Field Report 18:
France - August 18, 1999

By Jeff Bell
 

Totally Eclipsed

The setting was the side of hillside off a roadway in France. There were other people, that's why I pulled off, and it was reminicent of the atmosphere of an outdoor concert. When the eclipse was over, there was a spattering of mild applause, slightly "cosmically" funny I guess. Proof also that we clap for ourselves, "God" seemed to be the only performer present.

The weather was cloudy, a bitter disappointment. The clouds did thin for a few moments before totality and what appeared to be a crescent moon shown through the clouds. It was the sun. The clouds thickened again though, just before the event, just a solid grey, no view of the sun.

With mathematical precision, it got gradually darker, until it was night, which lasted about 2 minutes. The lights of cars and a village below became bright, while there was some disappointing light out there on all visible horizons. It suddenly transition very rapidly to daylight, seeming to be more sudden than the transition to darkness, probably an effect of the way your eyes adjust to dark and light.

The polite applause summed it. A good show, but light on action and plot. A good IMAX theater moment. The partial portion of the eclipse, as seen through the special glasses was not too impressive either: it could be approximated by staring closely at a black piece of cardboard with a curved piece of toenail on it. If I were Warren Beatty and were so vain, I'd feel empty about flying my Lear Jet to Nova Scotia to see this thing. It was good, but I can see that there is an accordian list of lifetime "must-do's" for us well-off Westerners—a ride on the Concorde, a trip to the North Pole, seeing the Great Wall of China, a journey up the Congo? Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and sort the meaning out later.

The thing about one of a kind experiences—they stick in your memory. A subtle tribute to the most fundamental building block of life. Would life even be life if you couldn't remember anything from one moment to the next? No.

Vive Le France

For these past weeks while I was there, I fell under the spell of France. France is terribly wonderful, troubled. A gorgeous woman you know. She's got an air of eternal youth, eternally fearful of growing old. C'est la vie, I wished so many times that I spoke even a bit of French. On our TdF cycling tour, out of 40 American cyclists, not one of us spoke French.

(In fact this trip has never been about the general case, seems like most everyone I'm meeting is literate, healthy, weathly and wise. The pattern for all of us is to carefully travel in the light. Suffering is out there though, it's in the shadows, stories you here, sicknesses you've seen.)

If this trip is a journey to explore the human experience, I guess France is anything but the general case. Kinda like the shadow of total solar eclipse, unique. What the rest of the world sees appears dull by comparison.

I took a quick trip home and the spell broke. One minute I was amoung the thin, fashion conscious crowds in the Paris Metro, a few hours later, amoung a dull, obese crowd in the Chicago American Airlines terminal. In spite of our poor showing, I was still able to adjust. We have different roles, a healthy division of labor really. France is all about gravy while we just take care of cooking the meat.

Paris was packed with Americans, it seems we're it's biggest fans. If you can't fall in love with Paris, you probably got a problem with a lotta things in life. It's cliche (isn't that a word we borrowed from France?), but sitting on the lawn behind the Effiel Tower at night left me in awe of .. everything ... for about 30 minutes. Two or three nights in a row. Last trip, in the mid-80s, it was the bridges at night. Warm nights are for me like a big bite of a great French cheese. We just don't get warm nights in California.

(How do you find your way to the Effiel Tower? Ask a tourist. French-speak: Ask a Parisian, they'll tell you that, to get there, this is not at good place to start from. Another French double-talkism [true story]: a French diplomat once commented that "it works in practice, but will it work in theory?")

Here you believe that the world begins with Paris and the rest of civilization radiates outwards. England registers as an afterthought, about on a par with Norway, and America is a great distance away. The trend setting drive of the people drives the conceit, and it is a given that French culture and the French language are, to them, the most important in the world.

And the totality of what the French have uniquely fashioned and exported around the world is remarkable. They are especially the champions of the sensual realms (and we, the U.S., the world superpower, have by comparison an extremely thin list of accomplishments in this general realm)—art creation, art on display, food, fashion, literature, philsophy, sexual freedom, architecture, furniture. Even in the few that they do not dominate—movies, music (US and England holding these honors)—the French still regard these things with the highest of importance. I remember taking note of a middle aged Frenchman on the subway with a red coat and red topped tennis shoes. Rather than looking out of place, it seemed ordinary, I imagined the French nearby saying in their minds, "bravo, you are one of us, yes, you are French."

It follows that it must be difficult to be French. They feel the power, but what a burden. All that historical stuff to be preserved, and still have to look forward to your next success. The French have just as many successes in the pragmatic realms—trains, planes, weapons (ugh), let's not forget the greatest bike race in the world, a showcase to the world of their wide-ranging land. There is a mix of innovation and conservatism involved in upholding the French culture which breds a sort of schizophrenia, as the significant numbers of people on the far left and far right reveal, manifestations of the sense of panic the French bring upon themselves.

The fate of their colonies illuminate the dilemmas they face. Is it a step forward or backward to have the French government involved in the management of governments in these lands? They seem to be the last ones to hold onto their "colonies", is that a "unique leadership position"? The French are sure that they are the best, but contrast this with the Italians, who wouldn't want to be anyone else. Which would you rather be?

French Politics

Where they fail, the French experiment much, and can be frustratingly rudderless— political/government/social systems, the fast food revolution, electronics—here they are searching for a trend setting role, usually after the fact, after much debate full of extreme proposals. When overwhelmed, count on a strong reaction, the imported improvements will be denounced, perhaps banned for being...not French.

Spiritually, Americans are not so entirely superior or different from the French in one sense. Lands of liberty and freedom, we each have a similar blind spot to our ideals, the unwritten amendment that you can do what you want, but don't be too different. We are both torn by a sense that a great part of our strength is in our shared common culture. The negatives of change are real, no doubt, but poisons are released in the reactions, the enemy drifts from the specific to the general, and the fear of a sense of powerless grows, and the principle of holding love for your enemy seems an impractical philosophy.

Our extremes though, the Rush Limbaughs and Jerry Browns, are kitty cats, fortunately. The French extremists however are unpredicably dangerous, capable of murder and mayhem (though they would quickly deny it of course).

Imagine being French (or Americans) and waking up one day to seeing fundamental Islamics kneeling in prayer in the public place you've known all your life. An symbolic example only (many Arabs have immigrated in from French colonies though), but the French, being themselves fundamental driven themselves—for the preservation of one the great gifts to the world, Frenchness—live in an uneasy political climate, ripe for extreme opportunists. When there is a rise in immigrant gang member violence—by bad eggs, raised in poverty, acting viciously, lawlessly and without remorse—the far right wing in France takes advantage of blurring the distinction between the two cultural changes—influx of immigrant cultures and influx of immigrant crime.

Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front party, has attracted around 15% of the French vote at times. Shadow boxing around his racist core message and solution of "dealing" with 3 million people considered to be un-French—deportation? intimidation?—Le Pen makes clever moves such as making mention of the evils of Hilter from time to time. But the similarities, his methods, the opportunism, the hatred are all too familiar. Milosovic. Ironically, Le Pen is a man who bares a peculiar Christian first name—"John-Mary".

The far left in France is no better. A large segment of voters and politicians see no wrong in aligning themselves with the Communist Party, in spite of its historical record of mass murder and anti-liberty. The Great French Socialist experiment proved also to lead nowhere new—high unemployment, a ruling elite, same old corruption. A mix of good and bad change—an increase in social services, but a barrage of improvements of questionable value, regulations, and obvious inefficiencies. The trash at the suburb home I was staying at was picked up not once a week, but every day. The suburban train I took into town ran on time every 20 minutes, but was about 5% full each time. The average Frenchman effectively works until mid-June to pay for his taxes and the massive benefits programs aggrevates the immigration problem. (Poverty in France is far more attractive than poverty in other parts of the world.) More than half of the young people dream of a career....working for the government. Entrepreneuring is for the rogues, who then must be watched over and regulated ever more closely by ... the good government workers.

There is a bright side to their experiments, we can observe the results and adopt what appears to work. France is preparing to embark on a program of a 35 hour work. (They already have 5 weeks of summer vacation.) Pitted against how the rest of the world operates, you'd be inclined to say that the poor French are digging another hole they'll have to dig themselves out of later. But that's their burden. Perhaps that's always been the price of being different.
 

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