
Henri Bergson, Celebrity - lermontov
https://aeon.co/essays/henri-bergson-the-philosopher-damned-for-his-female-fans
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cannam
I found this very illuminating. I had never heard of Bergson until a few weeks
ago, when I read Naguib Mahfouz's trilogy about family life in Cairo in the
first half of the 20th century. These novels feature a (male) character who
studies and writes about Bergson, and I wondered whether he was supposed to be
a widely recognised subject of the time. Although Bergson appears to be
popularly a sort of anti-rationalist, for the character in the novels his
philosophy is a gateway away from the family's traditional Islam toward a
rationalist view which distances him from the people around him. There is a
mirror between these books and this article, in that the books are written
from a masculine perspective and are ostensibly about a patriarch, but it is
the women in the books who motivate much of the action.

~~~
paganel
> These novels feature a (male) character who studies and writes about
> Bergson, and I wondered whether he was supposed to be a widely recognised
> subject of the time.

He kind of was pretty popular in the 1920s and the 1930s, at least in
francophile countries and on the European continent generally speaking (I
suppose Egypt's intelligentsia from back in the day was heavily influenced by
what was popular in mainland Europe). For example Emil Cioran [1] had his
graduation thesis on Bergson.

I'm mentioning Cioran because I myself am Romanian and whenever I visit any
bookstores outside of the country I usually check the philosophy shelves for
Cioran's books, because I'm curious about his reception. Well, he's basically
considered as one of their own in France, he's also pretty popular in Spain
and in Italy (I mean, as popular as a guy writing about nothingness can be), I
think I also found his books in Austria, but in London he is virtually
unknown. I remember reading an interview in the Financial Times with a French
billionaire, with the billionaire citing Cioran and with the interviewer (I
suppose he was British) asking who that was.

What I'm trying to say it's that I find very interesting this distinction
between mainland Europe vs UK + USA when it comes to books and the so-called
"high culture". You'd think that 70+ years of mass consumption and Western
mono-culture would have totally erased any differences by now but there are
still some hold-outs.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran)

~~~
Bayart
>Well, he's basically considered as one of their own in France

He's just as French as Chopin :)

>What I'm trying to say it's that I find very interesting this distinction
between mainland Europe vs UK + USA when it comes to books and the so-called
"high culture". You'd think that 70+ years of mass consumption and Western
mono-culture would have totally erased any differences by now but there are
still some hold-outs.

Established erudite culture, for lack of a better term, is less permeable to
pop-culture. Strong cultural institutions are a good bulwark against
acculturation. Churches played that role for a long time.

