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Grant McCracken on France
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.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 6, 2007 at 02:19 PM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
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
Posted by: Isaac Crawford at May 6, 2007 2:37:38 PM
The French attitude, of course, comes from an inferiority complex. But having grown up in a French family, I know they would not even understand what that means, or how it could be. Being French means living in a comfortable, epistemological box.
Posted by: M. Hodak at May 6, 2007 2:37:44 PM
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.
Posted by: thehova at May 6, 2007 3:39:02 PM
How exactly is a little labor market deregulation going to put France, and their admirably sophisticated way of life, down the path of cultural degradation?
Posted by: John Pertz at May 6, 2007 4:46:05 PM
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.
Posted by: PEG at May 6, 2007 6:07:59 PM
A Storm Always Knows What It’s Doing
The following excerpt is from Victor Hugo’s “Ninety-Three,” the great Romanticist’s (“Les Miserables,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”) last novel, published in 1874, nearly a century after the French Revolution, which served as the background for the book.
It is not, strictly speaking, a historical novel, one that attempts to take the reader back into a moment in history. Rather, Hugo uses that specific conflagration to develop characters and a plot in the interest of a universal theme, one that applies not only to the French Revolution but to subsequent cataclysms.
The excerpt is a conversation between two leaders. Although Cimourdain, an ex-priest, and Gauvain, whom he had tutored, both fought to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic, their visions for that republic were vastly different. Their discussion represents two different aspects of the revolutionary spirit and echoes themes heard in modern political debate—now being played out in France.
During that supper, Gauvain ate and Cimourdain drank, a sign of calm in the former and of agitation in the latter.
There was a kind of terrible serenity in the cell. The two men talked.
“Great things are beginning to take shape,” said Gauvain. “What the Revolution is doing now is mysterious. Behind the visible work there’s the invisible work. The visible work is fierce, the invisible work is sublime. I can see everything very clearly now. It’s strange and beautiful. It has been necessary to use the materials of the past. Hence this extraordinary ’93. Beneath a scaffolding of barbarism, a temple of civilization is being built.”
“Yes,” replied Cimourdain, “from this provisional situation will come the definitive one. By the definitive one I mean parallel rights and duties, proportional and progressive taxes, obligatory military service, a leveling process without deviations, and above everyone and everything, that straight line, the law. The republic of the absolute.”
“I prefer the republic of the ideal,” said Gauvain. He paused, then continued: “O my master, in everything you’ve just said, where do you place devotion, self-sacrifice, abnegation, the magnanimous interlacing of benevolences, love? To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better. Above the scales there’s the lyre. Your republic weighs, measures and regulates man; mine sweeps him up into the blue sky; it’s the difference between a theorem and an angel.”
“You’ve become lost in the clouds.”
“And you in calculations.”
“There’s a certain amount of dreaming in harmony.”
“And also in algebra.”
“I wish man had been made by Euclid.”
“And I’d like him better if he’d been made by Homer,” said Gauvain.
Cimourdain’s stern smile came to rest on Gauvain, as though to hold his soul fast.
“Poetry. Beware of poets.”
“Yes, I know the saying. Beware of breezes, beware of sunbeams, beware of fragrances, beware of flowers, beware of the constellations.”
“None of those things can feed anyone.”
“How do you know? Ideas are food too. To think is to eat.”
“No abstractions. The Republic is two and two make four. When I’ve given everyone what’s coming to him…”
“You’ll still have to give everyone what’s not coming to him.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m referring to the immense reciprocal concessions which each owes to all, which all owe to each, and which are the whole of social life.”
“Outside of strict law, there’s nothing.”
“There’s everything.”
“I see only justice.”
“I look higher.”
“What is there above justice?”
“Equity.”
Now and then they stopped, as those gleams were passing by.
Cimourdain resumed:
“I challenge you to be specific.”
“Very well. You want obligatory military service. Against whom? Against other men? I don’t want any military service. I want peace. You want to help the poor, I want to eliminate poverty. You want proportional taxes, I don’t want any taxes at all. I want common expenditures reduced to their simplest expression and paid by the social surplus.”
“What do you mean?”
“This: first eliminate parasitisms—the parasitism of the priest, of the judge, of the soldier. Then make use of your riches. You throw manure into the sewer; throw it into the fields instead. Three-quarters of the land is lying fallow. Cultivate the soil of France, do away with useless pastures, divide the communal lands. Let each man have a piece of land, and let each piece of land have a man. You’ll increase the social product a hundredfold. France now gives her peasants meat only four times a year; well cultivated, she could feed three hundred million people, all of Europe. Utilize nature, that immense neglected helper. Make every wind work for you, every waterfall, every magnetic emanation. The earth has an underground network of veins; in that network there’s a prodigious circulation of water, oil and fire; tap the veins of the earth and bring forth that water for your fountains, that oil for your lamps, that fire for your hearths. Consider the movement of the waves, the ebb and flow of the tides. What is an ocean? An enormous wasted force. How foolish the earth is, not to use the oceans!”
“You’re in the midst of a dream!”
“In other words, in the midst of reality …And woman? What will you do with her?”
Cimourdain answered, “I’ll leave her what she is: man’s servant.”
“Yes, on one condition.”
“What is it?”
“That man also be woman’s servant.”
“Are you serious?” cried Cimourdain. “Man a servant? Never! Man is the master. I acknowledge only one kind of royalty: that of the home. A man is king in his own home.”
“Yes, on one condition.”
“What is it?”
“That woman be queen there.”
“In short, between men and women you want…”
“Equality.”
“Equality! You can’t mean it. Man and woman are two different creatures.”
“I said equality. I didn’t say identity.”…
Gauvain spoke with the composure of a prophet. Cimourdain listened. The roles were reversed; it now seemed that the pupil was now the master. …
Cimourdain looked at the floor of the cell and said, “And in the meantime what do you want?”
“What is.”
“You absolve the present time?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a storm. A storm always knows what it’s doing. For every oak struck by lightning, how many forests are made healthy! Civilization was in the grip of a pestilence and this great wind is curing it. The wind may not be selective enough, but could it do otherwise? It has such hard work to do! Before the horror of the miasma, I understand the fury of the wind. Furthermore, what does the storm mean to me if I have a compass, and what do events matter to me if I have my conscience!…
“If you add something to nature, you will necessarily be greater than nature; to add is to increase, and to increase is to grow. Society is nature made sublime. I want everything that’s lacking in beehives and anthills: mountains, art, poetry, heroes, geniuses. To bear eternal burdens is not the law of man. No, no, no more pariahs, no more slaves, no more convicts, no more damned! I want each attribute of man to be a symbol of civilization and a pattern of progress; I want liberty in front of the mind, equality in front of the heart, fraternity in front of the soul. No, no more yokes! Man is made not to drag chains, but to spread his wings. No more of man as a reptile! I want the transfiguration of the larva into the butterfly; I want the earthworm to change into a living flower and fly away; I want…”
He stopped. His eyes flashed.
His lips moved. He ceased talking. …
Cimourdain, pale, listened. Gauvain did not hear.
His reverie was becoming deeper and deeper. He was so attentive to what he saw beneath the visionary vault of his brain that he seemed to have stopped breathing. He occasionally started slightly. The gleam of dawn in his eyes grew brighter.
Posted by: downeast at May 6, 2007 7:21:17 PM
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.
Posted by: Chris at May 6, 2007 7:30:14 PM
Well if that's true about France, why is Italy so wacky? It's MUCH more pleasant in most ways other than greenery.
Posted by: Michael Tinkler at May 6, 2007 9:46:50 PM
if you think post modernism came after the 90's then how could anything else you write be worth reading?
Posted by: rod at May 6, 2007 10:01:24 PM
USA receipts by tourism:81,860mm
France 42,276
Posted by: Mja at May 6, 2007 10:13:15 PM
Good question. Sarkozy's strongest constituency -- the countryside and people over 60 years old -- want things to change so they will remain the same.
Posted by: Scroop Moth at May 6, 2007 11:17:03 PM
I'm sorry to be harsh, but this Grant McCracken stuff is utter and total BS.
"innovation, responsiveness, competition, and innovations"?? Hello, Department of Redundancy Department...At any rate, France has historically been an extremely innovative country. French inventions: film, diesel engine, internal combustion engine, digital calculator, sewing machine, microprocessor-based computer, computer network, neon light, aqualung, helicopter, bicycle, electric iron, gyroscope, hot-air balloon, pencil, rayon, mayonnaise, and the etch-a-sketch. Wow, sounds like a society that doesn't like innovation. Or innovations.
And the English didn't invent punk, Americans did. The English just invented punk style.
Grant McCracken, who let you out of your cage? Back, back!!
Posted by: Mr. Noah at May 7, 2007 12:02:18 AM
Punk was invented in NYC, not England.
Posted by: USA PUNK at May 7, 2007 12:33:47 AM
@Mja:
With the USA being so much bigger and more populus than France...
Posted by: JSK at May 7, 2007 5:44:44 AM
Yeah, well we all know France has issues that won't be solved overnight but this reads like a pretty uninformed rant.
Posted by: thom at May 7, 2007 6:47:58 AM
Five Republics in two centuries. A major (perhaps THE major) revolution, and several other upheavals, big and small, during that time. Sure, the texture of daily life may be precious and resistant to change, but France as a whole, not so much.
Posted by: mike at May 7, 2007 9:01:40 AM
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.
Posted by: Michael Blowhard at May 7, 2007 10:02:54 AM
JSK:
France 545$ per arrival
Usa 1620$ per arrival
And with only Florida , California and NY as destinations with real international appeal
Posted by: Mja at May 7, 2007 11:36:34 AM
BTW:
That takes in account only foreign visitors.
And european governments have been campaigning for "quality tourism" for years now
Posted by: Mja at May 7, 2007 11:46:51 AM
"it's not like you've got very much to lose."
The assembled here will surely guffaw at the above statement, but I think McCracken hits the nail on the head: It is nearly impossible for upper middle class Americans, academics or cubicle veal, to imagine a country that doesn't take our lead and, for most, enjoys a quality of life that most Americans can only imagine they will enjoy at 65 (if they can just keep slaving away). Sure, France, like anywhere else, has its problems, but franco-phobia of upper middle class Americans reveals more than a little sublimated resentment methinks.
Posted by: jamesd at May 7, 2007 11:48:28 AM
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.
Posted by: fustercluck at May 7, 2007 8:38:54 PM
Posted by: fasdf at May 8, 2007 4:14:19 AM
"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...
Posted by: jamesd at May 8, 2007 11:20:10 AM
Wait - so because I don't like something, I fear it? I don't like strawberry ice cream, so therefore I am afraid of it? You desperately need to rethink your assertions and conclusions.
Furthermore, I well know what that quality of life is like. One need not live day-to-day under a system to understand its implications. Again, your logic is extremely shoddy.
Back to the main point: the quality of life in France that is presently available to 35-year olds will not be available to these same people when they are 50. What part of that (ergo, UNSUSTAINABLE) do you not get? Who in the hell will pay for it? It's easy to say "the government", but from whence will the government money come? From the taxes of people working 35-hour work weeks? It's the same fate that the post-baby boomer generation in the US will face with regard to Social Security, only much worse because here, the upper middle class will at least have some personal capital to work with (property, 401ks).
This obviously escapes your understanding.
Posted by: fustercluck at May 8, 2007 8:50:12 PM
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?
Posted by: jamesd at May 9, 2007 12:07:01 PM
