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The Politics of Sour Grapes: Sartre, Elster, and Tocqueville on Frustration, Failure, and Self-Deception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2013

Michael Locke McLendon
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Abstract

Jean-Paul Sartre and Jon Elster have taken great interest in the famous “children's” fable, “The Fox and the Grapes.” Elster believes the fable pinpoints problems in utilitarian doctrine while Sartre contends it demonstrates how consciousness copes with frustrated desire. As impressive as these insights are, neither philosopher can fully explain the cognitive and cultural processes involved in sour grapes. To improve upon their theories, I will argue that amour-propre is an important psychological motive inspiring sour grapes as well as show that sour grapes is built into the value commitments and institutional structures of democratic life through Tocqueville's analysis of American democracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 75 , Issue 2 , Spring 2013 , pp. 247 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2013 

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References

1 Aesop, Fables (Saxonville, MA: Picture Book Studio, 1989)Google Scholar, no page.

2 de la Fontaine, Jean, Selected Fables, trans. Wood, Christopher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 69Google Scholar.

3 Aesop, Fables, n.p.

4 In Emile, Rousseau actually complains that La Fontaine's fables are inappropriate for children. Writes Rousseau: “All children are made to learn the fables of La Fontaine; and there is not a single one who understands them.” And, later in the text, “it is only men who get instruction from fables” (Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Emile, or On Education, trans. Bloom, Allan [New York: Basic Books, 1979], 113 and 249)Google Scholar.

5 Elster, Jon, Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Ibid., 111.

7 Ibid., vii. See Elster, Jon, Alexis de Tocqueville, the First Social Scientist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 81–82, 86Google Scholar.

8 Elster, Sour Grapes, 109.

9 Ibid., 111.

10 If weighting is done prior to the choice, Elster thinks the appropriate fable is not the fox and the grapes but Buridan's ass (ibid., 120).

11 Ibid., 119.

12 Elster admits to ambiguities in the various versions of the fable, and that adaptive preference formations and rationalizations are sometimes indistinguishable (ibid., 123).

13 Ibid., 110.

14 Festinger, Leon, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), 44–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Ibid., 45.

16 Elster, Sour Grapes, 110; see Elster, Alexis de Tocqueville, 92n.

17 Veyne, Paul, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism, trans. Pearce, Brian (London: Allen Lane, 1976), 156Google Scholar.

18 The importance of this will become evident later in the essay.

19 Sartre, Jean-Paul, Sketch of a Theory of the Emotions, trans. Mairet, Philip (London: Routledge, 1994), 39Google Scholar.

20 Fell, Joseph III, Emotions in the Thought of Sartre (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), 17Google Scholar.

21 Sartre wants to reject the common view of emotions as “disruptive, purposeless, and meaningless.” See Solomon, Robert C., “Sartre on Emotions,” in The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, ed. Schilpp, Paul Arthur (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1981), 215Google Scholar. Emotions for him are not accidental foreign “invasions” of our consciousness preventing us from handling the difficulties and problems the world presents. Rather, they are the attempts of consciousness to confront those very problems, even if they sometimes wind up worsening the situation. In general, see Solomon, Robert C., The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 9–12Google Scholar, 67–90, and 141–51. Elster argues against Solomon's (and Sartre's) notion that emotions can be chosen. See Elster, Jon, Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 308–11Google Scholar.

22 Sartre, Sketch of a Theory of the Emotions, 42.

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27 Ibid., 78.

28 Ibid., 73. This acknowledgment of the nonreflective nature of consciousness serves to soften Sartre's dualism. While consciousness can rebel against the outside world, it often does not and instead reflects its workings and patterns.

29 Fell, Emotions in the Thought of Sartre, 14.

30 Iris Murdoch, review of The Emotions: Outline of a Theory, by Jean-Paul Sartre, Mind, n.s., 59, no. 234 (1950): 269–70.

31 Solomon, “Sartre on Emotions,” 223–24.

32 Ibid., 220.

33 Fell, Emotions in the Thought of Sartre, 30.

34 Mandeville uses the term “self-liking.”

35 The classic account of this comes from Rousseau's Second Discourse, although in Emile Rousseau does identify a more positive form of amour-propre that he terms “extended amour-propre,” in addition to the negative form. My interest is in the negative form, which Rousseau takes to be the most common form. Mandeville's concept of self-liking is found in “The Dialogues between Horatio and Cleomenes,” in Mandeville, Bernard, The Fable of the Bees and Other Writings, ed. Hundert, E. J. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997)Google Scholar.

36 See Neuhouser, Frederick, Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 34–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Cooper, Laurence D., Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 137–50Google Scholar, for good discussions and some of the wording used here.

37 Solomon asserts that these existential desires are the core of emotional life: “Every emotion is a subjective strategy for the maximization of personal dignity and self-esteem” (Solomon, The Passions, 222). Elster contests Solomon's argument, contending that the view “that all emotions always exist to promote self-esteem and personal dignity, and they even maximize these values, cannot be taken seriously” (Elster, Alchemies of the Mind, 310–11). I am more sympathetic to Solomon than to Elster on this point. That said, I only need to make the narrower claim that some emotions are about self-esteem, amour-propre included.

38 See Frankfurt, Harry G., “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy 68, no. 1 (1971): 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My contention is that the fox's failure to satisfy his first-order desire leads him to second-order-type questions, though he is much more reactive and is not consciously reflective, as Frankfurt contends in his definitions.

39 In his similar concept of being-for-others, Sartre claims that “the other is indispensable … to my knowledge of myself” (Sartre, Jean-Paul, Existentialism and Human Emotions, trans. Frechtman, Bernard [New York: Citadel, 1985], 23Google Scholar).

40 Rousseau, Emile, 215. This is not necessarily the case. People may only seek recognition as an equal and not as a superior. Honneth makes a useful distinction between recognition and esteem that speaks to this point. Recognition is about one's general humanity while esteem emphasizes one's individuality and uniqueness. See Honneth, Axel, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 129Google Scholar. In Rousseau, amour-propre can be either recognition or esteem, though he is skeptical that esteem can ever be eradicated.

41 Aesop's version may also lend itself to this interpretation. Although little is known about him, if Herodotus is correct that he was a sixth-century Thracian slave, he would have been well aware of the competitive agonistic culture of the Greeks that instilled in them “a lively sense of [their] own worth.” See Herodotus, The History, trans. Grene, David (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 2.134Google Scholar, and Kitto, H. D. F., The Greeks (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 247Google Scholar. For a good discussion of the zero-sum nature of competition in Rousseau, see Neuhouser, Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love, 75–76.

42 Rousseau, Emile, 78.

43 Ibid., 243.

44 Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, 114.

45 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues, trans. Kelly, Christopher, in Collected Works, vol. 1, ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1990), 64Google Scholar

46 Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 368–70.

47 Granted, individuals can suffer from sour grapes and amour-propre for reasons that have nothing to do with culture. In these instances, such emotions may be of little consequence to political theorists. If, as Scanlon contends, amour-propre arises from “psychological causes that have nothing to do with the actual facts of one's society,” there is no cause for objection. See Scanlon, T. M., “The Diversity of Objections to Equality,” in The Ideal of Equality, ed. Clayton, M. and Williams, A. (New York: St. Martin's, 2000), 52Google Scholar.

48 Schleifer, James T., The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's “Democracy in America” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Schleifer claims that Americans believe that “even in the face of actual inequalities, you are the equal of your fellows and deserve to be treated as such” (ibid.). He does not, however, immediately address the anxiety and fear caused by actual inequalities, which is an important part of Tocqueville's psychological portrait.

49 Elster agrees that Tocqueville's moral psychology puts him in league with Rousseau, Constant, and others: “Tocqueville stands firmly in the tradition of the French moralists.” See Elster, Alexis de Tocqueville, 47.

50 As Reinhardt notes, for this reason and several others, “modern individuality … [is] the source of Tocquevillle's most anguished fears” (Reinhardt, Mark, The Art of Being Free: Taking Liberties with Tocqueville, Marx, and Arendt [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997], 43Google Scholar).

51 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, trans. Lawrence, George (New York: Harper Collins, 1969), 198Google Scholar. Jack Lively correctly notes that “Tocqueville defined democracy as that form of society committed to equality in all of its aspects” (Lively, Jack, The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville [Oxford: Clarendon, 1965], 71Google Scholar). Wolin is also helpful here. See Wolin, Sheldon, Tocqueville Between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 143–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Journey to America, trans. Lawrence, George (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962), 260Google Scholar.

53 Boswell, James, Life of Johnson, ed. Chapman, R. W. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 360Google Scholar. Veyne is also helpful on this point: “It so happens that men, in the great majority of cases, are sensible of a certain number of excellences—wealth, power or prestige; that possession of the excellences that a society puts in the forefront confers superiority; and that those who possess this superiority cling to it fiercely. Not everyone possesses superiority. Most of us have only modest status, mediocre advantages, which do not separate us from the crowd: we defend our humble interests, our daily bread, but not superiority” (Veyne, Bread and Circuses, 155).

54 Jean-Lamberti, Claude, Tocqueville and the Two Democracies, trans. Goldhammer, Arthur (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 48–49Google Scholar.

55 Beaumont concisely states Tocquevillle's conception of economic equality. While there are rich people in America, there are none “whose sole occupation is spending their fortune, who live on unearned income” (de Beaumont, Gustave, letter to his brother Jules, July 4, 1831, in Letters from America, ed. and trans. Brown, Frederick (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010Google Scholar), 53.

56 Bilakovics, Steven, Democracy without Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 198. Interestingly, Tocqueville's analysis of American political economy goes beyond its spectacular productivity, and emphasizes various social and psychological consequences of competition. Tocqueville “soon came to realize that there were forces that generated tensions and problems for the population in the midst of all the wealth and consumer goods” (Swedberg, Richard, Tocqueville's Political Economy [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009], 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

58 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 198.

59 Ibid., 613.

60 Ibid., 57. Tocqueville reaffirms this point in vol. 2 by commenting that the seriousness of most Americans comes in part from pride. Even poor people, he observes, have “a high idea of [their] personal worth” (609).

61 Ibid., 514. Tocqueville makes the same point in vol. 1, claiming that equality makes it so that no one is “strong enough to struggle alone with success” (57).

62 Tocqueville and Sartre are rarely linked together for obvious reasons. However, there is precedent for interpreting Tocqueville through an existential lens. Albert Salomon even describes his program as “existential Catholicism.” See Salomon, Albert, “Tocqueville's Philosophy of Freedom: A Trend towards Concrete Sociology,” Review of Politics 1, no. 4 (1939): 412CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hereth, Michael, Alexis de Tocqueville: Threats to Freedom in Democracy, trans. Bogardus, George (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1986)Google Scholar. Potential philosophical affinities aside, Sartre and Tocqueville also had similar first impressions of America. When Sartre visited America during the first three months of 1945 as part of a delegation of French journalists, he came away with a strikingly Tocquevillean conclusion: that “social class in America is difficult to identify and little seems to separate the bourgeoisie from the workers.” See Cohen-Solal, Annie, Jean-Paul Sartre: A Life, trans. Cancogni, Anna (New York: New Press, 1987), 240Google Scholar.

63 The other reason is a lack of enlightenment. Later in the text, he argues that public officials get paid poorly, which is a major disincentive for a people obsessed with money.

64 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 198. Granted, in another passage (Democracy in America, 454), Tocqueville contradicts himself by claiming that Americans seek out talented politicians and persuasive orators. I take this passage to be the outlier.

65 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 221.

66 Elster likewise agrees with this understanding of Tocqueville. See Elster, Political Psychology, 154.

67 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 198.

68 Ibid, 199–200.

69 Elster, Political Psychology, 27.

70 Elster, Sour Grapes, 114.

71 It is worth noting that Elster uses this device in other ways. Most famously, he thinks it is a way of constraining oneself to prevent reckless or foolish behavior, as in the case of Ulysses and the Sirens.

72 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 247.

73 Granted, Tocqueville sometimes praises Americans' common sense. In an optimistic line, he states, “I cannot say how much I admire their experience and their good sense” (ibid., 304). They learn from experience, even though it takes them longer to do so, and have a practical knowledge that allows them concrete understanding of practical terms such as rights and freedom—a knowledge Tocqueville thinks is lacking in Europe. At other times, however, Tocqueville shows little faith in democratic common sense, and more than once accuses his hosts of being thoughtless and dogmatic: “once the American people have got an idea into their head, be it correct or unreasonable, nothing is harder than to get it out again”; “the people feel more strongly than they reason” (ibid., 186; 223). They do not discuss political issues, but dispute them. Finally, for topics such as foreign affairs, common sense is plainly insufficient. If Tocqueville is correct in his assessment, American common sense might very well at times produce nonsense.

74 But ordinary vanity is also important: “people … become attached to their opinions as much from pride as from conviction. They love them because they think them correct, but also because they have chosen them” (ibid., 186).

75 Ibid., 525.

76 Ibid., 526.

77 Ibid., 237, 612.

78 Ibid., 612.

79 Elster, Political Psychology, 173; see also 162.

80 Ibid., 175.

81 In Alexis de Tocqueville: The First Social Scientist, Elster does not include primogeniture and the wealthy rejecting political office. See Elster, Alexis de Tocqueville, 91.

82 Elster, Political Psychology, 176.

83 See Welch, Cheryl B., De Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 190–207Google Scholar, for a mild criticism of Elster.

84 Elster, Alexis de Tocqueville, 92.