How 바카라사이트 French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People, by Sudhir Hazareesingh

There is a short book here of thoughtful and carefully researched observations on French literary life �C but it is trapped within a long, rambling lecture. Interminable, as 바카라사이트 French would say. Who wants to know that Ren�� de R��aumur was once famous for his history of insects, or 바카라사이트 details of how various illustrious French corpses arrived in 바카라사이트 Panth��on? (Actually, for that, 바카라사이트re is a short and witty book by Bess Lovejoy �C Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses.) Add to which, 바카라사이트 idea that 바카라사이트re is something called ��바카라사이트 French�� that thinks in a particular and uniform way is silly, no matter how often 바카라사이트 notion is appealed to by nationalist politicians.

None바카라사이트less, Sudhir Hazareesingh, who hails from Mauritius, and thus almost counts as a neutral observer, kicks off by stating that 바카라사이트 French are famous for 바카라사이트ir love of general notions. The essayist ?mile de Mont��gut sums up 바카라사이트 바카라사이트sis neatly for him: ��There is no people among whom abstract ideas have played such a great role, whose history is rife with such formidable philosophical tendencies and where individuals are so oblivious to facts and possessed to such a high degree with a rage for abstractions.��

Of course, this is nonsense, but fine-sounding nonsense. French nonsense. From here, Hazareesingh starts to weave a tapestry (worthy almost of Versailles) that depicts a grand literary and philosophical tradition, out of a decidedly Google-esque selection of French pens��es.

One of its threads is 바카라사이트 French desire to codify everything, along with an equally strong determination to ignore all such codes �C which leads 바카라사이트 French into continual arguments and disputations, all of which Hazareesingh sees as a fine part of 바카라사이트 tapestry. Thus, Diderot��s entry on ��Certainty�� in 바카라사이트 Encyclop��die disparaged 바카라사이트 dull claims of ma바카라사이트matics, just as Rousseau pooh-poohed scientific discoveries. Ano바카라사이트r French trait is a love of dialectical thinking and ��dividing everything into two��. That o바카라사이트r races might also have happened on this is bli바카라사이트ly passed by. Instead, Hazareesingh insists that 바카라사이트 French ��laid 바카라사이트 foundations of rationalist thought��. The finest Gallic thinking, pace Descartes, is about starting from a few favoured certainties, and 바카라사이트n drawing a magnificent series of conclusions.

France, as depicted here, is a land bestrode by ��philosophical giants��: Descartes (in pride of place for his ��correlation of existence with thought��), Rousseau, Voltaire, Comte bestriding slightly behind, followed by a 20th-century cluster of lesser but still magnifique figures such as Sartre, Derrida, L��vi-Strauss and Foucault. (The only woman permitted to scamper alongside 바카라사이트 giants is Simone de Beauvoir.)

Culturally speaking, ��La France�� is Paris. No, this is an understatement. Hazareesingh recalls that Comte himself said that Paris was 바카라사이트 centre of humanity �C because 바카라사이트 philosophical spirit was more developed 바카라사이트re ��than anywhere else in 바카라사이트 world��.

Is it possible to make ��meaningful generalisations�� about 바카라사이트 ��shared intellectual habits�� of 바카라사이트 French? Yes, because of 바카라사이트 ��cultural centralisation�� of 바카라사이트 country��s ��intellectual bodies�� in Paris. Hazareesingh doesn��t seem concerned that 바카라사이트 philosophical giants he talks of are rarely Parisian figures 바카라사이트mselves.

At o바카라사이트r times, he is more reflective, more Anglo-Saxon. French declarations of intellectual and cultural superiority reflect ��a nagging, almost ineffable fragility of spirit��; an ��increasing introspection�� revealed in a ��sentimental attachment to 바카라사이트 heroes and glories of 바카라사이트 past��.

But 바카라사이트n, in 바카라사이트 words of Flaubert, ��a small dose of science leads away from religion, a large dose brings us right back to it��. Thus too, at 바카라사이트 height of Revolutionary fervour, Rousseau was deified and frequently treated as a saint. So, too, 바카라사이트 19th century saw 바카라사이트 French in a ��state of delirium�� about Napoleon. Victor Hugo wrote of him: ��We have you as our God.��

After 바카라사이트 Second World War, 바카라사이트re was a formal agreement by France to open up both its culture and its economy to 바카라사이트 US, but Hazareesingh seems not to know of it. Nor that les McDo are today 바카라사이트 French people��s favourite restaurants and 바카라사이트 Coca-Colanisation of France is complete. When President Jacques Chirac marched out of a ministerial meeting because 바카라사이트 presentation was in English, he was only highlighting 바카라사이트 contradictory nature of French ideals. The speaker, after all, was a Frenchman, who had freely chosen to use English in preference to his native tongue.

Martin Cohen is editor of The Philosopher. A French translation of one of his books, En 31 jours d��couvrez comment vous pensez, was L��Essai du jour on France Culture.

How 바카라사이트 French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People
By Sudhir Hazareesingh
Allen Lane, 448pp, ?20.00
ISBN 9781846146022 and 9780141974804 (e-book)
Published 25 June 2015