CHAUVIN — CENTRAL THEME
The life of Nicolas Chauvin is the source of the eponym, chauvinism or chauvinist. Central to the theme is the “appearance” of a second, “spiritual” presence of Nicolas Chauvin, becoming the embodiment of an “ideological” Chauvin (denoted thus: IChauvin).
The drama issues from the ideology grown from the “religiofication” of a group of people. That is the process that unified the army veterans and their followers, generating a spirit of self-sacrifice to transform the people, normally democratic, into a militant or revolutionary party of super-patriots. French nationalism was born, and grew, before the Royalist Restoration.
In this conception, chauvinists are one type of people who have thoroughly adapted to one way of life and are incapable of adapting in changed circumstances. Their adaptation precludes adaptability. Their beliefs are scripted, and their brains are wired by charismatic leaders, whose power and authority are based on their simple assertions.
They are supported by “true-believers” who too readily accept those ideas. The ideology of the leader and followers is the yardstick by which they measure all things. They are people who have lost their niche, and in their rigid denial of a changed state of affairs and of facts contrary to their ideas, they are attempting to cope by re-establishing a state in which their niche is restored to its former concordance with the background, in this case, the military glory under “the little corporal”, the spirit of Napoleon’s armies.
Their characteristic reaction is ideologically reactionary, but not violent, at first. The roots of chauvinism lie in this one mythical person’s behavior, around which coagulated a clot of causes in those times. Our times are seeing the continuation of the struggles of nationalism and the further spread of the phenomenon of cults, along with a rising sensitivity to the conflicts among cultural groups, such as the sexes (sexism, “male chauvinist pig”, “female chauvinist sow”) and an expansion of the eponym into new fields of battle (national and religious chauvinisms). In fact, a chauvinism for every demographic category, sex, age, race, blood, religion, nationality, etc., probably exists as a phenomenon in contemporary society.
The Chauvin pages:
Some of the ideas behind the plays are discussed in the Peroration page, which is a general summing up.
(Last updated on February 16, 2005)
