things you see at the community center

My husband Carlos and I went to a lunch with the Association Franco-Mexicaine d'Aquitaine. He met the lady in charge through a series of phone calls while pursuing some volunteer work. The lunch is always Mexican food - the only thing in the States I miss besides my family and friends - and it's normally at the Saige Centre Sociale.

Carlos had also been volunteering at the community center in Talence, where I learned a lot about what's available to residents through these awesome programs. The one in Talence offers a little low-cost cafe run by another association that helps poorer folks have a place to interact and combat poverty-induced isolation. They also have expos, children's art and music activities, films, holiday parties (complete with alcohol for the grown-ups - this is France, after all!), and even someone residents can go to for help writing official correspondence, for example, to fight a claim of an unpaid bill. It's impressive how much work and resources the French are willing to expend to take care of people. Our neighbor for example is blind in one eye, and as she's older and can't get around easily anyway, the mayor's office sends her an "auxiliaire de vie" or helper. The mayor's office also sends food to all the old folks in the town it's charged with. Impressive. Especially since in the US, old people, once they're no longer useful economically seem to be left to fall through the cracks and fend for themselves.

One thing you find lots of in community centers is POSTERS! There are posters for everything. You have posters from the French government, from the department (kind of like state or county in the US), from the city, from different associations, from the mayor's office - in short, from everywhere.

What struck me about this sort of PSA style poster about folates for women was how nude the woman seems to be. And it was in a community center used by a large Muslim population who might find it off-putting. (I know the center has Muslim patrons because in the kitchen where we had our lunch there were dozens of little tea glasses with arabic writings on them and they were beautiful!). Even my American sensibilities were challenged. But what you realize after the initial shock is that it's not trying to be sexy or objectifying. (One might argue it may be objectified anyway, but that's the viewer's problem). It's evoking the body of a pregnant woman - with the choux as the belly! - and celebrating it. It's instructional, too, as it's meant to make women aware of the need for folates in their diet and for prenatal vitamins well before conception. And as my clever husband says, the nudity is emphasizing breastfeeding, pregnancy and the beauty of it all. :)

It's a breath of fresh air if you ask me. Mostly because so often in the US, any nudity is both automatically seen as sexual and shamed. Maybe it's a legacy of the Puritans, but female nudity in particular can never be free of what pornography has twisted it into, but it can never be innocent either. I won't complain more on the subject, because there are plenty of excellent articles about this. But it got me thinking.

Election time

I don't really know what to make of this. The municipal elections just passed, and I had to stop and take a picture of this poster next to our house. There's lots to say about it. First, I love how in France they have these boards where people still paste up poster with a bucket of glue. It reminds me of The Bicycle Thief. In France, some things just don't change because they already work well. It's kind of like, Why change it?

Second, this is a really confusing combo. The Front National is a right-wing party that my students tell me, is really racist. As with most economic crises, the party in power isn't doing enough. Two students told me today that the FN is gaining support, and they think if their leader Marine LePen wins the election, there will be a civil war in France. But despite the stats that show support for FN growing, I feel like everyone I talk to thinks they are a little bit fou. (Maybe I don't talk to enough old people?)

As most people know, the shootings at Charlie Hebdo in Paris brought about the hashtag Je Suis Charlie. People have printed and posted the logo everywhere - in school (interestingly enough), in cars, on store windows. I've read extensively in French news all about it, but the least talked about thing that I myself thought should be explored was how Muslims in France were pretty scared. My friend Sarah stayed home for a few weeks and said her parents told her to be careful since she wears the hijab. Among the things French papers did cover concerning the Muslim population's reaction was the emergence of Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie, a hashtag saying basically, I don't agree with Charlie Hebdo. Of course, in the simplified, symbolic discourse of modern politics, it was reduced to assuming that if you didn't support Charlie Hebdo, you don't support freedom of expression and you do support terrorism. That's unfortunate because Charlie Hebdo is actually really racist to everyone, sexist, crude and not even very clever in its approach to satire. (I'll talk about this more in another post. I have lots to say.)

What I want to know is, did the person who posted this say Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie to stand up to the FN? Or are they saying that the FN doesn't support Charlie? It's like a riddle.

I'm thinking it's the first one. Because the FN define being French very narrowly, and Charlie Hebdo, despite calling itself leftist, actually reaffirms racist stereotypes that also support that narrow nationalist idea and that the FN banks on to enflame fear and hatred to gain support. I myself feel more sympathy with the Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie crowd, because, while I know a publication like Charlie Hebdo must be allowed to exist for the sake of truly free expression, I don't like Charlie Hebdo. I wouldn't have supported or read it, because I insist on respecting other people. There's of course room for poking fun at stereotypes we all use as shorthand for each other's cultures - all in good fun. But the power dynamic of Charlie's cartoons has never been talked about in French media. Charlie, while claiming neutrality because it makes fun of "everyone" actually doesn't make fun of white, French, secular males unless they are politicians (which shows in any case who has influence). And that's mostly who ran the mag. More importantly, France's secular laws make it illegal to talk about religion in public. So while Charlie claims freedom of expression to target religion in public, no religion can defend itself in public. So Charlie and its freedom of expression is protected in a way its religious targets in particular are not. This might illuminate some of the frustration Muslims in France must feel. They're told to be French, but the definition is made pretty impossible for them. They are supposed to convert to a system whose freedom of expression is not available to them, even to defend themselves. So, while I absolutely don't think violence is justified, neither is blaming foreigners for the state of affairs in France. It's France, the French have the control and the "foreigners" (some of them second or third generation French-born non-Europeans) are not in the same position of power. Most of them are just trying to get by.

Ed Wood Cafe

There's an American burger place here in Talence right by the University of Bordeaux Science and Tech campus. I have to say they really nailed the American nostalgia thing. It's full of posters, kitsch, statues of movies stars, US license plates and there's even a drum set and old Looney Tunes cartoons playing on TV. The burgers are pretty good, about the price you'd pay at Red Robin and they have mint chocolate chip ice cream, which is my favorite and not very common here.

One thing I noticed is this: next to Heinz ketchup to accompany your cheeseburger, they have also Heinz Dijon mustard. I tried it on my burger thinking I wouldn't mind it, since I do love me some Maille where I would never ordinarily eat French's. But it was just too much! French people think French's doesn't really taste like anything, and it's nothing like Dijon mustard, it's true. Dijon is spicy - as spicy a French palette normally likes. But it's just too strong! What's ironic is that French's is French at all, but that's exactly what you need on a good ol' American burger!

The best part is to see what bits of American culture the French are aware of, retain and reformat to create this atmosphere of Hollywood 1950s nostalgia.

Candy eggs (not the kind you think)

One of the things I think Americans have a hard time with is savory gelatins. In France, they enjoy "terrines," or pre-cooked meat layered in a loaf pan with other ingredients -sometimes gelatinous meat juices - and refrigerated, sliced and served as a first course.

That said, I went to the grocery with my friend Brooke and found this candy in the bulk aisle at Auchan. It's similar to what Americans would recognize as gummies like gummy bears or worms. It's sweet, but made with pork gelatin and shaped like an egg, sunny side up.

We took photos, of course, because we both thought it was interesting and kind of funny, but mostly because I think Americans would find them not very appetizing. Which is funny, because we eat gummy worms, but gummy eggs - otherwise an actually acceptable food - in gummy form seems to be off-putting.

McDo mon amour

So I've been wanting to post about McDonalds. I make it a point NOT to eat American fast food while in foreign lands because to me, there's nothing more ridiculous than paying for a plane ticket to escape 'Merica and then pay even more for its crappy culinary exports, but since I am married to someone who went 8 months without buying groceries and instead ate out for the whole time (and is even proud of this fact), I have found myself in McDo plenty of times. (Thrice, he corrects me with incredulous squinty eyes.)

My past experience with McDonalds
I actually hadn't eaten at a McDonald's in a long time (with the exception of their awesome breakfast menus occasionally). My true burger love is In N Out, though, a California snob thing where they make everything fresh and their fries and shakes are old-fashioned bliss. On my mission in Guatemala, we ate lots of McDonalds since they have delivery on motorbikes. And since Guatemala to someone like me is like a backwards land where what you knew is right is the opposite there. So, McDonalds is actually good. The meat is real meat! The service is excellent! The bathrooms are clean! McDonalds jobs are coveted! To Americans, it's truly the opposite of everything you think you know.

In France
McDo as they call it here is somewhere between the US and Guate in its quality, desirability and price. It's less ubiquitous than both the US and Guate but surprisingly present and always full of clientele. The music playing the restaurant is totally inappropriate usually English-language pop that, were it translated, probably wouldn't be allowed in a place where kids go after school. But then, this is France where all my high schoolers smoke and magazines with naked women on the cover are advertised on newsstands in the most public places. Alas, my "propriety" compass is wonky here. the French are prudish and old-fashioned about really random stuff to an American point of view, but that's a topic for another post.

How'd I like it then?
I ordered the ordinary cheeseburger, fries and, in a measly effort to not be ingesting something as bad for me as McDo, a fizzy water. (Yes, they have Badoit at McDonald's.) The burger wasn't bad and the fries were pretty fresh. It was like eating the US. I think that's what the French kids who love Kanye West imagine it's like to be in the US when they spend 12 euros on such a lunch, but my snobbery has been upended: I was craving McDo all week after that and we went another two times. But I haven't been back since. Stubborn pride or lack of funds? Both, actually. Basically, it was "bof" - er in English, meh. There are just a lot of things I'd rather eat in France, and if it's going to be "foreign," almost anything else will do - Indian, Thai, kebabs. If it's going to be French, tant mieux.

excommunicated from modern life

A friend of mine posted this NPR blog entitled "Science Deniers, Hand in Your Cell Phones." Hearing the title, I thought it was a satire*, but it's totally not! While the writer makes a couple good points about how dumb climate deniers are, his overall assumptions are rhetorically problematic. (For example, that anyone who doesn't agree with the extrapolations of Evolutionary Theory on the nature of human consciousness and morality is somehow to be lumped in with conspiracy theorists as "science deniers.") 

I don't agree with those who deny climate change and I dream of the day when Americans voluntarily revolutionize our way of life to be sustainable and healthy for us and the planet. But I can't help but comment on the mode of argument. What I find most intriguing, though, is the underlying thesis that those who refuse to believe in science - essentially who have a preference for any other belief - are in some way heretical and no longer worthy of the blessings of modernity. The tone is telling.

It shows just how thoroughly materialist-scientific thought and authority has supplanted, not undone or erased or broken with, religious thought and authority. While there are various double standards the writer allows himself in this argument, one of the most obviously linked to religion was his comment, one I've so often heard in religious settings when talking about the commandments and such, is that science isn't a buffet from which you can choose what works for you. In other words, it's just as dogmatic as religion. It requires the same full, unquestioning submission that religion so barbarically does… or else: 

"...it's time, perhaps, for them to be consistent. Don't pick and choose between the science you like and the ones you deny. Chose between science and no science at all. 

Hand in your cell phones."

Wowwwwww. What is the difference between the author's declaration and a papal bull of the Middle Ages? Not much, actually, when you consider the only thing that has changed is the overriding assumption in our culture of what has authority and what is worth believing in, not the actual existence of belief or acknowledgement of authority. People still believe in what the author calls "the veracity of evolution" (emphasis added), for example, which everyone knows is a sophisticated theory based on observation and some intelligent grasps at answers** beyond what the data itself shows. It's extremely intelligent and helpful in looking at the world. But if you don't believe in it - all of it - if you don't submit your mind to "reason," beware of the consequences. It's like the truly liberal-minded questioning so beloved by the Philosophes never existed! How pre-Enlightenment!

But because science has such a hold on us, we don't think about how it's a philosophical conundrum that excludes itself by its own materialist basis from commenting on anything metaphysical, including religion, at least with any authority. Why? Because if truth comes from observation, and nothing metaphysical can be observed with the senses (since it doesn't exist unless it can be observed), it is immaterial and outside the possibility of scientific exploration. Science declares itself they only way to truth, the only authority. Thinking about that makes this blog post more interesting to dissect, mostly because the people who read it probably don't realize they still have engrained belief taught to them by those they consider as having authority. In their case they believe in science and frame their lives based on its reassuring promise of "progress and reason." They are outraged at heretical questioning of their truths just as the Catholics were at the Albigensians, or the Jansenists who read the Bible all by themselves without submitting to clerical interpretation and direction.

But doesn't this go back to human nature - our propensity to believe? If humans were principally rational, wouldn't the scientific studies on climate change convince us? Wouldn't our habits and cultural urges dissolve before the all-powerful statistically-backed facts? Couldn't you do without going all medieval on the non-believers and threatening them with a hellish life sans cell phone if they don't convert?

Well no. Because modern humans aren't more sophisticated and detached from belief than pre-moderns. We just believe we are.





*I still hope the post was a satire.
**see Noam Chomsky on grasping toward truth and human creativity, particularly in The Chomsky-Foucault debate on Human Nature. I don't agree with Chomsky's conclusion that the answer to consciousness is physiological, but that book blew my mind.