is a philosopher and associate-researcher at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon. His books – including How to Deal With Idiots (and stop being one yourself) – explore the many shades of human interactions, good and bad.
Picture © CP
What does conflict reveal? How can we benefit from it? Can a professional life be entirely without quarrels? French philosopher Maxime Rovere, author of How to Deal With Idiots (and stop being one yourself), takes us behind the scenes of everyday disputes.
Interview by Apolline Guillot.
At work, nonviolent communication and kindness seem to be the new watchwords… Why are we so afraid to speak frankly?
Maxime Rovere: These words might be trendy, but in reality, companies haven’t changed: hierarchical rigidities make kindness redundant and jealousies turn nonviolent communication into hypocrisy. To believe that recent innovations have become new norms is to make the same mistake as Barack Obama when he said Vladimir Putin’s military aggressiveness had no place in the 21st century: we’re no better than our ancestors, and our times are still violent, at work and in geopolitics alike. Communication problems must therefore be approached simultaneously, and on all levels: both in big and small companies, among individuals, and among services. This would require that we go beyond the psychological interpretation, which assumes that fear is experienced merely on an individual level… Because a large majority of conflicts are desired by no-one, even when the actors involved dig in their heels and make the situation worse.
From this perspective, how would you describe passive-aggressive behaviour? What does it say about us, and is it worse than open confrontation?
Aggressiveness has a vast repertoire of expressions. The standard one takes the form of a harsh tone, strong vocal intensity, threatening bodily expressions – basically, a host of signs suggesting violence. In what we call “passive-aggressive” behaviour, these signs aren’t visible: aggression can draw on irony, sweetness, flattery, denial, etc.
These registers place the emphasis on the way the act is received, in order to characterise the experience of aggression not from a legal point of view, but from a moral one. This means that it’s the person or group’s availability to aggression which makes the prejudice possible. When a man makes an inappropriate remark to a woman, for example, in an egalitarian society it’s him who will be badly seen by the rest of the group; if the woman has been
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