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 ro...