THE CULTURE OF ENTITLEMENT IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: VOLTA]RE, A PERSONIFICA'I'ION OIì NARCISSISM IN THE FRENCH MOVEMENT BY ZIPORA NIDERBERG MALAMUTH A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Depree of MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY TIIE JOINT MASTER'S PROGRAMME L]NIVERSITY OF MNNIPEG/IINWERSITY OF MAMTOBA WINNIPEG. 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Neither the d¡oit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extacts from it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sâns son permission. autorisation. 0-612-79981-6 Canad'ä THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES ***{<* COPYRIGHT PERMISSION PAGE THE CULTURE OF ENTITLEMENT IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: VOLTAIR_E, A PERSONIFICATION OF NARCISSTSM IN THE FRENCH MOVEMENT BY ZIPORA NIDERBERG MALAMUTH A Thesis/Practicum submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial ft¡lfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts ZIPORA NIDERBERG MALAMUTH @ 2OO2 Permission has been granted to the Library of The University of Manitoba to lend or sell copies of this thesis/practicum, to the National Library of Canada to microfilm this thesis and to lend or sell copies of the film, and to University Microfilm Inc. to publish an abstract of this thesis/practicum. The author reserves other publication rights, and neither this thesis/practicum nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's written permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Thesis Committee and Chair for their participation. Special thanks are extended to Professor Peter Bailey for his patience with gramm atical eïrors and for making relevant editorial suggestions. Particular appreciation is expressed to Professor Margaret Ogrodnick for respecting the creative and scholarly efforts of my work, for addressing editorial remarks with careful attention and for honouring the principles of freedom of expression and upholding the integrity of academic learning. My deepest gratitude to my Advisor and Mentor, Professor Henry Heller, for his respect and patience. He has given generously of his time, tirelessly offering guidance and encouragement throughout a rather protracted process. I would also like to thank Carol Adam for her administrative acumen and Claudette Cormier for providing her typing skills and editing the scattered French throughout the manuscript, often on short notice. On a personal note, I am forever indebted to my late mother, Frida Bloom Niderberg, for teaching me with utmost empathic understanding the value of respectful critical thinking. I wish to thank my son, Eldad, for his encouragement and interest in my learning pursuits. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my husband, Lanny Silver, for his endless patience and the many helpful ideas he offered while learning more than he wanted to know about Voltaire or narcissism. ul CONTENTS Page Acknowledgement .. .. .. iii Abstract v lntroduction I Chapter 1: Psycho-socialModelsofNarcissism ..... ...... g Chapter2: TheCultureofEntitlement- WhyFrance? .....3g Chapter 3: 'Why Voltaire among the Philosophes? . .75 Chapter 4: Young voltaire : The Development of aNarcissistic Personality . r07 Chapter 5: Cirey (1735-1751) : The Middle Ages of Thriving Notoriery And ScantyMaturation ....144 Chapter 6: Candide-TheEmbodimentofNarcissism.. ....183 ChapterT: The Conscience ofEurope or a Lucþ Brilliant Opportunist . ZZ0 Conclusion ...244 Bibliography... .....254 1V ABSTRACT Psychohistory has remained suspect by historiographers and has made little inroads into mainstream historical research. The objective of the thesis is to demonstrate that by addressing cognitive, affective and motivational factors, psychology can lead to a greater understanding of the intenelationship between the individual and culture. Specifically, a model of narcissism has been used to locate historical sources of current mass-market culture of entitlement in the Aee of Enlightenment. The model used in the thesis concurs with theories viewing narcissism as an organizing self-system anchored in preverbal experiences primarily in the failure to develop a secure attachment. Contrary to popular notions, narcissism is not about self-indulgent self-love, rather it is a coping mechanism to ward off intolerable ubiquitous anxiety. Forever hypervigilant, narcissists do not learn about others or themselves. Lacking both empathy and psychological insight, they remain emotionally a:rested as adults. A comparison between England and France, the two significant sources of Enlightenment ideology and achievement, suggest that the former produced all the necessary ingredients to represent the period. But history has chosen the Frenchphilosophes to personifu the spirit of the Enlightenment. Coalesced in the second half of the eighteenth century, the latter propagated a world view of esprit simplicifé through the production of the Encyclopédie andanti-clerical satirical bantering. Lacking a sense of self-awareness and ability to auto-critique they were blind to their rigidity, self-centeredness and narrow social agenda. Described' by admirers, as "the least self-anal¡icar of man,,, vortaire emerges as the clearest personification of narcissistic features in the French movement. physicalry fra', emotionally deprived and endowed with superior language inte¡igence, he evolved into a we' defended narcissistic personality' A showpiece, in his childhood, he continued to believe in his genius and successfully convinced others also of his entitrement to break ail sociar boundaries. Baffled by the mediocre quality of his intellectuar work, schorars have tended to accept his tationalizations' Reviewing his personal history and pubrications through the moder of narcissism, reveal him as an individual who fought savagely against obstacres to personar furf¡rment, disguised vengeance as affront against humanity and masked serÊcentered insecurity with protean adaptability' This personal-cult,ral narcissism is best illustrated in his philosophical story Candide. In addition' voltaire has been identified, by historians and in popurar rore, as the great humanitarian of the eighteenth cenfury. "The conscience of Europe,, as master opporfunist, capitalized on the misfortune of others, their hard work and his talent of manipulating the emerging forces ofpublic opinion' Becoming a culture of spectacle, we have adopted his anxious and destructive negativity. vi INTRODUCTION Psychology has been conspicuously absent from history while literary criticism, linguistics, and anthropology have joined philosophy, political science and economics as viable view points for historical analysis. This omission is notably curious in a post-industrial world where psychology has emerged as a prime competitor battling science for epistemological supremacy. The "declaration of the birth of psychohistory" in 19571 was not followed with prolif,rc scholarship. Instead of moving "from the periphery to a centre position in the field", as some argue, it has often been relegated to footnotes.2 The Journal of Psychohistory which started as the History of Childhood and has incorporated the Journal of Psychoanal)'tic Anthropolog-y, has' made little impact on current historiography. It has largely remained a child-psychology journal and otherwise has tended to publish articles one might classify as current themes in cultural anthropology or psychology.3 Beyond minor articles, psychohistorical literature has generated mostly psychoanalytically informed biographies or popular variants that pervade modern consciousness.a ' Jacques Szaluta, Psychohistory: Theory and Practice (New York: Peter Lang Publishing lnc., 1999 ) 59. Szaluta identifies the presidential address of William L. Langer, on December 29,1957 at the annual conference of the American Historical Association. as the declaration of birth of psychohistory. 2lbid., 13 believes psychohistory has moved to a more central position in historical research. The view that it has been largely relegated to footnotes is presented in "Psychohistory", A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing, 1998 ed. Vol. 11747. 3 The Journal of Ps)¡chohistory (New York, 19SS) started as History of Childhood in r976. a Examples may be seen in: Ernest Jones, Essays in Applied Psychoanalysis , ed. Ernest Jones, vol I (London: The Hogarth Press, Ltd., 1951) "The Case of Louis Bonaparte, King of Detractors, rejecting psychohistorical studies as reductionistic and unverifiable, view its clinically-based theories as non-generalizable to situations outside therapeutic contexts.s