Reading people
La Rochefoucauld
Virtues in disguise
La Rochefoucauld (France · 1613–1680) — Virtues in disguise.
What actually happened?
At the battle of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in 1652 a musket shot hit him in the face and blinded him for a time. He had already backed the wrong side in several conspiracies; the family lands were cut, the political life over. When his sight came back he did not return to court, he went to the salons instead. The interesting part is what he dissected first. The earliest manuscript of the Maxims carries a long essay on self-love, which he says changes like a chameleon and lives in everything and in nothing. Every aristocratic pretence in the book is one he had spent twenty years performing himself, which is why it reads as a confession and not an indictment.
Self-love is the floor under every motive
Self-love is the greatest of flatterers. It reports back to you continuously on what kind of person you are, and the report is always favourable. What you take to be your principles, your taste and your judgement are frequently just the version self-love picked out for you.
In a review, change I did it for the team to I wanted to be seen as someone who did it for the team. A surprising number of decisions look different immediately.
Virtues are vices in good clothes
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. Generosity may be ambition spending money; modesty may be a longer route to praise; tolerance may be an unwillingness to be bothered. He is not saying virtue does not exist. He is saying do not infer motive from behaviour.
A consistently generous person tells you only that generosity pays here. Change the conditions and the direction of what pays changes. Read the structure, not the character.
Nobody complains about their judgement
Everyone complains of his memory, no one complains of his judgment. A weak memory is a hardware fault and costs nothing to admit. Weak judgement would mean every past decision rested on nothing, and nobody can hold that thought, so memory quietly rewrites the misjudgements instead.
Write one page before a big decision saying what you expect and why. Read it half a year later. The first time is usually a shock.
Hypocrisy tells you the exchange rate
Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. Vice has to wear virtue's clothes to circulate, which proves virtue is the currency in that place, because nobody bothers disguising themselves as something worthless. So watch the direction of the pretending.
To find out what an organisation truly rewards, ignore the values on the wall and watch what a new hire has learned to perform by month three.
How do I use it today?
Two uses. Inward: when one of your own justifications comes together a little too smoothly, stop and ask whether the reason happens to be extremely comfortable. Outward: judge a partner not by the motive they state but by whether the thing pays them, and by whether it would still pay them after the conditions change. Verify goodwill as a structure rather than believing it as a quality.
Deep read
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Further
Lines to keep
We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others.
Refusing praise is a wish to be praised twice.
Old people give good advice to console themselves for no longer setting a bad example.