XVI
Preface
reminded us, French hostility toward America was powerfully increased by
the war against Spain in 1898, which was viewed by the French right as a
threat to European colonial empires, and by the left as a conclusive proof of
the transformation of an already unpalatable American capitalism into outright imperialism or economic colonialism. As to the present American taste
for firearms, a unique feature among "civilised" countries as they were called
in the 1900s, it was Samuel Colt who, during the war against Mexico, triggered the craze by adopting the American system of manufacture invented
in arsenals in order to mass produce his celebrated revolvers. Present inequalities in the distribution of income are not worse than they were at the
time John D. Rockefeller was worth over one billion dollars, i.e. about 2% of
America's GNP: a proportion which, nowadays, would amount to some 200
billion. And New York bar owners pouring French wine on the street 20 were
seen already long before March 2003.
Thus, nothing very new under the sun, except that American international preponderance and unilateralism have now acquired the status of an
official doctrine supported by a host of ideologists invoking a fundamentalist Protestant ethic in order to justify interventions which, in the eyes of a
vast majority of people everywhere, are nothing but displays of power even
when they rid nations of barbaric rulers or religious oppression in the hope
of establishing there a (probably very weak) version of Western democracy.
That being said, nobody has to appreciate the barbaric music and violent
movies which presently come from America (the American stars of my youth
were Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers). Americans do
not merely dictate the export of these productions through international commercial agreements and by owning big distribution companies; they also sell
them by finding indigenous customers (or imitators) who are only too happy
to make money by distributing them among a young and most often uncultured public. And how would local television fill its hours of programmes,
how could the cinemas function, without the flow of American productions?
The work force in France (say) is not large enough to replace American mediocrity with French mediocrity; and no country is capable of producing a new
Shakespeare or a new Bartok every day. One therefore broadcasts what is
available or imitates American crass "games".
himself falling into the trap. It goes without saying that many of the criticisms
that some French intellectuals and politicians of the right addressed to America
would apply just as well to France. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United
States, 1492-Present (HarperCollins, 2003 edition), while or because very onesided, would be very useful to help understand criticism from the French left,
which was never as systematic and well organised as Zinn's, not to mention books
by Lewis Mumford, Noam Chomsky, etc.
20 If a boycott of French wines were to lower prices in France, I, for one, would
not shed crocodile tears at the tragic fate of poor American patriots heroically
depriving themselves of Chateau Latour at $1,000 a bottle (assuming they don't
have a stock of it in their cellar).
Preface
reminded us, French hostility toward America was powerfully increased by
the war against Spain in 1898, which was viewed by the French right as a
threat to European colonial empires, and by the left as a conclusive proof of
the transformation of an already unpalatable American capitalism into outright imperialism or economic colonialism. As to the present American taste
for firearms, a unique feature among "civilised" countries as they were called
in the 1900s, it was Samuel Colt who, during the war against Mexico, triggered the craze by adopting the American system of manufacture invented
in arsenals in order to mass produce his celebrated revolvers. Present inequalities in the distribution of income are not worse than they were at the
time John D. Rockefeller was worth over one billion dollars, i.e. about 2% of
America's GNP: a proportion which, nowadays, would amount to some 200
billion. And New York bar owners pouring French wine on the street 20 were
seen already long before March 2003.
Thus, nothing very new under the sun, except that American international preponderance and unilateralism have now acquired the status of an
official doctrine supported by a host of ideologists invoking a fundamentalist Protestant ethic in order to justify interventions which, in the eyes of a
vast majority of people everywhere, are nothing but displays of power even
when they rid nations of barbaric rulers or religious oppression in the hope
of establishing there a (probably very weak) version of Western democracy.
That being said, nobody has to appreciate the barbaric music and violent
movies which presently come from America (the American stars of my youth
were Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers). Americans do
not merely dictate the export of these productions through international commercial agreements and by owning big distribution companies; they also sell
them by finding indigenous customers (or imitators) who are only too happy
to make money by distributing them among a young and most often uncultured public. And how would local television fill its hours of programmes,
how could the cinemas function, without the flow of American productions?
The work force in France (say) is not large enough to replace American mediocrity with French mediocrity; and no country is capable of producing a new
Shakespeare or a new Bartok every day. One therefore broadcasts what is
available or imitates American crass "games".
himself falling into the trap. It goes without saying that many of the criticisms
that some French intellectuals and politicians of the right addressed to America
would apply just as well to France. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United
States, 1492-Present (HarperCollins, 2003 edition), while or because very onesided, would be very useful to help understand criticism from the French left,
which was never as systematic and well organised as Zinn's, not to mention books
by Lewis Mumford, Noam Chomsky, etc.
20 If a boycott of French wines were to lower prices in France, I, for one, would
not shed crocodile tears at the tragic fate of poor American patriots heroically
depriving themselves of Chateau Latour at $1,000 a bottle (assuming they don't
have a stock of it in their cellar).