Americans on Socialism

Hey everyone,

One of the hardest cultural gaps to bridge, in my opinion, has been about economics. In America, free-market capitalism is not just an economic system; it's linked with cultural identity, personal identity, and some of what Americans consider the most fundamental values, like self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and a strong work ethic. Some of our founding myths--rags-to-riches stories (all the way back to Horatio Alger), the American Dream (even before J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur), and even the melting pot--are built on a free market economic model. While capitalism definitely has its flaws--we all hate poverty and the shrinking middle class, overconsumption, the inability to disconnect from work, a terrible health care system, etc.--ideas of a welfare state, or living off of handouts, or enabling, or--worst of all--not encouraging healthy competition sound just as frightening.

So it's hard for some Americans, at least it was for me, to adapt to a country where the Socialist Party is first runner up, and where you don't have to worry about having an FBI (or whatever the French intelligence agency is) open up a file on you if you join the Communist Party.

I read this great article on the New York Times called "Going Dutch" by Russel Shorto. He explains all this very well, for audiences on both sides of the pond: why do Americans have such a visceral distaste for socialism, and why socialism--at least in some forms, to some degree--is actually great. I agree, too, with the criticisms he makes of the more socialized state in the Netherlands (similar in some ways to France). If you can make it through the five-page article, though, I think it's well worth it, for Americans and Europeans.

I was speaking with a French girl last week at a conference, and we began discussing the differences between teaching in America and in France. This led to a discussion of the competitive exams in France compared to job interviews in the States. I made the mistake of saying, "You have to know how to sell yourself over there." To me, this seems like a positive thing: knowing how to communicate and to put your best foot forward are important and worthy skills. She heard it as dehumanizing, objectifying; capitalism is, as she saw it, a modern form of slavery, where very few control very many. We went on to discuss the structures of higher education, and then secondary education; public schools vs. private; work ethic; health care; and so on. The problem: Everyone should have equal opportunity, but that's never the case, because of neighborhood, educational, ethnic, gender differences. How do you solve the problem? I asked about Affirmative Action (which the French and English call Positive Discrimination, if it gives you an idea), but that, she said, doesn't get to the root of the problem: you have to support the entire population, give those who need it a real leg up financially, so they have the same chance to pursue a better life. I felt that government aid without helping to place kids in better schools would create dependency, a crutch. She thought it was classist of me to see it that way. She may have been right.

The great point was, though, that from a simple question about how to become a teacher in France and in the U.S., we ended up debating the fundamental meanings and differences between the American self-reliant individual and the French solidarité and l'état providence. So often these days, it seems like nearly all the cultural differences--political, interpersonal, environmental, even religious (think of that Protestant Work Ethic and Weber)--are somehow tied up with economy.

Blog

Hi everyone!

I wanted to reflect on our today's work : blogging...

What is a blog?

Wikipedia :
"A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."


It is a new experience for many of us and it's a bit weird.. I've already heard of blog. I've already visited some of them. Blogging, I mean writing, is not the same. One becomes part of the stream, one belongs to the "blogosphere". But what's the goal then? And why?

Whatever would be the answers to those questions, one has to admit the blog phenomenon has clearly become a part of media system. There are over 60 millions of blogs on the web. About one million posts are created every day...One can found a blog on almost any subject.

The link with culture? Obvious !
Blog is now a media. A media spreads culture.

Not convinced? Have a look then...

http://notrejapon.blogspot.com/
http://www.bresil-indigene.blogspot.com/
http://la-cachina.over-blog.com/article-15007991.html
http://blog.zanorg.com/index.php?perm=392

A great tool isn'it? But one must be carefull. There are excellent and really bad things. So one has to select informations in the relentless stream.
Anyway, it's is the really same with all medias (TV Channels, radios, newspapers...) .

So I'm persuaded blog is a very powerfull tool to share one's opinion and culture.
I've shared mine right here..
I'm now a real blogger...

The waste of 24 hours

Hi! OK that's me first time....
I'm simply going to talk about what I'm doing right now: trying to put in place some waste management system at the campus festival of INSA: the 24H. And this is, if you believe it or not, a widely cultural subject. For me, coming from some northern Europe country, it is something natural to sort my waste. Here in Lyon we have a similar system, so when I first arrived I thought:"Ok, it's like home juste put all your plastic cans and cheese papers in it...". But that was totally wrong. Later, when I had my first look at the indications on the garbage can for sorting, I had to admit that I had been wrong. I did a lot of very bad things in terms of waste management. You have to know that if the "tri" is bad, that means that if you things in it that don't have to be there, they put all back together and the whole work was for nothing. I knew that, so I felt bad. And now the festival: the organisation committee had the good idea to put a better waste management system in place than in the years before. For me it seemed to be clear to do it right and as successful as possible, but not every body in the committee shared this opinion. But anyway, they help us very well. The great problem was to make people put their glass and their plastic bottles in right bags! In such a festival context it's very hard to make the people doing the right thing. And if there are no widespread sorting habits it's even worse, you have to do a lot publicity for your garbage cans! So we tried to put over every waste bag a panel which indicates what to put inside. Know it's not sure how it's gonna work, we will see.
But if everybody does a little it can make huge things move, so have a nice weekend and use the right bag for littering.