Happy New … Oh No, Here We Go Again …
Columnists, News, Pop Culture - Tweet this! January 6th, 2009The year is only six days old and French Bashing still seems in vogue in certain circles. SuperFrenchie has just posted an alert over a “reality show” from ABC, which involves actors playing rude Americans in Paris. We’re not quite sure who’s bashing whom, or what the purpose of the show really is, but do check out SF’s blog for reactions and lively discussion.
On another front, this one being in the Gulf of Aden, the news of French successes against Somali pirates is being greeted with sarcasm by Jennifer Fermino – are we Italian? – of the New York Post. Harping on France’s 1940 surrender, which we remind our non-French readers, is as funny to the French as 9/11 is to Americans, Fermino plays loose with history and claims the French have not had a military success on water since 1884.
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January 10th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Your argument, to sum it up is : not the French but the Italians are the surrender monkeys. I fail to see the relevance of the battle of Caporetto against this lady. You are using it exactly the way Britons use the battle of Dunkirk etc..
January 10th, 2009 at 7:51 am
I quote an example, to prove how void it is for a person to affect superiority whereas we all have had our humiliating moments. Can’t you understand that? I am attacking their feeling of superiority, not asserting their inferiority.
January 11th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Counter-offensive
OK, so Jean-Paul has a kick out of pursuing me wherever I go and making erroneous (and ridiculous) judgements on my person. Fine.
I’ve nevertheless decided that with trolls like this, it is impossible to stay on the eternal defensive, as they’ll always be back for more, so let’s have a bit on Jean-Paul, shall we?
At first one might think Jean-Paul is a Wernessonophobe — no problem with that, I myself am a proud Jeanpaulophobe. Nonetheless, it so turns out he’s a peopleophobe! Let’s see his awesome comments on SF’s blog whenever someone disagrees with him:
“You bother me with your meaningless questions.”
“You don’t have anything interesting to say.”
“une réaction d’imbécile.”
“Surprising bad faith. You are like the Jesuit in Pascal’s PROVINCIALES.”
“You are in my view dishonest and highly partial. Langue de bois à l’état pur.”
And after these few examples, Monseigneur takes the luxury of making a huge fuss because of the use of the word “boche”. Chapeau!
Let’s face it: Jean-Paul is a troll, or at least his attitude is trollish in the extreme, and this gives him no right to go around spreading his unfounded, pastoral criticism of others.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Andre:
Your comment, “…culture only interests it as a means of gaining money. When it becomes an obstacle to gaining money, it must be destroyed….” sounds like the USA, not the EU.
Culture has been watered and dumbed down here to appeal to the basest of instincts to the masses. When there is little or no profit to be made by culture here, then it is deemed unworthy. Hence, the cutting of funds and grants to museums, dance companies, opera houses, individual artists and artisans, etc.
January 13th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Indeed, but if already, for instance, Basque culture has a hard time surviving in an already multicultural state, what would happen to it in an all-agglutinating super-state? Valencian already had a hard enough time being recognized by the European parliament.
I believe that what would happen would be a “preservation” of singularities — more as a curiosity than a living culture proper — of the larger cultures, and an outright disappearance of the current minority cultures.
What the EU doesn’t realize is that culture is an essentially spontaneous phenomenon; that is, that even if they put their thousands of bureaucrats into creating their alledged “European culture”, they would fail.
Already, they have illicitly hijacked the characters of Charlemagne, Charles V, or Napoleon, giving them a sense which they historically never had. It is all a political anachronism created for purpouses of propaganda.
January 13th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
In response, just two letters posted the 11 jan. in the “Opinion/Letters” section:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01112009/postopinion/letters/mon_dieu__149571.htm
I just note that the Jennifer Fermino’s article was in the “News/World” section of the New York Post website…hmmm
January 13th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Those answers are actually pretty decent. I’ve noticed that lately, more and more Americans are standing up against French-Bashing, and it’s always heartwarming when it happens.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:09 am
“What the EU doesn’t realize is that culture is an essentially spontaneous phenomenon; that is, that even if they put their thousands of bureaucrats into creating their alledged “European culture”, they would fail.
Already, they have illicitly hijacked the characters of Charlemagne, Charles V, or Napoleon, giving them a sense which they historically never had. It is all a political anachronism created for purpouses of propaganda.”
I fail to understand the relevance of these miserable anti-EU arguments. You are obviously confusing the EU with the European Commission. It is like confusing a country and a government, France and the French government.
Now concerning your neo-traditionalist view: who said the contrary ? Who would deny the importance of “spontaneity” in the shaping of culture? “The EU” never did. A civilization is the result of history, true. But Europe is a more than thousand years old civilization. Read Lucien Fèvre and Marc Bloch. And there is definitely nothing extravagant in the idea of unifying it. This is not an idea of bureaucrats : Victor Hugo, Sully,the abbé de Saint-Pierre were no bureaucrats.
No great political project (and the European construction is one) ever happenned without inventing its models in the past. This is nothing new. It is typical of what Nietzsche called “monumental history”. This is true today of European contruction. Charlemagne was a pre-national unifier, and we are postnational unifiers. That’s why Charlemagne, who was actually called in Carolingian times the “father of Europe” might be considered as a founding character for us. The problem is, he was a model in the fifties in the time of the “Europe des Six”. The EU as it stands now is exceeding the frontiers of his empire. Having his face on our euro banknotes would be a problem.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:40 am
HA! YOU of all people quote to me Lucien Fèvre and Marc Bloch? In any case, I must say that the Annales school is somewhat démodé, but I do recognize that you have read more than you look.
Nevertheless, I must dissent, and first of all with the qualification of “neo-traditionalist”. I’m no neo-traditionalist, but the existence of cultures must be both recognized and respected. I think that is clear enough.
As pointed out very acutely by Denis Richet (since we’re quoting Annalistes), you cannot be serious and qualify something according to something that didn’t exist in the moment.
Talking of a pre-national construction is unrigorous and anachronistic, as the national concept did not exist.
It is like speaking of “ancien régime”: “ancien” according to what?
Charlemagne’s empire was mainly a patrimonial construction, a fruit of the carolingian renaissance which seeked an imitatio of the Roman model, not some sort of prefiguration of the European Union.
The same with Charles V: he was no prefiguration of the European Union, his empire was PATRIMONIAL; that is, it belongs to the Habsburg family. Anything else is a modern interpretation.
“Europe is more than a thousand year old civilization”… Nonsense! You are like those XIXth century authors who would see a sort of pan-European “empire celtique”.
One may create modern uniting concepts, but they are the result of speculation.
Take the La Tène culture, of the campaniform vase culture. There was no such thing as a “campaniform vase culture”, yet modern historians have identified it as such for practicality and periodization.
One may actually say the campaniform vase culture was the first “european union” according to your outdated, XIXth century view!
January 16th, 2009 at 11:02 am
And allow me to add: Charlemagne was “emperor of the Romans”, in spite that neither he nor Justinian managed the restitutio imperii. ¿Does that mean we should conquer North Africa, pray?
You also seem to ignore the religious factor. Bloch points that out more than sufficiently: in your so-called “european civilization”, the main binding element was christianity, period. And you being, as I suppose (a mere hypothesis) a militant atheist, I don’t assume that Charlemagne’s celestial Jerusalem is a very enticing prospect, is it not?
Don’t forget that catholicism, in particular, was the main moving force behind Charles V.
You see, Europe is a geographic concept; the cultural aspect is vague and difficult to establish. Let’s use salami tactics. Spanish culture is similar to French is similar to Italian is similar to German is similar to Polish is similar to Russian is similar to Mongol is similar to Chinese is similar to Korean is similar to Malay. Where do we stop? The old concept of “christianity”? Dear me! Could Jean-Paul, apart from a eurocrat (notice the “we”) be a missioner as well?
Try different elements. Modes of production? The feudal system has been in existence at different time periods and locations and is certainly not exclusively European. Language? Then we’d have to go all the way to Sanskrit! Food? No comparison, especially between the Atlantic and Mediterranean regions. A “common history” as I’ve heard it once? Nonsense, as any serious historian will tell you!
No, Jean-Paul, you’d be a poor historian, but an excellent totalitarian.