Tilman Haug & Johanna Sprondel

'Faites lui une promesse authentique': Doubting, deceiving and confirming authenticity in French 17th century diplomacy 

In his Nouveau traité de la civilité (1671), Antoine de Courtin points out that politeness  calls for autosuggestion of authenticity in speech and symbolic action. This goes even beyond Baldassare Castigliones Libro del Cortegiano (1528) – arguably the defining moment for the development of early modern conversation – and its advice to produce instant naturalness in courtly conversation by rhetorical and theatrical means. One has to speak or act as if one was someone else, a concept that reminds of mimesis as harshly criticized by Platon (hós tis állos ón – Rep. 393b).

The interesting aspect that unites 17th century concepts of politeness and ancient philosophy of art, is that language has to be used to convey an image and an impression that aims for authenticity. Be it that – as Hegel points out (Aesthetics, III. 2,3 c) – a mediation asks for a step back from the real, the authentic situation; be it that polite inauthenticity was indispensable for every form of social and political interaction.

Nonetheless this poses some problems for diplomatic communication: On the one hand manipulative politeness is considered vital for the strategic success in diplomatic negotiation, especially in a diplomatic culture were the line between “objective” arguing and strategic bargaining is frequently blurred. Furthermore politeness serves as a tool to establish a basis for any diplomatic interaction, also enabling the actors to constitute their own in a certain sense “authentic” social and professional adherence to a group of “honnête homme”-diplomats. But on the other hand it threatens any meaningful diplomatic communication with the possibility of mutual deception, double speech and ultimate “non-negotiation”.

If a basic concept of authenticity including the legitimacy of openly revealing emotions, attitudes and interests lacks, and all communication is suspected to be deceiving for the very reason that insisting on naturalness and veracity is part of conventional polite speech, in which way can authenticity be marked beyond the rules of diplomatic courtesy and conversation? How can actors overcome what Niklas Luhmann called a “paradoxon of political communication” ( Die Moral der Gesellschaft, 2008, 166)?

The talk aims at pointing out and analysing strategies that were used by French diplomats to render authentic their own rhetoric, e.g. by providing sensitive information and other “authentic” material drawn from their own internal correspondence, as well as strategies of verifying the intentions of negotiation partners mainly by observing incidents of blatant impoliteness towards political opponents or situations of communication where their political or personal interests become visible. The latter is then no longer perceived as a violation of polite communication norms, but as an “index of authenticity”.