion that one must
try to be elegant, at least to the degree that your social situation imposes
upon you, in order to make the position you hold in society visibly clear.
For there to be peace and order in society, one must be able to guess what
someone’s social situation is on seeing him: one way of showing a superior
social situation is to dress in a luxurious way, because that shows wealth. So,
it seems to me that my analysis in terms of three enunciators enables one to
relate Pascal’s text with his political theories in general.
More precisely now, that polyphonic description makes one understand
the title of the fragment, which could seem quite astonishing, if one had
not carried out that polyphonic analysis. The general title is Sound Opin-
ions of the People. Suppose that you do not have enunciator E1: well then,
one no longer sees those sound opinions of the people appear. The idea that
elegance is vain is an opinion of the semi-wise, it is not an opinion of the
