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| Europe |
| For its intellectuals, France falters |
| 2003-10-04 |
| EFL, read the whole thing PARIS A growing sense of France's decline as a force in Europe has developed here. The idea's novelty is not the issue itself. Rather it is that for the first time in a half century that the notion of a rapid descent in France's influence is receiving wide acknowledgment within the French establishment. At its most hurtful and remarkable, and yet perhaps its most honest, there is the start of acceptance by segments of the French intellectual community that French leadership, as it is constituted now, is not something Europe wants - or France merits. Lovely understatement Several current books, three on the bestseller lists, have focused discussion on the country's incapacities, rigidities and its role, they say, in the context of the Iraq war, in dividing the Western community and fracturing notions of Europe's potential unity. Yes unity isn't helped when you tell other European nations to shut up when they do the job that you should be doing The books, with titles that translate to phrases like "France in Free Fall" or "French Arrogance," are merciless in their accusations of the fantasy-driven ineffectualness of French foreign policy and the extent of the country's economic breakdown. Or they more specifically target what one of books, "Le Pouvoir du Monde," by Bernard Poulet, regards as the implosion of the newspaper Le Monde, mirror of the French establishment, from one-time symbol of rectitude to self-appointed "universal mentor and Great Inquisitor"; or what another, essentially a short essay, called "Au Nom de l'Autre" by Alain Finkielkraut, contends is the rise in France of a new kind of anti-Semitism in proportions greater than anywhere else in Europe. Creating state run islamic schools won't help Together, they project the image of a decadent France, adrift from its brilliant past, incapable of inspiring allegiance or emulation and without a constructive, humanist plan for the future. Yes, menacing with vetos is not very constructive Of all the books, the current No. 2 on the bestseller list of L'Express, "La France Qui Tombe," by Nicolas Baverez, has been the focus of unusual attention. I hope we'll get German translations as soon as possible |
| Posted by:True German Ally |
| #17 I agree. That's why Schroeder's haste to "reforms" now isn't appreciated too much by the Germans even if some parts of them make sense. It's like going to a restaurant. You don't really want to see how your food is prepared. You want to see it looking good on the plate. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-10-4 10:56:06 PM |
| #16 TGA The Contract With America and the revamp of the Defense Department that Donald Rumsfeld is working on were spawned in Conservative think-tanks. I beleive one of the reasons why Hilary didn't acheive Universal Health Care is because she tried to create the program after the election with eveyone watching. It's better to pull out a policy already canned that you can steamroll the opposition with before they can respond. It may be easier to accomplish this type of policy formulation in a two-party system. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-4 9:38:24 PM |
| #15 In my first experience of reading Derrida, my thoughts flashed from "Wow! This is really deep" to "What the *%&( is he saying?" to "Is this guy for real?", all in within a 10-minute interval. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-10-4 6:03:40 PM |
| #14 La France a perdu une bataille. Mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre! |
| Posted by: True German Ally posing as Charles de Gaulle troll 2003-10-4 5:54:11 PM |
| #13 Raj: I thing Rantburg needs a French troll, you know, a Murat from Marseilles. I'm sure the Samizdatas will be glad to let you have Kodiak. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2003-10-4 5:49:25 PM |
| #12 JFM I wouldn't be so hard on French philosophers although I must say that my personal preference are Montaigne and the "moralistes". Voltaire and Diderot may not be right on every issue but they did some compelling writings. And Julien Benda's "La trahison des clercs" (1927) still should be read by everyone interested in France. Sartre certainly is the most overrated French intellectual, and yes Steve White, Derrida is just over the top. I tried to read him but I gave up. Foucault has been rather influential though. JFM I disagree: Glucksmann and Lévy have very much access to the media, especially Glucksmann is somebody who regularily appears on French TV. Super Hose, German Thinktanks? Well, not as defined as in the U.S. The political parties certainly have theirs (the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung publishes some very interesting political /philosophical ideas). But German intellectuals are mostly into discussing things, you can hardly speak of well defined strategies. The German "intellectal crisis" isn't quite the same as expressed in the French books quoted in my posted article: The notion of "German grandeur" has certainly been buried in 1945. I hope we'll get more discussions about European issues. The politicians pretty much try to establish a European Constitution without asking the people. That should not stand. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-10-4 5:42:22 PM |
| #11 I am a solutions type guy so I looked for a website that might be helpful for the intellectuals of France. I found some motivational materiel from one of my favorite companies despair.inc. It might be helpful :-) |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-4 5:05:00 PM |
| #10 Zhang: I had the opportunity to hear Derrida speak once at my university. He came to town and enormous buzz, and they had the largest lecture hall set aside for him. Even though I'm across campus in the med school I figured, "well it IS Derrida", and went to the lecture. The man is incomprehenisble. I don't mean that his thoughts are so dense or so advanced that you can't understand him, I mean he's incomprehensible. His speech was total word salad. Since deconstructionist thought means in the end that words mean what you want them to mean at the moment, he just went off on an extended tear and never once got back to whatever point he was trying to make. My seat was in the middle toward the back, and I got to watch people -- at first a trickle, then more -- bailing out during the lecture. My own moment came about 1/2 way (who could tell?) when he said, and I quote from a seared memory, "... when it comes to pass that the blindly doubled shall lead the doubly-blind ..." What? What was he saying? What? I realized at that moment, an epiphany if you will, that Derrida was a complete, fucking idiot. It was all a scam and a well-paying one at that, and Derrida had all these smart people snookered. That was my moment with Derrida. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-10-4 5:00:29 PM |
| #9 JFM with reference to slavery during Voltaire's era: No they weren't the fashions of that time. I used the word fashions which is now taken to mean fad, when I should have used the word customs. Given that slavery was not only legal, but a business in which one could invest passively through ownership of stock, I would say that slavery was the custom of the era, just as it was around the rest of the world. But even the writers of the American Constitution were mostly slave-owners, and I put that down to economic survival - if others are slave-owners, and the major economic sector is labor-intensive agriculture, it is impossible to compete without being involved in the trade. And without the leisure from being an owner of income-producing property, how is one to write profoundly thoughtful political works such as the Federalist Papers? Compare to Nazi laws forbidding education to Slavs. We can't really compare Nazis, who should have known better, to the French philosophers from over a century ago. The French philosophers were the products of their times - aristocracy was held to be better than the common man. The Nazis should have learned the lessons of the past, namely, that the only race is the human race, but did not. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-10-4 4:25:28 PM |
| #8 TGA, Zhang Fei and JMF In the US there are a bunch of liberal and conservative think tanks funded through private foundations. Out of these think tanks come actual policy initiatives that are often implemented sometimes sucessfully. Are any of the intellectuals in Europe generating policy recommenations to address issues? For example, it doesn't take a genius to see that French influence is waning. I have read Chirac has a plan to bring the economy of France back in line by 2005. Is there a legitimate plan or is he playing a Gray Davis shell game? |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-4 3:29:19 PM |
| #7 Zhang Fei:
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| Posted by: JFM 2003-10-4 3:03:16 PM |
| #6 I thing Rantburg needs a French troll, you know, a Murat from Marseilles. |
| Posted by: Raj 2003-10-4 3:00:07 PM |
| #5 Take a look at the Enlightenment philosophers: Diderot, Voltaire and their ilk were for slavery, for restricting to the rich (on the base that the poor were not educated enough) and... for forbidding education to the poor (ie they were more reactionary than the monarchy). I would argue that these were the fashions of their times. One truly overrated French thinker you have not mentioned is Derrida - in my view, he is a self-important moron verging on self-parody. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-10-4 1:43:56 PM |
| #4 Superhose As a French let me tell that I disagree. Thinkers produced by France have usually been first rate bastards and fourth rate thinkers. Take a look at the Enlightenment philosophers: Diderot, Voltaire and their ilk were for slavery, for restricting to the rich (on the base that the poor were not educated enough) and... for forbidding education to the poor (ie they were more reactionary than the monarchy). Forget Voltaire's "I disagree with your opinions but I will fight to express it". This was a hollow sentence: in practice he supported the didcriminations and repression as long as the victims were Catholic. The ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers are directly responsible for the horrors of the revolution.
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| Posted by: JFM 2003-10-4 11:47:18 AM |
| #3 TGA France and Germany have produced some grat thinkers throughout history. Are the new generation of intellectuals offering any solutions? The US and Britain have both been through periods where we looked to be following bad models leading nowhere. |
| Posted by: Superhose 2003-10-4 10:06:43 AM |
| #2 TGA >> Great post. At least a few inside of France can see exactly what the rest of the world already does. |
| Posted by: Paul 2003-10-4 7:58:52 AM |
| #1 Reality always sets in the morning after. |
| Posted by: Baltic Blog 2003-10-4 5:00:16 AM |