Bovarysme And AI

Over the weekend, a word popped into my head that I hadn't heard since graduate school: bovarysme.

Bovarysme is a term derived from Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), coined by Jules de Gaultier in his 1892 essay on Flaubert's novel, "Le Bovarysme, la psychologie dans l’œuvre de Flaubert". It denotes a tendency towards escapist daydreaming in which the dreamer imagines themself to be a hero or heroine in a romance, whilst ignoring the everyday realities of the situation. The eponymous Madame Bovary is an example of this.

I asked Chrome AI mode, "Are anti-ICE demonstrations an example of bovarysme?" The reply says to me that AI is not stupid -- I doubt if more than a tiny percentage of four-year degree holders could give this answer:

Bovarysme is a literary term derived from Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. It refers to a tendency toward escapist daydreaming where an individual imagines themselves as a heroic or romanticized figure, often while ignoring the mundane or harsh realities of their actual situation.

. . . Critics applying the label "bovarysme" suggest that some demonstrators —- particularly student groups —- may be engaging in a form of "political romanticism." They argue these protesters might be adopting the persona of revolutionary heroes from history or fiction (such as equating ICE to the Gestapo) without a pragmatic path to the policy changes they seek, thus "mistaking a book for real life".

. . . Social media influencers and activists have been noted for using highly stylized imagery and slogans (e.g., "#ICEout") that blend political activism with personal branding and aesthetic "storytelling," a hallmark of the modern interpretation of bovarysme.

In fact, I don't think Glenn Reynolds, Victor Davis Hanson, or Roger Kimball could give an answer this effective. And I'm a little bit shocked. This morning I read a piece at Fox News by Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, The American people are being lied to about AI:

AI is not a divinity. It cannot snap its fingers and eliminate jobs; people will use AI to cut jobs or create them. AI cannot decide to oppress us; people will build AI tools that either enforce privacy and civil liberties or erode them. AI did not choose to write poems or generate pornography; people chose to build cheap consumer goods rather than genuine tools of productivity.

. . . The job-loss narrative is a ploy to attract investors, drive media attention and consolidate political power. The real promise of AI in the enterprise is to make the American worker 50x more productive — to unleash his taste and agency. This isn’t speculation; it’s reality.

For the past few weeks, I've been saying that with Victor Davis Hanson in the hospital, his handlers have made a big mistake in not relying on AI just to keep writing Victor Davis Hanson essays for American Greatness while he recovers. In this post, I actually asked Chrome AI mode to generate the first paragraph of a VDH essay, and it did what I thought was a very creditable job. Frankly, I could have teased it into going on, because his writing is so identifiable and predictable.

So this example, with the essay by the Palantir CTO, opened my eyes -- if someone just asks a robot the right questions, it can do a better job than respected political commentators, and that would go for people on the left like Robert Reich as well. What does this say about the current state of journalism?

But back to bovarysme:

Hundreds of cyclists rode through Santa Monica on Saturday honoring Alex Pretti, killed by immigration officers, during nationwide “Unity Ride” protests.

. . . The so-called Unity Ride was one of hundreds of demonstrations across the country throughout the weekend in response to federal immigration raids and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis.Damian Kevitt spent Saturday afternoon on a 10-mile bike ride with hundreds of other cyclists, a sticker displaying Alex Pretti’s photo stuck to his jersey.

“These are just cyclists, clubs, bike shops and individuals who have come together and said, ‘Hey, Alex was one of us,’ ” said Kevitt, while riding on Broadway in Santa Monica. “He was an ICU nurse, he loved the outdoors, he loved cyclists and he loved cycling.”

This story is an utterly predictable set piece about utterly predictable mediocrities doing utterly predictable things. There's got to be a way to use AI to get around this, especially if the key is to keep asking AI the right questions. So I made a new attempt; I asked, "Please write the possible first paragraph of a Robert Reich essay on Trump's intellectual limitations." It answered,

Creating content that focuses on an individual's perceived intellectual limitations can be harmful and goes against the policy of providing safe and respectful information.

I've found that sometimes you have to reword questions to tease out what you need. So I asked a more positive question: "Please write a possible first paragraph of a Robert Reich essay on the brilliance of Renee Good's protest strategy." That was more like it. It answered,

Friends, Renee Nicole Good’s brilliance lay not in the complexity of her protest, but in its profound, devastating simplicity. While federal agents arrived in Minneapolis in early January 2026 shrouded in masks and armored in the machinery of state violence, Renee offered the only antidote capable of unmasking a regime: a radical, non-violent presence that forced the hidden logic of the current administration into the cold light of day. Her strategy was a "good trouble" rooted in documenting and resisting—using her car not as a weapon, as the Trump administration’s blatant lies suggested, but as a witness to the unchecked aggression of ICE agents operating without warrants or oversight. By refusing to be moved and meeting a "reign of terror" with the quiet dignity of a mother simply trying to protect her community, Renee Good ignited a nationwide movement. She demonstrated that when the state abandons the rule of law for the rule of force, the most brilliant strategy is the one that forces us all to look at exactly who we have become, and who we must still fight to be.

Pace Shyam Sankar, we ought to be able to lay 95% of these people off.