ETUDE DE VILLAGE - FIN
so I finished my paper and its way to long and tangents all over the place but grace a dieu c'est fini ... my final point was basically the mindnumbingly simple 'yeah, a lot of stuff's changed, but a lot of stuff's stayed the same quand meme' more specifically, the physical aspects of country life have changed a ton - there are all these new amenities and fewer farmers and more tourists so no one's daily routine is at all similar to the daily rouotine of old BUT nevertheless there's an attitude and value system that persists, which is typified by 1) respect for the earth 2) value placed on communal living; getting to know your neighbors and helping them out becuase you know they'd do it for you, but also simply becuase they're you're freinds 3) 'rebellious' distrust of authority and disatisfaction with the status quo, which occasionally is coupled with 4) heretical (as in anticlerical) religious practice.
examples:
1) the farmer respected the earth because he knew if he didn't treat it right it would stop feeding him; the modern citizen of terrac respects it for the same reason but on a grander scale, because he's an ecologist and understands that if we pollute the world to death we can't live in it anymore
2) the farmer valued communal living becuase it wasn't possible for him to be self sufficient; he needed his neighbors to help him at certain times of the year becuase there was too much work for him to do alone, and consequently was willing to help them with their work in exchange ... but also, on an interpersonal level, they had no TVs and were often uneducated and maybe didn't read much and lived in close quartiers and had lots of tedious work to do everyday so people just naturally just decided to do it together and chat while doing laundry or making butter or whatever, and to spend their evenings together, becuase it was more fun than spending them alone ... now, the modern terracian doesn't actually need to help out his neighbors becuase it is possible for him to be self sufficiant, becuase he doesn't have the same kind of work to do and if there was ever a project that was to big for him to do on his own he could hire someone ... but the communal spirit is still there becuase people nevertheless choose to help eachother out with little things and do work together and eat together and hang out together in the evenings becuase everyone in the town is freindly and things are more fun that way
3) historically the south felt alienated from the centers of power in paris/ versailles and the church in rome, and becuase the king and the pope were not sufficiently effectively powerful to force them to do what they wanted the seignors in the south just sort of governed based on their own ideas without paying them much heed, which could be construed as rebellion and mefiance d'authorité ... also, during the wars of religion and world war two (and maybe WWI and the hundred years war, but no one really talked to me about these) the last bastion of the resistance fighters was the pyrenees region, becuase it was easy to hide in, and hills are easier to defend than plains ... now, the region always votes socialist, which would seem to imply some sort of dissatisfaction sith the status quo and alienation from the current rightist government, and I definately noticed some nonconformism and distrust of authority among the citizens of terrac.
4) and of course, that brings up the cathars, an anticlerical heretical sppinoff of catholicism that was able to appear and flourish (well I got the impression that it flourished becuase everyone talks about it but I don't actually really know) in the south à cause de the permissive southern seigneurs who didn't pay attention to the representatives of the vatican telling them they needed get rid of it ... and now you have all these spacy hippie types and newagers coming in, who are also anticlerical and marginaux and more or less modern heretical spinoffs of one or more established religions.
so yeah, the body reincarnates again and again but the soul remains the same. the funny thing is that I feel like whereas before the physical aspects of country life helped shape the attitude of its residents (farmwork requires community cooperation, distance from cities means lack of lesiure activities so you hang out with your neigbors, so communities got stronger; geographical distance from seat of power makes it harder for them to monitor what you're doing, and easier for you do do what you want to even though they tell you not to, so marginal religious sects sprang up, and resistance groups could grow there) whereas not I feel it might be less that the conditions of country life bring out or nourish this attitude (becuase a lot of the people who live there and seem to have this attitude were raised somewhere else) than that people who have this kind of attitude associate it with the countryside and go there to find it. Which is funny, becuase in the end, they create it, and they're the reason its still there.
examples:
1) the farmer respected the earth because he knew if he didn't treat it right it would stop feeding him; the modern citizen of terrac respects it for the same reason but on a grander scale, because he's an ecologist and understands that if we pollute the world to death we can't live in it anymore
2) the farmer valued communal living becuase it wasn't possible for him to be self sufficient; he needed his neighbors to help him at certain times of the year becuase there was too much work for him to do alone, and consequently was willing to help them with their work in exchange ... but also, on an interpersonal level, they had no TVs and were often uneducated and maybe didn't read much and lived in close quartiers and had lots of tedious work to do everyday so people just naturally just decided to do it together and chat while doing laundry or making butter or whatever, and to spend their evenings together, becuase it was more fun than spending them alone ... now, the modern terracian doesn't actually need to help out his neighbors becuase it is possible for him to be self sufficiant, becuase he doesn't have the same kind of work to do and if there was ever a project that was to big for him to do on his own he could hire someone ... but the communal spirit is still there becuase people nevertheless choose to help eachother out with little things and do work together and eat together and hang out together in the evenings becuase everyone in the town is freindly and things are more fun that way
3) historically the south felt alienated from the centers of power in paris/ versailles and the church in rome, and becuase the king and the pope were not sufficiently effectively powerful to force them to do what they wanted the seignors in the south just sort of governed based on their own ideas without paying them much heed, which could be construed as rebellion and mefiance d'authorité ... also, during the wars of religion and world war two (and maybe WWI and the hundred years war, but no one really talked to me about these) the last bastion of the resistance fighters was the pyrenees region, becuase it was easy to hide in, and hills are easier to defend than plains ... now, the region always votes socialist, which would seem to imply some sort of dissatisfaction sith the status quo and alienation from the current rightist government, and I definately noticed some nonconformism and distrust of authority among the citizens of terrac.
4) and of course, that brings up the cathars, an anticlerical heretical sppinoff of catholicism that was able to appear and flourish (well I got the impression that it flourished becuase everyone talks about it but I don't actually really know) in the south à cause de the permissive southern seigneurs who didn't pay attention to the representatives of the vatican telling them they needed get rid of it ... and now you have all these spacy hippie types and newagers coming in, who are also anticlerical and marginaux and more or less modern heretical spinoffs of one or more established religions.
so yeah, the body reincarnates again and again but the soul remains the same. the funny thing is that I feel like whereas before the physical aspects of country life helped shape the attitude of its residents (farmwork requires community cooperation, distance from cities means lack of lesiure activities so you hang out with your neigbors, so communities got stronger; geographical distance from seat of power makes it harder for them to monitor what you're doing, and easier for you do do what you want to even though they tell you not to, so marginal religious sects sprang up, and resistance groups could grow there) whereas not I feel it might be less that the conditions of country life bring out or nourish this attitude (becuase a lot of the people who live there and seem to have this attitude were raised somewhere else) than that people who have this kind of attitude associate it with the countryside and go there to find it. Which is funny, becuase in the end, they create it, and they're the reason its still there.