
French thought once dazzled the world. Where did it go wrong? - lermontov
http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-did-french-thought-end-up-in-crisis/
======
vonnik
Generalizations about entire nations, and about the French in particular, are
tiresome and usually trite.

The French are incredibly successful at producing very smart people, whom they
have exported to other economies for the last several decades, at least since
the end of _les trente glorieuses_ , or the post-War boom. French quants are
famous on Wall Street and in London. Two of the most prominent researchers in
deep learning, my field, are French: Yann LeCun and Yoshua Bengio.
(Interestingly, they both pursued careers in North America.)

The author seems to be referring to philosophy when using the word "thought".
Philosophy, like most of the humanities, is having a hard time in many
countries besides France, so any analysis of its decline in France should
examine transnational trends in university funding, department enrollment and
the job prospects of philosophy majors, among other factors.

France has been in gentle decline for about 200 years, since Napoleon returned
defeated from Moscow. They have not won a single war since then (spare me the
air raids on Tripoli...). Their inability to conquer on the ground means they
have exercised less and less influence in the world, despite having nuclear
weapons and a seat on the security council. As an economy, they have slipped
to 6th-largest GDP -- and third in Europe after the UK and Germany. No one
talks about the death of German thought.

French was once on the language of diplomacy, but it's been on the wrong side
of history even in the EU, where the accession of Sweden, Norway and Finland
in the mid-90s made English _much_ more important.

At home, the French have done little to renew their society or their elite,
which is dominated by the alumni of a few elite schools. While Americans are
aware of the ossified class structure of Great Britain, they remain largely
ignorant of similar rigidities in France. But France is bad at helping its
citizens realize their potential, and very good at employing bureaucrats to
tell them "non." If they want better thinkers, they only have to look at the
ridiculous layers of exclusion that they have built for themselves. Until they
fix it, the best talent will surely flee.

~~~
alricb
The French won WWI, yo. It was a Pyrrhic victory, but it was a victory. That's
partly why they lost WWII; they were resting on their laurels.

~~~
kincardine
I think it would also be hard to say that France lost the Second World War.
The French government signed an armistice, but France was also part of the
victorious Allies (with French units being involved in both the liberation of
France and the invasion of Germany).

~~~
vonnik
Germany may have been defeated at the end of WWII, but France was routed
during the war. The Germans occupied the northern parts of the country, and
were widely accepted by a population of collaborators and anti-Semites. The
Vichy government of the south was a puppet structure controlled by the Nazis.
The French did not successfully resist, or participate in the victory in any
meaningful way, until they started writing textbooks in the post-War period.
France was reconquered by Americans, British and Canadian soldiers with a
token French army.

~~~
Thimothy
The textbook comment is pretty funny, as the french from 1945 have a quite
different opinion about who actually won the war.

[http://www.les-crises.fr/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/sondage-...](http://www.les-crises.fr/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/sondage-nation-contribue-defaite-nazis.jpg)

~~~
vonnik
Yeah, I think there's more acknowledgement in Europe of the sacrifices the
USSR made during the war, particularly in countries like France with a strong
communist tradition. But winning the war and reconquering France were two
different things. The latter was an affair for the western powers.

------
Drup
Interesting article, I would like to comment two parts

> The French fondness for abstraction appears in its most paradoxical (and
> perverse) form in the absence of precise statistical information about their
> Maghrebi minorities, as it is illegal to collect data about ethnicity and
> religion in France

I don't think that's the reason at all. My guess would be it's a scar of this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Tulard#The_Tulard_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Tulard#The_Tulard_files_.28fichier_Tulard.29)

> an over-reliance on abstraction, and a fetish for semantics

There is a domain where this is and has been a good thing: science. There is
still a strong french mathematic (and more recently computer science)
tradition going on, with specific fields pioneered and developed mostly in
france.

Our ministry of education is actively trying to kill all that with the latest
school reforms, though....

------
icanhackit
_The French are still exceptionally devoted to their culture, to an extent
that is unique in the Western world._

It's funny when the two collide. Sitting in Champ de Mars watching people walk
by while enjoying sun, wine and a cigarette I was struck by how many Western
tourists were too busy with their selfie sticks and massaging their online
persona to give a fuck that they were somewhere beautiful and rich in history.

I think a big problem is that individualism, the precursor for optimal
consumer behavior, has been incredibly effective at driving people to lowest-
common-denominator behaviors, chiefly narcissism, and left a good chunk of the
worlds population cretinized. How can French culture or any advanced culture
compete?

~~~
javert
Individualism has nothing to do with it. The French people actually enjoying
the Champ de Mars are not _not_ being individualistic. Rather, enjoying
private pleasures _is_ individualistic.

What you are actually lampooning is being thoughtless and having poor taste.

~~~
eevilspock
He isn't saying being individualistic is bad, but that the philosophy that
elevated individualism above all else leads to, among other things,
narcissism. The latter is what he lampoons.

Many Americans observe Millennials to be the most narcissistic generation
ever. I think there is much truth in that. But I also see hopeful signs of
reversal. Maybe.

~~~
javert
Complaining about "narcissism" has recently, and strangely, become part of our
cultural milieu. I don't know what is really meant by that term or why it is
supposed to be a problem. It seems like the intellectual boogeyman de jure.

If "Millennials" really are narcissistic, they will most likely grow out of it
(whatever it is) in the normal course of, you know, growing up.

Separately:

> the philosophy that elevated individualism above all else

I don't know of any such philosophy in particular. Except possibly Ayn Rand's,
which is not what he is talking about.

Enlightenment philosophy in general does elevate individualism, but not "above
all else."

~~~
Jtsummers
> If "Millennials" really are narcissistic, they will most likely grow out of
> it (whatever it is) in the normal course of, you know, growing up.

They might. But the Baby Boomers were also known as the "me generation", and
they don't seem to have grown out of it. And the millennials are the
consequence of the baby boomers' childrearing.

NB: Individuals in any generation may be exceptions. I'm speaking specifically
to the gross cultural, business and political trends these generations
exhibit.

------
AnimalMuppet
> "... and a corresponding contempt for empirical knowledge..."

That's where it went wrong. It took its theories too seriously, and didn't
know when they were being followed to unreasonable places, and so didn't know
when to stop. It followed brilliant (or brilliant-sounding) ideas without
common sense, and it turned out that they didn't lead anywhere.

The French Revolution was fueled by the French intellectuals, but it led to
the Terror, and then to Napoleon and a decade of war. Reality didn't match
theory.

Existentialism did wonderfully at describing what was wrong with much of life,
but it didn't actually give you a way to _build_ a life. If you tried to live
your life according to existentialism, you got... where?

Derrida gave us deconstructionism. But if you actually want to communicate
with people, where does deconstructionism get you? (And don't bother to say
that people can't communicate. Even Derrida communicated; that's how we know
what he thought.)

~~~
javert
Bingo.

Good theory can only come by looking out at reality, which is what empiricists
like John Locke promoted.

In France, the disease of theorizing separate from (and eventually in defiance
of) reality started with Descartes, and then spread to many subsequent German
and French philosophers.

Decartes was really just riffing off of Plato (who may have been riffing off
Pythagoras), though.

------
aikah
Lol, let's just look at french intellectuals today. Bernard Henri Levy ? Henri
Guaino ? i mean come on. Official culture and "pensée unique" killed French
thought. In France the government decides of everything ,even official history
and "protected" culture often means the same guys get money/percs from the
state over and over again, shutting down any potential artistic and cultural
competition. So if an artist wants to make it has better chances in UK or US.

There are also technical and reputation issues like the needless complexity of
the language ( I'm better at writing English than French yet I am French) and
the unconditional alignment of french foreign policies with US interests (
from which we gain absolutely nothing).

France is weak, its people is so desperate it elects mediocre leaders, the
educated youth is moving abroad because there is very little future if you are
not "well connected" and it's not going to change anytime soon.

~~~
abrichr
> French intellectuals today

Off the top of my head:

\- Yann LeCun

\- Yoshua Bengio

\- Thomas Picketty

I'm sure there are many others...

------
fra
The death of French intellectualism & thought is overplayed.

One needs only tune in to French TV or radio stations to convince herself that
France's obsession with public intellectuals is alive and well.

This is the country where, a year or two ago, a well regarded historian
committed suicide in Notre-Dame de Paris as a political statement; and where
Bernard-Henry Levy and Michel Onfray are best selling authors.

~~~
ekianjo
Bernard-Henry Levy is a clown and viewed like that by many french folks as
well.

~~~
fra
The fact that most people have an opinion about him proves my point, really.

~~~
ekianjo
It's hard not to have an opinion when BHL spends all of his time on TV.

------
ekianjo
> Thus, 1789 was not only a landmark in French thought, but the culmination of
> the Enlightenment’s philosophical radicalism: it gave rise to a new
> republican political culture, and enduringly associated the very idea of
> Frenchness with novelty and resistance to oppression.

Resistance to oppression ? Meh. The very regime that created the Declaration
of Rights also created the Terror and send hundred of thousands of innocent
people to the Guillotine, and started a genocide in Vendee. Ideals did not
live up to the fact - when it came to action, Danton and the like were all
just like their former masters, violent and without mercy.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
For about half of the 19th century, France was not a republic either.

~~~
ekianjo
Well the term "republic" is overused, even now 99% of the politicians come
from the same class, went to the same school and basically are the same no
matter which party they end up in. French elections are really just for show.

~~~
renox
True, but criticisms are easy solutions are hard..

------
ClintEhrlich
Perhaps French thought is no longer the toast of the anglosphere, but its
specter still haunts modern society.

The Enlightenment was founded on two contradictory values: (1) Reverence for
reason (2) Dogmatic adherence to 'liberal' values. In the name of the former,
French thinkers devoted themselves to the latter with disastrous results.

Myths like human perfectibility still muddy our thinking. And 'natural rights'
remain hallowed, even among atheists, who seem remarkably unconcerned about
their accompanying metaphysical baggage.

------
bereasonable
Here's similar commentary by the Times
[http://nyti.ms/16UBfHL](http://nyti.ms/16UBfHL)

------
bsaul
Interesting piece, but i wonder why did the author felt the need to add the
part regarding muslims integration in western societies. The profound
divisions between muslims and non-muslims is present throughout the world. I
don't really see the link with french idealism.

------
bane
_edit_ _warning -- beer post_

I've been spending a little time trying to overcome the kind of particular
anti-French thought that only growing up in the U.S. can provide. I haven't
done more than dip my toes into French culture and history, but find myself
both simultaneously deeply impressed and disappointed.

In many ways it feels like a more structured, more civilized parallel of the
Anglo tradition I grew up in. There seems to be some kind of parallel in every
kind of historic point -- but taken towards an alternate direction by the
currents of French culture.

I visited Paris first, and like many tourists fell in love with the city.
Then, a few years later, I visited London and was disquieted by both its
familiarity as an American and its differences -- which I could only relate as
a less organized version of French thought on high-civilization.

French literature really is great, French art is the work of superhumans...you
_almost_ feel transcendent, like you are riding a great wave that's forcing
humanity into a future. It may sound silly, but when I watch "The 5th
Element", the French vision of future New York City, unlike anything
envisioned in the Anglosphere, has such a magnetic attraction, such a complete
_vision_ , I want to dive into the screen and explore this place.

So it's weird to find out about oddly, deeply, conservative parts of French
civilization. They're conservative with an intensity that Fox News could never
replicate. Académie française, the preservation of the architecture of central
Paris, Sarkozy, various kinds of agriculture protectionism, etc. I'm sure I
view these with the same kind of palm-greets-forehead many French view
American politics and news media.

When I realize that the French had the first go at the Panama canal and come
to appreciate the impressive accomplishments of French engineering, Minitel: a
pre-internet national network, the Paris Subway system, and so on...we
Americans are taught to deride many of these accomplishments and attempts at
greatness because they failed or didn't take over the world...while American
(or British) versions did...well, the more I learn the more I appreciate the
incredible state of advancement of the French civilization in many areas.

France still leads in various areas: sophistication of Food, philosophy,
arguably art...but I can't help but feel that in many ways the current
civilization is a diminished version of what it once was. Walking around Paris
you can't help but be deeply impressed at the beauty and sophistication...the
"perfection" of the ideal of Parisian life. You really don't need more
creature comforts because that kind of life is almost, objectively, "the
best".

But then, as you're walking down a beautiful, gobsmackingly amazing rue, you
get accosted by a homeless person, or a cheap car belches fumes on you, or you
have to walk around a street "artist" who's performance art consists of
painting themselves in used automotive oil or some nonsense. The ideal feels
further and further out of reach, an impossible future, set down hundreds of
years in the past, that humankind isn't quite ready to achieve.

London, New York, D.C. and other great Anglo cities on the other hand, seems
to sit far more comfortably in their respective mediocrity. But several times
daily, I find myself indebted to the fruits of French civilization.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
"So it's weird to find out about oddly, deeply, conservative parts of French
civilization."-and at best most French are culturally Christian/Catholic.
Christianity is as dead in France (at least amongst non immigrants) as it is
elsewhere in Western Europe. That's far from being conservative.

~~~
bane
Don't confuse "conservative" with "religious".

One surprising thing in my little looks into the Francosphere is how _little_
religion plays.

~~~
renox
> One surprising thing in my little looks into the Francosphere is how little
> religion plays.

How little? When gay marriage was (finally) legalized, religious people were
out in force trying to avoid it. That they failed is an improvement though:
when public funding for private (religious) school was threatened to be
removed (in the 80s), the same people managed to prevent it.

------
a3voices
Maybe it went wrong when they started chopping off everyone's heads?

~~~
ekianjo
Yes, this is what everyone keeps forgetting. The same folks who were for
Freedom and self determination went off chopping heads like crazy right after
that. And yet the "Revolution" is still celebrated, while it's a gross apology
of Murder as a whole.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Remember that Robespeirre was led to the guillotine. Once the killing starts,
you're riding the tiger. So far as I know, Beria would have killed Stalin had
he had the chance. Same basic deal.

~~~
ekianjo
Robespierre had lived way too long - his existence made the Terror continue
for years and he was unchallenged at the Commune until they finally got to get
rid of him - and stop the craziness of the Terror.

