«We all know how are the French, Platini is French, he believes he is better than anyone else » declared Maradona about the President of the UEFA during the world cup. Or General McChrystal who had non-ambiguous words about the French capital and its politicians, but who had to resign since. So It is no surprise : for the rest of the world, we are haughty and contemptuous, persuaded to be the best, and the performances and attitude of the French football team didn’t do anything to change this cliché.
Why are we considered as haughty and contemptuous ? The weight of the History : More the story of a country is long, more Its inhabitants have a tendency to look with a haughty way the events. This is logical, the old Europe has often this tendency, the English will never say the contrary. But, maybe more than any other country, France puts in front people who had a weird behavior, meaning the ones who refuse to accept authority, refusing to die for anything else than their ideas. And often, they opposed themselves to the English. And because those believed “objectively” being superior to ourselves, declaring ourselves equal to them reflected a haughty attitude, contemptuous, provocating. Napoleon and his marshals did a lot for this reputation. So if you follow the legend, Cambronne, surrounded by British General Colville in Waterloo, could have declared : “the guard dies but does not surrender”, then with the instigation of the British, “shit”. The Cambronne’s shit, a shit to the face of the world that says : “look at us, we have conquered Europe with our armies and our ideas. We lost but we stay for ever the heroes of our time”. «Misfortune to the heroe who is not dead of a heroic death », a judgement often applied literally by the French. The important is not to win with but to die with panache. Besides Cambronne, this discussion between Surcouf and one of his enemy after the war : “ But, Monsieur, admit that you, French, you fought for the money while us, English, we fought for the honor…” . And the French corsair, braggart, to answer : “ certainly, Monsieur, but each fights to acquire what he does not have”. Always the talent for repartee. Or d’Artagnan, not even pubescent but proud like a Gascon, ready to provoke in duel anyone, especially if they are men of the Cardinal or Albions. Or Jeanne d’Arc, virgin, who fights the English outside France. We like to celebrate the acts of panache, big phrases, the « we only will go out with the force of the baionette” more than merciless tactical device. So, by correlation, this tendency to remember only defeats. We never have enough to do again the Alesia Battle, Azincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo, Fachoda or Seville but no one to be delighted of Hastings, Bouvines or Iéna. We declare ourselves son of Vercingétorix, this loser, rather than son of Cesar, who has done nevertheless much more for us. The historian Ernest Renan, already, in a speech in 1882, “what is a nation” explained that the national feeling comes from “an inheritance of glory” but also “regrets to share”. And as for us, they are numerous. Where from this incomprehension on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon who consider that only the victory is beautiful and must be celebrated. here are only the Scottish people and the Dutch football players to understand us. You can find this relationship with History in literature and sometimes in other arts, and so in the culture we spread. Take for example ALexandre Dumas, one of the bestseller French writer in the world. In “the three musketeers”, one of the most memorable scene is the take of the Saint Gervais’ bastion by the four accomplices. Following a bet, during the siege of La Rochelle, they go with food to the assault of this advanced tower and kill a good fifteen protestant soldiers during one hour, with the vivas of the crowd. Once the picnic over, they go back to their trench. It is useless, but It is a story that stays in everyone’s mind. Typically French. With this particular relationship with the History are added numerous cultural elements which allow to consolidate the daily common contempt. Crucial point which makes that the French will always disdain the Anglo-Saxon: gastronomy, obviously. Cliché : we eat badly on the other side of the Channel and of the Atlantic Ocean. Now, in life, it is the most important. Thus the Anglo-Saxon understood nothing in the pleasures of the life. Thus, it is necessary to disdain them : what is needed to say. When the uncultivated American laughs at stinky cheeses, the French throws him the haughty eyebrow of the Greek watching the barbarians tumbling down from the hill. With gastronomy are added the women, who are the most beautiful, obviously, because the most elegant and the thinest of the world. Cliché would you say also (although), so much that books in the United States go out confusedly to understand the secret of the Frenchwomen. The English journalists ask also regularly the question. And are we not the most romantic, the best in bed, those with the longest, etc., etc.? An excellent food, good wines, beautiful women (it is connected) and an immense variety of landscapes and architectures which can make legally proud. France is so the third nation of the world in terms of places and classified monuments to the UNESCO world heritage after Italy and China. All these elements - maybe not very useful, but more tangible to the everyday life than the variations of the stock exchange and the investment rates in R&D-urge the Frenchman to look at their belly button.
Imaginary dialog between an American and a French :
- the American : « look, I have the nicest house and a big Cadillac. I succeeded in life”
- the French : « But to live with whom ? go to eat where and what ? have sex when ?”
- the American : « You are contemptuous, you are incapable to greet the success of the others.
- the French, who already is not listening anymore, thinking with nostalgia at his previous love affairs.
So now, some advices to be as contemptuous as a Frenchman.
Once these truths established, here is some advices to our friends across the Atlantic to be contemptuous as us :
- please do not create : if you spend one year in Paris, absolutely do not start art or any project. Everything has been written, done, by others and better than you (and the critics could go back to the Bible and Homer if necessary). So if you dare presenting your work, everyone will laugh at you and at your presumptuousness to have dared to assert that there was there creation and thus novelty. Adopt the opposite attitude : go to vernissages and laugh at them.
- As a general rule, do not become too enthusiastic. Banish from your vocabulary the “Oh my God” and other “Awesome”. Adopt the “yes, not bad”. At the most, you can eventually become enthusiastic for a nice girl, dedicate her songs and poems. But for a week maximum. Before the next one.
- Do not go to the Café de Flore and Deux-Magots (Saint-Germain-des-Prés) unless you completely lost your accent. It is reserved to the French to laugh at Americans tourists who think they are in a cool place when It’s been 50 years that It is definitely not one anymore. Feel free to make critics at people around you and to spread rumours, even if you don’t know them. Do not have any remorse, the others do the same against you, but with more talent. In general, critic everything. It was better before, It will be better after, you are borna t the wrong time, etc.
- Absolutely do not do your diary of the contempt of any Hello Kitty notebook. By the way, you have no diary, you write the novel of your time (you tell the story of your life, to make it short) at the terrasse of a café, and on a Moleskine one.
Those few historical elements, cultural and the advices should allow you to spend one year, having only one activity : to look at the world around you with disdain and arrogance.
Why are we considered as haughty and contemptuous ? The weight of the History : More the story of a country is long, more Its inhabitants have a tendency to look with a haughty way the events. This is logical, the old Europe has often this tendency, the English will never say the contrary. But, maybe more than any other country, France puts in front people who had a weird behavior, meaning the ones who refuse to accept authority, refusing to die for anything else than their ideas. And often, they opposed themselves to the English. And because those believed “objectively” being superior to ourselves, declaring ourselves equal to them reflected a haughty attitude, contemptuous, provocating. Napoleon and his marshals did a lot for this reputation. So if you follow the legend, Cambronne, surrounded by British General Colville in Waterloo, could have declared : “the guard dies but does not surrender”, then with the instigation of the British, “shit”. The Cambronne’s shit, a shit to the face of the world that says : “look at us, we have conquered Europe with our armies and our ideas. We lost but we stay for ever the heroes of our time”. «Misfortune to the heroe who is not dead of a heroic death », a judgement often applied literally by the French. The important is not to win with but to die with panache. Besides Cambronne, this discussion between Surcouf and one of his enemy after the war : “ But, Monsieur, admit that you, French, you fought for the money while us, English, we fought for the honor…” . And the French corsair, braggart, to answer : “ certainly, Monsieur, but each fights to acquire what he does not have”. Always the talent for repartee. Or d’Artagnan, not even pubescent but proud like a Gascon, ready to provoke in duel anyone, especially if they are men of the Cardinal or Albions. Or Jeanne d’Arc, virgin, who fights the English outside France. We like to celebrate the acts of panache, big phrases, the « we only will go out with the force of the baionette” more than merciless tactical device. So, by correlation, this tendency to remember only defeats. We never have enough to do again the Alesia Battle, Azincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo, Fachoda or Seville but no one to be delighted of Hastings, Bouvines or Iéna. We declare ourselves son of Vercingétorix, this loser, rather than son of Cesar, who has done nevertheless much more for us. The historian Ernest Renan, already, in a speech in 1882, “what is a nation” explained that the national feeling comes from “an inheritance of glory” but also “regrets to share”. And as for us, they are numerous. Where from this incomprehension on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon who consider that only the victory is beautiful and must be celebrated. here are only the Scottish people and the Dutch football players to understand us. You can find this relationship with History in literature and sometimes in other arts, and so in the culture we spread. Take for example ALexandre Dumas, one of the bestseller French writer in the world. In “the three musketeers”, one of the most memorable scene is the take of the Saint Gervais’ bastion by the four accomplices. Following a bet, during the siege of La Rochelle, they go with food to the assault of this advanced tower and kill a good fifteen protestant soldiers during one hour, with the vivas of the crowd. Once the picnic over, they go back to their trench. It is useless, but It is a story that stays in everyone’s mind. Typically French. With this particular relationship with the History are added numerous cultural elements which allow to consolidate the daily common contempt. Crucial point which makes that the French will always disdain the Anglo-Saxon: gastronomy, obviously. Cliché : we eat badly on the other side of the Channel and of the Atlantic Ocean. Now, in life, it is the most important. Thus the Anglo-Saxon understood nothing in the pleasures of the life. Thus, it is necessary to disdain them : what is needed to say. When the uncultivated American laughs at stinky cheeses, the French throws him the haughty eyebrow of the Greek watching the barbarians tumbling down from the hill. With gastronomy are added the women, who are the most beautiful, obviously, because the most elegant and the thinest of the world. Cliché would you say also (although), so much that books in the United States go out confusedly to understand the secret of the Frenchwomen. The English journalists ask also regularly the question. And are we not the most romantic, the best in bed, those with the longest, etc., etc.? An excellent food, good wines, beautiful women (it is connected) and an immense variety of landscapes and architectures which can make legally proud. France is so the third nation of the world in terms of places and classified monuments to the UNESCO world heritage after Italy and China. All these elements - maybe not very useful, but more tangible to the everyday life than the variations of the stock exchange and the investment rates in R&D-urge the Frenchman to look at their belly button.
Imaginary dialog between an American and a French :
- the American : « look, I have the nicest house and a big Cadillac. I succeeded in life”
- the French : « But to live with whom ? go to eat where and what ? have sex when ?”
- the American : « You are contemptuous, you are incapable to greet the success of the others.
- the French, who already is not listening anymore, thinking with nostalgia at his previous love affairs.
So now, some advices to be as contemptuous as a Frenchman.
Once these truths established, here is some advices to our friends across the Atlantic to be contemptuous as us :
- please do not create : if you spend one year in Paris, absolutely do not start art or any project. Everything has been written, done, by others and better than you (and the critics could go back to the Bible and Homer if necessary). So if you dare presenting your work, everyone will laugh at you and at your presumptuousness to have dared to assert that there was there creation and thus novelty. Adopt the opposite attitude : go to vernissages and laugh at them.
- As a general rule, do not become too enthusiastic. Banish from your vocabulary the “Oh my God” and other “Awesome”. Adopt the “yes, not bad”. At the most, you can eventually become enthusiastic for a nice girl, dedicate her songs and poems. But for a week maximum. Before the next one.
- Do not go to the Café de Flore and Deux-Magots (Saint-Germain-des-Prés) unless you completely lost your accent. It is reserved to the French to laugh at Americans tourists who think they are in a cool place when It’s been 50 years that It is definitely not one anymore. Feel free to make critics at people around you and to spread rumours, even if you don’t know them. Do not have any remorse, the others do the same against you, but with more talent. In general, critic everything. It was better before, It will be better after, you are borna t the wrong time, etc.
- Absolutely do not do your diary of the contempt of any Hello Kitty notebook. By the way, you have no diary, you write the novel of your time (you tell the story of your life, to make it short) at the terrasse of a café, and on a Moleskine one.
Those few historical elements, cultural and the advices should allow you to spend one year, having only one activity : to look at the world around you with disdain and arrogance.
No comments:
Post a Comment