Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Plus Ça Change

http://tinyurl.com/35ml2m5
Plus Ça Change
By David A. Bell
May 8, 2010
Of France's 62 million people, fewer than 5 million are old enough to
have any memory of the horrifying weeks in May and June 1940, when the
Nazi war machine crushed the country's armed forces, forced them to sign
a humiliating surrender, and marched triumphantly into Paris. The
blitzkrieg, and the traumatic occupation that began 70 years ago Monday,
are rapidly sliding below the horizon of living memory.
That makes it easy to see the France of 1940—which was poor, rural,
homogenous, and overall quite religious—as a wholly different place from
the wealthy, urbanized, multicultural, and deeply secular France of
2010. They appear, prima facie, to be radically different places. But
look closer, and it's easy to see that, 70 years later, France is still
very much, well, France.
That's not to say things haven't improved. By today's standards the
country in 1940 was almost unrecognizably poor. Half the population
still lived in rural areas, with a quarter of the workforce still
engaged in traditional forms of agriculture—peasants, by any other name.
One third of all French households lacked running water, and less than
one 10th had telephones, refrigerators, or washing machines. In the
winter, the courtyards of urban apartment buildings bristled with
shelves on which the denizens stored their perishables. Hotels
advertised hot running water as a luxury item. Today, despite persistent
high unemployment, France has a successful, high-tech, postindustrial
economy largely fueled by nuclear power and symbolized by the high-speed
train system that whisks travelers between Paris and London (via the
Channel Tunnel) in just over two hours.
The great institutions that dominated much of French life in 1940 have
mostly withered or collapsed altogether. While more than 40 percent of
adults and a large majority of children attended church regularly in
1940, today the figures have fallen by more than half, and in one recent
poll, only a bare majority of the population even described themselves
as Catholic. The number of priests in the country has declined from more
than 40,000 to fewer than 10,000. At the other end of the ideological
spectrum, the Communist Party that once dominated the industrial
working-class suburbs of major cities—running the municipalities and
organizing much of the communal life—now polls below 5 percent of the
vote. The military, once one of the most important and prestigious
French institutions, has become almost invisible to civilians—especially
since the end of the draft 10 years ago.
France in 1940 ruled one of the largest empires the world had ever seen.
Its tricolor flag flew over most of North and West Africa, a chain of
possessions stretching from Polynesia to the Caribbean, and most of
Indochina. Legally, the Algerian coast was considered part of France
just as Hawaii today is considered part of the United States. It had
vibrant French businesses, schools, and cultural life (one of the
century's greatest French authors, Albert Camus, hailed from Algeria).
But the empire dissolved in the great wave of decolonization in the
1950s. Algeria and Vietnam won their independence in desperate guerrilla
wars, and more than a million European settlers fled back across the
Mediterranean from North Africa. Today, France overseas is a dim
constellation of small island possessions: Martinique, Guadeloupe,
Réunion, French Caledonia, Saint-Pierre.
And yet, despite all these changes, certain things about French society
have remained remarkably constant since the blitzkrieg, particularly in
comparison with the United States. Most important, the French state
retains an outsize role in society. In a tradition of dirigisme (from
the verb "to direct") that stretches back to the Old Regime, the state
encases markets in thick webs of regulations while itself managing
health care, most major cultural institutions, and most education from
preschool to postdoctoral. When President Nicolas Sarkozy took office in
2007, conservative American observers hoped he would emulate Margaret
Thatcher and slash the state sector. But despite some tentative reforms,
the state's authority remains largely unshaken (government expenditures
consistently account for more than 50 percent of GDP, compared with
barely 36 percent in the United States before the recession). And as in
1940, the most attractive career track for smart, ambitious students is
the elite civil service. As a French friend once put it to me, "Most of
my classmates would rather become assistant secretary of agriculture
than start Amazon.com."
Then there is the outsize role of intellectuals in French life. It has
undoubtedly frayed at the edges since 1940, and no French thinker today
enjoys anything like the oracular status of a Voltaire, a Victor Hugo,
or—in the 1940s—Jean-Paul Sartre. Yet even pretenders to the throne,
such as the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, receive far more media
attention than their American counterparts. How often was Richard Rorty
on network television? French magazines continue to publish gossipy "hit
parades" of top intellectuals.
Needless to say, France remains the worldwide center for luxury goods
that it has been for centuries. Even today, its exports of perfumes,
alcohol, clothing, accessories, and beauty products match its aerospace
exports (which include Airbus). Fine food is still central to the
country's identity as well, even if the artery-clogging recipes of
Auguste Escoffier, still hegemonic in 1940 (including 39 separate
recipes for butter), long ago gave way to the healthier nouvelle
cuisine. And while the French consume less than half the wine per capita
than they did in 1940, adults still manage an average of 70 bottles a
year—nearly seven times what Americans consume.
These tastes testify to a certain cosmopolitanism that was central to
French culture in 1940, remains central to it today, and has been
accompanied by a remarkable openness to the world. France's poor,
restive immigrant populations today receive a huge amount of press
coverage, but they are in fact nothing new in French history. Between
1918 and 1945 France actually welcomed more immigrants—measured as a
percentage of the population—than any other Western country, including
the United States. What distinguishes today's immigrant groups from
those of 1940 is not their numbers, but their origins. In 1940
immigrants were largely white and Catholic (coming notably from Italy,
Poland, and Iberia). Now the country has a black population of more than
1.5 million, and a Muslim one of about 5 million, largely of North
African descent. It has hundreds of thousands of Asian citizens, and in
some areas of Paris, asking for "baguettes" in a restaurant will not
produce the familiar long loaves of bread, but the other food-related
item to which the French word refers: chopsticks.
And both in 1940 and today, immigration has been the occasion for
furious outbursts of prejudice and agonized debates about "French
identity." In 1940 the worst outbursts were directed at the Jews, and
they set the stage for the anti-Semitic policies of the collaborationist
Vichy government, which willingly sent 76,000 French Jews to their
deaths in the Nazi extermination camps. Today, the far less noxious but
still objectionable National Front party derives its support largely
from hostility to French Arabs, and the debates focus on whether the
secular republic can "integrate" Muslim populations. The Sarkozy
administration has wrestled awkwardly with the issue, creating a
Ministry of Immigration and National Identity, and trying to ban women
from publicly wearing burqas. Concerns about "Islamicization" are in
fact mostly exaggerated, and the anger expressed by young French Muslims
(for instance, in the massive 2005 riots around depressed housing
projects) results less from a generalized hostility toward French
society than toward the isolation they feel from it.
The debate over immigration is passionate and intense. But in its very
passion and intensity it reveals yet another continuity between 1940 and
2010—namely that the subject on which the French speak most eloquently,
and most engagingly, is still themselves.

 accompanied by a remarkable openness to the world.
ah ecco.
Intellettuali e cosmopoliti. (outsized role, ROTFL. Meglio che i ruoli 
importanti li abbaino gli analfabeti o i preti in un paese, piuttosto che 
gli intellettuali, eh?)
Quelle parole che non piacevano a Goebbels. E non piacciono al signor Bell.
Che bello, quando i neonazisti tornano alla riscossa.... 

 materia infinita di risate a Cambridge. :)
ridono di Cartesio a Cambridge? Non � un segno di furbizia....

 Cos'è che non piace della Francia?
mah, vedo che altrove producono esche molto efficaci.

 mah, vedo che altrove producono esche molto efficaci.
io vedo solo che a forza di lanciar esche si fa una figuraccia da stronzi 
ignoranti

 E anche con Deleuze et Foucault
ma cosa cazzo vuoi capire tu di Deleuze e Foucault, ma mi faccia il favore, 
ROTFL 

 io vedo solo che a forza di lanciar esche si fa una figuraccia da stronzi 
adulatrice.

 E anche con Deleuze et Foucault avevo ogni difficolta' a citarli,
Insomma, non � che siano proprio fratellli gemelli. Francamente non capisco. 
Posso capire gi� pi� qualche perplessit� di fronte a Deridda, che peraltro � 
stato consacrato a vate pi� negli States che in Europa. Ma questi due mi 
sembrano due signori pensatori. Come del resto non � liquidabile in modo 
sbrigativo Lacan. E ci sono altri studiosi non riconducibili a quella 
cultura, che oltre agli aspetti deteriori (ma solo francesi?) ebbe anche 
momenti assai validi. A me viene in mente Bourdieu.
dR 

 �
Pardon, leggasi Derrida ovviamente. Mi scapp�.
dR 

 momenti assai validi. A me viene in mente Bourdieu.
sono i sopravvissuti che sarebbero da ghigliottinare.

 ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:4be6bf69$0$1131$4faf...@reader3.news.tin.it...

ma guarda che due volte su tre quando scrive amalric � ubriaco

 ma guarda che due volte su tre quando scrive amalric è ubriaco
di tavernello, oserei dire.
Dico la mia sulla vs. discussione bizzarra. Foucault IMHO e' una lettura
imprescindibile - il fatto stesso che usiamo internet come lo usiamo
testimonia della sua influenza culturale. Lo stesso credo si possa dire
per gli altri che avete citato, e che non ho letto in maniera accurata.
Ma il problema e' che ognuno di questi giganti del Novecento e'
diventato moda - cosa che agli accademici anglosassoni succede
pochissimo, al di fuori del loro ambito disciplinare - e spesso epigoni
ed allievi ti fanno venire a nausea il pensiero del maestro.
Per esempio, in un anno di letture post coloniali, post patriarcali post
femministe post moderne del Cantico dei Cantici io  sento di avere
imparato poco e grazie al cielo che continuiamo a studiare anche altro
(tra cui i commentari tradizionali, per fortuna).

 ROTFL, Intello', va...
A corto di argomenti, per attaccarsi ad un banale errore di battitura? Ah, 
gi� che ci siamo: Epitteto, se non lo si cita nell'originale, almeno lo si 
riporti nella lingua del ng.
Altrimenti � proprio una cafonata.
dR 

 (tra cui i commentari tradizionali, per fortuna).
Sicuramente hai presente Harold Bloom. :-)
dR 

Shapiro used clothes ha scritto:

touche' :-)

 Rosica pure compostamente, Shapirus...
Per cosa? Ah, aspetto lumi, signor professore, su Deleuze e Foucault. Visto 
che Epitteto � diventato un autore inglese.
dR 

 che Epitteto è diventato un autore inglese.
non può neanche dire che è un anticipo di restituzione per il debito
greco, visto che i britt non metteranno una sterlina per salvare la
grecia...

 A corto di argomenti, per attaccarsi ad un banale errore di battitura?
te l'ho detto che � sempre ubriaco...

 ed allievi ti fanno venire a nausea il pensiero del maestro.
beh, nessun anglosassone ha raggiunto quelle vette...

 :)
Per quanto mi riguarda, i Greci continuano a essere in credito. :-)
dR 

 Si inizia con un errore di battitura e si finisce col rogoh :)
E' la giornata delle cazzate, pardon, frasi celebri? Due per tre?
dR 

 cui si ride, hic!
Di S/Z, per fare giusto un esempio, riderei poco. Anche se � un libro 
persino divertente. Pure Greimas mi pare degno di una lettura, anche due.
dR 

 Si inizia con un errore di battitura e si finisce col rogoh :)
tu comincia a isriverti a un corso di economia accelerata, poi dei francesi 
se ne riparla, eh

 PS guarda' un po' chi sono gli autori dei VIX :)
chi???

 Un evidente GOMLODDO plutogiudaico :)
Ahi ahi, manca una B.
dR 


Perch� non facciamo che ognuno di noi non versa  al Febothon un soldino 
per ogni typo che commette? Magari, in questo modo riusciamo a 
pagargliela, 'sta fottutissima scopata...
-- 
*Sunspot*
Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting 
different results

 ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:4be83339$0$825$4faf...@reader5.news.tin.it...

ROTFL
chi di spadah ferrisce...di spadda periscce

 chi di spadah ferrisce...di spadda periscce
LOL
"Nessuno siamo perfetti, ognuno ci abbiamo i nostri difetti".
dR 

 pagargliela, 'sta fottutissima scopata...
Poi dice che rosichiamo. :-)
dR 

 

Ci tengo a precisare che lo scopo del fondo pro Febo non � procurargli 
una semplice scopata (per la quale pare che 600 dollari sarebbero una 
cifra ragionevole), ma l'unica esperienza all'altezza dell'integralista 
cattolico in cerca di peccatrici a tassametro (perlomeno a detta 
dell'autorevole Febo, che ha scartato facendo spalluce ogni differente 
possibilit�, anche solo teorica).
Essa � la cosiddetta "Girlfriend Experience". Pare si tratti di una 
intera notte di passione. Alla luce di listini avidamente compulsati, 
Febo ne ha calcolato il corrispettivo in circa tre volte quello esposto 
sopra.
Sospettando che alcuni scompensi del soggetto nascano dalla distanza tra 
fantasie e realizzazioni, noi (Tb, il Tb tappo e il Tb pelato) del fondo 
GIRLFEBO siamo intervenuti per realizzare un sogno.
Anche la tua generosit� sar� apprezzata. Hai paypal ho una carta di credito?
Ogni contributo, grande o piccolo, sar� rendicontato con assoluta 
trasparenza e utilizzato al 100% per il suo scopo finale.
Aspettiamo il tuo dono!
Tb (bieco illuminista)
-- 
Vamos a matar, companeros [cit]

Hai paypal ho una carta di credito?
Il bacherozzo ha alzato il gomito.