Taking a Risk with Children

This interesting article by Helene Guldberg over on Spiked convincingly argues that children are as much in danger from parents and government officials who want to keep them too safe, than they are from the actual risks out there. I tend to agree.

It also seems to me that there is a significant cultural difference here between the more risk-taking continent on the one hand and the more risk-averse UK and (more extreme still) US on the other hand. If so, this would be an interesting reverse-image of attitudes towards financial risk in these countries.

Also, if we put the same point differently: throughout the West people in the last decades have become increasingly willing to take financial risk. At the same time, they seem to become less willing to stomach other kinds of risks - as demonstrated not only in child-related safety issues and health scares, but also the increasingly large damages awarded in law suits about accidents. Is an extreme form of financial individualism and risk-aversion about personal safety logically connected?

Please send your thoughts!

Putin, the violent anarchist

Germany is obsessed with the violent riots against the G8 summit. They are being driven by a subgroup of the left-wing protest movements known in Germany as the "Autonome" (and popularly called the "black bloc").

Now, the word "autonom" of course also means autonomous - and as an adjective is sometimes used to designate protectionist or autarchic policies. Never, though, is a protectionist called an "Autonome".

Never, that is, other than in a current lapsus on the Spiegel website. Where it says, in large letters - and next to a rather funky photo of Putin in a black suit and black sunglasses: "Putin, der Autonome".

An elaborate pun? Comedy-value to be had out of imagining the cold Putin as he throws stones full of emotion against Western capitalism? The choice of colour in the Putin photo a subtle allusion to the "Black Bloc"?

More realistically: a linguistic error, and bad copy-editing. But perhaps the beginning of a new linguistic trend, the transformation of a word. Exciting stuff. Better, at least, than the 100th discussion round on German TV about whether the violence was caused by the "Black Bloc" or police provocation.

(See also my analysis of Parisian anarchists a few weeks ago - my friend Thierry, by the way, rightly pointed out that I should have distinguished more clearly between the extreme left-wing and anarchists in that post)

Farmer Klaus' Cows

TV can help you understand a country. But if you want to see the real abyss, tune into some godforsaken local channel, late at night. Anthropology as an academic subject could easily be replaced by a "EuroTrash" selection along those lines. Or "BritTrash" or "AmeriTrash", for that matter…

Last night, for example, I watched the most unbelievably shameless TV show – every sentence was in bad faith, and it went on for a good 45 minutes. The whole point of the show seems to have been to make as many people as possible call a very expensive hotline. Their way of achieving this, though endlessly embarassing, was actually rather ingenious:

They promise 1000 € to anyone who manages to answer a very, very, bleedingly simple question. Then they pretend as best they can that the question is rocket science (as Americans would put it), to make viewers think they alone are intelligent enough to know the answer, and itch to call in. The trick of course must be that if you tried to call, you wouldn't get through, but be charged lots of money – not a single viewer was put through during the entire time I watched.

The question: Farmer Klaus has 17 cows on his farm. All but 6 run away. How many are left?

This simple child's riddle was repeated in the grave, deferential manner of a Field's Medalist who describes Fermat's Last Theorem – about 59 times! They even kept saying: "I really think this question is so difficult that most viewers won't get it. If you do, please call in. The lines are free: you'll win 1000 € immediately".

By the end of the show, the show's host, a slightly dipsy girl who is obviously not THAT stupid, was still pretending that she hadn't worked out the answer.

It is striking that people are willing to lie quite so obviously and persistently, whilst casting themselves as complete fools, in order to be on TV and / or run a scam. You may have been shocked at the voyeurism of Big Brother a few years ago. But Big Brother only allows you to see people's little dirty secrets, which you would have guessed at anyway. This, by comparison, is the real thing, showing quite how far people will debase themselves for an hour's late-night local TV glory…

Academic Boycott of Israel

Yesterday, I was going to write a blog entry about the UK Union of University Teachers and Lecturers´ support for an academic boycott of Israel. Instead, I collapsed into bed... But I'm glad I didn't, for now I can point you to Henry Midgley's article on this over at Bits of News. (Also be sure regularly to check out his excellent blog here).

I'll write an article on an event which triggered the 1968 student revolution in Germany soon, so check back for sex, violence and rock'n'roll shortly...

Honouring Dead Soldiers

Soldiers and death have long been a controversial topic in Germany – not just because of the Nazi past. In the German peace movement, for example, a slogan – borrowed from Kurt Tucholsky – is very popular: “Soldiers are Murderers.” A few years ago, the German Constitutional Court ruled that this slogan did not constitute slander, and therefore was a legitimate use of freedom of expression, so long as it wasn't used to describe any particular soldier. A fair enough legal cop-out to resolve the problem.

But now the topic soldiers and death is re-emerging again in a very different way, which, alas, will not be resolved by a clever judge. In the “Bonn Republic” it was taboo to use the German army for military missions abroad. But since 1994, German soldiers have been participating in foreign missions once again – and over the last thirteen years 69 have died in combat, including some who were killed a few days ago in a suicide attack in Afghanistan. It has become increasingly apparent that their comrades and families wish that there was a central monument at which they could remember the dead. This is understandable.

It is also important for a democracy not to turn its eyes away when citizens have died on a mission which the people – represented by Parliament – has sent them on. After all, unnecessary wars can best be avoided when all voters are well-aware of the faces and stories of the nation's own victims. This insight has inspired Immanuel Kant's stipulation in Perpetual Peace that a nation should not have a standing army, so that all citizens must fear that any victims of a war they embark upon might be friend or even family. Not to credit Bush with Kant's analytical gifts, this is also the very reason why the US President wouldn't allow the coffins of American soldiers to be photographed...

At the same time, though, the opposite danger also exists. The pictures of glorifying or simply tasteless war monuments in Germany express this more eloquently than words. All too easily, war monuments can either speak too positively of war, in an attempt to justify the immense suffering (I expressly avoid the word “sacrifice”, though suffering is perhaps also euphemistic) it imposes on victims. Or they speak of the dead, often in their teens when they were slain in the battlefield, as though they had willingly laid down their life in pursuit of a noble ideal. Whilst the former phenomenon is particularly true of 19th century and Nazi-time German monuments, the latter holds for many 20th century designs too – I have, for example, often observed it on English World War I memorials.

It is imperative that we are more honest with ourselves, even when talking about soldiers who died on missions we wholly approve of. Even when soldiers were indeed pursuing a noble ideal, and even when they did make a conscious decision to risk their life, it is too easy too elevate them into a moral sainthood which only serves to mask the fact that we all, as citizens of a democracy, sent them to their death. So please no more talk of teenagers valliantly and willingly laying down their life – whether it be for the most noble cause or the basest nationalism.

Assuming that a new German war memorial will soon be built, the real question therefore is what the inscription should be. I've already noted two possible dangers, which should at all cost be avoided – even if, in the extreme case, the cost is not building the monument.

Let me finish with a suggestion from Munich. On the Leopoldstrasse, a central, representative 19th century boulevard, a rather martial triumph arc has stood for one and a half centuries. Its original inscription: “To the victories of the Bavarian Army”. After it was destroyed in World War II, the monument was rebuilt, with its original inscription on one side. But on the other side, it now reads, in plain latters and sober, evocative language:

“Dem Sieg geweiht. Vom Krieg zerstört. Dem Frieden mahnend”

“Dedicated to Victory. Destroyed by War. Calling to Peace”

Revolving around Paris

A French friend reported to me recently that, when she was thinking of leaving Paris for a year to study at Cambridge, she was told (no doubt in a comedy-accent) : ‘But everyone and everything is in Paris. Why would you want to leave all this to move to some village in England ?’

My favourite English prejudice against France – that the French are convinced the earth revolves around them – has some real foundations then… But this video clip from the French (and very earnest) version of Who wants to be a Millionaire suggests that other things revolve around the French, too…

For non-French speakers : the question is what revolves around the earth. The candidate hesitates between answer A, the moon, and answer B, the sun. So he asks the audience…

http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-8493010508114425938&q=qui+veut+gagner

(Having problems with the links - will put them up properly soon)

For the Love of the Louvre

My article on French intellectuals railing against the recent intenationalisation of the Louvre – and influx of capital into the French art world – is now up on Spiked.

I liked the edits, and the headline - an example of journalist puns too rare here in France, where only Liberation goes in for a similar style, as in their headline the day after Sarkozy was sworn in as President: "Bienvenue dans Sarkozie".

But I'll put my first paragraph up here in its original version nonetheless, for Brits and Historians to enjoy:

Ask a traditionalist Frenchman whether museums should take some commercial considerations into account when making artistic decisions, and you are transported back to early 19th century Britain. His ‘no’ will be so vehement, and his disdain so complete, as could only be rivalled by an English aristocrat who had just been asked to marry his daughter off to a Manchester industrialist.