the art of always being right

There are many disagreeable things in this imperfect world, and one of the most grating is probably to find yourself to be wrong. However, no matter how great such an evil can be, it does not even start to compare with the horror of being proved wrong in front of other people: O, to feel oneself swallowed into contemptuous silence, to feel the sniggering smiles raise the hair on the nape of your neck and the slow mortification of blushing spread over your guilty face!  Unspeakable agony of ridicule, how thou hast been under-rated!

Faced with the risk of collapse of all society, Man found a very neat solution to this problem. Stereotypes. Because the undying beauty of stereotypes stems from the fact that they are NEVER proved wrong. Not that they are true either, they don’t need to be: truth and stereotypes are simply unrelated.

JEUNE-HOMME: Toujours farceur. Doit l’être. S’étonner s’il ne l’est pas.[1]

Now this is the true genius of stereotypes, the cleanest trick your brain can pull on yourself to earn you a permanent feeling of self-righteousness. Don’t you see the mastery of the interconnecting clogs? The recipe is quite simple:

1.      Take a group of people (it is important you don’t belong to the chosen group, otherwise this becomes a different kettle of fish altogether)

2.      Pick a sweeping statement about said group. You can use your own experience, but it is not at all necessary, any statement you have heard before will do just as well.

3.      Offer your statement as a universal truth. Job done.

Of course, some disagreeable people may take you for any novice stereotype-wielder and challenge your universal truth with a counter-example (this may stem from a lack of conviction on your part by the way; you need to BELIEVE in what you say, otherwise, look what happens!). But fear not, there is no need for you to feel like you have been proven wrong in any way. You have your conviction for yourself. Simply raise an eyebrow, tilt your head to the side, and say : “Really? Such an original character!”

Even if someone undertook to painstakingly prove you wrong with a detailed census of all young men comparing their average practical-jokerness (having found, somehow a way of measuring it), you could still answer, in good faith, that this is not as you found. It’s not your fault. Your brain works like that. It is specially geared to make concepts, and when you make a concept, you discard the details in order to recognise what fits in.

As a result, no amount of truth can destroy a stereotype, and as they can live on, challenged but unabashed, their long and righteous life of pre-conceived ideas. Until one sad day, when they are replaced by a new one, and whimsical young men turn into drunken sex-addicts.

I have to admit, I am a little sad that such a jolly image of young men is no longer the currency of the day. We should probably bring it back.

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[1] Flaubert, Gustave, Dictionnaire des idées recues, Paris : Librairie générale française, 1997

Young man: always a practical joker. He has to be. Show your wonder if he isn’t. (my translation)