"If people did not compliment one another there would be little society"
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Politeness, in Luc de Clapiers' hands, isn’t a moral nicety; it’s social engineering. “If people did not compliment one another there would be little society” reads like a salon truth delivered with a half-smile: we don’t just exchange ideas, we exchange reassurance. Compliments are the grease in the machinery, the small fictions that let everyone keep moving without the whole apparatus grinding into honest conflict.
The intent is less about praising kindness than exposing dependence. Society, he implies, isn’t held together by shared principles so much as by a steady drip of mutual validation. The subtext is faintly cynical: people tolerate one another because they’re paid in status, attention, and the pleasure of being seen. Remove that micro-currency and you don’t get noble candor; you get isolation, resentment, or brute hierarchy. Complimenting becomes a soft form of governance, a way to distribute dignity just enough to prevent revolt.
Context matters: Vauvenargues wrote in an 18th-century France where social life was intensely performative, calibrated in salons, courts, and patronage networks. Reputation was infrastructure. A compliment wasn’t merely flattery; it was a signal of alignment, a public vote for someone’s worth. In that world, sincerity was optional, but the ritual was essential.
What makes the line work is its blunt inversion of idealism. Instead of claiming society is built on virtue, he points to the smaller, more plausible adhesive: our hunger for recognition. It lands because it’s still true in modern form, from networking to likes to “just wanted to say you were great” texts that keep friendships alive.
The intent is less about praising kindness than exposing dependence. Society, he implies, isn’t held together by shared principles so much as by a steady drip of mutual validation. The subtext is faintly cynical: people tolerate one another because they’re paid in status, attention, and the pleasure of being seen. Remove that micro-currency and you don’t get noble candor; you get isolation, resentment, or brute hierarchy. Complimenting becomes a soft form of governance, a way to distribute dignity just enough to prevent revolt.
Context matters: Vauvenargues wrote in an 18th-century France where social life was intensely performative, calibrated in salons, courts, and patronage networks. Reputation was infrastructure. A compliment wasn’t merely flattery; it was a signal of alignment, a public vote for someone’s worth. In that world, sincerity was optional, but the ritual was essential.
What makes the line work is its blunt inversion of idealism. Instead of claiming society is built on virtue, he points to the smaller, more plausible adhesive: our hunger for recognition. It lands because it’s still true in modern form, from networking to likes to “just wanted to say you were great” texts that keep friendships alive.
Quote Details
| Topic | Kindness |
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