The Sky Is Falling–Or Is It?

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, a British journalist, is following the progress of this summer’s Tour de France. On July 3 the Boston Globe published his article Liberté, Fraternité, Morosité. He writes: If you wander around France this summer, you find a country obsessed with its own woes, its future, and its very identity. Not long ago, France had a hang-up about America. Now, France has a hang-up about France. He goes on to correlate the lack of a great French cycling champion since Bernard Hinault to a general descent of the French people into a paralyzing "morosité." He continues: No recent event has made the morosité clearer than the referendum held on the last Sunday of May to approve or reject the wonderfully grandiloquent European Constitution. Rejected it was, with a non so loud, and on such a large turn-out, as to call into question the whole political culture and stability of the country. (my emphasis)  To Wheatcroft’s credit , he has actually spent time in France, unlike many commentators and pseudo-journalists who write of France's impending national decline. However, with the hyperbolic conclusion he draws, one has to wonder how well he really understands French culture. Would the French love to see the maillot jaune worn by a Frenchman? Of course. Are they depressed because the current star of the cycling universe is American? Not at all. Lance Armstrong may well be one of the greatest athletes of all time, and French people I speak with think he is an inspirational figure who is good for the sport. What is good for cycling is also good for France.  They note with some pride that Armstrong has chosen to do a good deal of his training in their country. Anglophones are sometimes stung by French criticism of their cultures. Jacques Chirac, the currently rather unpopular French president, recently said that today's British economic success is not based on a model that the French should envy. What Anglophones should realize is that the French do not reserve their criticism for Anglo-Saxon cultures. Far from being self-aggrandizing, the French tend to regularly turn their "esprit critique" against themselves. This must be what Wheatcroft interprets as their "morosité."  Remember how Voltaire ridiculed optimism in his novella Candide in the 18th century?  It has never been rehabilitated.  It is generally not in the French make-up to be particularly optimistic.  France's highly-educated population is constantly in the throes of a dilemma outlined by the essayist Montaigne. In the tradition of the Classical philosophers, he wrote about the need for balance between the active life and the contemplative life. Montaigne himself was engaged in public life in addition to being a writer, so he wrote from first-hand experience. Whereas American culture has been unapologetic about promoting the active life while treating intellectual endeavor with suspicion, France has always valued reflection and inquiry, sometimes at the expense of action. Each culture could learn something from the other. Now back to Wheatcroft’s thesis that France is spiraling uncontrollably into an abyss of demoralization.  Geoffrey, don't you worry.  France will continue to evolve and adapt, by measured steps, with or without a Tour de France champ.  The French people have faced much worse adversity than they are currently facing.  News stories about France that have a negative slant have become a staple for many US and British journalists and commentators of late. As an American of British ancestry who has spent a few years in France, I wonder why some feel that this makes for better reading than a piece that portrays France in its wonderful complexity and without the selective filter of Anglo-Saxon triumphalism.  Deep down, are we struggling with a fear that maybe we have conceded a wee bit too much of our dignity?  Might there be a gnawing doubt underlying all this that maybe the French really do live better than we do, and that they have been right all along?

Comments

[Elisabeth]

This was a very nice, well-articulated post about an article which, unfortunately, I have not read.

There is, of course, as you point out, something a bit naive in the Anglo-Saxon tendency to denigrate the French proclivity for self-criticism (I would actually refer to it more as "self-analysis.") Calling it "morosity" is a bit far-fetched.

Remember your other essay about the feminization of France? America embraces action and all of its "macho" qualities, and deems the French contemplative stance "effeminate." This, to me, is a very short-sighted way of looking at France and at the French.