French thought once dazzled the world. Where did it go wrong?

http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-did-french-thought-end-up-in-crisis/

by lermontov • 11 years ago

39 56 11 years ago

"... 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.)

javert5• 11 years ago

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.

a3voices• 11 years ago

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

ekianjo6• 11 years ago

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.

ArkyBeagle3• 11 years ago

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.

oh_sigh2• 11 years ago

If society/government treats people like animals, don't be shocked when they behave like animals.

ClintEhrlich• 11 years ago

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.

fra2• 11 years ago

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.

ekianjo6• 11 years ago

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

fra2• 11 years ago

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

oh_sigh2• 11 years ago

Does quality of ideas matter? Maybe the French public love their intellectuals, but are the intellectuals producing high quality ideas?

For example, the suicide you mention was in opposition to, among other things, gay marriage.

bane3• 11 years ago

I've found that in any culture that prizes some quality, a vast number of "posers", who are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, inevitably appear.

What's hot? Artists? Okay, I'll put colored squares on oversized canvases, hobnob in the best parties and call myself an artist.

Philosophers? No problem, I just write 2 or 3 hundred pages of absolutely incomprehensible word vomit and then refuse to answer any questions about the meaning.

Sculpture? I can learn basic welding skills.

It can be very very difficult to separate the cream from the crap in abstract fields.

joe5150• 11 years ago

That Dominique Venner was "well regarded" tells us all we need to know about the French public's "intellectual" interests.

ekianjo6• 11 years ago

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.

javert5• 11 years ago

Indeed. I have heard it said that the French Revolution marked the end of the Enlightenment.

No doubt that the founders of the French Revolution didn't quite have the intellectual framework they needed.

Neither did the US Founding Fathers---their "natural rights" (granted by a "Creator") was extremely close, but has not withstood the test of time.

edit: I wrote a long and thoughtful response to a grandchild of this comment, but then could not post it because I am "submitting too fast"---fuck you too, HN.

virmundi• 11 years ago

The only intellectual framework that could work, outside of a Creator, is a state of nature. The problem with the Founders' and the French's state of nature argument is theirs wasn't the Nihilists' state of nature. The Nihilists are right. If there is no creator, all morality and power structures are arbitrary.

Without a foundation on which to build or an authority to appeal, everything is permissible. We might say that something's wrong. Unfortunately it's only wrong as long as a society arbitrarily says so. That goes for everything. Nothing has any meaning apart from what we say. Everything will be forgotten. This means that everything will have no speaker. Thus is will mean nothing.

Most people can't live with that. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming years.

ZanyProgrammer2• 11 years ago

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

ekianjo6• 11 years ago

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.

bereasonable• 11 years ago

Here's similar commentary by the Times http://nyti.ms/16UBfHL

Drup• 11 years ago

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...

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....

icanhackit2• 11 years ago

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?

Dylan16807• 11 years ago

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.

Or they just prefer a whirlwind of experience, moving around to take in the area from many angles, rather than stopping and passively soaking in a slice.

I wouldn't say either is better. You just have your preference.

javert5• 11 years ago

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.

eevilspock2• 11 years ago

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.

icanhackit2• 11 years ago

Individualism has nothing to do with it.

My argument was that individualism, unchecked by introspection and consideration, drives people towards simplistic behaviors focused on the self. As a result, cultures that reward introspection and consideration are at a disadvantage to cultures focused on consumption.

eevilspock2• 11 years ago

The other offshoot of unbridled individualism is the belief in social darwinism.

I say this as no fan of the French: If American intellectuals, from Bible Belt "personal responsibility" types to Silicon Valley libertarians[1], don't reverse their deep social darwinist convictions, it will soon be "American thought once dazzled the world. Where did it go wrong?"

(and no amount of down-voting will prevent that.)

[1] where "meritocracy" is often code for social darwanism.

ArkyBeagle3• 11 years ago

Social Darwinism was an error of Spencer's, but the world was a billiard-ball, Determinist world then. So the end position of a particle must be determined by it's initial direction and velocity. Malthus was strikingly similar but different.

Nobody's actually a Social Darwinist now. There's just the Conservative "barbarians are at the gate" thing and too much emphasis on fame.

To forgive Spencer, you should at least read Social Statics. :)

bane3• 11 years ago

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.

ZanyProgrammer2• 11 years ago

"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.

bane3• 11 years ago

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

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

alricb3• 11 years ago

By European standards, France is a truly old country; its population today (66M people) is barely three times what it was in 1700 (21M). By contrast, England went from 5M people to 53M today, or about ten times the size.

vonnik4• 11 years ago

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.

alricb3• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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).

vonnik4• 11 years ago

Signing an Armistice is not a victory. The French and Germans both signed, after French soil was occupied for years and many of its best farmland destroyed during the war. The Germans were outmaneuvered during the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles, because their government had been destabilized. The French were resting on their laurels every time the Germans invaded, all through the 19th century and the 20th. It's a national pass time.

cafard2• 11 years ago

Resting on their laurels? How about hollowed out by the demographic losses?

aikah• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

French intellectuals today

Off the top of my head:

- Yann LeCun

- Yoshua Bengio

- Thomas Picketty

I'm sure there are many others...

bsaul• 11 years ago

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.

French thought once dazzled the world. Where did it go wrong?

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