Yes Sarkozy is on the verge of winning, but will there be much change? It is worth reading Grant McCracken:
This may be the only Western culture in which the phrase "creative destruction" is fully paradoxical. All of us balk for a moment at the phrase, but the French, I think, must just shake their heads and say, "no, it’s creative or it’s destructive." This is a culture that approaches perfection, and for a world like this all of the things that make other Western economies go, innovation, responsiveness, competition and innovations, these, in France, are wrong. These contradict the the French style of life.
The English could invent punk because there wasn’t very much to keep them from the aesthetic violence it required. The Germans could rebuild the nation state because all it demanded of them was that they tear down a place stinking of cabbage and soft coal. Americans could push us all down the bobsled of post modernity because all it meant was surviving the bouleversement of Silicon Valley in the late 1990s.
But the French, for them change must feel lapsarian, a fall from an exquisitely accomplished grace. The rest of us blunder from a uncertain present into the maw of a chaotic future, but then as one of my French respondents said, "it’s not like you’ve got very much to lose." The French, you see, pay dearly for change, and sometimes they just can’t bring themselves to budge.
It’s a thought provoking piece, but I take umbrage at the notion that the British “invented” punk. What about the MC5, Iggy Pop, The New York Dolls, and the grandfathers of the “successful” punk scene, the Ramones? Punk was truly an American invention but it could be argued, like the more Generic rock that came before that the British perfected it.
Isaac
Reminds me of my recent european trip. London is a very dirty city. lots of trash and strange smells.
Paris is sparkling clean. I read that Paris spends more than 10 times as much on street cleaners as London.
What? What the hell does that mean? “But the French, for them change must feel lapsarian, a fall from an exquisitely accomplished grace.” Putting random words together does not a sentence make.
I put forward the hypothesis that if for the French change is a fall from grace (sorry — GROAN — an exquisitely accomplished grace), they would not have voted massively for the candidate of change.
But hey, that’s just me.
Nonsense. France’s virtues (fantastic tourist assets) are highly marketable in a global market economy. Its vices (excluded young people) are those who will feel the change — and will benefit.
if you think post modernism came after the 90′s then how could anything else you write be worth reading?
Good question. Sarkozy’s strongest constituency — the countryside and people over 60 years old — want things to change so they will remain the same.
Punk was invented in NYC, not England.
Yeah, well we all know France has issues that won’t be solved overnight but this reads like a pretty uninformed rant.
Three quick points?
1) Why are so many Americans so preoccupied by France? It’s going to hell, they need some neocloassical econ, etc. Something about France really gripes some people. My guess: they prosper, life there is good for many people, they look down on everyone else, and they don’t follow what we think of as universal rules.
2) France goes about things its own way. They’ve achieved what they’ve achieved (including rebounding from WWII) in their own way, without taking a bit of advice from the Anglo-American econ consensus. I’d think that a few people at least would find this interesting, and say “What have we got here to learn?” In any case, they’re going to deal with whatever they’re going to deal with as Frenchpeople. They’re never going to learn better; they’re never going to submit to what we think Is Best. And they’re going to do fine.
3) Or else … Well, as that great philosopher Sophie Marceau once said in some interview I once read: The French are the world’s most conservative people, at least they are until things get intolerable. Then heads start to roll.
BTW:
That takes in account only foreign visitors.
And european governments have been campaigning for “quality tourism” for years now
jamesd – the point needs to be made that this quality of life presently enjoyed by the 65-year old French is unsustainable. Don’t get me wrong – who wouldn’t sign up for a 35-hour work week and cradle-to-grave state nannyship? (Me, for example, and probably a vast majority of other Americans given the other sacrifices required).
You mistake the feelings Americans have toward the French for fear (Francophobia – what on earth is there to fear?), when what is really is is a reaction to their vocal dislike of us. Call it a ‘touché’ reaction. You couldn’t pay me to live in that system – and soon the French government won’t be able to pay 65-year olds to live it in either.
“the point needs to be made that this quality of life presently enjoyed by the 65-year old French is unsustainable”
But my point was precisley that the quality of life I was referring to is not confined to 65 year olds in France! I was pointing out the rather sad reality in the US the upper middle class can only hope to hold on long enough (and be healthy enough) to enjoy at 65, what the majority of the French enjoy at 35.
McCracken’s point is therefore quite brilliant – “big” social changes can get pushed through the US system precisely because there really ain’t all that much to lose…we’ll still be schlepping away 50-60 hours a week trying to “make it” regardless. Where there is a good bit to lose, the pace of change is glacial. This is something that most Americans simply can’t imagine, thus the knee-jerk “you couldn’t pay me to live in that system” reaction. You literally have no idea and, I am afraid, you protest a little too much. Indeed, what _is_ there to fear? It obviously touches some deep cord with you…
I’ll let pass the remarkable cheek involved in being lectured to by an American on prudence or “sustainability” (!) and just point out again that WE were talking about McCracken and YOU were the one to chime in with “freedom-fries” level francophobia. I’d be willing to wager that you don’t insert comments in reaction to every mention of strawberry ice cream on blogs, but when it comes to France, you just have to put yourself on record squarely against don’t you. Something about the frogs that just gets you going, no?
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