Madame Figaro.-How do the images we see every day affect us?
Boris Cyrulnik.- Images have a power of affection, even stronger than that of words. We feel like we're seeing the thing in real life when it's a selection of the real thing. The image is made by the camera, by the person filming, so it is partially true. Every worldview is a reduction. If we had to see everything, we'd be confused. But the reduction condenses and gives a strong impression of having seen the truth, so we are very easy to manipulate.
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Violence and a form of extremism pervade many discourses and exchanges. How to deal with it?
The problem is that we can't cope. It causes emotional contagions, most people get carried away and that's why I'm worried. It is becoming more and more difficult to speak in a reasonable way, that is, to develop a discourse, a debate between us. This is no longer apparent, even among our members who hate and despise each other from the first sentence uttered. At the moment, our representatives are hate-mongers, and I no longer feel represented by members of Parliament. There is a kind of disease of democracy and this is very serious because it is the sects that then take hold of us. Jules Michelet, in the nineteenth century, already said "it is in the deserts of meaning that witches are born". That is exactly what is happening. Whenever there is social disorganization, we look for a scapegoat and a savior. When hatred is unleashed, it takes people on board, it stimulates them, we only hang out with people who have the same hatred as us, it gives us a delicious sense of belonging and we no longer control ourselves since everyone exacerbates the hatred of our neighbor. And that leads to the tragedy that we're experiencing right now.
Seen from France, how do we talk in 2023 between a grandmother survivor of the Holocaust and a young grandson of eighteen?
At the end of the war, the first generation did not speak to each other because of the emotion provoked by our misfortune but also because French culture did not believe us. There was an astonishing cultural denial that cannot be blamed on the French who had protected a large number of Jews, it was in France that there was the least deportation, many French people had not let themselves be carried away by Nazi hatred, unlike countries like Romania, Hungary, even Holland. Survivors, hidden children or deported survivors, found it difficult to talk about it and didn't want to talk about it so as not to traumatize their children. Then, in the 80s, there were films, works of art, Goncourt prizes that made it possible to rebuild oneself and talk about it, but not in families. Forty years later, the grandchildren were born, the culture had changed, and the emotional distance made it easier for the survivors to speak. Sometimes they even speak in a pleasantly surprising way, to explain to their grandchildren what happened. Many children have said to their parents, "But what right do you have to drag us into your horror?" while grandchildren say the exact opposite: they want to know. And the bond is sewn up with pleasure, while a silence had settled between children and parents.
Whenever there is social disorganization, we look for a scapegoat and a savior
Boris Cyrulnik, neuropsychiatrist
How can we talk to children about these conflicts?
It depends on the stage of development of the children and what they are able to understand. You can't talk to an infant or a child pre-verbally, he doesn't understand but he perceives the parents' anxiety intensely. When the child starts talking in the third year of life, he will not understand the arguments very well. You have to wait until you are five, six, seven years old for your parents to be able to tell him "we are Muslims, we are Jews, we are Christians, this is the god we believe in, etc." It takes a narrative to enter into filiation. It is necessary to talk among adults, around the children and the children will understand what they are able to understand as they develop. If they have acquired protective factors in the pre-verbal years through kind, attentive parents and through a stable sensory niche, they will experience what is currently happening as an important problem to solve but not necessarily as an anxiety. On the other hand, those who have previously acquired factors of vulnerability through contact with a dysfunctional family, arguments, depressed mothers, violent fathers, social precariousness, will become hypersensitive to current events and are very likely to be traumatized.
What education lesson can we learn from this?
Wars should be abolished! The lesson is secularism, tolerance, empathy by presenting the religion of another, the culture of another, the history of another and not just the totalitarian language that presents only one's religion, one's country, one's social class. This totalitarian language cuts off others and submits to a leader, who is a guru or a savior. And as soon as a social group is faced with difficulty, it is eager to submit to a leader who is a cultural crook when he tells them "vote for me, I am the truth". Today, there are a very large number of dictators on the planet who have been democratically elected. Hitler was also democratically elected. Once an authoritarian regime takes power and becomes dictatorial, it causes the order of psychic death. Order reigns because there is no more debate. And what's difficult right now is that young people sometimes don't ask questions anymore, they go on the Internet where often the answers are frightening.
The educational lesson to be learned is secularism, tolerance, empathy by presenting the religion of another, the culture of another, the history of another
Boris Cyrulnik, neuropsychiatrist
Is there any hope in this chaos?
I am very touched by what is happening now. I see the same words reappearing. In my early years, before the Second World War, I have very clear memories of arrests, violence in the streets, brutal controls by the French militia, war, army, routed soldiers. I heard very harsh words like "if there is a war, it was the Jews who started it to make more money". A few days ago I heard "Death to the Jews". This is exactly what I experienced before and during the war.
Dialogue with the people is doable. But it seems to me impossible between leaders who have become schools of hatred
Boris Cyrulnik, neuropsychiatrist
The Israelis cannot fail to defend themselves and they are reacting with extreme violence. There are innocent deaths on the Palestinian side. The Palestinian people are also being held hostage, and horrific images will be scattered around the world that will increase anti-Semitism. Dialogue with the people is doable. But it seems to me impossible between leaders who have become schools of hatred. I hope that the Israelis will lift the blockade quickly, that they will make a humanitarian corridor themselves. In an emergency, there is no resilience, there is resistance, confrontation, war. For the moment, we can't talk about resilience, but I hope that very soon we will be rebuilding to bring the principles of resilience to life. It will come into the post-war culture, as we experienced after the Second World War.