ETUDE DE VILLAGE - RECAP FINAL
so lately I've been busy with the writing of the paper and haven't gotten a chance to post much, particularly things that don't have anything to do with my project, so here's a bit of a recap;
in the past few days, I;
took some nature walk detours with Patrick along ancient trails that had apparently been used for sheep autrefois, but whose cobbled stone walls were now crumbling becuase they were constantly being trampled by cows ... looked at certain feilds full of flowering prunier sauvage in certain feilds where he felt there was particularly good energy, and at little sections of woodlands scattered with wild cerisiers that somebody's anes were tearing all the bark off of
visited a secret grotte that patrick had discovered while running (well, that's a lie, it's not exactly secret and he didn't actually discover it - he read that it was in the area and more or less went looking for it) with patrick and dodo (dominique the painter) which apparently had once been, no joke, a dinosaur bone mine (well, not necessarilly dinasaur bones per se, but fossilized bones en generale) the entrance to whihc was set in the side of a supersteep hill covered in thin trees covered in moss, so that we basically slid on our butts through muddy green carpet land to reach the pile of rocks in front of the cave, then later climbed back up green carpet escalade ... the grotte was smaller and more damaged and consequently less objectively impressionnant que la grotte de peche merle, mais c'etais immpressionant quand meme d'y etre tout seul, dans le noir avec seulement un tout petit flashlight comme lumiere. Dodo brought a drum which patrick played a bit at the entrance to the cave, because apparently legend has it that grottes are veritable havens of spirit beings and so you don't just go tromping into their living rooms, as it were, without at least ringing the doorbell. We wandered around a bit looking for bones and ooing and ahhing at rock formations, then picked a little grotte within the grotte, (and dodo made some comment that involved word 'womb,' lol) and played drum (during which i could have sworn I heard patrick say 'je commence à voir des animaux')then held and chanted 'om' and 'ma.' So I suppose as it turns out my homestay peeps are just a leeetle bit weirder than I originally gave them credit for, but oh well, they're still great, and I like caves, even if I don't think there are animal spirits living in them.
held innumerable conversations about politiques, history, and religion, during which it became clear to me that the rest of europe sees the united states as a scary, backward, presque theocracy, and that their idea (well, I can't speak for all of europe now, but the french idea, at any rate) of separation of church and state is (theoretically, however, which I'll bitch about in a moment) SECULAR STATE in which RELIGION can exist but IS NOT IN ANY WAY INVOLVED ... they find it absolutely shocking when american polititians evoke god as a matter of course in nearly all of their speeches and don't understand 1) why the american public is not similarly shocked, considering separation of church and state would seem to make that kind of talk unconstitutional, and 2) why the american public doesn't think its indescrète for these politicians to go parading their religions around all the time. Which for me was really funny, becuase though I'm not religious and deteste when american canditates evoke god and find it spineless and manipulative, it has always been more or less obvious to me why, as politicians, they have to do it, which is dependant basically on 4 factors:
1) most americans are religious, and it seems to me most religious people seem to think that religions have the monopoly on morals - that is, that moral behavior is somehow dependant on fear of punishment later on at the hands of some omniscient overlord
2) most americans are christians and most of the christians I've met are of the impression that their faith ideally should be part of every aspect of their lives - that is, a good christian is one who takes his morals from the bible and consults it more or less consciously when making decisions of spiritual import, and who prays when he's having a problem
3) a good christian is also not ashamed of his faith, and would never think of denying that religion and god play an important role in his life but
4) this is not construed as agression or pridefulness, becuase a good christian is also humble, and to attribute all of one's sucesses to god is considered the ultimate humility.
Therefore polititions must credit god and use religious parlance because, first, the idea of atheism is foreign and generally suspect to most of the population, who don't quite understand how an athiest can actually be moral, so the candidate wants by no means to be lumped in that catagory; therefore if he wants to be elected he has to be perceived as a christian, prefereably a good christian, and someone who identifies as a christian but refuses to admit that god plays a major role in his life and decisionmaking tends to be seen as slippery and and demogogic, whereas someone who affirms strongly and under any circumstances (note the sucess of 'she said yes') their religious faith is seen as decisive and strong-willed (even though the candidate has no choice in the matter because to deny having a religious faith would be political suicide). Similarly, taking pride in one's sucesses is seen as arrogant and peut etre megalomaniacal, wheras attributing ones successes to god is perceived as humble and discrete.
therefore not only does using religious jargon make political sense in our culture but its so normative that refusing to use it constitutes an act of rebellion that will ultimately negates any future political career.
What surprised me (at first) was that the french (and i suppose europe in general) found this so surprising - after all, the citizens of their countries are predominatly religious and whether its fashionable for them to incorporate religion into their politics or not, athiests still can't get elected anywhere, so one would think that the mentalities of the people of europe on this subject should be more or less similar to that of the amercains, but its not at all, and I'm still not sure I understand exactly why.
Taking france as an example, for better or for worse they have catholocism wrapped up in their national identity, and becuase of what I perceive as the importance of the vatican to the catholic religion one would think that good politician would want to be perceived as a good catholic and would consequently want to acknowlege his faith in god and also demonstrate that he's more or less in line with the vatican, particularly on blurry subjective issues having to do with things like morality ... but that is definatively not the case - the government here is rabidly secular and is almost never in line with the vatican, particularly on blurry subjective issues having to do with morality (most obvious case in point; birth control pills and abortions being covered by the national health care), and the people here seem to love it.
so (this is all bullshit and I have no authority to make these assumptions, but) I've boiled down what I think the reason for this phenomena is to three factors (I seems to love making lists today, don't I?):
first, there seems to be a weird dissconnect/walking contradiction in the minds of 'religious' people in this country, which I think extends from the institution of catholism (as opposed to the faith of catholocism)and is embodied by the idea that you can be religious but not practicing. To a protestant this idea makes little to no sense because their religion is based around an ideal of personal connection with god and founded in opposition to a faith full of 'meaningless' ritual and hierarchy, so not to practice means not to be connected means not to be religious - catholocism, however much it may also (nowadays - this definately wasn't always the case) emphasize that type personal connection with god, is marked by participation in a society and shared culture in a way that protestism is not, and the initiation ceremonies, the fullfillment of rituals, the memorzation of prayers and songs that all catholics know by heart that help create this shared cultural dimension allows (as one sees even more strongly in judaism, where race is sort of also tied up into it) someone to 'feel' catholic because they were 'born' catholic, and maybe were baptised and christened and had a first communion party, even though they may never go to church, and be doubtful about the existence of god, the accurateness of the bible or the sagacity of the vatican.
second, I feel like the enlightenment (if I'm getting this wrong forgive me and correct me, my grip on philosphy is tenous and I've only taken one class) floated the idea that maybe religions don't have the monopoly on morals, maybe morals just make sense becuase they help structure and stabilize societies and interpersonal relationships, so maybe a government could embody moral principals/govern justly/morally without needing to invoke religious doctorine ... an idea which could help make secularism, if not outright athiesm, in government and elsewhere more palatable to the general public (this idea could be undermined by the fact that the enlightenment in france was followed by the insanity of the french revolution)
third, considering the rather long and bloody history of religious conflict in europe, I feel like the damage religion can do when it gets involved in politics is a lot more salient to europeans than to americans. I feel like europe is touchy about religion the way america is touchy about race - any form of religious sentiment expressed in government conjures up guilty collective memories of the ugliness of the crusades and the death of joan of arc, whereas any less than delicate appellation of a person of color (particularly an african american, and there are two rather delicate appellations right there) or demonstration of racial inequality conjours up american guilty collective memories of the ugliness of slavery and jim crow (side note/ question: is there any name for the race of somebody of mixed race in english that doesn't have even the slightest perjorative connotation? becuase I can't think of any, except maybe 'mixed' which is really slangy, wheras I know french has a couple of them). So this gun shy kind of wariness of politically abmitious religious sentiment (and overzealous religious sentiment in general) coupled with the idea that religion doesn't necessarily have the monopoly on morals, and taking into account that people are still generally wary of athiesm, makes 'religious but not practicing' the type of faith europeans seem most comfortable with, in both their daily lives and in the conduct of their government. They want to be able to count themselves catholic and à la fois deny that the vatican has any right to tell them whether or not they can get an abortion; they want to know Chirac is a christian, while at the same time assert that he'd be crossing a line if he ever talked about it in public. Whether or not this is a contradiction, it still makes a hell of a lot more sense than the american attitude.
incidently, I love france. this country is so ... livable. Live-inable. If you can find a job in it, that is. I think I'm going to come back in a couple years and get someone to sham marry me for citizenship.
okay there were still more points I was going to put down about my week but I should give up the computer in case someone else in the fam wants to use it
in the past few days, I;
took some nature walk detours with Patrick along ancient trails that had apparently been used for sheep autrefois, but whose cobbled stone walls were now crumbling becuase they were constantly being trampled by cows ... looked at certain feilds full of flowering prunier sauvage in certain feilds where he felt there was particularly good energy, and at little sections of woodlands scattered with wild cerisiers that somebody's anes were tearing all the bark off of
visited a secret grotte that patrick had discovered while running (well, that's a lie, it's not exactly secret and he didn't actually discover it - he read that it was in the area and more or less went looking for it) with patrick and dodo (dominique the painter) which apparently had once been, no joke, a dinosaur bone mine (well, not necessarilly dinasaur bones per se, but fossilized bones en generale) the entrance to whihc was set in the side of a supersteep hill covered in thin trees covered in moss, so that we basically slid on our butts through muddy green carpet land to reach the pile of rocks in front of the cave, then later climbed back up green carpet escalade ... the grotte was smaller and more damaged and consequently less objectively impressionnant que la grotte de peche merle, mais c'etais immpressionant quand meme d'y etre tout seul, dans le noir avec seulement un tout petit flashlight comme lumiere. Dodo brought a drum which patrick played a bit at the entrance to the cave, because apparently legend has it that grottes are veritable havens of spirit beings and so you don't just go tromping into their living rooms, as it were, without at least ringing the doorbell. We wandered around a bit looking for bones and ooing and ahhing at rock formations, then picked a little grotte within the grotte, (and dodo made some comment that involved word 'womb,' lol) and played drum (during which i could have sworn I heard patrick say 'je commence à voir des animaux')then held and chanted 'om' and 'ma.' So I suppose as it turns out my homestay peeps are just a leeetle bit weirder than I originally gave them credit for, but oh well, they're still great, and I like caves, even if I don't think there are animal spirits living in them.
held innumerable conversations about politiques, history, and religion, during which it became clear to me that the rest of europe sees the united states as a scary, backward, presque theocracy, and that their idea (well, I can't speak for all of europe now, but the french idea, at any rate) of separation of church and state is (theoretically, however, which I'll bitch about in a moment) SECULAR STATE in which RELIGION can exist but IS NOT IN ANY WAY INVOLVED ... they find it absolutely shocking when american polititians evoke god as a matter of course in nearly all of their speeches and don't understand 1) why the american public is not similarly shocked, considering separation of church and state would seem to make that kind of talk unconstitutional, and 2) why the american public doesn't think its indescrète for these politicians to go parading their religions around all the time. Which for me was really funny, becuase though I'm not religious and deteste when american canditates evoke god and find it spineless and manipulative, it has always been more or less obvious to me why, as politicians, they have to do it, which is dependant basically on 4 factors:
1) most americans are religious, and it seems to me most religious people seem to think that religions have the monopoly on morals - that is, that moral behavior is somehow dependant on fear of punishment later on at the hands of some omniscient overlord
2) most americans are christians and most of the christians I've met are of the impression that their faith ideally should be part of every aspect of their lives - that is, a good christian is one who takes his morals from the bible and consults it more or less consciously when making decisions of spiritual import, and who prays when he's having a problem
3) a good christian is also not ashamed of his faith, and would never think of denying that religion and god play an important role in his life but
4) this is not construed as agression or pridefulness, becuase a good christian is also humble, and to attribute all of one's sucesses to god is considered the ultimate humility.
Therefore polititions must credit god and use religious parlance because, first, the idea of atheism is foreign and generally suspect to most of the population, who don't quite understand how an athiest can actually be moral, so the candidate wants by no means to be lumped in that catagory; therefore if he wants to be elected he has to be perceived as a christian, prefereably a good christian, and someone who identifies as a christian but refuses to admit that god plays a major role in his life and decisionmaking tends to be seen as slippery and and demogogic, whereas someone who affirms strongly and under any circumstances (note the sucess of 'she said yes') their religious faith is seen as decisive and strong-willed (even though the candidate has no choice in the matter because to deny having a religious faith would be political suicide). Similarly, taking pride in one's sucesses is seen as arrogant and peut etre megalomaniacal, wheras attributing ones successes to god is perceived as humble and discrete.
therefore not only does using religious jargon make political sense in our culture but its so normative that refusing to use it constitutes an act of rebellion that will ultimately negates any future political career.
What surprised me (at first) was that the french (and i suppose europe in general) found this so surprising - after all, the citizens of their countries are predominatly religious and whether its fashionable for them to incorporate religion into their politics or not, athiests still can't get elected anywhere, so one would think that the mentalities of the people of europe on this subject should be more or less similar to that of the amercains, but its not at all, and I'm still not sure I understand exactly why.
Taking france as an example, for better or for worse they have catholocism wrapped up in their national identity, and becuase of what I perceive as the importance of the vatican to the catholic religion one would think that good politician would want to be perceived as a good catholic and would consequently want to acknowlege his faith in god and also demonstrate that he's more or less in line with the vatican, particularly on blurry subjective issues having to do with things like morality ... but that is definatively not the case - the government here is rabidly secular and is almost never in line with the vatican, particularly on blurry subjective issues having to do with morality (most obvious case in point; birth control pills and abortions being covered by the national health care), and the people here seem to love it.
so (this is all bullshit and I have no authority to make these assumptions, but) I've boiled down what I think the reason for this phenomena is to three factors (I seems to love making lists today, don't I?):
first, there seems to be a weird dissconnect/walking contradiction in the minds of 'religious' people in this country, which I think extends from the institution of catholism (as opposed to the faith of catholocism)and is embodied by the idea that you can be religious but not practicing. To a protestant this idea makes little to no sense because their religion is based around an ideal of personal connection with god and founded in opposition to a faith full of 'meaningless' ritual and hierarchy, so not to practice means not to be connected means not to be religious - catholocism, however much it may also (nowadays - this definately wasn't always the case) emphasize that type personal connection with god, is marked by participation in a society and shared culture in a way that protestism is not, and the initiation ceremonies, the fullfillment of rituals, the memorzation of prayers and songs that all catholics know by heart that help create this shared cultural dimension allows (as one sees even more strongly in judaism, where race is sort of also tied up into it) someone to 'feel' catholic because they were 'born' catholic, and maybe were baptised and christened and had a first communion party, even though they may never go to church, and be doubtful about the existence of god, the accurateness of the bible or the sagacity of the vatican.
second, I feel like the enlightenment (if I'm getting this wrong forgive me and correct me, my grip on philosphy is tenous and I've only taken one class) floated the idea that maybe religions don't have the monopoly on morals, maybe morals just make sense becuase they help structure and stabilize societies and interpersonal relationships, so maybe a government could embody moral principals/govern justly/morally without needing to invoke religious doctorine ... an idea which could help make secularism, if not outright athiesm, in government and elsewhere more palatable to the general public (this idea could be undermined by the fact that the enlightenment in france was followed by the insanity of the french revolution)
third, considering the rather long and bloody history of religious conflict in europe, I feel like the damage religion can do when it gets involved in politics is a lot more salient to europeans than to americans. I feel like europe is touchy about religion the way america is touchy about race - any form of religious sentiment expressed in government conjures up guilty collective memories of the ugliness of the crusades and the death of joan of arc, whereas any less than delicate appellation of a person of color (particularly an african american, and there are two rather delicate appellations right there) or demonstration of racial inequality conjours up american guilty collective memories of the ugliness of slavery and jim crow (side note/ question: is there any name for the race of somebody of mixed race in english that doesn't have even the slightest perjorative connotation? becuase I can't think of any, except maybe 'mixed' which is really slangy, wheras I know french has a couple of them). So this gun shy kind of wariness of politically abmitious religious sentiment (and overzealous religious sentiment in general) coupled with the idea that religion doesn't necessarily have the monopoly on morals, and taking into account that people are still generally wary of athiesm, makes 'religious but not practicing' the type of faith europeans seem most comfortable with, in both their daily lives and in the conduct of their government. They want to be able to count themselves catholic and à la fois deny that the vatican has any right to tell them whether or not they can get an abortion; they want to know Chirac is a christian, while at the same time assert that he'd be crossing a line if he ever talked about it in public. Whether or not this is a contradiction, it still makes a hell of a lot more sense than the american attitude.
incidently, I love france. this country is so ... livable. Live-inable. If you can find a job in it, that is. I think I'm going to come back in a couple years and get someone to sham marry me for citizenship.
okay there were still more points I was going to put down about my week but I should give up the computer in case someone else in the fam wants to use it