Feb 5, 2016 01:08 AM
(This post was last modified: Feb 5, 2016 05:52 PM by C C.)
I am French: Xenophobia and the new middle class
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n02/jeremy-harding/i-am-french
EXCERPT: [...] Growing inequality is one of the central preoccupations in "Who is Charlie?", Emmanuel Todd’s short, polemical book about what is and isn’t ‘equal’ about France, which parts of the country are historically disposed to egalitarian values while others aren’t, and how the trinity of liberty, equality, fraternity came to crumble in the middle like a rotten plank. France, which lived through a series of bracing egalitarian interludes, on again, off again, from 1789 until the end of the Third Republic, is sensitive to the charge that equality is disappearing. In theory at least, Republicanism cannot exist without equality, since it ensures that no interest group, or class, or faction, can hijack the exercise of popular sovereignty, or merely subvert it, at the expense of other citizens. In Todd’s view, France must face up to the reality of a post-Republican era and admit that its leaders have sold its Revolutionary birthright for a mess of EU pottage: budgetary rules in Brussels and monetary policy in Frankfurt have made it impossible to promote equality or intervene when it is under threat.
His other preoccupation is the widening rift in Europe – France especially – between citizens of North African descent and the rest. Todd holds the rest largely responsible for this polarisation and the dangers that attend it. His book is a brilliant piece of wishful thinking, in which the rediscovery of equality and the reconciliation of believers with unbelievers will go hand in hand as France emerges from a long period of difficulty, some time in the future, with its core values restored. It will have shut out the siren voices emanating from Brussels, which sang the praises of competitive markets and globalised trade; crucially it will have abandoned the euro. France’s leaders should have been lashed to the mast by the electorate, but they weren’t, and the ship of state foundered. It may not be too late to repair it and set a course, but that will depend on many things, including whether the ‘nation’ – the French people, bound together by a common past and an ideological purpose (to keep the sense of belonging alive) – can come to their senses, in spite of their politicians. The nation’s sense of its past may also need updating to take account of recent immigrants and their descendants, as well as their religion.....
How intellectuals create a public
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Intelle...e-a/234984
EXCERPT: [...] Though the public intellectual is a political actor, a performer on stage, what differentiates her from the celebrity or publicity hound is that she is writing for an audience that does not yet exist. Unlike the ordinary journalist or enterprising scholar, she is writing for a reader she hopes to bring into being. She never speaks to the reader as he is; she speaks to the reader as he might be. Her common reader is an uncommon reader.
The reason for this has less do with the elitism of the intellectual — mine is no brief for an avant garde or philosopher king — than with the existence, really, the nonexistence, of the public. Publics, as John Dewey argued, never simply exist; they are always created. Created out of groups of people who are made and mangled by the actions of other people. Capital acts upon labor, subjugating men and women at work, making them miserable at home. Those workers are not yet a public. But when someone says — someone writes — "Workers of the world, unite!," they become a public that is willing and able to act upon its shared situation. It is in the writing of such words, the naming of such names — "Workers of the world" or "We, the People," even "The Problem That Has No Name" — that a public is summoned into being. In the act of writing for a public, intellectuals create the public for which they write.
This is why the debate over jargon versus plain language is, in this context, misplaced. The underlying assumption of that debate is that the public is simply there, waiting to be addressed. The academic philosopher with his notorious inaccessibility — say, Adorno — obviously has no wish to address the public; the essayist with his demotic presence and proficiency — say, Hazlitt — obviously does. Yet both Adorno and Hazlitt spoke to audiences that did not exist but which they hoped would come into being....
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n02/jeremy-harding/i-am-french
EXCERPT: [...] Growing inequality is one of the central preoccupations in "Who is Charlie?", Emmanuel Todd’s short, polemical book about what is and isn’t ‘equal’ about France, which parts of the country are historically disposed to egalitarian values while others aren’t, and how the trinity of liberty, equality, fraternity came to crumble in the middle like a rotten plank. France, which lived through a series of bracing egalitarian interludes, on again, off again, from 1789 until the end of the Third Republic, is sensitive to the charge that equality is disappearing. In theory at least, Republicanism cannot exist without equality, since it ensures that no interest group, or class, or faction, can hijack the exercise of popular sovereignty, or merely subvert it, at the expense of other citizens. In Todd’s view, France must face up to the reality of a post-Republican era and admit that its leaders have sold its Revolutionary birthright for a mess of EU pottage: budgetary rules in Brussels and monetary policy in Frankfurt have made it impossible to promote equality or intervene when it is under threat.
His other preoccupation is the widening rift in Europe – France especially – between citizens of North African descent and the rest. Todd holds the rest largely responsible for this polarisation and the dangers that attend it. His book is a brilliant piece of wishful thinking, in which the rediscovery of equality and the reconciliation of believers with unbelievers will go hand in hand as France emerges from a long period of difficulty, some time in the future, with its core values restored. It will have shut out the siren voices emanating from Brussels, which sang the praises of competitive markets and globalised trade; crucially it will have abandoned the euro. France’s leaders should have been lashed to the mast by the electorate, but they weren’t, and the ship of state foundered. It may not be too late to repair it and set a course, but that will depend on many things, including whether the ‘nation’ – the French people, bound together by a common past and an ideological purpose (to keep the sense of belonging alive) – can come to their senses, in spite of their politicians. The nation’s sense of its past may also need updating to take account of recent immigrants and their descendants, as well as their religion.....
How intellectuals create a public
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Intelle...e-a/234984
EXCERPT: [...] Though the public intellectual is a political actor, a performer on stage, what differentiates her from the celebrity or publicity hound is that she is writing for an audience that does not yet exist. Unlike the ordinary journalist or enterprising scholar, she is writing for a reader she hopes to bring into being. She never speaks to the reader as he is; she speaks to the reader as he might be. Her common reader is an uncommon reader.
The reason for this has less do with the elitism of the intellectual — mine is no brief for an avant garde or philosopher king — than with the existence, really, the nonexistence, of the public. Publics, as John Dewey argued, never simply exist; they are always created. Created out of groups of people who are made and mangled by the actions of other people. Capital acts upon labor, subjugating men and women at work, making them miserable at home. Those workers are not yet a public. But when someone says — someone writes — "Workers of the world, unite!," they become a public that is willing and able to act upon its shared situation. It is in the writing of such words, the naming of such names — "Workers of the world" or "We, the People," even "The Problem That Has No Name" — that a public is summoned into being. In the act of writing for a public, intellectuals create the public for which they write.
This is why the debate over jargon versus plain language is, in this context, misplaced. The underlying assumption of that debate is that the public is simply there, waiting to be addressed. The academic philosopher with his notorious inaccessibility — say, Adorno — obviously has no wish to address the public; the essayist with his demotic presence and proficiency — say, Hazlitt — obviously does. Yet both Adorno and Hazlitt spoke to audiences that did not exist but which they hoped would come into being....
![[Image: never_question_by_adbusters.jpg]](http://img10.deviantart.net/cdcb/i/2005/179/6/c/never_question_by_adbusters.jpg)