{"id":1745,"date":"2019-03-20T10:08:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T09:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2019-03-20T10:08:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T09:08:48","slug":"the-decline-of-the-french-intellectual-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/2019\/03\/20\/the-decline-of-the-french-intellectual-politico\/","title":{"rendered":"The decline of the French intellectual \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>M\u1ea5y \u00fd ch\u00ednh v\u1ec1 nguy\u00ean nh\u00e2n &#8220;xu\u1ed1ng c\u1ea5p&#8221; c\u1ee7a tr\u00ed th\u1ee9c Ph\u00e1p:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; H\u1ec7 th\u1ed1ng \u0111\u1ea1i h\u1ecdc qu\u00e1 \u0111\u00f4ng v\u00e0 thi\u1ebfu ti\u1ec1n, l\u00e0m cho n\u00f3 gi\u1ea3m \u0111i t\u00ednh tinh hoa v\u00e0 t\u0103ng t\u00ednh k\u1ef9 thu\u1eadt, l\u00e0m cho s\u1ea3n ph\u1ea9m c\u1ee7a n\u00f3 (tr\u00ed th\u1ee9c) gi\u1ea3m \u0111i t\u00ednh ph\u1ee9c t\u1ea1p v\u00e0 s\u00e1ng t\u1ea1o.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; N\u1ec1n v\u0103n h\u00f3a v\u00e0 kinh t\u1ebf Ph\u00e1p b\u1ecb gi\u1ea3m d\u1ea7n s\u1ee9c \u1ea3nh h\u01b0\u1edfng tr\u00ean th\u1ebf gi\u1edbi, l\u00e0m ng\u01b0\u1eddi Ph\u00e1p bi quan v\u00e0 gi\u1ea3m h\u00f9ng t\u00e2m gi\u00e0nh v\u1ecb tr\u00ed h\u00e0ng \u0111\u1ea7u.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"story-intro format-s\">\n<div class=\"summary\">\n<header>\n<p class=\"category custom-label\">LEFT BANK<\/p>\n<h1>The decline of the French intellectual<\/h1>\n<p class=\"subhead\">Paris has ceased to be a major center of innovation in the humanities and social sciences.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<footer class=\"meta\">By <span class=\"byline\"> <span class=\"vcard\"><a class=\"url fn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/author\/sudhir-hazareesingh\/\" rel=\"author\">Sudhir Hazareesingh<\/a><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"timestamp\"><time datetime=\"2015-09-19T13:05:42+00:00\">9\/19\/15, 1:05 PM CET<\/time><\/p>\n<p class=\"updated\">Updated <time datetime=\"2015-09-22T07:21:23+00:00\">9\/22\/15, 7:21 AM CET<\/time><\/p>\n<\/footer>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>One of the most characteristic inventions of modern French culture is the \u201cintellectual.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Intellectuals in France are not just experts in their particular fields, such as literature, art, philosophy and history. They also speak in universal terms, and are expected to provide moral guidance about general social and political issues. Indeed, the most eminent French intellectuals are almost sacred figures, who became global symbols of the causes they championed \u2014 thus Voltaire\u2019s powerful <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.org\/newsroom\/article.asp?id=2095\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">denunciation<\/a>\u00a0of religious intolerance, Rousseau\u2019s rousing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/06\/05\/opinion\/05iht-edlamont.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">defense<\/a>\u00a0of republican freedom, Victor Hugo\u2019s eloquent <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Napol%C3%A9on_le_Petit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tirade<\/a> against Napoleonic despotism, \u00c9mile Zola\u2019s passionate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/theguardian\/2011\/feb\/24\/archive-zola-trial-dreyfus-affair-1898\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">plea<\/a> for justice during the Dreyfus Affair, and Simone de Beauvoir\u2019s bold <a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/beauvoir\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">advocacy<\/a> of women\u2019s emancipation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-interrupt format-s pos-alpha predetermined\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-Instory-1\" class=\"dfp-ad dfp-Instory-1\">\n<div class=\"ad-wrapper\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Above all, intellectuals have provided the French with a comforting sense of national pride. As the progressive thinker <a href=\"http:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Edgar-Quinet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Edgar Quinet<\/a> put it, with a big dollop of Gallic self-satisfaction: \u201cFrance\u2019s vocation is to consume herself for the glory of the world, for others as much as for herself, for an ideal which is yet to be attained of humanity and world civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><strong>This French intellectualism<\/strong> has also manifested itself in a dazzling array of theories about knowledge, liberty, and the human condition. Successive generations of modern intellectuals \u2014 most of them schooled at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ens.fr\/?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u00c9cole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure<\/a> in Paris\u00a0\u2014 have hotly debated the meaning of life in books, newspaper articles, petitions, reviews and journals, in the process coining abstruse philosophical systems such as <a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/continental-rationalism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rationalism<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iep.utm.edu\/eclectic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eclecticism<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spiritualism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">spiritualism<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/republicanism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">republicanism<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Socialism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">socialism<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Positivism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">positivism<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/existentialism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">existentialism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This feverish theoretical activity came to a head in the decades after\u00a0World War\u00a0Two\u00a0in the emergence of <a href=\"https:\/\/philosophynow.org\/issues\/10\/A_Gentle_Introduction_to_Structuralism_Postmodernism_And_All_That\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">structuralism<\/a>, a grand philosophy which underscored the importance of myths and the unconscious in human understanding. Its leading exponents were the philosopher of power and knowledge <a href=\"http:\/\/web.stanford.edu\/class\/ihum42\/philosopher.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michel Foucault<\/a> and the ethnologist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/library-man-claude-levi-strauss\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss<\/a>, both professors at the Coll\u00e8ge de France. Because he shared the name of the famous brand of American garments, L\u00e9vi-Strauss received letters throughout his life asking for supplies of blue jeans.<\/p>\n<p>The ultimate symbol of the Left Bank intellectual was the philosopher <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/books-and-arts\/21644128-complete-guide-frances-brainy-hero-freedom-fighter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jean-Paul Sartre<\/a>, who took the role of the public intellectual to its highest prominence. The <em>intellectuel engag\u00e9<\/em> had a duty to dedicate himself to revolutionary activity, to question established orthodoxies, and to champion the interests of all oppressed groups. Integral to Sartre\u2019s appeal was the sheer glamor he gave to French intellectualism\u00a0\u2014 with his utopian promise of a radiant future; his sweeping, polemical tone, and his celebration of the purifying effects of conflict; his bohemian and insouciant lifestyle, which deliberately <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2008\/apr\/13\/biography.simonedebeauvoir\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">spurned<\/a> the conventions of bourgeois life; and his undisguised contempt for the established institutions of his time\u00a0\u2014 be they the republican State, the Communist party, the French colonial regime in Algeria, or the university system.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_252012\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-252012 size-ev-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/03\/Voltaire-2-714x571.jpg?resize=714%2C571&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Voltaire 2\" width=\"714\" height=\"571\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Voltaire<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As he put it, he was always a \u201ctraitor\u201d\u00a0\u2014 and this contrarian spirit was central to the aura which surrounded modern French intellectuals. And even though he detested nationalism, Sartre unwittingly contributed to the French sense of greatness through his embodiment of cultural and intellectual eminence, and his effortless superiority. Indeed, Sartre was undoubtedly one of the most famous French figures of the 20th century, and his writings and polemics were ardently followed by cultural elites across the globe, from Buenos Aires to Beirut.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><strong>Today\u2019s Left Bank is but a pale shadow of this eminent past.\u00a0<\/strong>Fashion outlets have replaced high theoretical endeavor in Saint-Germain-des-Pr\u00e8s. In fact, with very rare exceptions, such as Thomas Piketty\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/08\/03\/books\/review-the-economics-of-inequality-by-thomas-piketty.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">book <\/a>on capitalism, Paris has ceased to be a major center of innovation in the humanities and social sciences.<\/p>\n<p>The dominant characteristics of contemporary French intellectual production are its superficial, derivative qualities (typified by figures such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2003\/01\/levy200301\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy<\/a>) and its starkly pessimistic state of mind. The pamphlets which top the best-selling non-fiction charts in France nowadays are not works offering the promise of a new dawn, but nostalgic appeals to lost traditions of heroism, such as St\u00e9phane Hessel\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/2\/280c9816-192c-11e0-9311-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ATZkyesr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Indignez Vous<\/a>!\u201d (2010), and Islamophobic and self-pitying tirades echoing the message of Marine Le Pen\u2019s Front National about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-30280363\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">destruction of French identity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-interrupt format-s pos-alpha predetermined\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-Instory-2\" class=\"dfp-ad dfp-Instory-2\">\n<div class=\"ad-wrapper\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Two recent examples are Alain Finkielkraut\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/world\/interview-french-philosopher-finkielkraut-on-muslims-and-integration-a-937404.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">L\u2019Identit\u00e9 Malheureuse<\/a>\u201d (2013) and Eric Zemmour\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20141012-french-bestseller-vichy-save-jews-zemmour\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Le Suicide Fran\u00e7ais<\/a>\u201d (2014), both suffused with images of degeneration and death. The most recent work in this morbid vein is Michel Houellebecq\u2019s\u00a0\u201cSoumission\u201d (2015), a dystopic novel which features the election of an Islamist to the French presidency, against the backdrop of a general disintegration of Enlightenment values in French society.<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><strong>How is France\u2019s loss of its bearings to be explained?\u00a0<\/strong>Changes in the wider cultural landscape have had a major impact on Gallic self-confidence. The disintegration of Marxism in the late 20th century left a void which was filled only by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/postmodernism-philosophy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">postmodernism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But the writings of the likes of Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard if anything compounded the problem with their deliberate opaqueness, their fetish for trivial word-play and their denial of the possibility of objective meaning (the hollowness of postmodernism is brilliantly satirized in Laurent Binet\u2019s latest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lefigaro.fr\/livres\/2015\/09\/09\/03005-20150909ARTFIG00160--la-septieme-fonction-du-langage-fragments-d-un-discours-ennuyeux.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">novel<\/a>, \u201cLa septi\u00e8me fonction du langage,\u201d a murder mystery framed around the death of the philosopher <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/books\/page-turner\/roland-barthes-myths-we-dont-outgrow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Roland Barthes<\/a> in 1980).<\/p>\n<p>But French reality is itself far from comforting. The overcrowded and underfunded French higher education system is fraying, as shown by the relatively low global rankings of French universities in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shanghairanking.com\/World-University-Rankings-2015\/France.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shanghai league table<\/a>. The system has become both less meritocratic and more technocratic, producing an elite which is markedly less sophisticated and intellectually creative than its 19th and 20th century forebears: The contrast in this respect between Sarkozy and Hollande, who can barely speak grammatical French, and their eloquent and cerebral presidential predecessors is striking.<\/p>\n<p>Arguably the most important reason for the French loss of intellectual dynamism is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20110302-new-poll-shows-french-pessimism-about-role-world-sarkozy-alliot-marie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">growing sense<\/a> that there has been a major retreat of French power on the global stage, both in its material, \u201chard\u201d terms and in its cultural \u201csoft\u201d dimensions. In a world dominated politically by the United States, culturally by the dastardly \u2018Anglo-Saxons,\u201d and in Europe by the economic might of Germany, the French are struggling to reinvent themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Few of France\u2019s contemporary writers\u00a0\u2014 with the notable exception of Houellebecq\u00a0\u2014 are well known internationally, not even recent Nobel-prize winners such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2010\/apr\/10\/le-clezio-nobel-prize-profile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Le Cl\u00e9zio<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/10\/10\/books\/patrick-modiano-wins-nobel-prize-in-literature.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patrick Modiano<\/a>. The ideal of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.francophonie.org\/Welcome-to-the-International.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Francophonia<\/a> is nothing but an empty shell, and behind its lofty rhetoric the organization has little real resonance among French-speaking communities across the world.<\/p>\n<p>This explains why French intellectuals appear so gloomy about their nation\u2019s future, and have become both more inward-looking, and increasingly turned to their national past: As the French historian <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pierre_Nora\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pierre Nora<\/a> put it even more bluntly, France is suffering from \u201cnational provincialism.\u201d It is worth noting, in this context, that neither the collapse of communism in the former Soviet bloc nor the Arab spring were inspired by French thought\u00a0\u2014 in stark contrast with the philosophy of national liberation which underpinned the struggle against European colonialism, which was decisively shaped by the writings of Sartre and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2001\/09\/02\/books\/review\/02SHATZTW.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fanon<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, as Europe fumbles shamefully in its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/migration-crisis-schengen-juncker-refugees-orban-asselborn-ec\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">collective response<\/a> to its current refugee crisis, it is sobering that the reaction which has been most in tune with the Enlightenment\u2019s Rousseauist heritage of humanity and cosmopolitan fraternity has come not from socialist France, but from Christian-democratic Germany.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sudhir Hazareesingh is a fellow in politics at Balliol College, Oxford. His new book, \u201cHow the French think: an affectionate portrait of an intellectual people,\u201d is published by Allen Lane in London and Basic Books in New York. The French version is published by Flammarion as \u201cCe pays qui aime les id\u00e9es.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"story-supplement\">\n<footer class=\"content-credits\">\n<h6>Authors:<\/h6>\n<div class=\"credits-list\">\n<dl class=\"vcard\">\n<dt class=\"credits-author\"><span class=\"vcard\"><a class=\"url fn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/author\/sudhir-hazareesingh\/\" rel=\"author\">Sudhir Hazareesingh<\/a><\/span><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/footer>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Source: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/decline-of-french-intellectual-culture-literature-art-philosophy-history\/\">The decline of the French intellectual \u2013 POLITICO<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>M\u1ea5y \u00fd ch\u00ednh v\u1ec1 nguy\u00ean nh\u00e2n &#8220;xu\u1ed1ng c\u1ea5p&#8221; c\u1ee7a tr\u00ed th\u1ee9c Ph\u00e1p: &#8211; H\u1ec7 th\u1ed1ng \u0111\u1ea1i h\u1ecdc qu\u00e1 \u0111\u00f4ng v\u00e0 thi\u1ebfu ti\u1ec1n, l\u00e0m cho n\u00f3 gi\u1ea3m \u0111i t\u00ednh tinh hoa v\u00e0 t\u0103ng t\u00ednh k\u1ef9 thu\u1eadt, l\u00e0m cho s\u1ea3n ph\u1ea9m c\u1ee7a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[1172,869,114],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8jhJx-s9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1747,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosetta.vn\/short\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}