My fiancée got into one of most prestigious business schools in Paris many years ago, after getting through the brutally competitive application system (it might have been Institut supérieur du commerce de Paris, but I can't remember the name at the moment).
She ended up quitting and getting into the sciences instead, because she couldn't stand the class warfare techniques that the school taught. I think this is telling of a part of French society that isn't well-known outside of France.
This is an elite school, which teaches the brightest French youths (in terms of grades and competitive intellectual ability), and also the children of politicians, business leaders and powerful families.
The curriculum has your usual suspects of business administration topics, but also focuses on forming contacts in the elites and politics, plus explicit instruction in techniques for manipulating and dominating others. Examples being rhetoric, lying with a straight face, defending and justifying an indefensible or immoral case, or spreading rumors and damaging others' reputation.
France, in spite of all the beheadings, never really lost its aristocracy. There is a level of first-world corruption that's insane by central European standards. The politicial class consists exclusively of people who have gone to elite schools like the one I described, and never held a job, catering mostly to the requirements of big businesses.
As an external observer, it seems insane to me that the French are unable to vote in politicians that are not cronies to this system. But the news story is really no surprise, based on my third-hand knowledge of how French executives are trained.
Would love to hear some viewpoints from French or French-affiliated hackers on this.
We've got a large influx of these people in Poland during quasi colonial privatization bonanza in the 90s and 00s (e.g. see the history of Orange in Poland, most "Polish" premium vodka brands, retail, strategic industries like energy have just too many examples). Now this caste holds a fair share of the country's economy as the top executives.
Yep, ex-Orange employee here. More and more responsibility, not more pay because.. well, the school you went to in your twenties hasn't changed has it...
Emigrated.
> She ended up quitting and getting into the sciences instead, because she couldn't stand the class warfare techniques that the school taught.
> The curriculum has your usual suspects of business administration topics, but also focuses on forming contacts in the elites and politics, plus explicit instruction in techniques for manipulating and dominating others. Examples being rhetoric, lying with a straight face, defending and justifying an indefensible or immoral case, or spreading rumors and damaging others' reputation.
Interesting, but why are you calling these "class warfare techniques"? Most of them seem equally applicable regardless of your social class or the social class of anyone you're notionally targeting. The first, developing elite contacts, is only applicable to non-elites. If you came in as a member of the elite, you'd already have those.
> Interesting, but why are you calling these "class warfare techniques"? Most of them seem equally applicable regardless of your social class or the social class of anyone you're notionally targeting.
I would guess because if these sorts of people end up leading the country they're not going to target fellow elite classmates. It's a big club and you ain't in it.
As a Frenchman living in Paris, I would like to give you my idea and the findings. Our revolution of 1789 is incomplete, because it was based on the replacement of the nobles by the great bourgeoisie, and because attempts to involve the people (at the time poorly educated and highly instrumentalized) failed or led to situations of violence (including the so-called "Terror" period).
The people, left free, naturally turned to charismatic leaders (Louis-Philippe, Napoleon) so that this supposedly temporary step could lead to better systems for all. The only time the people have practically achieved a literally democratic feat is the episode of the "Paris Commune" in 1871.
Unfortunately, the educational gaps in French society led to the violent repression of these political projects (the "Commune of Paris" was violently repressed by the army, which was mainly monarchist at the time).
Our current system expresses this duality: we are a republic, certainly, but whose system produces an elite capable of manipulating the people "in its interest". Unfortunately, man being what he is, the elite is not benevolent and will protect his interests more than attempt to raise the whole society. Moreover, the people themselves do not share the same conceptions: thus, in the 1980s, the left-wing government tried to put an end to "private" schools to limit these inequalities. The people, still predominantly Catholic at the time, strongly disagreed that private Catholic schools (although more expensive and producing elite) should not be abolished, and the project was abandoned.
As long as the country's growth was correct, this situation was not problematic because, despite this creation of elites, the whole society continued its "social ascent" until the early 2000s.
Today, the situation is no longer the same because elitism is continuing (or even increasing) while society as a whole remains stable or even regresses. Elitism is therefore losing its legitimacy, which is why the "yellow vest" movement continues and mistrust of institutions is increasing. The elites are therefore trying to destroy this protest in order to maintain their privileges by fragmenting society, whether media or political: in particular by seeking to present to French citizens the success of so-called more virtuous models such as the American model or the German model (much more unequal). It is not a conscious phenomenon, it is unfortunately the logical consequence of the evolution of an unequal society that justifies this inequality by the social and economic stability it induces.
Consider that this is exactly the social apparatus of the EU, but amplified because it's even further from popular political scrutiny in the ballot box. And yet, paradoxically, people that know better continue to support it.
" The curriculum has your usual suspects of business administration topics, but also focuses on forming contacts in the elites and politics, plus explicit instruction in techniques for manipulating and dominating others..."
This is fascinating - any other folks know of similar formal training. I work in a well known tech company and at the higher levels, this seems to be the distinction between folks who go up and those who don't.
As I think about it, it feels like courses that train one to spot and defend against such behavior should be part of all undergraduate curriculum.
Clearly some people master these exploits (and the defenses) without formal training but most people don't and pay for it over the course of their careers.
" defending and justifying an indefensible or immoral case, or spreading rumors and damaging others' reputation." I actually doubt this, maybe there was something missed in the communication?
Also the 'aristocracy' is definitely gone. Entrance to the 'Grande Ecoles' is competitive, not based on nobility.
But yes, once you're in, you're 'set' and they do protect each other, it's similar to Oxbridge and Ivy League to some degree.
I don't think I missed anything in communication -- we're both reasonably articulate and know each other very well. Paraphrasing, there was an assignment that stretched over a few weeks, where students were supposed to try to start rumors about each other, and report back any such rumors that took root.
There were also assignments given to each student in turn, of the type "this is the position you are going to defend -- you have two hours to prepare, then you must front a debate in front of the class where you defend this viewpoint, regardless of whether you agree with it or not".
It doesn't require abnormally critical skills to imagine what sort of societal power structures such an education is meant to support.
> There were also assignments given to each student in turn, of the type "this is the position you are going to defend -- you have two hours to prepare, then you must front a debate in front of the class where you defend this viewpoint, regardless of whether you agree with it or not".
Unless the positions were somehow inherently dangerous (i.e. advocating violence or similar) that's how you learn to debate. It forces you to consider viewpoints that don't align with your gut instinct.
In the US, high school debate competitions all revolve around a single topic, and you alternate rounds between defending and opposing it. One such topic I recall a lot of people struggling with (compared to other topics) was "An oppressive government is better than no government" or something along those lines.
Now, if the debate were something like "Women deserve to be paid less than men" I can understand being exceptionally uncomfortable being forced to defend that position.
The first is thing is pretty horible, it is however an interesting thing to learn as you WIll encounter people who do this in your career.
Second is probably the best way to learn about a topic and how to debate. Take something you abhore and defend it. It is an incredibly useful skill.
People from US and Canada in general are absolutely terrible at it, this is why in debates vs British or French they usually loose.
I remember going to Monk debate where head of Green Party of Canada got absolutely annihilated, they got under her skin, made her completely loose it to the point moderator had to cut her microphone. It was sad.
Be a Nazi for a day, then if you ever debate one you will have a huge advantage.
No, I think you need to characterize the structures that would support. For example, the latter sounds like an ideological Turing test [0]. I think training using this method broadens one’s empathy for and ability to engage with those who hold positions other than one’s own.
I'm basically incredulous to the point where I simply don't believe this is true.
If this was an exercise in 'how to start false rumours to ruin someone' - then it's not just 'questionable', it's shocking.
I can see this as part of an exercise to demonstrate how these things are 'powerful' - but as a training exercise .... it's so abrupt I just don't believe it.
If this is part of the curriculum it should be posted somewhere, no?
Edit:
Here is a paper from Paris School of Economics [1] a 'Grande Ecole' where profs have basically studied how information flows through social networks.
I can easily see a professor teaching this course asking students to 'start some kind of rumouor' to see how the information propagates through social networks.
I don't for a second believe that this would be taught in a manner such that students are being 'instructed on how to use rumours to advance their careers' or some kind of nefarious thing.
I believe it's totally misrepresentative to indicate that schools would be doing such nefarious things, and I think that for whatever reason the OP has possibly misunderstood the nature of this kind of activity.
A quick glance at the paper reveals that this is just regular, kind of interesting social science.
Once science has determined something, and the steps are reproducible and the papers are published, it's hard to stop it from being weaponized, even if it takes time.
For instance, some explosives that were developed for the mining industry are now used in military applications- similarly, there's nothing really stopping someone from weaponizing almost any scientific discovery.
These tactics were weaponized more than 2 000 years ago, we're just actually studying them now.
But the issue is not that they exist, it's that people are somehow thinking these Machiavellian tools are literally being taught as part of a curriculum as craft at France's highest institutions - this I find very hard to believe. I think that the kids are learning this in high school outside of class if anything.
I'm French, and I find it pretty easy to believe. I even have another example: some elite schools teach oenology. Now what could possibly be the point of formally educating people on the finer details of wine making and tasting? It's simply how the aristocracy recognise themselves. There are other class recognition examples: for instance, rich kids tend to play tennis more than they play soccer.
I know third hand of someone who paid attention to his watch and smartphone to get a job (or a promotion, I don't recall). It was in finance. The idea is, if you belong to the right social class, you are allowed to go up. If they spot you for a commoner, you're not. Simple as that.
Think this is a stretch? I'v read an article (American article) about how someone was denied a job because of how she dressed. Oh she was dressed all right, neat and all, but she also had a dark skin (okay, she was black), and here is what the boss said once the interview was over: "my, you don't wear a tank top under your shirt, you wear a silk shell!".
Such a little detail, but that was nevertheless a sign that this applicant was perhaps not as rich as she should have been.
>But yes, once you're in, you're 'set' and they do protect each other, it's similar to Oxbridge and Ivy League to some degree.
Just two weeks ago the headmaster of a prestigious private school in the UK claimed that the rise in Oxbridge admissions from students educated at state schools was a form of "social engineering" and likened it to anti-Semitism.
>Privately educated pupils in the UK are also being accused of dominating the top jobs and stifling social mobility
Huh, it's almost as if... they actually do.
"Meritocracy" for these people really means "quis paget entrat".
"defending and justifying an indefensible or immoral case"
This is a very interesting thing, especially if taught methodically. I used to do it for fun to see how far I can push(always admitting at the end). Very very few people remain with their initial barriers/values,therefore can be substantially manipulated relatively easy.
> France, in spite of all the beheadings, never really lost its aristocracy.
the beheading were about getting rid of the nobility(and the clergy), not the bourgeoisie.
The French revolution wasn't a "grass root movement", "coming from the people", it was just a power grab from a specific clique. I'm not saying it didn't benefit the poor with the abolition of privileges, but it was really about trading an aristocracy for another. In fact, as soon as they were done with the nobles they started to behead one another during something that was called "the terror".
> France, in spite of all the beheadings, never really lost its aristocracy.
The popular imagery of the French Revolution, at least outside of France, was that the peasants rose up to destroy the aristocracy by chopping all their heads off. While some people certainly had this motivation, especially the sans-culottes and extremists like Marat, as a means of describing the entire revolution this framework falls far short of reality.
A large portion of the early revolution was actually supported by factions of the French nobility, including the liberal sons of old noble families. These nobles saw their current privileges as destabilizing, and wanted to move the country in a more meritocratic direction where they could dominate based on their education rather than their birth.
Furthermore, the near universal opinion of the political class early on was that they wanted a constitutional monarchy, even Robespierre opposed a republic early on during his revolutionary career.
It wasn’t until after the execution of the king did the purely anti-noble sentiment get going (and executing), but for a variety of reasons (read: civil war), they killed a lot more French peasants than they killed aristocrats. Later historians would typically call this period the “bad revolution”, while the partially aristocrat led early phases the “good revolution”. A later King of the French (yes, they came back) actually ponied up a huge amount of money to restore property to the nobility that had fled, effectively returning the nobility to their pre-revolution economic power.
tl;dr: the French Revolution was never a unified anti-aristocrat operation, which explains why semblances of the aristocracy remain to this day. It was effective at eliminating the king, but it was partially led by aristocrats, and ineffective at killing off or making the aristocracy permanently poor.
She ended up quitting and getting into the sciences instead, because she couldn't stand the class warfare techniques that the school taught. I think this is telling of a part of French society that isn't well-known outside of France.
This is an elite school, which teaches the brightest French youths (in terms of grades and competitive intellectual ability), and also the children of politicians, business leaders and powerful families.
The curriculum has your usual suspects of business administration topics, but also focuses on forming contacts in the elites and politics, plus explicit instruction in techniques for manipulating and dominating others. Examples being rhetoric, lying with a straight face, defending and justifying an indefensible or immoral case, or spreading rumors and damaging others' reputation.
France, in spite of all the beheadings, never really lost its aristocracy. There is a level of first-world corruption that's insane by central European standards. The politicial class consists exclusively of people who have gone to elite schools like the one I described, and never held a job, catering mostly to the requirements of big businesses.
As an external observer, it seems insane to me that the French are unable to vote in politicians that are not cronies to this system. But the news story is really no surprise, based on my third-hand knowledge of how French executives are trained.
Would love to hear some viewpoints from French or French-affiliated hackers on this.