Democracy is like a frog. A frog dropped into a pot of boiling water will jump out; the same frog, placed in a pot of cold water over a fire, will allow itself gradually to be cooked. Multiple phenomena combine to ‘cook’ democracies insidiously, without the bells and whistles of a coup d’état, complete with soldiers, arrests of political opponents and military marches playing on a loop from a radio. The damage only appears as part of a banal succession of unrelated events, like the gentle bubbling of simmering water. The elements that fuel the fire beneath the pot have been described at length in several places (1), but relatively little attention has been paid to the role played by emotion invading the social sphere. The media greatly contribute to this phenomenon, without always taking stock of how destructive it can be for democracy and our capacity to think.

Just type ‘emotions run high’ into a search engine and you can scroll through an infinite number of news items, from banal human interest stories to murderous attacks in Beirut or Ouagadougou. ‘Emotions ran high’ in the world after the 13 November 2015 attacks in the French capital, just as they had in Petit-Palais-et-Cornemps, after a bus accident killed 43 people (FranceTV Info, 24 October 2015) in Calais when old hospital buildings were demolished (France 3, 20 November 2015) and in Epinac, home of Claudia Priest, who was abducted in the Central African Republic in early 2015 (Journal de Saône-et-Loire, Autun edition, 21 January 2015). They also ran high at the end of the year ‘for Brigitte, finding a flat to rent and furnishing it thanks to the Mont-Dore help hubs’ (Les Nouvelles calédoniennes, 6 January 2016).

We could go on. Our list does not acknowledge any hierarchy other than that of the real or supposed feelings of groups of people and those who observe them. The media are not alone in playing the emotional string section. Political leaders also indulge, particularly in order to mask their own powerlessness or to justify, in fatalistic tones, the inevitability of the measures they are about to take. This is the case when it comes to ​​immigration, where compassionate throat-clearing is required before launching into a convoluted explanation of European powerlessness. When describing the image of the little Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi lying lifeless on a beach in Turkey on 2 September 2015, both François Fillon, MP for les Republicains, and prime minister Manuel Valls probably used the word ‘agonising’ most, before it was decided that nothing would be done to stop the sources of migratory despair. In a less tragic register, commentators highlighted the ‘emotion’ in foreign minister Laurent Fabius’s tearful voice as he sealed a delicate deal at the end of the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris. Finally, President François Hollande made a revealing slip of the tongue in a speech in front of France’s mayors on 18 November 2015: he mentioned ‘the attacks that have left France sobbing’ (ensanglotée, rather than bloodied, ensanglantée).

While serving as a smokescreen for political impotence or cowardice, resorting to emotion can also have tragic immediate consequences. Eric Dupont-Moretti, Loïc Sécher’s lawyer, described the miscarriage of justice his client experienced as a ‘fiasco stemming from the dictatorship of emotion’. Sécher, a farm worker, had been accused of rape by a teenage girl. After years in prison, he was finally exonerated when in adulthood she admitted to having made it all up. As in the Outreau affair, the justice system had great difficulty reversing an incorrect decision taken under the influence of spectacular fictional stories, and the legitimate effort to protect minors from abuse. Media simplification, the cult of ‘real time’ and social networks do not encourage equanimity in such delicate cases.

Emotion poses a formidable challenge to democracy, because, by its nature, it puts the citizen in a passive position

Beyond simple political-media excesses, emotion has become one of the primary tools of social expression and means of decoding events. Even business leaders are encouraged to use their ‘emotional intelligence’ as a management tool, while their employees can use it to get a raise. One of the most visible signs of the pervasiveness of emotion in the public sphere is the growing phenomenon of white marches (marches blanches). These mostly spontaneous protests follow an accident or a particularly heinous crime, sometimes drawing vast crowds relative to the cities and villages where they take place. The first was in 1996 in Belgium, after the arrest of paedophile Marc Dutroux. The marches are called ‘white’ in a nod to principles of non-violence and peace. They are an expression of indignation in the face of unbearable, incomprehensible acts.

They have no slogans and make no demands. Deliberately silent crowds set off, with children often positioned at the head of the procession, sometimes carrying candles, as symbols of innocence and faith in the future. The philosopher Christophe Godin sees in the marches the expression of a ‘social crisis’ characterised by the ‘rule of emotions’ to which ‘they give considerable resonance’ (2). These processions of our modern times are related to the ubiquitous valorisation of the figure of the victim, bedecked in every virtue and to whom absolute homage is paid, unquestioningly, through a process of empathy. ‘It could have been me,’ repeat the people interviewed about a tragic or criminal incident, significantly. Each disaster is followed by the theatrical deployment of psychological support units. Trials at the International Criminal Court now give victims spaces in which they can speak, unconnected to the need to establish the truth in a given case, and without thought to the shocks that these testimonies, often as sensational as they are useless, might cause in disturbing or prejudicing deliberations.

In France, the ultimately abandoned project to transfer the remains of Alfred Dreyfus — the target of a campaign of extreme anti-Semitic violence in the 1890s — to the Pantheon was a revealing illustration of this cult of victimhood. Are we not confusing victim and hero here? Captain Dreyfus suffered painfully from the events, but at no time did he act in a particularly admirable way. On the other hand, lieutenant-colonel Georges Picquart, who was dismissed from the Ministry of War and removed from the army for denouncing the plot against Dreyfus, might deserve the attention of any discerning pantheonisers, and take his place by Emile Zola’s side (3). Another instance of victim-related confusion was the decision to pay tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks in the courtyard of the Invalides, a place intended by Louis XIV for soldiers wounded at the front. The ceremony gave feelings pride of place, and was choreographed as if for the cameras. Psychologist Jacques Cosnier goes so far as to speak of a ‘pathophilic’ society (4). Philosopher Catherine Kintzler is concerned about the ‘degrading dictatorship of affectivity (5)’.

Emotion poses a formidable challenge to democracy, because, by its nature, it puts the citizen in a passive position. Instead of acting, he or she reacts. Citizens rely on feelings more than reason, and are motivated by events, not thoughts. The white marches have no practical consequence: justice remains underfunded, society continues to be dismantled. Moreover, no white march has yet been recorded for the suicide of an unemployed person or the assassination of a workplace inspector. ‘Emotion is endured. We cannot escape from it at will, it runs its course, but we cannot put a stop to it,’ wrote Jean-Paul Sartre. ‘When all outlets are blocked, consciousness rushes into the magical world of emotion, it does so by degrading itself (…). A consciousness that is moved is not unlike a consciousness that falls asleep (6).’

Should we be speaking of a ‘feelings doctrine’, to be added to the ‘shock doctrine’ identified by Naomi Klein (7)? Viewed this way, the ruling class might be using it to depoliticise debates and to keep citizens in the role of children dominated by their feelings. Emotion abolishes the distance between subject and object; it precludes taking a step back to think; it deprives the citizen of time for reflection and debate. ‘Emotion imposes itself immediately, in its entirety,’ explains Claude-Jean Lenoir, former president of the Condorcet-Voltaire circle. ‘It imposes itself to the point that all consciousness becomes emotion, becomes this emotion. Emotion remains the radical enemy of reason: it does not try to understand, it “feels”. No doubt we also owe this current state of affairs to the emergence and influence of social networks. No distance! We “tweet” and “twitter” left and right. Critical thinking, culture and the search for truth are deteriorating. We “call out”.’

Emotion abolishes the distance between subject and object; it precludes taking a step back to think; it deprives the citizen of time for reflection and debate

The valorisation of emotion is thus fertile ground for the warlike recruitment methods of media philosophers ever ready to support a ‘humanitarian’ war, like Bernard-Henri Lévy over Libya in 2011. But it is also, less visibly, a breeding ground for the mechanics of storytelling and the false assumptions of populism. On the eve of the 2002 presidential election, the assault of pensioner Paul Voise was exploited by the media, and gave rise to a flood of reactionary speeches on the ‘fight against delinquency’. In his famous speech in Dakar in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was able to claim: ‘I myself sympathise with this need to believe rather than understand, to feel rather than reason, to live in harmony rather than to conquer…’

But the white march also fills a void left by forms of collective action, such as trade unionism and political activism. It is probably not insignificant, either, that the phenomenon was born in Belgium, at the height of the dismantling of the central state, and that it is prevalent particularly in the north of France, where deindustrialisation devastated the social fabric. Faced with suffering and fear of the future, emotion rehumanises; it stands against cynicism. It also makes you feel better. It provides relief, especially when it is shared, as during a ceremony at the Invalides. It briefly wards off that heavy feeling of helplessness by allowing for a communion, however simplistic, in hard times. ‘A television viewer at home who is moved by a crime or by the Charlie Hebdo massacre is alone,’ Godin explains. ‘A white march allows him or her to share his feelings. The phenomenon is clearly societal. And at the same time it is ambiguous.’ In this sense, does emotion not reflect a confused desire to ‘(re)create society’, to re-establish a social bond?

When asked why there is no revolutionary process underway in France despite the fact it is in a state of social and political regression, historian Sophie Wahnich explained (8) that the 1789 revolution can also be seen as the culmination of a long process of societal politicisation, starting with village assemblies in the Ancien Régime. In that setting the French first became accustomed to discussing local affairs, and kept up this habit during the events related to the convening of the Estates-General in 1789. The depth of the current political crisis can also be ascribed to the gradual disappearance of such public space.

So if white marches are, in some way, the first stage in the mending of the political fabric, we can look at things differently. Viewed this way, they are ‘implicitly political’, according to Godin; he sees them as unspoken recrimination against state powers that ‘no longer protect’ people. Note that the first march, in Belgium, was also organised to protest the negligence of the police and the justice system in their pursuit of a criminal who had passed under their radar. In order to rebuild democracy, links woven in emotion should be built on and become gradually more political.

The frog metaphor finds its echo in Voltaire, who told the story of two frogs dropped into a bowl of milk. The first frog doesn’t move, begins to pray and ends up sinking and drowning; the second frog flails so much that the milk turns into butter, making it easy for the frog to climb up on this solid substance, and jump out of the bowl.