Revelations about Abbé Pierre. Where does this need for heroes come from? Neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik deciphers
You have met the founder of Emmaüs several times. How do you feel today?
He and I were very affectionate, indeed. When I learned what he had done, I felt a sense of disbelief, then deep astonishment. I searched for an explanation for his faults. I think he did not have the opportunity to learn to control his sexual urges, neither within his family nor, later, in the Church. I hypothesize that he lacked affection. Children who are left to develop alone do not learn to control themselves.
Why do we need heroes from a young age?
Each of us relies on figures to live or rebuild ourselves. When a baby comes into the world, he does not have a key to reading his environment. He discovers it through his first “heroes”, his mother and his father. If these are absent or failing, he chooses attachment figures with whom he can identify.
When I was little, alone, because my parents had been deported to the Auschwitz camp, my hero was Rémi, the main character of the novel Without family. This foundling proved to me that even when left to your own devices, you can make it through. The role models we look up to have the power to transform childhood misfortunes into magnificent destinies.
What makes a hero?
In my opinion, contrary to what people think, it is the way others look at the heroic character, what they tell each other about him, that counts more than his actions or his personality. And this story depends on the history and values of each person. Which explains why for some, Rémi, Without family, is a hero, and for others not at all.
Who could dispute, however, the heroic dimension of someone who saves someone at the risk of his life, or restores dignity to thousands of women and children on the streets, as Abbé Pierre did?
At the moment they act, these people do not perceive themselves as heroes, they do what they think is right in the situation that presents itself to them. They are in the banality of good. It is through their comments that others make them heroes.
But this need to heroize, which we all have, also represents a danger. We sometimes start to worship the object we have fashioned, forgetting that it is a personal construction, which can lead us to idolatry. Dictators know this flaw well, they use it to establish their hold.
What function do these exemplary figures fulfill?
Individually, they embody our personal ideals. Tell me who your hero is, and I’ll tell you who you are, one could summarize. Collectively, when a social group feels a strong need for heroes, it shows that it is suffering.
After World War II, cities were destroyed, people had nowhere to live, some lived in shanty towns. Someone like Abbé Pierre helped to shape a collective future and restore hope. He also repaired national esteem.
How can we integrate this other side of him that is revealed to us?
I still think that Abbé Pierre deserved the status of hero, because he was generous, useful, efficient… These two faces existed at the same time, in the same person. The director Roman Polanski, accused of having had sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl, made remarkable films. Dr. Alexis Carrel won the Nobel Prize for his discoveries in suturing blood vessels, which saved the lives of millions of people! However, this devout Catholic also advocated the elimination by gas chambers of epileptics, the mentally ill and those who disturb public order. It is difficult for people to accept this duality. Either you are a hero, and then you cannot do wrong, or you are a “bastard”. It is difficult to understand that a hero with whom we identify can commit reprehensible actions, because we expect him to reassure and reassure us.
What lesson can we learn from what we now know about the author of the appeal of February 1, 1954?
The mistakes of our heroes make them more like us, who are complex beings, capable of the best and the worst. If we can accept that in addition to their remarkable actions, they also have a human, fallible dimension, then we can perhaps accept our own mistakes and fragilities. Every hero remains human. That is what we must understand.
