Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! On this national holiday, I thought it would be fitting to write (or at least begin to write) a post on national identity.
Seventy years ago, in his essay on English patriotism, George Orwell, wrote that "national characteristics are not easy to pin down, and when pinned down they often turn out to be trivialities or seem to have no connexion with one another." This is a simple fact that all who try either make any but the most superficial observations, or to draw any but the most trite inferences, on sociology and anthropology, should acknowledge, be they tourists or academics. I offer it as a disclaimer as well as a general precaution to the following comments. I will recount a few anecdotes and impressions, and try to make some sense out of them.
On Monday, I had the misfortune to trip when taking my run through the quad of the Cité Universitaire; I tumbled and fell on my right side, grazing my right shoulder, my right elbow, my right knee, and both hands. I fell only about 20-30 meters away from a group of three people walking their dogs. I stood up, brushed myself off, and continued on my run, but, perhaps significantly, perhaps not, not one of them had stopped in order to ask me if I had hurt myself. This struck me as unusual; in Ithaca, when I take a tumble, those nearby who witness my fall usually express concern, by asking me if I am OK, etc. This applies even to drivers; once, a driver who saw me in his rear-view mirror even backed up to ask me if I was alright. I am not certain that the three dog-walkers saw me; but I am also not certain that they did not.
The dynamics in the park may not differ, in some respects, from those in the classroom. I gave exposé #3 on Medieval Travel; the same day, as I mentioned in my post about that exposé, that one of my classmates, Roman, had the same subject, and that after the Cours Magistral that day, I told him that I had been impressed with his presentation. I began speaking with him and with two of his friends, and after several minutes, I introduced myself, feeling that it was an opportune moment. None of them offered their names in return; I had to ask them: it wasn't exactly pulling teeth, but most of the time, when I give my name, I receive my interlocutors' in return. Likewise, trading cell phone numbers is very common back in the U.S., even among ephemeral acquaintances (how many numbers do I have of people I met a few times freshman year, and have rarely, or never, seen again?) -- not so, here.
This brings me to one of the most important aspects of life here: the near-impossibility of making French friends. I say "near" because I, and several others, have each managed to meet 1-5 French students with whom we have achieved at least some rapport. I would like to add here that I am very grateful to all of my French friends who have been kind and considerate enough to offer me their friendship. That being said, I estimate that maybe half of the other EDUCO students to whom I have spoken simply have no French friends. Zero. This is, naturally, partially due to the language barrier, and also due to the fact that the French students in our classes are well into their University careers, and thus already have constructed a nucleus of friends (my classes are all categorized as "License-3," meaning that students are in their third years, unless they are MASTER students). But where this ties together with the incident in the park, is in the social distance at which strangers are held. I am fully confident that, if I had called for help, the three people out walking their dogs would have stopped to help me without hesitation. However, I did not call for help; and they therefore had no reason to divert any attention toward me. I attribute this to a heightened sense of professionalism; that is, a greater distance between public life and private life. Both the park and the classroom are "public" spaces, where interactions involve a certain level of formality.
Formality is understandable in a park, almost the epitome of a "public" space, but in the U.S., classrooms are absolutely private nexuses. Think about the last time you were in class: unless you're my Dad, who actually is a professor, you're referred to consistently by your first name, and likewise address the other students and the TA by each one's first name (Prof. Pucci's class is kind of an exception to this, but his class is extraordinary, in more ways than one, but, Matt, I have always referred to you by your first name): only the Professor is referred to by his or her last name. In France, by contrast, the instructors all call me Monsieur Davis (pronounced day-VEES), and address me as vous, which makes me feel just a little bit stranger than if they referred to me as the less formal tu. The other students use tu, outside of class; I would mention their in-class interactions, but there are almost none to speak of: I don't think I've ever spoken to any of my peers while class is in session, except in a whisper, to ask them what was just said, etc. (I really miss discussion sections, in case it isn't evident.) This brings me to a curious observation Guillaume has made: American students (and JD in particular) will raise their hands to answer questions, even if they are only 40-50% certain that the know the answer; French students, even abroad at international schools, will not answer questions.
In an unusual, opposite reversal (which just goes to show that all binary us-and-them conceptual bifurcations are artificial), in the U.S., one's grades and evaluations are strictly between the individual student and the instructor. Although I had been told, before I left, that French professors have no qualms about telling students, to their faces and in front of the class, that their work is not good, it still surprised me the first time I witnessed it (and it still does). Everyone is criticized for some aspect of his or her presentation, even if the instructor praises the piece as a whole; and this is as true for exposés as it is for papers.
There is more professionalism in the classroom, and I think it is explained by a fundamentally different approach to university-level academics. In the U.S., being a student is one's life; here, it is more like one's job. At home, one never stops being a student, and one's entire schedule of classes, studying, sports, clubs, and even part-time jobs, is wholly within the framework of student life. When and where one studies is one's business: some people do it in the morning, some in the evening, some at the library, some at home. Here, studying is done at the library, during regular work hours (the Bibliotheque de la Sorbonne is open from 10:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.). Uris Library is open 24 hours, and some students bring blankets and pillows. Studying never stops, and all-nighters are known among even the most responsible. In France, nuits blanches (literally "white nights," the term used for all-nighters) are generally just not done. There is a time to study, and a time not to study; the decision is less nice back home. I may be overgeneralizing by taking Ivy-League standards as the norm, but La Sorbonne is a very prestigious school here, and has, from what I can tell, relatively high academic standards.
One more note on academic standards, before I move on. In the U.S., educators, from high school teachers to college professors, consistently repeat, almost tautologically, that they don't care what students argue, as long as they support their arguments. Here, the refrain is on the structure and methodology: as long as all seven components of an introduction are in place, that introduction is of passing quality, even if the quality of the writing and the level of research are shoddy (not to say, these aspects are unimportant; I have seen a professor call out a student for treating a masculine noun as feminine in his in-class essay).
Academic standards are not the only standards encountered in student life. Veronique, one of the members of the (awesome) EDUCO team, has berated me before about the lack of attention I pay to my body, because I consistently sleep under eight hours a night (completely true) and don't consume a balanced diet (debatable). As she puts it, "les etudiants francais respectent leurs corps" [French students respect their bodies]. From what I have gathered from conversations with my other French friends, French students do tend to sleep more than their American counterparts, who, let's face it, barely sleep, ever. However, as far as I can tell, American students (or, at least, Cornell students), 1) Smoke less, and 2) Exercise more. By my standards, smoking and a lack of exercise are both key characteristics of an unhealthy lifestyle, in a way that sleep deprivation and poor diet are not. I wonder what doctors think of the matter...
There are a few other cultural observations, related, somewhat indirectly, to what I have been saying.
Drinking coffee (or eating croissants) while walking seems to be less common, as is speaking on the cellphone while walking. If you want to drink coffee, you sit down in a cafe to do it; when you eat lunch, you sit down on a park bench to do it.
In France, it's impolite to post others' photographs on Facebook.
The French have achieved a level of secularism in society that they have a word for it, laïcité, which they readily admit cannot be easily translated into other languages. For instance, in my Contemporary Arab World class, the professor, describing the politico-religious climate of the late Ottoman Empire, said it was "seculier, mais pas laïc" [secular, but not laïc]. If your 16th (and early 17th) century were mostly filled with gruesome religious wars and massacres, you, too, would want to prevent people from making public display of their religion (note: the ban on religious paraphernalia, better known in the U.S. as the ban on headscarves, is unenforced). However, I don't know if Ithaca is just already such a secular place, or whether the rising French xenophobia against North Africans and Romany, but there do seem to be some open displays of religion.
To name just one example, I was once handed a pamphlet containing 2 books from the New Testament, the Gospel of John and Paul's Letter to the Romans. It is on the desk in front of me now; it is conspicuously covered, on the cover, with French patriotic symbols: the blue, white, and red; the familiar hexagonal shape of France (plus Corsica) which we all know from the Mercator projection; a Parisian skyline; the Eiffel Tower; on the cover, the title alone is the only indication that this is a religious text. By contrast, there is nothing particularly "French" about the contents of the book (which could just as easily have been printed in any other Francophone country). My analysis? Just as in the U.S., with the influx of non-Christian immigrants (or, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, non-Protestant immigrants), somebody has made a connection between Christianity and patriotism: both represent traditional values placed in jeopardy by the newcomers. I have spoken with Bruno about the immigration issue, and he thinks that there is a strong parallel between North Africans in France and Latin Americans in the United States, with the very, very important exception that Latin Americans are typically Christian, whereas North Africans are not typically Catholic.
One last comment, just to remind you to keep a measure of Orwellian skepticism about trying to discover national "essences": public urination is rather common, and people do not consistently clean up after their dogs. The Mayor's Office has even posted sign up around Paris, alerting polluters, and those who urinate in particular, that they will be fined!
I would like to thank Valérie, Guillaume, Bruno, Joe, Sharon, David, Nick, Madeline, Jamie, Aday, Sarah, and everyone else with whom I have discussed Franco-American cultural differences: you all had a hand in this post also: mad props to Madeline for cutting my hair, and for Jamie for lending us her bathroom to do it!
~JD
"In 1475, Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, gave the herald who had just defied him in the name of Duke Rene of Lorraine a cup of gild silver filled with 500 pieces of gold and the robe of gold cloth which he, Charles, had worn at the ceremony of defiance" (Pierre Chaplais, English Diplomatic Practice in the Middle Ages, p. 243-244).
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