Overheard in New York - Germanophobes

Thought I'd share this little gem from www.overheardinnewyork.com :

Girl #1: When I first met my boyfriend, I wasn't that into him.
Girl #2: Yeah, but there wasn't an 11-year age difference between you two!
Girl #1: But he was German! That's comparable!

Have been bad about updating the blog recently - more to come over the next weeks, I promise...

On Criticism, Rhetoric and - Outbursts

Britain is a country of genteel humour - and yet the UK parliamentary system allows for the most vicious theatricals of any Western democracy. Americans, by contrast, are generally proud to be more brash than their stiff-upper-lipped cousins - and yet, in politics, the consider too much passion (or, God forbid, criticism) a cardinal sin.

One reason for this, it seems to me, points to an inherent disadvantage of Presidential systems. The President, the nation's most influential politician, at the same time acts as commander-and-chief and, most importantly, personifies the country as Head of State. That's why, for Americans, insulting the President equals disrespecting the country.

In the UK, a politician could not disrespect the Queen. But the Prime Minister, who is "merely" the Head of Government, can be shouted down with cries of "shame" by an uncompromisingly hostile opposition. Prime Minister's Question Time is the prime example - ever-shocking to Americans, it is, to me, the most beautiful embodiment of what democracy is all about. (It also saves the UK from incompetent leaders - George W Bush would not survive even the lightest grilling in the House of Commons)

All this just to say: to an American audience, Senator Ted Kennedy's impassioned plea for a rise in the US minimal wage seems ludicrously, even dangerously, agitated. To those of us used to parliamentary systems, on the other hand, it may ring true - not in spite of, but rather due, to its highly rhetorical pitch.

Mafia Morals - not so Tarantino after all...

Warning: Troubled teenagers with an overactive imagination awakened by the Godfather or Pulp Fiction will be as saddened as I was to read the ten commandments of Mafia morality, discovered after big-boss Lo Piccolo's recent arrest. If you ever needed a definitive let-down to dispel any illusions of glamour about organised crime, here it is:

1 - "You must not get in touch with one of our friends unless you're introduced by a third party."

2 - "Do not cast your eyes on the wives of our friends"

3 - "Do not make friends with cops"

4 - "Do not frequent bars or night clubs"

5 - "You have the duty always to be ready to render a service to the Cosa Nostra. Even if your wife is just about to give birth"

6 - "Categorical respect for appointments must be maintained"

7 - "You must respect your wife"

8 - "When you are called upon to give an information, you must say the truth"

9 - "You must not appropriate funds of others, nor of other families"

10 - "No one can belong to us if they have close relatives in the police, if there have been cases of infidelity in his family, or who behaves badly and does not respect moral values"

Poor, poor Hollywood...

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Italian version:

1 - «Non ci si può presentare da soli a un altro amico nostro, se non è un terzo a farlo»

2 - «Non si guardano mogli di amici nostri»

3 - «Non si fanno comparati (amicizia ndr) con gli sbirri»

4 - «Non si frequentano né taverne né circoli»

5 - «Si ha il dovere in qualsiasi momento di essere disponibile a Cosa nostra. Anche se c'è la moglie che sta per partorire»

6 - «Si rispettano in maniera categorica gli appuntamenti»

7 - «Si ci deve portare rispetto alla moglie»

8 - «Quando si è chiamati a sapere qualcosa si dovrà dire la verità»

9 - «Non ci si può appropriare di soldi che sono di altri e di altre famiglie»

10 - «Niente affiliazione per chi ha un parente stretto nelle varie forze dell'ordine, oppure chi ha tradimenti sentimentali in famiglia, o chi ha un comportamento pessimo e che non tiene ai valori morali»

A not so ironic Joseph Beuys sings for "Sonne statt Reagan"

One of Germany's most tragicomic TV moments, this 1983 campaign spot for the Green Party not only features artist Joseph Beuys in a sadly serious attempt at rock-stardom. It also, to use a Germanic expression, is the ideal-type of German humour's talent for mixing well-meaning earnestness with particularly bad puns.

The refrain - "Wir wollen Sonne statt Reagan / Ohne Rüstung leben" - exploits the similarity of the German word for rain and Reagan's name, to merge the strangely unpolitical wish for good weather with the baffling demand that Reagan simply turn into the sun. The lyrics, in short, are not inspired.

But Beuys' performance is worse. His temporary job description, for want of a better word, is that of a lead singer. It doesn't help, of course, that he has been parked behind both a band - Germans will recognise them as BAP - which looks like it doesn't know how to play its instruments and a bunch of women with no apparent reason for being on stage (the Green party, of course, was big on feminism, so I suppose it preferred having women on stage doing nothing to having no women at all in the spot...)



P.S. By the end of the spot, self-conscious Beuys seems so relieved it's nearly over, that he engages in some overly optimistic microphone-action - be sure to look out for the Beuys-Helicopter!

Fearing Fear Itself

In today's New York Times, Paul Krugman writes:

In America’s darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” But that was then.

Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Do we need need to add to this a reference to the measured, calm beauty of Winston Churchill's rhetoric, when his nation was in more danger, and in darker an hour, than America has never seen?

It is a sad reflection that in our times, steadfastness and courage seem to be exemplified more by scaremongering high-pitched rhetoric than by the kind of leadership which inspires citizens to face up to their fears as they want their military to face up to their enemies. Krugman's article makes this point well...

Republican Ron Paul on 9/11 & Giuliani's Bulldozing Answer...

As any historian or social scientist will know, it is extremely difficult to determine what the main cause of an event is. Ron Paul makes a few good points in drawing attention to the unintended effects of the US' interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East. It clearly had a strong influence on the ideology of Islamic terrorists - though the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, and US support of the Taliban at that stage, were possibly just as important as factors that helped the rise of Islamic terrorism. Paul's remarks don't explain why 9/11 happened; but they are are least an attempt to think about the terrorists' ideology and motivation from their perspective.

What really scares me, however, is the extent to which the political discourse among Republicans seems to consist of hypocritical bashing about of taboos. "As someone who lived through 9/11", Giuliani seems to imply, he finds it offensive to be told that the attacks may be an unintentional result of US foreign policy. In the US today, being offended by a comment all-but equals the unspeakability of the idea behind the comment - even if its truth content hasn't been examined at all.

With the cheapest of rhetorical tricks, Giuliani equates the idea that US foreign policy was one of the causes of 9/11 with the entirely different idea that the 9/11 attacks were jutified because of America's foreign policy. Whilst it is difficult to disagree with the first idea, few people - certainly not me, certainly not Ron Paul - would agree with the crude second idea. If you study World War II you will conclude that Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor because of America's support for the Allies - but not that Japan was justified in doing so...

The really interesting question, of course, would be to ask, from America's perspective, whether international influence is worth the risk of retaliation. If America had not played such a prominent interntional role since World War II, today it would not be the main target of Islamic terrorists. This clearly doesn't mean that it shouldn't have done so. Neither would isolationism have made the US safer today - the threats would just be of a different kind.

The US needs an intelligent President, who weighs all these considerations, with a good understanding of both the ideology of America's opponents and the possible adverse effects over the long term of short-term strategy. Giuliani's bulldozing answer to Ron Paul's remarks indicates that he's not the man America needs to combat terrorism intelligently.

The School of Tall Studies and Sarkozy's virtu...

Pierre Manent, the eminent French political philosopher who teaches at the École des Hautes Études in Paris, is giving a talk at Harvard this Friday.

Check out the beautiful translation of his university which Google - or, perchance, a surprisingly British sense of humour? - has suggested to the event's organizers...



What will be next? The "School of Super-Normality"? The "National Elementary School of Administrators"? If you thought that Freedom Fries hurt Frensh sensibilities - they didn't, after all they are a Belgian invention - you should be doubly worried now.

Call me a hopeless pessimist, but if Americans start attacking French intellectual pride, all of this might just end, to use a phrase currently en vogue with the Bush administration, in World War III... Then, small Monsieur Sarkozy, supported by his friend from the School of Tall Studies, will finally have a real opportunity to prove his virtu!