This is how I came to draw a map of emotions

Dominique Moïsi, you make in your latest book () "card of the emotions of the world", which amounts to decrypt international relations through the impulses, human passions. It is a new approach. Who decides in any case with the traditional notion of realpolitik.

Dominique Moïsi: In my mind, there is no opposition between these two approaches. But it would be naive to consider that the men are exclusively driven by their interests, that they are acting according to strictly rational schemes. I think on the contrary that the felt emotions play an essential role and it cannot really understand the world in which we live if one neglects this aspect of things. Integrate the emotional dimension, it is to consider how to minimize the weight of the negative emotions - are mainly the fear and humiliation - and, on the other hand, seek to stimulate positive emotions, with a simple idea: a world in which there is too much fear, too much humiliation and not enough hope is dangerous. This is how I came to draw a map of emotions. I have come to the conclusion that there was now more hope, confidence in Asia, a sense of humiliation in the Arab-Muslim world and no doubt more fear in the West. This is just a key to reading. But is there not a kind of confirmation, the translation of the process to which we are witnessing The passage of the torch in the history of the West to Asia...

Christophe de Margerie: Dominique Moïsi approach is very interesting. Spontaneously, I would not associate the words "geopolitical" and "emotion". Yet, it's true: what I see, what I feel in the different regions of the world back to this notion. In some cases, I would call it even "sursensibilité". With often, initially, of personal emotions, which are spreading and spread to the entire population, mediated by the elites, and the media increasingly more present. The reactivity of the masses is then exacerbated, and the emotional trumps everything else. Which plays today in the Middle East is relatively speaking, in this regard. Area landmarks and stable partners, Europe and the United States should have multiply marks of attention, closer ties with the Arab Muslim world. But US policy is very readable and Europe did not what she had to do. A force of mistrust and misunderstanding, we are pushing the Middle East in the arms of Asia.

How the West is mistaken with Arab countries

V. d. M.: the great difficulty, it is to share the emotions of others, to see with the eyes of others. Too often, even when you travel much, we continue to look on these countries of Western.

D. M.: It is the central point of my analysis. It cannot act on the world that if you put in the skin of the other. That being head of State, general contractor or University, you must always ask the same question: how reasoning the other, that is that anime and does respond It is a particularly important issue in the Arab world. But this curiosity presupposes a work on itself. Because if we do transcends his own emotions, it is difficult to understand those of others...

V. d. M.: this is particularly true in the business world... A negotiator has relatively little chance of success if it anticipates not the wishes of the other party...

D. M.: basically, there are two temptations in the West. The first is an absolute cultural relativism from the Arab world: these countries have their own rules, their own laws and it is impossible to understand... It is in my opinion a form of contempt; and then there is the opposite excess: a kind of Western universalism, starting from the idea that our civilization is necessarily superior, our values must be shared by all. Between contempt and arrogance, how surprising the resentment expressed in the Arab countries to the West We must absolutely be aware of these through if we want to change our relationship to the Arab world...

V. d. M.: there are especially among us, a profound misunderstanding of this region of the world. Before putting yourself the other, he must learn to know, do not mix... Knowledge as Persia, the Turkey and the Arab world are profoundly different, and that a Turkish of Asia will not in the same way as a European Turkish react. Change our gaze on the Middle East, is also to avoid this kind of amalgam...

Our globalized world should just change our look at the other. It is the opposite seems to happen. Never had the passions seemed so bright...

D. M.: It is the complexity of the thing. Under the effect of globalization, we can say that the Earth became flat, to paraphrase Thomas Friedman. But it has also become more passionate because, for the first time in the history of humanity, we have lost the privilege of ignorance. Yesterday, we could say that we did not know. At the time of the Internet and Twitter, this is no longer possible. What is undoubtedly a form of progress: the massacre its people knows that this will be whether, and almost in real time. For the first time also in the history of humanity.

Dominique Moïsi, you make in your latest book () "card of the emotions of the world", which amounts to decrypt international relations through the impulses, human passions. It is a new approach. Who decides in any case with the traditional notion of realpolitik.

Dominique Moïsi: In my mind, there is no opposition between these two approaches. But it would be naive to consider that the men are exclusively driven by their interests, that they are acting according to strictly rational schemes. I think on the contrary that the felt emotions play an essential role and it cannot really understand the world in which we live if one neglects this aspect of things. Integrate the emotional dimension, it is to consider how to minimize the weight of the negative emotions - are mainly the fear and humiliation - and, on the other hand, seek to stimulate positive emotions, with a simple idea: a world in which there is too much fear, too much humiliation and not enough hope is dangerous. This is how I came to draw a map of emotions. I have come to the conclusion that there was now more hope, confidence in Asia, a sense of humiliation in the Arab-Muslim world and no doubt more fear in the West. This is just a key to reading. But is there not a kind of confirmation, the translation of the process to which we are witnessing The passage of the torch in the history of the West to Asia...

Christophe de Margerie: Dominique Moïsi approach is very interesting. Spontaneously, I would not associate the words "geopolitical" and "emotion". Yet, it's true: what I see, what I feel in the different regions of the world back to this notion. In some cases, I would call it even "sursensibilité". With often, initially, of personal emotions, which are spreading and spread to the entire population, mediated by the elites, and the media increasingly more present. The reactivity of the masses is then exacerbated, and the emotional trumps everything else. Which plays today in the Middle East is relatively speaking, in this regard. Area landmarks and stable partners, Europe and the United States should have multiply marks of attention, closer ties with the Arab Muslim world. But US policy is very readable and Europe did not what she had to do. A force of mistrust and misunderstanding, we are pushing the Middle East in the arms of Asia.

How the West is mistaken with Arab countries

V. d. M.: the great difficulty, it is to share the emotions of others, to see with the eyes of others. Too often, even when you travel much, we continue to look on these countries of Western.

D. M.: It is the central point of my analysis. It cannot act on the world that if you put in the skin of the other. That being head of State, general contractor or University, you must always ask the same question: how reasoning the other, that is that anime and does respond It is a particularly important issue in the Arab world. But this curiosity presupposes a work on itself. Because if we do transcends his own emotions, it is difficult to understand those of others...

V. d. M.: this is particularly true in the business world... A negotiator has relatively little chance of success if it anticipates not the wishes of the other party...

D. M.: basically, there are two temptations in the West. The first is an absolute cultural relativism from the Arab world: these countries have their own rules, their own laws and it is impossible to understand... It is in my opinion a form of contempt; and then there is the opposite excess: a kind of Western universalism, starting from the idea that our civilization is necessarily superior, our values must be shared by all. Between contempt and arrogance, how surprising the resentment expressed in the Arab countries to the West We must absolutely be aware of these through if we want to change our relationship to the Arab world...

V. d. M.: there are especially among us, a profound misunderstanding of this region of the world. Before putting yourself the other, he must learn to know, do not mix... Knowledge as Persia, the Turkey and the Arab world are profoundly different, and that a Turkish of Asia will not in the same way as a European Turkish react. Change our gaze on the Middle East, is also to avoid this kind of amalgam...

Our globalized world should just change our look at the other. It is the opposite seems to happen. Never had the passions seemed so bright...

D. M.: It is the complexity of the thing. Under the effect of globalization, we can say that the Earth became flat, to paraphrase Thomas Friedman. But it has also become more passionate because, for the first time in the history of humanity, we have lost the privilege of ignorance. Yesterday, we could say that we did not know. At the time of the Internet and Twitter, this is no longer possible. What is undoubtedly a form of progress: the massacre its people knows that this will be whether, and almost in real time. For the first time also in the history of humanity.