Moralism and the community of mistrust: Lise Charles, François de La Rochefoucauld and Aladin El-Mafaalani

Paranoia as a loss of trust

Lise Charles' novel Paranoia (POL, 2025) is a literary puzzle that blurs the lines between reality and fiction in the post-truth age and serves as an astute diagnosis of the contemporary identity crisis. The work, shortlisted for the Prix Femina, tells the story of seventeen-year-old former child actress Louise Milton and combines the formal rigor of classical moralism with the paranoid aesthetics of modern surveillance societies. Charles succeeds in distilling the “too heavy a conscience” (trop lourde conscience de soi) of the present in a stimulatingly constructed, unsettling narrative.

The book Communities of mistrust: on the appeal of populism and conspiracy ideologies Sociologist Aladin El-Mafaalani (Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2025) addresses the profound danger that the loss of trust in highly complex systems such as media, science, and politics poses to social stability and liberal democracy. In a complex society, trust is fundamental to the ability to act, as individuals can no longer grasp or control the opaque interrelationships due to increasing complexity (resulting from functional differentiation, globalization, and digitalization). Distrust of the "system" risks becoming paralyzed. To remain capable of acting in this state of pervasive distrust, individuals choose a subjectively rational alternative: they trust other distrustful individuals solely on the basis of shared distrust, not on the basis of qualifications or competence. Digital networking enables the establishment and expansion of communities of distrust, which stabilize distrust and amplify the appeal of populism and conspiracy ideologies. The central concern of El-Mafaalani's book is to analyze this process as an acute danger, since mistrust exacerbates the legitimacy problems of expert systems for information and knowledge.

the novel Paranoia It can be interpreted as a literary illustration of the individual and narrative consequences of a society based on distrust, since the protagonist, Louise Milton, lives in a world where sociological distrust has become a personal psychological reality. Louise suffers from social paranoia and the fear of being constantly secretly filmed, just like the film's inspiration. TThis fear, however, is not only pathological but is also confirmed: her mother steals her statements for comics on social media, thereby corroborating the "theories of the conspiracy." In the sense of El-Mafaalani, who argues that distrust of fundamental structures creates an enormous problem, Louise experiences total "intolerable dispossession of herself." She becomes a "heroine of a novel, persecuted by an author who wants to harm her." This literary metaphor of persecution by the author is the most radical form of loss of control over one's own life and corresponds to the sociological experience of living in an "era of post-truth" ("ère post-factuelle"), in which the boundary between reality and fiction blurs because expert systems (media, television) appropriate and process narratives.

Lise Charles transcends individual paranoia by establishing distrust as a subjectively rational and even necessary survival strategy within communities of distrust. After experiencing the "indiscidability of the point of view of truth," Louise retreats in the second part of the novel to the surreal world of the castle, where the Prince de Marsillac (alias the moralist La Rochefoucauld) proclaims "distrust and suspicion" as the norm ("suspect and skepticism are established there as a general rule"). Classical moralism thus becomes an alternative system logic that lends intellectual order to chaotic and opaque modernity. This corresponds to El-Mafaalani's thesis that the establishment of alternatives (which structure distrust and enable agency) is a pull factor for distancing oneself from established systems. The novel's deeper concern is the observation that in the "ère paranoïaque" (paranoid era), the "linguistic edifice" can no longer be protected from mistrust. Paranoia It shows in literary terms that the crisis of credibility and the “loss of truth as a regulative idea” leads to El-Mafaalani’s “troisième thèse”: mistrust combines, radically reduces complexity and becomes the constitutive identity in a world where the “frontière poreuse du réel et de la fiction” is the only reliable thing.

The division of the novel's structure into two parts reflects the identity crisis.

The novel's structure is divided into two parts of unequal length, whose atmospheres differ radically. This division serves to raise the question of authenticity, since the parts represent "a distorted image of the other," without it being clear which is the original: "Since everything is fiction, can one say that one is more authentic than the other?"

The first part – the longer one – establishes Louise's existential alienation from the apparent reality of the elite Parisian high school. Following her successful series Lou y es-tu? Due to a scandal involving actor Renaud Wahl (her TV father), Louise's studies were halted, forcing her to return to normal school life. Here, she experiences "distinction through the absence of distinction," as she consciously tries not to stand out (e.g., by wearing jeans and Converse instead of a costume for the drama performance).

The central conflict that concludes the first half is the loss of her fictional identity. The producers want to reboot the series without Louise, as she has aged too much and is "unusable for the television industry." Her younger sister Jeanne is being considered as her successor in the role of Lou, as she resembles her "like two peas in a pod," which Louise perceives as an "intolerable dispossession of herself." Ironically, Louise's only escape is literature (The Princess of Cleves) and the shared narratives with Jeanne, in which she anticipates the tragedy of her own replacement.

The turning point comes when Louise, in a moment of utter despair and jealousy, wishes for her sister Jeanne's death after Jeanne is given the lead role in the remake. Death occurs shortly thereafter. The second half begins with Louise's escape and her entry into a dreamlike, pastiche-like world, visually reminiscent of cinematic works such as David Lynch's Mulholland Drive reminds us. The absence of transitions (absences de transition) and the ellipses emphasize the discontinuity between the two halves.

In the castle setting, which also suggests a possible stay in a psychiatric hospital, Louise's real paranoia is transformed into a narrative crime story. She begins to believe that her uncle Charlie is the mysterious "Emerald Killer" (emerald-death tutor) is because he gave her an emerald ring with a strange engraving. Louise actively seeks a way to end the story by killing the Prince de Marsillac and burying him in an improvised Lappish hut, with her accomplice being Bérengère disguised as Manon. The act of killing (or ending the plot) occurs after Louise feels that Marsillac has opened her eyes, which she resents: "One hates those who open one's eyes" (On what you're talking about, you'll hear somethingThe structure thus serves as an in-depth investigation into the boundary between truth and fiction.

Metafictionality and moralistic disintegration of the self

The Poetics of Paranoia The novel is centrally determined by two literary strategies: metafictionality and the strategies of intertextuality in relation to the French moralists of the 17th century. Louise, the protagonist, experiences her existence as an externally controlled performance, an experience that directly corresponds to the metafictional structure of the novel. Louise, the former heroine of the successful series Lou y es-tu?She experiences deep-seated social paranoia and a constant fear of being secretly filmed, even during their first kiss. This fear, reminiscent of the film The Truman ShoThis suspicion is confirmed twice in the novel. Firstly, her mother, an artist, uses Louise's spontaneous remarks and dialogues for comics, which she publishes on social media, thus constantly exploiting Louise's privacy. Secondly, Louise becomes painfully aware that she is a fictional character manipulated by the author. She explicitly describes herself as "a novel heroine, pursued by an author who wishes her harm." This unease manifests itself in her feeling of "intolerable dispossession of the self." Reality appears to her as "fabric of poor quality" or a plot structured by Racine, in which nothing is left to chance.

The metafictional level merges with 17th-century moralism in the surreal half of the novel. After a tragedy (possibly the death of her sister Jeanne, which Louise had inwardly desired) projects Louise "onto the other side of the mirror," she finds herself in a sprawling, dreamlike castle. There she meets the Prince de Marsillac—a direct reference to La Rochefoucauld, whose title was Marcillac. ¹ The prince serves as a cynic and teacher in "esoteric courses" who analyzes every human interaction under the filter of "amour-propre" (self-love).

Marsillac's teachings undermine Louise's modern social concepts: friendship is merely a "companionship, a mutual pursuit of interests, an exchange of services," in which the self-esteem always trying to win something. Compliments are primarily manifestations of envy, since every praised object is simultaneously desired and thus a threat to the "negative" ego. Face“represents the person being complimented. Mockery is harder to bear than insults because it seems ridiculous to get upset about ridicule, which only intensifies the humiliation.

Marsillac's cold logic teaches Louise that paranoia itself is a rational way of life: "One lives very well when one is paranoid" ("On vit très bien en étant paranoïaque"). Charles's narrative virtuosity lies in viewing the highly modern crisis of authenticity through a classical, baroque lens, in which dissimulation and calculation form the basis of social life.

La Rochefoucauld's Limits of Trust

According to Fritz Schalk, La Rochefoucauld's work originates from in The French moralists (Dieterich Collection, 1938) the state of disillusionment and shows “cold disillusionment, loveless sharpness of criticism, skepticism.” Schalk’s argument regarding mistrust and dissimulation is based on the fact that the moralist wanted to overcome the “moral shallowness” of his time by exposing the socially displayed virtue as illusory. La Rochefoucauld’s central concern, as Schalk explains, is the radical exposure of human motivations, since these are almost always driven by self-interest (self-esteem) are driven by. The moralist sought “what he really and truly is” and created a portrait of the human heart that was “all too similar and not flattering enough.” Schalk describes La Rochefoucauld’s view of the world as an expression of a “suspicious and disillusioning world-denial.”

According to La Rochefoucauld, masks and dissimulation are constitutive elements of courtly moralism, which he systematically sought to expose. "Lies" and dissimulation are deeply rooted in society. La Rochefoucauld "tracked down dissimulation in every nook and cranny, in every form in which it hid." According to one of his maxims, "humility" ("humilité") is often "merely feigned submission" and "a ploy of pride," never being "better disguised and more capable of deceiving" ("mieux déguisé et plus capable de tromper") than when it wears the mask of humility. Indeed, as one reflection observes, the world is composed of "nothing but masks" ("le monde est composée de masques"). Even the women are often “ashamed” to show their “hidden vices,” and women’s respectability “often consists only in the art of appearing respectable.” The moralistic psychology that Charles illuminates through Schalk’s texts demonstrates that courtly society is a place where we are “accustomed to dissembling ourselves before others, so much so that we end up dissembling ourselves before ourselves.”

Fritz Schalk understands La Rochefoucauld's thought as a consistent anthropology of masks, in which mistrust is not merely a mood but a methodological principle. At its core, for him, lies the discovery of self-love as the fundamental motive of all action—that hidden drive which transforms virtues into mere "disguised vices" and renders every moral gesture inherently suspect. Schalk emphasizes that La Rochefoucauld delves behind every moral expression to uncover the hidden core, and that this results in a worldview in which appearance itself becomes the primary social reality. The court provides the paradigmatic space for these observations: a milieu in which social life is regulated by dissimulation, expression, posture, and ritualistic pretense. Schalk points out how frequently La Rochefoucauld names the mask-like nature of this space—for example, when he states that "the world consists entirely of masks," or when humility, honesty, and sincerity themselves appear as sophisticated forms of deception. In this courtly order, authenticity is structurally excluded; it practically forces the art of concealment that La Rochefoucauld analyzes with uncompromising precision.

The resulting mistrust, however, is not merely a moralistic construct for Schalk, but becomes a means of gaining knowledge. The moralists act as exposers. In this psychologically heightened perspective, a discerning sharpness of judgment is combined with the insight that deception and disguise are socially necessary. From this disillusioning analysis emerges something akin to political worldliness: a sober realism that acknowledges the necessity of society despite its mechanisms of deception. Schalk shows how La Rochefoucauld thereby becomes both a pessimistic diagnostician and a keenly observant analyst—one for whom the courtly world is the great testing ground for deception and mistrust the only appropriate instrument for looking behind the smooth surface of social life.

The fictional functionalization of the moralism of François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680), in Lise Charles' novel Paranoia This is a literary move: Charles uses the austere and sometimes cynical aphorisms of the 17th century to analyze the crisis of authenticity and the ubiquitous "too heavy a sense of self" (trop lourde conscience de soi) of the post-truth era. To understand the deeper meaning of this strategy in Paranoia To grasp this, one must understand the historical La Rochefoucauld, his work, and the literary interpretation of his process of shedding his mask.

François VI, Duke of La Rochefoucauld, came from an old and distinguished family. His life was marked by the turmoil of the Fronde (1648–1652), the uprising of the nobility against the monarch's absolute rule. After the failure of his political and military ambitions, La Rochefoucauld withdrew from public life, scarred by "scars, experiences, disappointments, and insights." From this state of disillusioned defeat, the "perpetrator and sufferer" transformed into a moralist of contemplation and philosophical understanding.

His major work, the Maxims (First published in 1665), the maxims did not aim to fathom “what man appears to be, but what he actually and truly is.” The maxims, of which 641 survive in various editions, employ the technique of unmasking, a process that frames observations on human nature as a demystification of what is normally considered or claimed to be moral life. This method stands in a tradition of the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” which posits that “all consciousness (…) is a ‘false’ consciousness.” This radical skepticism was later associated with thinkers such as Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, but La Rochefoucauld developed it as early as the 17th century in the context of the Jansenists and the emerging Machiavellianism.

In his reflection "De la confiance" ("On Trust"), La Rochefoucauld distinguishes "confiance" (trust) from "sincérité" (sincerity), although the two are related. Sincerity is defined as an "opening of the heart" that reveals us as we truly are. It is a "love of truth" and an aversion to dissembling, as well as the desire to "buy one's way out of one's faults" and diminish them by admitting them. In contrast, trust is more narrowly defined and does not grant as much freedom. The rules of trust are stricter, as it requires "more caution and restraint" ("plus de prudence et de retenue"). The reason for this is that trust is not solely about one's own interest, but rather one's own interests are intertwined with those of others ("nos intérêts sont mêlés d'ordinaire avec les intérêts des autres").

La Rochefoucauld's text emphasizes the need to set limits to trust ("y mettre des bornes") and to make it "honest and faithful" ("honnête et fidèle"). La Rochefoucauld considers it important that trust be "always true and always prudent" ("toujours vraie et toujours prudente") and show neither weakness nor self-interest ("qu'elle n'ait ni faiblesse ni intérêt"). Although trust is necessary for the "bond of society and friendship" (lien de la société et de l'amitié), La Rochefoucauld questions the motivations for people to trust, tracing them back to amour-propre (self-love): trust often arises from vanity (par vanité). It serves the desire "to speak for oneself" (par envie de parler). It is a means of "attracting the trust of others" and "exchanging secrets." Trust is therefore not pure, but a "tribute we pay to the merit of the other" and a "pledge" that grants the recipient a right to us and places us in a "voluntary dependency."

This critical analysis, which emphasizes the necessity of mistrust, is reflected in Lise Charles' novel Paranoia against, where the protagonist Louise Milton lives in a world where “sincerity is merely a subtle deception to gain the trust of others” (fine dissimulation pour attirer la confiance des autres), and where it is considered wiser to make distrust the general rule in order not to be deceived.

The core of La Rochefoucauld's moral philosophy is the concept of self-esteem (Self-love). He mostly saw virtues as "vices in disguise." Literary scholars grapple with the interpretation of this radical reductionism: Is La Rochefoucauld an Augustinian moralist describing the depravity of fallen humanity, or a secular realist making psychological observations in the spirit of the scientific revolution? Although the author moved in Jansenist circles for a time and his Maxims Emerging from such a milieu, La Rochefoucauld strove to remove all explicit religious references and develop a "strictly secular" study of action and motivation, comparable to Machiavelli's political realism. Maxims were a “system of self-knowledge that proves to be impossible”.

The impact of these moralistic texts on contemporary fiction and society was profound. They challenged the foundations of the aristocracy, whose privileges rested on the virtue and loyalty of its members. The maxims functioned as an obituary for the aristocracy as a whole, revealing that noble qualities were merely a facade for self-serving calculation. The mistrust and calculation that La Rochefoucauld expressed in his Maxims He explained that these were the rational response to a court society characterized by absolutism and manipulation, in which "distrust and defiance had become the general rule".

Lise Charles deliberately uses these texts to orient her protagonist Louise Milton in the "post-truth era". MaximeThe author appears in the form of the Prince de Marsillac. Charles transposes Marsillac into a dreamlike or nightmarish castle cosmos. This formal framework, which works with "absences of transitions, ellipses, masks, and shifts in identity," is the perfect fictional environment for moralism. For in this surreal space, the calculation described by La Rochefoucauld becomes a physical constant: "suspicion and defiance are elevated there to a general rule." Marsillac provides Louise with the intellectual structure that allows her to understand her media-related and existential paranoia as rationality. Louise feels like a "novel heroine, pursued by an author who wishes her harm." La Rochefoucauld's texts, which depict the omnipresent "maliciousness" (malignancy) emphasize human nature, legitimizing Louise's deep distrust of all social interactions.

Charles demonstrates that La Rochefoucauld's moral philosophy functions as a diagnostic tool in modern society. When Louise is jealous of her younger sister Jeanne, La Rochefoucauld is quoted by her mother to explain the natural and uncontrollable nature of jealousy: "When one is unhappy, one could at least rejoice in the happiness of others, but jealousy robs us even of this consolation." The maxims are not intended to comfort Louise, but rather to impart to her a timeless, cynical truth about human nature, one that is more stable in a world characterized by "media exploitation" and "fictitious" existence than the superficial assertions of the present.

Charles's fictionalization of La Rochefoucauld is a metanarrative reflection: it employs the historical poetics of exposure, which in the 17th century dismantled aristocratic virtue, to examine in the 21st century the "porous boundary between the real and the fiction." Marsillac, the historical skeptic, becomes the indispensable guide of the post-factual heroine, teaching her that distrust is not madness, but the only reason. The contemporary fear of surveillance is sublimated and rationalized by the timeless insight of moralists that "humanity is by nature inclined to deception."

Contemporary culture: the dictates of performance and ethical dogmatism

The novel is a sharp satire of contemporary society and its cultural codes, which are characterized by mediatization and moral hysteria.

Media performance and self-control

Louise's fear of constant surveillance is an extreme example of today's drive for reputation management. Her classmate Maxime pursues a meticulously planned social media strategy to enhance his image for future employers at elite schools (HEC or ESSECHe wants to appear "clean." He only posts innocuous photos (e.g., of sports activities) and avoids anything "potentially compromising," fearing that algorithms could uncover past transgressions and cost him his job in four years. His paranoia isn't about surveillance, but about reputation.

This pressure to perform extends to the ability to display emotions. Louise observes how her classmates use technical or staged skills to generate feelings: Bérengère uses a "tear blower" (menthol crystals) or recalls traumatic events to shed tears on command. Tess cries instantly when she thinks of the "war in Ukraine," a phrase that has become a cynical code word among her friends. Louise herself synchronizes her laughter with that of others in the cafeteria so as not to draw attention to herself. The novel shows how genuine feelings have been rendered impossible by the dictates of authenticity.

Satire on dogmatism and moral debates

Charles criticizes the current discourse culture by portraying ideological positions as gloubi-boulga of self-help mantras or as “militant ready-made thinking” (prêt-à-penser militant), which leads to a “defeat of thinking”.

The MeToo debate is satirized by the history teacher M. Pépin, who delivers reactionary tirades about the “libération de la parole” and the “lynchage médiatique” (referring to Renaud Wahl) and visibly enjoys provoking the outrage of his students.

Identity politics is explored through the example of Raphaël, who identifies as non-binary. Raphaël uses linguistic theories (Ferdinand de Saussure) – the word "chien" (dog) has nothing to do with the reality of a dog – to argue that the name assigned to him does not define him. His attempt to explain his identity, however, is met with incomprehension and the anger of Louise's uncle, Charlie. Charles does not condemn Raphaël's identity, but rather the dogmatic reactions. Charlie rejects the term "non-binary" as "vocabulary for idiots" and a form of aggressive "adolescent revolution" that only serves to attack those who define themselves as binary.

Louise's friend Manon also observes that even progressive discourses lead to rigidity. She resists the societal "compulsion" to parenthood (injonction constante) and explains her "non-desire for children" (non-désir d'enfant) as a reaction to the observed abuses to which mothers are subjected. In the novel, every moral or emotional outburst is immediately suspected of serving selfish or dogmatic goals.

Eco-anxiety and escapism

The confusion of the present is also manifested in the fear of the approaching end of the world, embodied by Louise's father. He suffers from eco-anxiety and chronic seasonal depression, which is expressed in his obsessive use of a Jean-Claude Van Damme-style Franglais. The fear of climate change is so great that the family has sold their house in Brittany to escape a feared flood in a hundred years. The father interprets this pessimism as ultimate clarity (lucidity) and uses the apocalyptic prediction – the “end of humanity” is coming soon (humanity is going to its end) – as an excuse to escape from everyday life.

The escape from this chaotic, mediatized, and morally overloaded reality is reflected in Louise's desire for literary order: she draws on the "calm and luminous language" (langage tranquille et lumineux) of the Scout handbook. Copain des bois (1994 edition, which portrays climate change as harmless) the “crazy tirades” of her father.

Synthesis: The paranoid mind as a rational response

Lise Charles' novel Paranoia The novel reveals contemporary forms of communication as a dense web of surveillance, performance, and cynicism that significantly shapes the fictional structure of the work and ultimately leads to the "indiscribability of the point of truth" (indécidabilité du point de vue de la véracité). In the first part of the novel, this manifests primarily as a communication dictatorship and the dispossession of the self. The former child actress Louise Milton constantly fears being secretly filmed, a fear that the T resembles. This paranoia is justified, as her mother steals her statements to create comics for social media. Even Louise's dialogues find their way into the public sphere, transformed into sad anecdotes and hashtags. The protagonist painfully realizes that she has become a "novel heroine, pursued by an author who wishes her harm," and that her existence is reduced to a mere Wikipedia entry. This constant mediatization leads to an "intolerable dispossession of the self" and forces Louise to exercise communicative self-control: she chooses to adopt an inappropriately high-pitched voice during appearances, just to avoid giving the impression that she is speaking in a certain way. over the situation.

This crisis of authenticity is exacerbated by a performance economy in which emotions are communicated only as calculated or technical skills. Louise trains to synchronize her laughter in order not to à contretemps (out of sync) while classmates like Bérengère use aids such as "tear blowers" (menthol crystals) or edible fake snot (fausse morve, morve comestible) to stage tears and illnesses. The portrayal of emotions becomes a technical discipline. At the same time, ideologically charged discourses circulate: The tirades of the history teacher M. Pépin about the freedom of speech and the media lynching are portrayed as a reactionary indulgence, while political identity debates (e.g., about non-binary identity or identity terms like beurette) into dogmatic “vocabulary for idiots” (vocabulary à la con) or “militant preconceptions” (prêt-à-penser militant) transform. Communication in contemporary culture is therefore primarily characterized by facades, mistrust, and the attempt to conceal one's own identity. Face to uphold or discredit.

In response to this modern confusion, the novel resorts to classical and meta-linguistic forms of communication, which is Lise Charles's literary specialty. In the second, surreal half, the Prince de Marsillac (an allusion to La Rochefoucauld) assumes the role of a cynical mentor. His communication consists of formal, moralistic maxims that denounce modern behaviors such as friendship or compliments as mere "community, a mutual management of interests" and an expression of self-esteem (Self-love) interpret. In parallel, the courses of the "modernities" dissect interaction into academic terms such as "Actes Menaçants pour la Face" (AMF). These communication theories confirm Louise's paranoia by portraying social interaction as a permanent threat, in which every utterance carries the risk of losing face. Even compliments are thus intrinsically menaçend (intrinsically menacingThe explicit discussion of “performative verbs” – an author can kill their character simply by saying so – directly addresses the author’s control over the character Louise.

The profound effect of these forms of communication on fiction is the erosion of narrative credibility and the creation of a paranoid aesthetic. The constant “partie de saute-mouton entre réalité et fiction” (A game of hopscotch between reality and fiction) makes truth elusive, since even the narrator admits that reality sometimes "sulks and refuses to participate in the concert." Louise's realization that she is trapped in a "perverse novel" in which she is both author and heroine is the direct consequence of a world of communication where signs are manipulated, words stolen, and emotions staged. Ultimately, the novel implies that in the post-truth era (post-factual era) the paranoid state of mind becomes the only rational answer. The fiction becomes a "fable" (fable), illustrates the maxims, and the act of narration does not serve to reveal the truth, but to demonstrate the universal “maliciousness” (natural malignancy) of human nature, since one can find a "secret pleasure" even in the saddest events.

Paranoia The film employs a narrative style that is both precise and playful to show that in a society where everything is fiction and perception becomes currency, paranoia has become a necessary mental state. Louise's condition is not merely a psychological disorder, but a logical reaction to an environment in which her life is constantly stolen, manipulated, and used against her (be it by her mother, the producers, or her classmates).

The novel creates a vertical dialogue between the formal, cynical wisdom of the Baroque era (Marsillac teaches: love is a disease, friendship is calculation) and the horizontal, chaotic confusion of modernity. The metafictional insight that "fiction is never a deception because it is always a deception" allows Louise to ultimately assume the role of author by deliberately ending the Marsillac plot. Yet even in this apparent control, Louise remains trapped in an eternal loop, convinced that she is a character haunted by a malevolent creator. Paranoia It is a reflection on the fact that in the post-truth era, the only way to cope with the unbearable nature of self-perception is to accept oneself as a character in a plot whose rules, even if they seem unreasonable, one must follow in order not to sink into chaos.

Possible solutions?

Seventeenth-century French court society, particularly during the time of La Rochefoucauld and the Fronde, can be interpreted as a historical equivalent of a community of mistrust in the sociological sense of Aladin El-Mafaalani, albeit without modern digital infrastructures. El-Mafaalani describes the community of mistrust as a phenomenon in highly complex societies where individuals can no longer control the interrelationships and lose trust in expert systems. In order to remain capable of action, people trust other mistrustful individuals simply because of this shared mistrust. Court society corresponded to such a psychologically and politically highly complex structure: it was an atomized environment in which suspicion was the general rule. The rise of absolutism and the defeat of the aristocracy in the Fronde led to a "psychology of self-interest" in which survival required the constant exposure of others' motives. This universal distrust (“défiance”) of the courtiers, which La Rochefoucauld captured in the maxim “Notre défiance justifie la tromperie d’autrui”, was a subjectively rational strategy to avoid being deceived in a system of ubiquitous dissimulation (“dissimulation”), and made courtly society a community of calculated suspicion.

La Rochefoucauld himself offers no moral or religious way out (in the sense of the Jansenists or the pious humanists). His aim, instead, is an “anatomy of all the folds of the heart” (anatomie de tous les replis du cœur) and the establishment of a secular psychological analysis of action. His way out of the widespread mistrust and deception lies in heroic sincerity and intellectual clarity. For the nobility, the moralistic act of exposure is a way “to have the courage to speak out and articulate the depravity of men.” This means revealing the truth about the self-esteem (Self-love) to accept its inescapable influence. For practical life, La Rochefoucauld recommends the caution and restraint of the Honnête Homme, who knows the limits of his own dissimulation and those of others. Mistrust is not resolved, but rationalized through self-knowledge: "He who distrusts himself, his best asset is silence."

El-Mafaalani views distrust not primarily as an individual failing, but as a consequence of structural complexity, legal regulation, and increasingly frequent crises. His aim is to find ways to preserve social stability and liberal democracy, which are threatened by distrust. Short-term solutions such as simple communication strategies are considered counterproductive. The solution lies in a new approach to uncertainty and complexity, as well as strengthening positive expectations for the future. Crucially, this involves distinguishing between functional and normative distrust. Functional distrust (which critically examines institutions and power structures) is constructive and a "resource of societal self-regulation" that makes legitimacy problems visible. The goal must be to preserve this functional distrust and isolate normative, destructive distrust (which becomes part of the collective identity). In practice, this can be achieved through "assumed certainty" and by making internal controls visible (e.g., fact-checking in the media) in order to stabilize existing trust.

Lise Charles' novel Paranoia The novel illustrates, in literary form, the way out of the psychological paralysis of a society of mistrust. The protagonist, Louise Milton, accepts her paranoia as the only rational reaction to her mediatized and dispossessed existence. The escape from her "overly heavy self-perception" and the feeling of being trapped in a "perverse novel" is found through artistic/metafictional distancing. Louise channels her despair and mistrust through the system of Marsillac/La Rochefoucauld, whose cynical logic... self-esteem It offers them a stable philosophical interpretive framework that counters the chaotic modern world malaise is superior. Distrust becomes a narrative technique and a weapon in fiction. The ultimate way out is Louise's attempt to regain control by adopting the author's perspective and fixing and ordering reality itself, even if it means violating the truth of self-esteem and must accept the constant danger of deception. The literary form (maxims, reflections) becomes a sanctuary that enables new "capacity for action" in the face of the crisis of authenticity.

Although the three perspectives – La Rochefoucauld (courtly society), El-Mafaalani (modern society), and Charles (fiction) – are situated in different eras and forms of representation, their solutions converge on one point: the resolution of mistrust through naive trust is impossible. Instead, they offer strategies for rational orientation and mistrust management. La Rochefoucauld advocates the aristocratic stance of ruthless self-knowledge ("sincérité") and cautious restraint to avoid deception. El-Mafaalani focuses on sociological stabilization by distinguishing between constructive (functional) and destructive (normative) mistrust and by emphasizing the renewal of positive expectations for the future as a societal compass. Lise Charles offers a literary way out in which paranoia is overcome through metanarrative self-empowerment, as the character accepts the truth of mistrust and authorizes themselves as the author of their own fate (or at least their own narrative). All three acknowledge human vulnerability, but only by establishing a method of distancing themselves and an understanding of the mechanisms of deception.

1. Before his father's death in 1650, he held the title of Prince, i.e., "prince de Marcillac", from then on he inherited the title of Duke.>>>