Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jane Bovary · 02-25-2003, 07:00 PM

In answer to all that anti-French sentiment wafting about, here's an interesting perspective from a Frenchman.

NYT

Unfortunately it's one of those NYT articles you have to register to read. For those who can't be bothered...I've just supplied a few excerpts.

Quote:

Eight out of 10 Europeans on the street agree with the French-German position, and the governments of Britain, Spain, Italy, et al., have cut themselves off from public opinion. In confronting that awkwardness, the United States has chosen France as its scapegoat. Not having any training as a satellite state, unlike the countries of Eastern Europe, France has assumed the right to judge for itself(despite a number of elites firmly in the American camp).

The stakes are spiritual. Europe defends a secular vision of the world. It does not separate matters of urgency from long-term considerations. The United States compensates for its shortsightedness, its tendency to improvise, with an altogether biblical self-assurance in its transcendent destiny. Puritan America is hostage to a sacred morality; it regards itself as the predestined repository of Good, with a mission to strike down Evil. Trusting in Providence, it pursues a politics that is at bottom theological and as old as Pope Gregory VII.

Europe no longer possesses that euphoric arrogance. It is done mourning the Absolute and conducts its politics . . . politically. It is past the age of ultimatums, protectorates at the other end of the planet, and the white man's burden. Is that the age America is intent on entering? One can only wish it good luck.

"Old Europe" has already paid the price. It now knows that the planet is too complex, too definitively plural to suffer insertion into a monotheistic binary logic: white or black, good or evil, friend or enemy. When, one wants to ask, will Washington agree to count to three - and think not this or that, but this and that? A sober weighing of threats, without emotional obfuscation, is far more attuned to our current world, which Balkanizes minds even as it grows more unified in its implements, than an impatient divine investiture.

Whence this paradox: the new world of President Bush, postmodern in its technology, seems premodern in its values. In its principles of action, America is two or three centuries behind "old Europe." Since our countries did not enter history at the same time, the gap should not surprise us. But as to which of the two worlds, the secular or the fundamentalist, is the more archaic, it is surely not the one that Donald Rumsfeld had in mind.

R�gis Debray, a former adviser to President Francois Mitterrand of
France, is editor of Cahiers de Mediologie and the author of the
forthcoming ``The God That Prevailed.''

Of course America claims to have justifications other than the spiritual to wage war on Iraq, but who can deny the overiding tone of George Bush's pro-war campaign has been one of spiritual righteousness...of God and Goodness, against Evil Forces? In this respect Debray is right...with all this rhetoric, America, far from fighting against the rigid moral certainty of fundamentalism and its accompanying madness, is instead in danger of dismantling secular reason and pulling us back into an archaic world of simple conclusions and even simpler answers.

At least France has no pretensions of Godly endorsement for its stance.

emphryio · 02-25-2003, 07:26 PM

Despite the recent biographies about Bush that assert he really is in charge! I think the people behind him who are in charge selected him to large degree because of his natural simplicity.

They did this because they want to present such issues as the impending Iraqi war in simple terms. They don't want people to suspect that there are alterior motives. It seems that maybe just barely, enough people are believing these simplistic motives. (shrug?)

I can't believe that the power behind Bush really thinks quite like some of the speeches would indicate. .... But then I hear some of Rumsfeld's idiocy. Or I see what a thug Tom Ridge just visually appears to be....

echidna · 02-25-2003, 09:33 PM

Unfortunately I only see the essay as just more soap-boxing in the struggle for the moral high ground from both sides.

Quote:

Not having any training as a satellite state, unlike the countries of Eastern Europe, France has assumed the right to judge for itself(despite a number of elites firmly in the American camp).

Quote:

In its principles of action, America is two or three centuries behind "old Europe." Since our countries did not enter history at the same time, the gap should not surprise us.

Phrases such as this can only be hypocritical when one is criticising one�s opponent of arrogance. Debray himself (herself ?) should bear in mind that Europe is hardly as squeaky clean as he would like. How many officially recognised European colonies remain dotted over the world ? Just how bullying and arrogant is the EU in oppressing Developing Countries with self-interested trade policies ? Were it not for US dominance, I would hardly like to be under the global umbrella of the World�s Second Largest Economic Power either.

It is also ironic that like so many criticisms of the United States for wanting to paint the world in the colours of black and white to define an absolute Good and Evil, Debray himself does everything but portray America as evil himself. Certainly he reduces the abuse from being at the purely political level, to one where he attacks the very culture of the population. I don�t find it particularly constructive, just self-satisfying.

Look, I agree with the broad thrust, but I find much of the rhetoric from both sides, appalling.

Jane Bovary · 02-26-2003, 04:11 PM

Debray is on the defensive, his comments are a direct response to Rumsfields comments about "old Europe" not being relevent. I didn't think his comments were too "appalling" under the circumstances.

It is also ironic that like so many criticisms of the United States for wanting to paint the world in the colours of black and white to define an absolute Good and Evil, Debray himself does everything but portray America as evil himself. Certainly he reduces the abuse from being at the purely political level, to one where he attacks the very culture of the population. I don�t find it particularly constructive, just self-satisfying.

Since the substance of his article was the disparity between secular Europe and religious America, I can't see how he could have seperated the cultural from the political...and he's only criticising that one cultural aspect....ie. religious morality. His whole argument is that they are interwoven in US politics...that America is a religious nation, sometimes driven by a kind of puritan moral clarity[self-perceived] that invests its political actions with a questionable certainty. Should God and war be bedfellows in world affairs?
Such a position deserves criticism. I thought it was a fair enough point to make.

Jesse · 02-26-2003, 04:58 PM

I don't know if it's relevant, but apparently Debray has a bit of a sordid past:

Quote:

Twenty-seven years ago, French radical theoretician R�gis Debray was sentenced by a Bolivian military tribunal to 30 years in jail. He had been captured with the guerrilla band led by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Fidel Castro's legendary lieutenant. Released after three years, largely because of the intervention of compatriots such as President Charles de Gaulle, Andr� Malraux, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Debray returned to writing. (His 1967 Revolution in the Revolution is considered a primer for guerrilla insurrection.) He spent five years in the early '80s as a special advisor on Latin American relations to French President Fran�ois Mitterrand.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3...et=wiredpeople

Although it seems that he "disowned" the book advocating guerrilla warfare:

Quote:

It was Regis Debray rather in his unfortunate essay Revolution in the Revolution--a book which he now disowns--that insisted upon polemizing with many established Communist Parties exaggerating the guerilla component in revolutionary strategy and in Che's thinking, leaving both open to right wing distortions. What is clear is that Che himself had no role in provoking such distortions and indeed if we look closely at his Diary in Bolivia, we notice a number of critical comments to Debray's book written along the margins, and his distrust of someone like Debray.

http://www.ceinicaragua.org.ni/espa/Gandhi.htm

Another critical description of his career arc, from a socialist site:

Quote:

The negative side of this "intellectual exchange" was the influence that some Western Marxists had on the struggles North and South. Regis Debray's book, Revolution in the Revolution, with its ill-informed, distorted theorisation of the Cuban Revolution and his militarist-elitist prescriptions, took a heavy toll on the revolutionary left in Latin America.10 His later deluded and aborted attempt to join Che Guevara's guerrilla movement led to his capture, interrogation and informing on the location of the guerrillas and their subsequent decimation. Debray eventually was freed and later became an adviser to the neo-liberal Mitterrand regime, an apologist for France's nuclear bomb and a self-proclaimed French chauvinist. This did not prevent him from remaining a highly respected intellectual in some sectors of the Anglo-us left, on the basis of some banal ruminations on the mass media and a rather arrogant interview with sub-commander Marcos of the Zapatistas.

http://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue19/petras.htm

HaysooChreesto! · 02-26-2003, 05:07 PM

European spirituality? Crazy. The fact is, the French have money to lose should Saddam go the way of the dodo. The idea that they're taking the moral high ground is laughable.
They too want a piece of the ME pie but they don't want to have to risk anything for it. How very----what's the word I'm looking for... Yes! How very FRENCH of them.

Jane Bovary · 02-26-2003, 06:20 PM

European spirituality? Crazy.

I think European secularity was the point of the article.

France is accused of vested interests in opposing the war, America is likewise accused of vested interest in promoting it. Does this mean any opinion America makes on the subject should be discounted too?

echidna · 02-26-2003, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jane Bovary
Debray is on the defensive, his comments are a direct response to Rumsfields comments about "old Europe" not being relevent. I didn't think his comments were too "appalling" under the circumstances.

Debray is as polarised as the US & if anything, his comments only reinforce many of Rumsfeld�s criticisms of �Old Europe�.

Quote:

Not having any training as a satellite state, unlike the countries of Eastern Europe, France has assumed the right to judge for itself(despite a number of elites firmly in the American camp).

An arrogant and exceedingly clumsy attack on the eastern European states some of which have come out in support of the US. Maybe another viewpoint is that the countries of Eastern Europe better understand the true nature of an oppressive regime (as distinct from a military occupation), something which France has long forgotten.

Quote:

In its principles of action, America is two or three centuries behind "old Europe." Since our countries did not enter history at the same time, the gap should not surprise us.

Another exceedingly clumsy attack, essentially saying that credibility depends on the age of one�s state. The peace movement have better arguments than this. America�s strong religious attitudes are actually quite globally unusual even for a relatively new state & have been the topic of several threads here. Placing principles of action back on the US and France entering history at a different times is just not accurate.

Heh, last year Debray referred to the French murder and sinking of the Rainbow Warrior as a �dirty trick�. Oh if his wording was as colourful for the crimes committed by his own country !!

leonarde · 02-26-2003, 07:02 PM

Partial post:

Quote:

Europe no longer possesses that euphoric arrogance. It is done mourning the Absolute and conducts its politics . . . politically. It is past the age of ultimatums, protectorates at the other end of the
planet, and the white man's burden. Is that the age America is intent on entering? One can only wish it good luck.

"Old Europe" has already paid the price. It now knows that the planet is too complex, too definitively plural to suffer insertion into a monotheistic binary logic: white or black, good or evil, friend or enemy. When, one wants to ask, will Washington agree to count to three - and think not this or that, but this and that? A sober weighing of threats, without emotional obfuscation, is far more attuned to our current world, which Balkanizes minds even as it grows more unified in its implements, than an impatient divine investiture.

Actually if you check the record, you will find that in the past 30 years or so France has intervened numerous times in the affairs of other nations, sometimes as in Bosnia-Hercegovina under UN auspices, others unilaterally: especially in Africa. Were any of the latter operations conducted with "arrogance"? Were any of them products of "binary" "white or black" logic? I won't try to judge that without looking at the particulars. But I'm pretty sure that 'conducting politics...politically' sometimes involves imposing national will on another (nation, partisan group, etc.) forceably. But then again, that's what a "French Foreign Legion" is for....

Cheers!

themistocles · 02-26-2003, 07:03 PM

Speaking of unilateral, wasn't Mugabe informally barred from Europe?

I think a country rooted in anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, double-dealings, prefer-that-everyone-else-agree-with-us-or-else, and moral cowardice should clean up its own house before complaining about others.

:boohoo:

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02-25-2003, 07:26 PM	#2
emphryio Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: WV Posts: 4,369	Despite the recent biographies about Bush that assert he really is in charge! I think the people behind him who are in charge selected him to large degree because of his natural simplicity. They did this because they want to present such issues as the impending Iraqi war in simple terms. They don't want people to suspect that there are alterior motives. It seems that maybe just barely, enough people are believing these simplistic motives. (shrug?) I can't believe that the power behind Bush really thinks quite like some of the speeches would indicate. .... But then I hear some of Rumsfeld's idiocy. Or I see what a thug Tom Ridge just visually appears to be....

02-26-2003, 04:11 PM	#4
Jane Bovary Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Fatal Shore Posts: 900	Debray is on the defensive, his comments are a direct response to Rumsfields comments about "old Europe" not being relevent. I didn't think his comments were too "appalling" under the circumstances. It is also ironic that like so many criticisms of the United States for wanting to paint the world in the colours of black and white to define an absolute Good and Evil, Debray himself does everything but portray America as evil himself. Certainly he reduces the abuse from being at the purely political level, to one where he attacks the very culture of the population. I don�t find it particularly constructive, just self-satisfying. Since the substance of his article was the disparity between secular Europe and religious America, I can't see how he could have seperated the cultural from the political...and he's only criticising that one cultural aspect....ie. religious morality. His whole argument is that they are interwoven in US politics...that America is a religious nation, sometimes driven by a kind of puritan moral clarity[self-perceived] that invests its political actions with a questionable certainty. Should God and war be bedfellows in world affairs? Such a position deserves criticism. I thought it was a fair enough point to make.

02-26-2003, 05:07 PM	#6
HaysooChreesto! Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: SoCal USA Posts: 7,737	European spirituality? Crazy. The fact is, the French have money to lose should Saddam go the way of the dodo. The idea that they're taking the moral high ground is laughable. They too want a piece of the ME pie but they don't want to have to risk anything for it. How very----what's the word I'm looking for... Yes! How very FRENCH of them.

02-26-2003, 06:20 PM	#7
Jane Bovary Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Fatal Shore Posts: 900	European spirituality? Crazy. I think European secularity was the point of the article. France is accused of vested interests in opposing the war, America is likewise accused of vested interest in promoting it. Does this mean any opinion America makes on the subject should be discounted too?

02-26-2003, 07:03 PM	#10
themistocles Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: las vegas, nevada Posts: 670	Speaking of unilateral, wasn't Mugabe informally barred from Europe? I think a country rooted in anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, double-dealings, prefer-that-everyone-else-agree-with-us-or-else, and moral cowardice should clean up its own house before complaining about others. :boohoo:

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