Boldness is one of our key words in the EVE Program! For more than a decade, we have been encouraging everyone to dare more. If this state of mind of audacity transpires in all the content of our web magazine, it is true that we have not yet devoted a large article to it in our flagship section: " the concept under the magnifying glass ". So, here it is, this in-depth investigation into audacity !

 

 

 

Shades of boldness throughout history

 

Boldness as a cousin of courage

Audacity comes directly from the Latin audacia, derived from the verb audeo for " to dare ". The term audacity appeared for the first time in the Provençal language in the fourteenth century. It can be traced in the writings of Christine de Pisan, an Italian poet who, without fear of anachronism, is often described as a pioneer of feminism (we owe her the book La cité des dames).

 

In Pisan, audacity is a complement to boldness : it goes hand in hand with courage... It is its sister, but not its synonym : courage is temperament, audacity is impetus ; courage is fortitude, audacity is its setting in motion.

 

 

Boldness in a hurry

The great literary hours of audacity came in the seventeenth century : Racine and Corneille put it in all sauces or almost ! In love, in politics or in war, audacity certainly brings an extra dimension of tragedy : it is that movement of the soul that despises dangers, doesn't care about consequences, tries everything for everything.

 

Boldness makes it possible to accomplish miracles... But it can also lead to merciless loss.

 

 

Boldness is the mark of free spirits

The Enlightenment made it a mark of free spirits, of those who braved conformism, defied the installed authorities and put their own situation at stake to defend something greater than themselves (the general interest, democracy, critical thinking, etc.).

 

The audacious is adventurous : for Crébillon, audacity is the trait of entrepreneurs (" Success has always been a child of audacity " ); in Diderot, it is combined with ambition ; in Voltaire, with the authenticity... But in Rousseau, it flirts with the toupee, even with the bravado!

 

 

 

Morals of audacity

A morality of audacity is indeed emerging, which still puts us in tension today: there is audacity as a principle of justice in the face of the laziness induced by the course of things suffered (for Kant, to lack audacity is to fall almost immediately into cowardice), there is creative audacity, valued in its ability to disturb, to innovate, to take initiatives (the committed theatre of the nineteenth century made it the main argument for the voice of workers demanding their emancipation ); And then there is the arrogant, conquering or even megalomaniacal audacity, proud and presumptuous (the critical look at emperors and empires casts this shadow on the notion).

 

The picture of the characteristics of audacity was completed in the twentieth century by the figure of the imprudent inconsistent, too sure of his bold posture to look at himself with lucidity (Audiard summed it up acidly : " Idiots dare everything, that's even how we recognize them").

 

 

 

When audacity becomes competence

 

The heart of entrepreneurship

No more morality ! Since the Industrial Revolution and up to the present day, boldness has been a pragmatic orientation. It is a question of believing in one's luck, seizing opportunities, giving oneself the means to achieve one's goals. The literature on entrepreneurship places audacity at its center : the entrepreneur is a navigator in the seas of uncertainty for Weber; he is a " revolutionary " (yes) for Marx, because he must constantly innovate ; innovation is also his main function at Schumpeter ; and stepping out of line is his duty according to Keynes, otherwise he exposes himself to programmed failure and will sooner or later drag the entire economy down with him ! Boldness, audacity and more audacity, this is what entrepreneurs must show.

 

 

A sense of opportunity

The first of the skills contained in boldness in the entrepreneurial sense is the sense of opportunity. It is a question of making oneself available for the opportunity that arises, welcoming the unexpected, the hazards, the unforeseen, the chance and the spirit of the times with the spirit of serendipity. A bit of a visionary on the edges, the daring sees the potential for enrichment where others are passing by, blind or reluctant to what is not on the roadmap.

 

Once he has seen the opportunity, the daring knows how to seize it and transform it. He curiously seizes the material available to feed his imagination and deploy his creativity. He models his ideas from the raw clay of reality. He creates vision.

 

 

The power to act

The audacious differs from the vacillator (who is also not lacking in ideas, desires and ambitions) in that he gives himself the means to achieve his vision. To achieve his goals, he takes on a power that covers a thousand others : the power to act. He or she must bring together the means for his or her project : material resources (financial investment, logistical organization, resource management, etc.) but also intangible resources (network of sponsors and allies, conquest of spaces of visibility, capacity for conviction, leadership qualities, etc.).

 

Boldness comes from accepting and assuming power : daring is first and foremost daring to position oneself as a subject driven by a will... That of meeting the necessary conditions to achieve its objectives.

 

 

 A taste for risk

If the will is necessary to give oneself every chance of success, it is not enough to guarantee it. Moreover, audacity contains within it the acceptance of a zone of risk. To try to win, you have to be prepared for the possibility of losing, or at least for the possibility of not winning every time. To have the audacity to ask (a raise, funding, a promotion, a leadership position) is to take the risk of being refused. It is at least exposing oneself to the need to negotiate. It requires, if not a playful temperament, a certain psychic flexibility, good resources of optimism and resilience.

 

 

 

Critical Perspectives on the Imaginaries of Audacity

 

To live one's existence as an enterprise of oneself ?

The rhetoric of audacity is questioned in its liberal foundations: can one really conduct one's individual existence as a project of self-enterprise ? The sociologist Sarah Abdelnour has devoted a large part of her research over the past fifteen years to the ambiguities of " self-help " : between the valorization of each person's power of autonomy and guilt-inducing injunctions to be bold, the encouragement to be " self-entrepreneur " (which will materialize in particular with the figure of the auto-entrepreneur) would, according to her, lead to a dilution of the feeling of belonging, social ties and the ability to form a collective and solidarity... Let's start in order :

 

• We shouldn't confuse empowerment with self- : take your audacity under your arm and give yourself the means to get out of it, it's a principle that limits the field of possibilities !

• We should not confuse encouragement with injunction : audacity implies risk-taking, with consequences in the event of failure.

If audacity is required, it makes the person who demonstrates it responsible for the prosperous or harmful consequences of these audacious acts.

• We should not confuse the audacity of being oneself and of acting with the individualization of the factors of success. All of us probably owe our successes to our merits, courage, temperament and impulses, but also in part to luck, favourable conditions, support from others and the community.

 

 

 

The price of audacity according to class 

Studies in the sociology of the working classes drive the point home by highlighting that the more economically and socially disadvantaged a group is, the more the individuals who come from it and show audacity (the adventurous entrepreneur, the irreverent actor, the intrepid elected official from the " neighborhoods "...) are valued by privileged social groups. Would audacity then be the mark of those who leave their ranks to rise in society ? And the lack of audacity, the primary reason for the stalemate in the destitution ?

 

The construction of the profile of the heroic audacious man on whom luck smiles is a bit of a screen for the socio-economic conditions of risk-taking : everyone may have something to gain by showing boldness, but we are not equal in the face of what we risk losing if our audacity does not pay off...

 

 

 

Audacity and transgression : beware of the " prince's syndrome" !

This is because audacity has a certain transgressive scope. To dare is to go beyond norms, assignments and stereotypes. It's being where you're not expected. Create surprise and disturb the established order. This is based on the temperament of the individual who dares, but it also requires a certain acceptance of the environment shaken up by audacity. Beware of the " prince syndrome", according to the expression coined by Olivier Babeau and François Renon, in reference to Machiavelli !

 

The " prince syndrome" is the authorization to derogate from the rules granted to certain people as a privilege. There are those whose audacity is unwelcome because they have not received this authorization to transgress and those whose audacity is welcomed because they are precisely asked to think outside the box and challenge the organization. We can therefore only recommend enough to those who are encouraged to dare to call on their situational intelligence to measure the degree of acceptability of what they are about to propose...