Rule-Following in Dandyism: "Style" as an Overcoming of "Rule" and "Structure"

Author(s): Thorsten Botz-Bornstein

Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 90, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 285-295
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3734540
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 RULE-FOLLOWING IN DANDYISM: 'STYLE' AS AN

OVERCOMING OF 'RULE' AND 'STRUCTURE'

i. Rules and style

'A Dandy is a Clothes-wearing Man', said Carlyle, and in saying this
once everything and nothing. What makes the dandy a dandy? Certa
wears his clothes 'wisely and well'. On the other hand, anybody
without being a dandy. What is necessary is a certain artistic quality
be firmly established in the dandy's way of clothing and which make
of Cloth' (Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, ed. by W. H. Hudson (Londo
p. 204). The dandy is a person who behaves like a dandy or who
dandy's style. However, the biggest fault one could commit is to
dandy is a dandy because he follows the rules of dandyism. 'The
wrote the pre-dandy Lord Chesterfield to his son, is 'a very difficult o
can hardly be reduced to rules' (Letters to His Son, ed. by R. K. Root
I986), p. 34). It is possible to follow certain rules which constitu
dandyism but not everybody who does so is a dandy. Things are even
one of the first rule of dandyism is to follow no rules at all.
In reflecting upon those questions philosophical problems arise of
and of the foundation of rules in general. On what can human actions
or a lifestyle, be founded if not on rules which are either followed or
to follow alternative rules?
This particular problem of rule-following has occupied some Wittgensteinians for
whom the matter of'rules' along with the matter of 'game' holds first place among
all philosophical problems. The monk follows the rules of monasticism, the artist the
rules of the bohemian life. With the anarchist considerable difficulties are encoun-
tered because the anarchist is somebody who rejects all rules. Does he at least follow
the rules of anarchism? Peter Winch deals with this question:
The monk's life is circumscribed by rules of behaviour which are both explicit and tightly
drawn: they leave as little room as possible for individual choice in situations which call for
action. The anarchist, on the other hand, eschews explicit norms as far as possible and prides
himself on considering all claims for action 'on their merits': that is, his choice is not
determined in advance for him by the rule he is following. But does that mean that we can
altogether eliminate the idea of a rule from the description of his behaviour? We cannot do this
because, if I may be permitted a significant pleonasm, the anarchist's way of life is a way of
life.1

As I shall show later, the dandy is an anarchist, because he rejects all rules and all
norms. The additional aspect encountered in dandyism, the one which interests me

1 Peter Winch, The Idea of Social Science (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958), pp. 52-53: see also
Charles Taylor, who remarks on the importance of style in human science: 'Take the example of the
gentleman; or its seeming opposite, the macho male. In either case, there may be very little articulation of
the norms, of how you have to act and feel in order to be a proper gentleman, or macho. But this will be
carried in the way we act towards each other, towards women, etc.; and it will be carried also very much in
the way we display ourselves to others; the way we present ourselves in public space. Style is extremely
important here. [... ] Indeed, the real mark of a gentleman is to live by unwritten rules. Whoever needs to
have the rules spelled out is not a gentleman' ('Philosophy and its History', in Philosophy in History, ed. by
Richard Rorty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I984)), pp. 17-30 (p. 23).

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286 Rule-Following in Dandyism

here most, is that the dandy is a man whose actions can be summed up in nothing
other than in a 'way of life'. In other words: the dandy is a man of style.
The dandy is not even a man of style but he is style: is he really a man? Is he not
only an idea produced through an artistic act of stylization or even a philosophical
act of abstraction which never has the right to claim real presence or being? The
dandy haunts many English and French novels of the nineteenth century. There
were also numerous dandies, from Bath to Paris, who invested much in the imitation
of a dandy-like lifestyle. However, probably few of those dandies can be considered
genuine. The only ones who ever really existed (at least many of the greatest
specialists of dandyism agree on this) were George Brummell, Baudelaire, and
Barbey d'Aurevilly. All the others, including the Count d'Orsay, are more or less
cheap imitations of Brummell.
The main problem of dandyism is that of its own foundation. The dandy is an
anarchist but he is an anarchist who does not claim anarchy. The reason for this is
that the dandy does not claim anything. He lives what Winch has called an
'anarchist's way of life' without ever being an anarchist. In other words, the dandy is
a man who is permanently revolte but who does not ask for a revolution. Just as
Baudelaire founded his existence, as Sartre has shown, on the 'sublimation de la
jouissance', so the dandy founds his existence on the sublimation of revolt. This
gives him the revolutionary's 'way of life' without making him a revolutionary.
The man who is constantly revolte has recognized, as Camus said, that finally 'la
societe capitaliste et la societe r6volutionnaire n'en font qu'une dans la mesure oiu
elles s'asservissent au meme moyen, la production industrielle, et a la meme
promesse' (L'Homme revolte, in Essais, ed. by R. Quilliot and L. Faucon (Paris:
Gallimard, 1965), pp. 675-76). The ordinary anarchist wants the world to follow the
rules of anarchy or to play the game of anarchy. The dandy, on the other hand, plays
the conventional game of aristocratic society; however, he does so by imposing on
this game his personal style, which is the style of the revolte. Camus writes about the
artist revolte: 'Cette correction, que l'artiste opere par son langage et par une
redistribution d'elements puises dans le reel, s'appelle le style et donne a l'univers
recree son unite et ses limites, a donner sa loi au monde' (L'Homme revolte, p. 672).
The dandy's existence is founded uniquely on a 'way of being' or on style but not on
rules (not even on rules about a certain style).
The dandy revolte is an anarchist without enthusiasm. He respects the rules of
aristocratic society and at the same time he does not respect them. This kind of game
is very complex. It is much more complex than 'ordinary' games of, for example,
hypocrisy or dissimulation. The hypocrite's game is founded on a quite simple rule,
that of playing at being the contrary of what he really is. The dandy also plays at
being what he is not but he leaves completely open both what he is and what he is
pretending not to be. He is only what he plays, which means that his being is
founded on nothing other than the game of dandyism. Lister's Trebeck confesses to
MissJermyn: 'I am not what I seem.' However, this does not mean that he is what he
does not seem to be. What he is is only a game: 'Why am I courted by persons who,
both in rank and in fortune are immeasurably my superiors? [...] I have acted a
part' (Thomas Lister, Granby (London: Colburn, I826), p. I96). The dandy exists
through the game of dandyism and there is no place outside the game from which
he can be evaluated. When Miss Jermyn cries out 'We should never do evil' the
dandy Trebeck immediately places her moral considerations inside the game he is

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 THORSTEN BOTZ-BORNSTEIN 287

playing: 'My errors, be they what they may, should be attribu

associates' (Granby, p. 196). For the dandy the game never stops an
be they moral or aesthetic, adopt a playful character. Is the dandy
He is and he is not. Virginia Woolf has characterized Brummel
reporting that he once said: 'Ifa man and a dog were drowning in
would prefer to save the dog if there was nobody looking. But he w
that everybody was looking' (Beau Brummell (New York: Rem
I930), p. 7).
Virginia Woolf's statement implies that the dandy's playful attitude is founded on
irony. He suggests that he could be a misanthropist, but at the same time, since the
game never stops (everybody is permanently looking), he could not be a misanthro-
pist. What he finally is remains open.
This ironical behaviour is very important for the dandy's way of following rules.
He follows the rules of decadent aristocracy without making any attempt at
overturning them, but at the same time he does not follow those rules as rules. He has
found a sophisticated alternative. Lister's Trebeck says: 'Do not associate me with
the silly, worldly characters around me. I laugh at them, while I laugh with them'
(Granby, p. I98). Recognizing and mocking at, being and not being, all this the
dandy condenses in one single act, an act of laughter.
In imposing his own style on the way he 'follows' rules the dandy follows and does
not follow. On the one hand he follows the rules perfectly (so perfectly that his act of
rule-following becomes a parody or a mockery). On the other hand, through his style
of following rules he makes clear his disdain for the rules of decadent aristocracy as
well as for the bourgeois world of money. The dandy could never refuse a high
military honour but, according toJacques Boulenger, his style of receiving it comes
close to mockery: 'Avec quel dedain de grand air, par exemple, il [le dandy] sut
accepter le grade d'officier dans un des premiers regiments de l'armee, grade que
tout autre fat de sa naissance et de son age aurait considere comme un reve' (Les
Dandies (Paris: Ollendorf, I907), p. 7).
This dedain constitutes the certainje ne sais quoi of the dandy or the certain ton asked
for by Bulwer-Lytton in his Pelham.2 Life is a comedy and its rules need to be
followed, but one should avoid enthusiasm. For the 'superbe et fatal' couple in
Barbey's L'Amour impossible love is reduced to an 'affreuse oomedie, because all the
dandy Maulevrier will give or receive are 'quelque[s] vide[s] baiser[s], quelque
sombre et vaine caresse, par dedommagement du bonheur manque et de l'enthou-
siasme impossible' (L'Amour impossible, in a(uvres completes, I7vols (Paris: Ber-
nouard, 1926-27), IX, 147).
The game of life needs to be played but it needs to be seen as a game at every
moment. It is important to accept all its rules. This is regretted by those who,
through ideological, scientific, or religious over-enthusiasm try to modify the rules of
game. Maulevrier says: 'L'idee de Dieu nous laisse froids; la nature nous laisse
froids; nous n'avons que l'esprit du monde qui n'a pas d'int6ret vrai a nous offrir, et a
qui nous n'avons rien a preferer' (L'Amour impossible, p. 151).
Being a social climber the dandy has seen much of the world or, one could say, he
has seen many different worlds. This means he knows many different existing
2 Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Pelham or Adventures of a Gentleman (London: Chapman and Hall, I849): 'He
cared not a straw that he was a man of fortune, of family, of consequence; he must be a man of ton, or he
was an atom, a nonentity, a very worm and no man' (p. 14).

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288 Rule-Following in Dandyism

worlds and can think of still more possible worlds than any aristocrat or bourgeois
would dream of. However, on principle, he does not produce any ideas about
'worlds'. He reflects neither, like Leibniz, about the best of all worlds nor, like Marx,
about the worst one. Barbey writes: 'Le calme du Dandyisme est la pose d'un esprit
qui doit avoir fait le tour de beaucoup d'idees et qui est trop degoute pour s'animer'
(Du dandysme de Georges Brummell, in (Euvres Completes, IX, 309, note i ). Both
progressive suggestions of utopian worlds and conservatism are excluded from the
dandy's world-view. The only world he wants is a world of style, and this world
cannot be obtained by enthusiastically fighting for certain rules. The dandy lives on
the no-rule of his own style.

2. The stylish consciousness

In following the rules of society without enthusiasm the body of rules which
constitute for the aristocrat a 'serious reality' become for the dandy nothing but a
game. As a consequence, he is the only real player in society. In the end he plays
their game but, because only he plays, it is always his game. This is the reason why he
sees no necessity to fight for any particular game. He follows neither rule nor
counter-rule but the absolute no-rule.
The dandy's refusal of rules becomes manifest through insolence and demon-
strative indifference. However, this insolence is, just because it is combined with
indifference, never harsh.3 Being brought forward in a game-like manner, it does
not appear as the provocative remark of a social reformer but as an expression of
style. As Virginia Woolf wrote about Brummell: 'That was his style, flickering,
sneering, hovering on the verge of insolence, skimming the edge of nonsense' (Beau
Brummell, p. 4).
What are the foundations of dandyism? It cannot be founded on rules because the
dandy, through his biting but always unclear insolence, is opposed to all kinds of
rules. He knows that in the end, following rules is always an act of imitation. He
plays himself, he plays dandyism, and (this is inevitable) he plays it without ever
being a dandy. He hates uniforms, and the decadent (mainly French) dandies who
imitate Brummell in wearing the uniform of what they think to be a dandy-like dress
do not understand one per cent of the essence of dandyism. Wherever he appears,
the decadent dandy is always the imitating dandy. It is the French dandy who, as
Thackeray wrote, 'has a wondrous respect for English 'gentlemen-sportsmen'; he
imitates their clubs, their love of horse-flesh, he calls his palefrenier a groom, wears
blue bird's-eye neckcloths (Paris Sketch Book (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1840), p. IOI). The attitude of imitating a certain idea of what one thinks to be
'refined', 'civilized', or 'dandy-like' turned dandyism, in the late nineteenth century,
into an aristocratic and bourgeois ideology which led to its final decadence and
decline. Huysmans's Des Esseintes in A rebours founds his dandyism on the elitist
rules of a value-conserving aristocratic ideology: 'Apres l'aristocratie de la naiss-
ance, c'etait maintenant l'aristocratie de l'argent; c'etait le califat des comptoirs, le
despotisme de la rue du Sentier, la tyrannie du commerce aux idees v6nales et
etroites, aux instincts vaniteux et fourbes' (A rebours (Paris: Fasquelle, I955),
3 Marie-Christine Natta is even convinced that 'l'histoire de Brummell est celle d'une seduction et d'un
echec (double aspect qui attire Barbey) mais la provocation n'y joue aucun role' (introduction to 'Du
dandysme de Georges Brummell'deJ. Barbey d'Aurevilly (Paris: Plein Chant, I989), pp. 26-27.

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 THORSTEN BOTZ-BORNSTEIN 289

p. 267). The result of this ideological rule-play is that this false d

combat the snobbery of the vaniteux appears as at least as big a
bourgeois. What he calls a 'refined lifestyle' only follows certain 'r
refinement' and it is obvious that the wild combination of differe
that this 'dandy' presents at his banquet lacks style in a very im
avait mange dans des assiettes bordees de noir, des soupes a la tor
seigle russe, des olives mures de Turquie, du caviar, des poutargu
boudins fumes de Francfort, des gibiers aux sauces couleur de jus
cirage, des coulis de truffes, des cremes ambrees au chocolat
brugnons, des raisines, des mures et des guignes' (A rebours, p. 4
The essence of dandyism is a ruleless style which comes into be
one sees the whole rule-loaded world as a game whose rules shoul
at the same time not be followed. Barbey summed up the essence
'Un dandy peut mettre s'il veut dix heures a sa toilette, mais une f
(Du dandysme, p. 3 I , note 22). What a mockery! The dandy foll
dandy-like toilette only as long as he is in his antechamber. Once
street he does not follow any rules at all. This double consciousn
very fine personal irony, of following and not following rules,
lightness, his ton, and hisje ne sais quoi. It gives him the air of the
the game.
Several game theorists could be cited who do testify that it is just this paradoxical
fusion of consciousness and unconsciousness, of seriousness and non-seriousness
which is essential for the existence of such a particularly human phenomenon as a
game. Huizinga noted that the player of the game 'knows perfectly well that he is
only pretending' (Homo Ludens (London: Temple Smith, 1970), p. 267) but that he
nevertheless takes the game seriously as if it were reality. The 'reality' of the game is
founded on the fake, and since the player knows perfectly well that everything is only
a fake, he somehow 'chooses to be dupe', since he agrees to take the fake as seriously
as if it were reality. Reality is for him a fake and he knows it, and this attitude
requires a double consciousness.
The false French dandies, on the other hand, do not possess this sophisticated
double consciousness. When they step out into the street, they wear a uniform,
constantly worrying about the fit of their neckcloths and the elegance of their gait.
They take the game 'really' seriously orjust not seriously enough; in any case, it is
not a game they are playing. Their movements are too grave and calculated. A
player like Barbey, on the other hand,just wants to 'rompre avec des airs encravates
et graves' (Barbey d'Aurevilly, Correspondance generale, ed. by Jacques Petit, 3 vols
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1980), I, p. 90).
The bad dandy plays at being a dandy in imitating the image of a dandy. The real
dandy just plays himself, without imitating any model of a dandy. This person who
hates both to talk and also to write is in his very essential nature a mime-artist, of the
kind who constantly mimes without imitating anything. Strictly speaking, what he
imitates is himself, but this means, logically, that he imitates nothing, because he
himself comes about only through the act of this imitation.4 'J'aime ce quejamais on
ne verra deux fois', said the dandy Baudelaire (Correspondance generale, ed. byJacques

4 I allude here to Derrida's idea of the mime as given in La Dissemination (Paris: Seuil, 1972) in regard to
Mallarm6's poem mimique: 'Le Mime n'imite rien. Et d'abord il n'imite pas. II n'y a rien avant l'ecriture
de ses gestes. Rien ne lui est pr6scrit. [... ] la mime ne suit aucun livret pr6etabli' (p. 22 I).

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290 Rule-Following in Dandyism

Crepet (Paris: Conard, 1946), p. 304), Lettre du 5 mars i866). The self-cre
the dandy isjust such a unique event which can be created only once, never
The dandy does not imitate, he mimes. The act of miming is understood a
of creation and production. Barbey says about Brummell: 'Son action sur les
etait plus immediate que celle qui s'exerce uniquement par le langa
produisait par intonation, le regard, le geste, l'intention transparente, l
meme' (Du dandysme, p. 257). The result of this act of miming, the gestures,
the silence, all this is the dandy's style. Balzac insisted that 'la parole, la dem
les manieres, sont des actes qui procedent immediatement de l'homme, et qu
entierement soumis aux lois de l'616gance'.5 The laws of elegance are produce
man at the moment he follows them. This is the very meaning of the 'imm
Barbey and Balzac speak of. If the dandy exists, he does so only through this
and through this style, which means that he does not exist as long as existe
understood as a quality which can be described by means of rules. As a conse
Brummell, in constantly negating all rules of his own experience, made Wil
Lennox say: 'He [Brummell] was anything but a dandy. The term "dan
never could be applied with justice to him; it would be a profanation to coup
name with such an offensive distinction.'6
The dandy's stoic indifference is always created anew, and this makes dandyism
into pure style. The only way to obtain this kind of stylish indifference is by devoting
oneself to disciplined play. The dandy's indifference is not the 'real' serious
indifference of the monk who has retired from the world into his cell. The dandy
remains in life but he does so by playing life: that is, in following its rules with a
playful attitude. Barres wrote about the dandy Disraeli: 'Disraeli, imagination
sensuelle et chimerique, delicieuse autobiographie [...]. Si Disraeli, mieux qu'au-
cun homme, sut jouer de la soci6te, ce fut toujours un jeu, c'est-a-dire une action
passionnee, mais desint6ressee, quand meme! Poete, dandy, ambitieux et manieur
d'hommes, ce meprisant Disraeli gardait le don de mettre chaque chose a son plan: il
ne dependitjamais de rien' (L'Ennemi des lois, p. 14I).
The dandy is a poetic figure and cannot be described by means of reasonable
structures. This means that he cannot be described by means of un-reasonable
structures either. The liberty of the dandy is so total that he lives in a domain beyond
freedom and slavery and with this he enters the domain of game. 'J'ai tellement la
haine du commun, que la verite m'ennuie et me degoute', said Barbey.7 His degout
for truth, however, will not let him adhere to any non-verite. Truth and non-truth,
reason and folly, these yardsticks become meaningless once they are confronted with
the phenomenon of style.

3. Baudelaire's dandyism
I have said that the creation of the dandy is an act of auto-foundation. Through his
stoic indifference, he does not strive towards particular worlds, particular games, or
particular rules. This means that no world, no game, and no rules need to be

s Traite de la vie dlegante, quoted from Emilien Carassus, Le Mythe du dandy (Paris: Colin, 1971), p. 202.
6 W. Pitt Lennox, in Celebrities I Have Known, quoted from Lewis Melville, Beau Brummell, His Life and
Letters (London: Hutchinson, 1924), p. 46.
7 Quoted from Arnould de Liederkerke, Talon Rouge (Paris: Olivier Orban, 1986), p. 3.

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 THORSTEN BOTZ-BORNSTEIN 291

founded. The dandy just is, through the game he plays. Through t
negation and affirmation of the aristocratic game as well as the a
manages to play his game. The freedom to do something loses its m
does not want to do anything. Inside this game nothing is useful
there is only style.
Baudelaire also has this degout for enthusiasm. He has, like Barb
'fait le tour de beaucoup d'idees' and this makes Baudelaire a dandy
la vie moderne he declares: 'Le dandysme, qui est une institution en
des lois rigoureuses auxquelles sont strictement soumis
Baudelaire's negation of rules leads to the state of game in which
not the slightest tinge of commitment it has in real life. Sa
Baudelaire's dandy-like charm as being founded on nothing m
sciousness of the player:
Cette conscience sans rime ni raison, qui doit inventer les lois auxqu
l'utilit6 y perd toute signification; la vie n'est plus qu'unjeu, l'homme d
son but, sans commandement, sans preavis, sans conseil. Et celui qui s'e
cette v6rit6 qu'il n'y a d'autre fin, en cette vie, que celle qu'on s'est deliber
plus tellement envie de s'en chercher. La vie, 6crit Baudelaire, n'a qu'un
charme duJeu. (Baudelaire (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), p. 47)

We see the interdependence of game and style. The dandy who w

perfect player can do so only through an act of stylization. The li
feels when playing a game is the lightness of having no clearly def
is the feeling which comes about after having exchanged one's exi
Sartre saw that 'Baudelaire ne peut ni ne veut vivre l'etre ou l'exis
(Baudelaire, p. 90), his existence is 'retenue, fugace, toute semb
(p. 204). Baudelaire 'n'est jamais tout a fait la, ni tout a fait v
suspens entre le neant et l'etre' (p. 200). How is this 'legrete s
Baudelaire's lightness is the state of being of the person who has n
up to the point that he is only the game he plays. This shows that
dandy is not an act of affirmation but one of negation. Sartre rec
perspicuity: 'A cejeu de "perd qui gagne" c'est le vainqueur qui, en
remporte la victoire' (pp. I 3-I4).
It must be stressed that this act of negation of the self is an act
example, Baudelaire preferred art to nature and constantly carrie
drive of'correcting' or 'cutting' nature in order to transform natur
en liberte m'est insupportable; je la veux prisonniere, au carca
geometriques d'un quai' (Baudelaire, p. I20). The free-flowing wate
with the sharp pencil of the garden architect in order to end its n
be transformed into style. The being or the existence of the water
negated in order to channel it through the process of stylization.9

8 Baudelaire, 'La Peintre de la vie moderne', in L'Art romantique ((Euvres comp

Lemerre, 7 vols (Paris: Lemerre, 1889), III, 84.
9 I am thinking here also of the first of all dandies, Alcibiades, who cut the tails o
make them more stylish. The act of stvlization as an act of (self-)negation becom
d'Ormesson's comment: 'Alcibiade coupe la queue de ses chiens: voila un acte de d
he writes: 'J'imagine Alcibiade comme un ami des betes qui adorait ses chiens., Mais
exige de sacrifier a une vanite et a une frivolite dont le vrai nom est sans dout
snobisme, dandvsme'. in Revue de metaphysique et de morale, 68 (I963). 443-59 (p. 45

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292 Rule-Following in Dandyism

In the same way the dandy who wants to play the game of dandyism needs to 'cut
down' his own self in order to become style. This is why Sartre saw dandyism as a
'club de suicides'. The cutting mockery of the dandy is directed not only against
others but in the first instance against himself. In this sense his indifference is, as
Sartre saw, 'l'impossibilite fonciere de se prendre tout a fait au serieux' (p. 94). Only
in cutting away, through mockery, the luxuriating rules and ideas which grow
around his own person can the dandy become a real player, and this act of cutting is
an act of stylization because its result is the creation of the dandy as a man of style.

4. Dandyism and snobbery

Just as the creation of the dandy is due to an act of self-negation, the snob creates
himself through an act of self-affirmation. Dandyism and snobbery are diametrically
opposed. The dandy is a person who takes nothing seriously, not even himself; the
snob, on the other hand, takes his own person and everything which is linked to it so
seriously that it makes the dandy laugh.
In Pelham's time, said Thackeray, the snob was a 'raw-looking lad, who never
missed chapel' (The Book of Snobs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1846), p. 324).
However, since the time of Brummell and Pelham the snob has been also confused
with the dandy. The reason for this is that the snob so often tries to be a dandy. Both
the dandy and the snob are insolent. However, their insolence is directed against
different subjects. The snob is either the old-fashioned aristocrat or the bourgeois
whom the dandy hates. What is more important is that the snob is not a player,
though he increasingly aspires to be one.
The snob is the aristocrat who accepts (and often also knows) only one world (his
world) and who defends his position inside it. 'Le snobisme consiste alors a accueillir
exclusivement ceux qui se plient aux rites de l'integration', Jean d'Ormesson has
noted ('Arrivisme', p. 450). If this snobbish person is a bourgeois, however, he
should be considered more as a careerist than as a snob. Generally speaking, the
snob and the careerist have in common that they believe with the utmost sincerity
the rules of the game which is played by high society and that they both do their best
to play a good part in it. The difference between them, however, is that the first is
much more pragmatic than the second. The careerist follows rules in a very
single-minded way, without having the slightest idea that the entirety of those rules
constitutes a body which could also be seen as a game. The snob, though also very
single-minded, is more relaxed. In some way the careerist only aspires to be vain
whereas the snob's vanity is fully satisfied. The snob follows rules with the same
unimaginative seriousness (which can be called vanity) as the careerist but, though
being self-satisfied, he still wants a little more. He desires a certain supplementary
luxury in order to appear not only as a rule-follower but as a player in a social game.
When he makes his appearance in society, he wants to feel some of the privileged
lightness only a player can feel when playing a game. However, in reality, he is not
playing but only doggedly following rules. He despises careerist rule-followers
because he thinks that they lack something which he believes he has in abundance:
style. He is so obsessed by the idea of having style that he constantly ruminates upon
strategies for getting more of it. The quickest way for him to obtain (at least
apparently) some of this game-like style is, however, a very banal one: to imitate the
dandy. Snobbery is a special sort of imitated dandyism which can be scheduled as

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 THORSTEN BOTZ-BORNSTEIN 293

'dandyism by hypocrisy'. Barbey said about the snob: 'Quand la v

et qu'elle le montre, elle devient fatuite. C'est le nom assez im
hypocrites de modestie ont invente' (L'Amour impossible, p. 223).

5. Snobbery, dandyism, and metaphysics

The main method by means of which the snob tries to gain playf
is imitating the dandy's irony. In most cases this snobbish irony
snob plays at being the contrary of what he is: modest. However
fails regularly because he does not have the same type of irony
personality and his Weltanschauung are much too simple to produ
effects as the dandy.
The snob accepts the existence of only one world, with one soc
one set of rules. As a consequence, when he trains his mind in ir
figures can be only the most simple ones: figures of reversal. Si
existence of only one world, every ironical statement about this
sarily affirm the contrary, and this has the effect that his kind o
be revealed as such. Though boastful, he can, by means of irony,
modest. However, his game will be a bad one because the ironical
is too banal: in pretending to be modest he appears as even more
can always be recognized as such because, he says one thing only
its exact opposite. The snob is always recognized as a snob, w
pretend. Barres says of a female snob: 'Elle avait une etrange pet
nation et d'orgueil [... ] une extreme sobri6te' (L'Ennemi des lois,
The dandy's irony is not of the same type as the one the snob
snobbish irony of inversion the dandy uses the irony of dispers
say, for example, that he is a dandy and this ironical figure make
snob. Brummell on the other hand, 'tout en se flattant d'etre sn
s'en flatte - cesse de l'etre' (J. Boulenger, Les Dandies, p. 29)
'dispersive irony' the 'what' of the dandy's being becomes indefi
no snob and no anti-snob either. He is something new, which ca
with the help of dichotomies: he is a dandy. His being cannot be
present structures but his 'spiritualite', as Sartre said about B
d'absence'.
Because the dandy believes in the existence of many possible worlds with man
possible structures and many possible rules, his irony amounts to a dispersion o
meaning. He does not say ironically 'A+' in order to imply simply 'A-' (which
would be the ironical model of inversion). His ironically pronounced 'A+' can mean
'A+', 'A-', 'B', 'C' or all four together or simply nothing at all. He believes in
neither rules nor structures and, as a consequence, even when speaking ironically of
rules and structures, he will not suggest a simple anti-rule or anti-structure.
The snob, on the other hand, appears, even in playing a non-snob, even more a
snob: 'Les unes, femmes de banquiers, de grands brasseurs d'affaires, avouent que
leur luxe les associe 'a des exploitations cruelles, dont elles rougissent, un peu par
snobisme, un peu par humanite (L'Ennemi des lois, p. i8). The essential point is that
the snob not only cannot but in the first place does not want to play the game of
ironical dispersion. He has a very calculating mind which will never run the risks a
real player is used to running constantly.

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294 Rule-Following in Dandyism

Like the careerist, the snob is a formalist, an ideologist, and a technocrat who
measures statistically the structural network in which he moves without ever making
one spontaneous step. Brummell, on the other hand, hated all seriousness and was, as
Barbey says, able to speak spontaneously and naturally also with simple people.
However, as I have shown, the snob is a 'dandy by hypocrisy'. This is still true for
the kind of snob who declares himself publicly to be an anti-snob. A neat example of
an anti-snob can be seen in the person of the revolutionary snob who declares that
his aim is the inversion of all existing structures. Barres has described such a
revolutionary
snob thus: 'I1 ne lui suffisait pas de s'exalter a composer son moi et de propager a
travers le monde ces reductions de son ame qu'on appelle un systeme; ce revolu-
tionnaire voulait prendre place dans l'organisation sociale' (p. I4). The
anti-snob's or revolutionary snob's ideas, like those of the snob, are still based on a
very narrow conception of what is possible and what not. To some extent every
utopia is a reversal of reality. The amount of enthusiasm with which the calculation
is supported accelerates the production of utopias. However, since the snob remains,
even in being a revolutionary, within the structural network that is given (though by
inverting it), he can appear to be a conformist.
The dandy, on the other hand, is neither conformist nor non-conformist. He
strives only towards style. His plan is to transform the structured body of society, but
this transformation is supposed to be not a formal, technical, or ideological one. It is
an aesthetic and stylistic one. He enters into the social game in playing it as a game.
The dandy can be considered as a fatalist, but in this case it will be a very
particular fatalism, the fatalism of the player. His attitude is like what Heidegger has
called the Ausstehen (holding out) of circular structures of understanding. The dandy
is a fatalist as long as fatalism is perceived as the direct opposite of a metaphysical
attitude of mind. In fact, this particular fatalism, which is nourished by a stylistic
desire more than by a revolutionary or anti-revolutionary enthusiasm, constitutes
the ground of dandyism's self-definition. Barbey wrote in his Pensees detachees: 'II n'y
a au monde que deux genres d'esprits: les esprits metaphysiques, et ceux qui ne le
sont pas. Et tout ce qui n'est pas metaphysicien est fataliste, en plus ou en moins'
((Euvres completes, IX, 163).
In this light the dandy, especially Barbey, turns out to be representative of post-
metaphysics avant l'heure because he tries to beat metaphysics by means of aesthetics
and style. Barbey continues his discussion of the relationship between dandyism and
metaphysics: 'Pour les metaphysiciens chretiens, l'Art est un risible effort d'impuis-
sant, un embarrassement de la nue, rien de plus' (Pensees detachees, p. I75).
The only things the snob takes seriously are himself, his own world, and the rules
he tries to follow; he mocks art and everything that is imaginative (which suggests
the existence of other worlds). It is clear that the snob is a metaphysician who will
always be deeply and naively convinced that the world can be described by means of
a reasonable mind. Even the anti-snob does not differ much in his attitude from the
snob. He could be the scientist who pretends to be sober and modest but whose
technical world appears as nothing but boastful.
It could be said that the dandy is the first 'philosopher' 'qui cherche a se detacher
continuellement, a la fois du snobisme et de l'antisnobisme' ('Arrivisme', p. 453)
and as a solution he points for the first time to the power of a philosophy of style
which goes beyond rules and structures.

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 THORSTEN BOTZ-BORNSTEIN 295

Sartre was deeply mistaken in attributing the 'stoic pride'

metaphysical source. Sartre saw that this pride is obviously fo
and he could not interpret this in any way except by saying tha
from an obscure meta-sphere out of nowhere:
L'orgueil stoicien, l'orgueil metaphysique que n'alimentent ni les distin
reussite, ni aucune sup6riorite reconnue, rien enfin de ce monde, mais
6evnement absolu, une election a priori sans raison et se situe bien au-d
6checs pourraient l'abattre et le succes le soutenir. Cet orgueil est auss
pur car il tourne a vide et se nourrit de lui meme. (Baudelaire, p. 24)

In reality, the dandy's pride and his je ne sais quoi are pro
metaphysical mind but by its exact contrary: they are as auto-fo
game. They are only 'style', which means that they are constitut
which is produced whilst playing a game.
Sartre's analysis of a metaphysical mind provides the exact
snob, who creates himself by again and again affirming himself
'himself' may be imaginary) until this self becomes real being an
sense (but only in this sense) the snob's existence is founded
foundation. Sartre describes this act of snobbish self-creation th
is describing the creation of the dandy: 'Cette 6norme f6condite
horreur de la sentir en soi-meme. [... ] [Une] f6condite narcissiqu
soi-meme sans auto-criticisme, le vrai orgueil d'une aristocra
bourgeois' (Baudelaire, p. I25). How can a dandy flow out of such
auto-foundation, a dandy whose being is only (as Sartre said him
faite d'absence?' (p. 200). The dandy comes into being through an
negation which sends all structures and rules into a state of abse
the snob, blown-up with presence but with nothingness, a n
produces a non-founded game ofdandyism and a style marked by
snob, on the other hand, even when he aspires to be a dandy, does
race. He wishes to create a solid race of dandyism whose definiti
elitist, supported by hard social rules and perhaps even foun
biological structures. Thackeray described the snob's 'wish tha
race set apart in this happy country, who shall hold the first ra
prizes and chances in all Government jobs and patronages' (T
p. 273).
T/hrough his fight against all snobbish metaphysics the dandy becomes the
founder of the first post-metaphysical hermeneutics of non-foundation which he
presents in the form of a mimetic philosophy of style.
UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE THORSTEN BOTZ-BORNSTEIN

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