"Why is it so insane to imagine East Asians...might have a better sort of memory?" Wonder what inspired this Walt!
The first big blow to French's status in diplomacy was the Treaty of Versailles, whose English and French versions were granted equal status. Beyond diplomacy, French was also one of the languages of natural science (alongside German and English) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The deathblow to French as a global language was the Cold War. The first world adopted English and the second world Russian, and the disintegration of the communist bloc left English as the world's language. I doubt French could regain its status in part due to the linguistic elitism. People are insistent on it being spoken perfectly, whereas Anglophones seem to consider it rude to correct people's English. French retains some cultural cachet thanks to haute couture and 40% of English's lexicon coming from French.
On multiculturalism in France, a French professor in college, who was of Maghrebi origin, told me France isn't like America because citizens in France (regardless of race or ethnicity) are just French, while Americans add their ethnicity in front of their nationality. One immigrant group France has integrated more successfully than the US are Lao and Cambodians. In the US people from Laos and Cambodia tend to underperform, whereas in France they tend to be middle or upper middle class.
On French anti-Semitism, my Holocaust-obsessed father who trained with the Israelis told me France was considered the most rabidly anti-Semitic country in western Europe prior to the rise of the Nazis, and Germany was seen as more middle ground. He told me even though France had resecularized after the Franco-Prussian War, the French officer corps remained ardently Roman Catholic and anti-Jewish until after the Dreyfus Affair.
As for government spending as a proportion of GDP, it's 38% in the US and Australia and 58% in France.
This is a good description, "On multiculturalism in France, a French professor in college, who was of Maghrebi origin, told me France isn't like America because citizens in France (regardless of race or ethnicity) are just French, while Americans add their ethnicity in front of their nationality." A lot of Americans mistakenly think France is the bastion of liberalism, tolerance, and acceptance. It kind of isn't in many ways. One is to be French *above all else* which is why I think integration is easier in the US. NB: Americans get very very angry when I say this and start yelling at me, and I am...exhausted. I don't think Walt's commenters would but I have PTSD from telling people that askhully France is not as open-minded as one might think.
I view French integration (and most other countries for the matter!) as much better than American integration. But yeah, France being the "bastion" of liberalism, tolerance, and acceptance isn't true.
Then again people say "There's nothing to assimilate to here", which I do get, but don't think is true at all in at least certain parts of the U.S.
Because France has French as an official language, while the U.S. (and most other Anglosphere countries) don't. Not only that, but also the mandatory civics class that immigrants are required to take to even immigrate compels them to assimilate. The U.S. doesn't even have such a thing.
Imo I think we should go full on Japan/Richard Henry Pratt integration. I think this is the only way of going forward short of balkanisation.
In French culture one is to be "French" above all else. The American concept of e pluribus unum, on its best days, gives people the opportunity to continue their cultural traditions within the broader American landscape.
Many of the people who *do not assimilate* arrive in France already speaking French. In fact, those *born* here *(first generation) are less likely to be employed than their parents.
The civics classes are, to a degree, helpful, but by not means a fait accompli. I wrote about my experience here.
I don't know if that is necessarily true. France is seeing a revival of Brittany, Occitania, and other independence movements. "E Pluribus Unum" was only used to an extent that the U.S. would remain a Confederation/a loose Federal Republic. There was never any real attempt to solidify the regional cultures into a singular American culture (which George Washington and especially John Adams Sr. and Jr. wanted).
Switzerland imo have always done it better than America, especially since they have official languages on their national level, unlike we.
Same goes with America and vice versa too. Infact, so many Americans and other Anglophones are assimilating to the arriving cultures, and we don't even try to assimilate them.
Still better than nothing. The 14th amendment granting parents the right to raise children as they see fit is a big mistake.
Read your article, and it's a great article. That said, what works there won't work here.
When discussing outcomes for ‘people from Laos or Cambodia,’ or SEA generally, a key confounder is that many upper-crust migrants (that I’ve met, but also celebs) are actually from the Chinese diaspora. Sure, they’ll have Cambodian names, speak the language, etc., but it’s as misleading as lumping together Ashkenazi Jewish emigrants and native Slavic emigrants as ‘people from Poland or Russia’.
In the case of Cambodia the market dominant minority is actually Viets rather than Chinese (see François Chau). The French exclusively hired Viets as bureaucrats because they thought the "culture of Confucianism" meant Viets would make natural civil servants. There remains a Viet community in Cambodia, and there's strong ethnic resentment, in part due to the Vietnamese occupation and in part due to the status they've occupied historically.
When Laos was granted independence there was a double digit number of people with a university education (not sure about in Cambodia), whereas both Vietnams had conventional armies, bureaucracies, and so on. Seth Jacobs argues that the overriding reason America selected South Vietnam as the geostrategic frontline rather than Laos was the lingering perception of most Indochinese being lethargic and passive in contrast to the purportedly martial and courageous Vietnamese.
Wasn't Latin also the language of science prior to the 1800s/1900s in multiple stages? Hell with biology, it still it is.
Anglophones considering it rude to correct people's English is partially a result of English never being a de jure official language in most Anglosphere countries.
Adding to that with where Americans (and other Anglophone folks) add their ethnicity in front of their citizenship, it doesn't usually happen outside of there, unless they hold multiple citizenships.
Yes, and the RE/USSR also were notoriously anti-Jewish prior to and after the existence of Hitler's Germany.
Michael D. Gordin's book "Scientific Babel" answers this question in detail. Latin began falling out of use in natural science during the 17th century, and French, German, and English became the languages natural scientists had to publish in to reach an audience beyond their home country. Newton's "Principia Mathematica" was among the last pioneering works in Latin. After 1945 English and Russian became science's lingua franca, and after 1991 English established itself as practically the sole bridge language among scientists. The only use for Latin now is to create new terms such as the scientific names for species (although Greek and even Chinese are also used for this purpose).
English is de jure is Canada alongside French, and it's official in various ex-British colonies such as India, Nigeria, and Singapore. I think three factors explain why it's considered rude to correct people: the vastness of the Anglophone world, the fact that it's the lingua franca of almost every region at this point, and the relatively low standards of integration in the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. French is one of the few world languages that remains associated with a single country despite being official in many. With English, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese different dialects are considered equally valid, whereas France remains a linguistic metropole.
People from NYC being ridiculously provincial and thinking nothing exists west of the Hudson River is pretty classic...I would hope that had changed by now, but back in the day it wasn't that unusual to meet people there who had literally never left the city. Obnoxiously unwarranted snobbery.
I haven't found people in DC to be the same way...they have a very international orientation there, moreso than anywhere else in the country, bc so many work in policy or federal positions that involve international aspects. Plus they're used to living in a place where the entire power structure and who's in and out entirely flips on its head every 4-8 years.
The only bubble-like snobishness I notice about DC is that like Boston, they're both places where the very first question you get asked is where you went to school, and you're either granted leave to be a person or dismissed, based on your answer.
This comment is spot-on. It is provincial and close-minded in its own special way to think, "BuhT New York."
DC is weird. I *loved* it because I'm uptight and enjoy things like long-form essays in National Affairs and I own about 15 Nancy Reagan-esque blazers.
I 100% agree that is a pretty "open" city because almost everyone is transplant and people change jobs often. You sort of *have* to be open to survive socially.
BUT, DC can be snobby based on your job and where you went to school-- even in some conservative communities that supposedly resist elitism. I have literally been at dinners or parties where someone almost immediately stopped the conversation after learning what I do for work (I worked at a well-funded and well respected think tank...)
I think the midwestern regions that are adjacent to the Great Lakes are more Faustian because the lakes are connected to the ocean by the St Lawrence seaway and that had a big impact on how rust belt cities developed vs landlocked cities like Omaha.
What I perhaps didn't convey well was that in my experience, people in NYC and DC sometimes have overinflated egos coupled with very tiny worlds. They think the sun rises and sets over their city (often a suburb) which is a form of provincialism in and of itself.
yeah I agree with that, obv there are loads of well-traveled and educated Bilbo types in Kansas and I'd never say people like that are automatically less worldly than e.g. Snooki
but I guess for me the Faustian Spirit is not purely about openness; it's also about the willingness to lean into conflict and discord as positive goods, and that's something you def see more on the coasts (not the rural south or NE as much but def in Florida and metros like Atlanta and esp in NYC)
I think the primary temperamental difference between us is that you are much higher agreeableness and higher conscientiousness than me and value living in an orderly / nice civilization whereas I sort of crave Somalia
Not to mention the numerous enclaves of Chinatown, Little Italy, etcs that exist in the Mid-Atlantic/New England while the Midwest wants you to assimilate, at least most of it.
Nice! I did field work there when I was in graduate school. I used to *love* taking the Brown line to nearby Devon to get my eyebrows threaded and then get Indian food. CHicago wasn't for me, but it had its upsides.
During the eighties, I was stationed in Germany in the Air Force, and I transited all sorts of NATO bases in western Europe. Consistently, the most friendly reception I received was in France, which really surprised me, due to the rep France had. But, every time, a friendly faced greeted me on the tarmac, and I always had extra squadron patches to swap. A few times, they even gave us lunch. The Dutch were nice, too.
Most other Germanic countries actually do assimilate folks better, both historically and currently. It's only due to mass migration (in-part caused by needless wars) that this changed. And as I have stated numerous times before, Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. literally don't and never had English as an official language, but should.
I don't think it's true that it is cringe that Millennials are calling for desprawlification. At least better than Zoomers just staying at home in the burbs or buying a house in the burbs (Zoomers don't tend to like car-independent areas). However, I've seen just as much of an impulse from the Baby Busters and Boomers (and even the pre-Boomer gens) alike, if not even more, to return to urbanism.
It would encourage far more assimilation and help people wake up to reality much faster just by making America car-independent again. It would also help solve obesity too, and destroy the "basic bitch" conservative/liberal stuff. Car-dependency really destroyed the Anglosphere and took away much of the assimilation values.
France provides us a clue for a higher TFR without all the cookie-cutter houses.
And as for a Draft, I am in favor of one, in the right leadership/conditions. That said, the whole military needs to be reformed (no mandatory vaccines or any of the Anti-White/Misandrist/Anti-Western/etc things), and so does the education system. Maybe cut down the entire schooling system to a skeleton curriculum or the very least, have schools give children a place to stay and teach Home Econ again!
I maintain that the American Experiment's unique founding principles allow for a thriving multi-ethnic (distinct from multicultural or "diverse") society in which peoples' unique ethnic identities can foster community support *and* we can have equal protection under the law. In fact, the two work together.
Ethnicities compete naturally for dominance - look at what happened in the US after the Ellis Island tsunami - and will try to dominate other ethnicities by reason of naturally occuring in-group preference and the use of tactical subversion eg dei. The 'elite' universities are it in microcosm.
"Why is it so insane to imagine East Asians...might have a better sort of memory?" Wonder what inspired this Walt!
The first big blow to French's status in diplomacy was the Treaty of Versailles, whose English and French versions were granted equal status. Beyond diplomacy, French was also one of the languages of natural science (alongside German and English) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The deathblow to French as a global language was the Cold War. The first world adopted English and the second world Russian, and the disintegration of the communist bloc left English as the world's language. I doubt French could regain its status in part due to the linguistic elitism. People are insistent on it being spoken perfectly, whereas Anglophones seem to consider it rude to correct people's English. French retains some cultural cachet thanks to haute couture and 40% of English's lexicon coming from French.
On multiculturalism in France, a French professor in college, who was of Maghrebi origin, told me France isn't like America because citizens in France (regardless of race or ethnicity) are just French, while Americans add their ethnicity in front of their nationality. One immigrant group France has integrated more successfully than the US are Lao and Cambodians. In the US people from Laos and Cambodia tend to underperform, whereas in France they tend to be middle or upper middle class.
On French anti-Semitism, my Holocaust-obsessed father who trained with the Israelis told me France was considered the most rabidly anti-Semitic country in western Europe prior to the rise of the Nazis, and Germany was seen as more middle ground. He told me even though France had resecularized after the Franco-Prussian War, the French officer corps remained ardently Roman Catholic and anti-Jewish until after the Dreyfus Affair.
As for government spending as a proportion of GDP, it's 38% in the US and Australia and 58% in France.
This is a good description, "On multiculturalism in France, a French professor in college, who was of Maghrebi origin, told me France isn't like America because citizens in France (regardless of race or ethnicity) are just French, while Americans add their ethnicity in front of their nationality." A lot of Americans mistakenly think France is the bastion of liberalism, tolerance, and acceptance. It kind of isn't in many ways. One is to be French *above all else* which is why I think integration is easier in the US. NB: Americans get very very angry when I say this and start yelling at me, and I am...exhausted. I don't think Walt's commenters would but I have PTSD from telling people that askhully France is not as open-minded as one might think.
I view French integration (and most other countries for the matter!) as much better than American integration. But yeah, France being the "bastion" of liberalism, tolerance, and acceptance isn't true.
Then again people say "There's nothing to assimilate to here", which I do get, but don't think is true at all in at least certain parts of the U.S.
Why do you view French integration as better than American? (Sincere question ;) )
Because France has French as an official language, while the U.S. (and most other Anglosphere countries) don't. Not only that, but also the mandatory civics class that immigrants are required to take to even immigrate compels them to assimilate. The U.S. doesn't even have such a thing.
Imo I think we should go full on Japan/Richard Henry Pratt integration. I think this is the only way of going forward short of balkanisation.
I disagree.
In French culture one is to be "French" above all else. The American concept of e pluribus unum, on its best days, gives people the opportunity to continue their cultural traditions within the broader American landscape.
Many of the people who *do not assimilate* arrive in France already speaking French. In fact, those *born* here *(first generation) are less likely to be employed than their parents.
The civics classes are, to a degree, helpful, but by not means a fait accompli. I wrote about my experience here.
https://undervineandfigtree.substack.com/p/the-far-right-is-the-best-choice
I knew you would disagree.
I don't know if that is necessarily true. France is seeing a revival of Brittany, Occitania, and other independence movements. "E Pluribus Unum" was only used to an extent that the U.S. would remain a Confederation/a loose Federal Republic. There was never any real attempt to solidify the regional cultures into a singular American culture (which George Washington and especially John Adams Sr. and Jr. wanted).
Switzerland imo have always done it better than America, especially since they have official languages on their national level, unlike we.
Same goes with America and vice versa too. Infact, so many Americans and other Anglophones are assimilating to the arriving cultures, and we don't even try to assimilate them.
Still better than nothing. The 14th amendment granting parents the right to raise children as they see fit is a big mistake.
Read your article, and it's a great article. That said, what works there won't work here.
When discussing outcomes for ‘people from Laos or Cambodia,’ or SEA generally, a key confounder is that many upper-crust migrants (that I’ve met, but also celebs) are actually from the Chinese diaspora. Sure, they’ll have Cambodian names, speak the language, etc., but it’s as misleading as lumping together Ashkenazi Jewish emigrants and native Slavic emigrants as ‘people from Poland or Russia’.
In the case of Cambodia the market dominant minority is actually Viets rather than Chinese (see François Chau). The French exclusively hired Viets as bureaucrats because they thought the "culture of Confucianism" meant Viets would make natural civil servants. There remains a Viet community in Cambodia, and there's strong ethnic resentment, in part due to the Vietnamese occupation and in part due to the status they've occupied historically.
When Laos was granted independence there was a double digit number of people with a university education (not sure about in Cambodia), whereas both Vietnams had conventional armies, bureaucracies, and so on. Seth Jacobs argues that the overriding reason America selected South Vietnam as the geostrategic frontline rather than Laos was the lingering perception of most Indochinese being lethargic and passive in contrast to the purportedly martial and courageous Vietnamese.
Wasn't Latin also the language of science prior to the 1800s/1900s in multiple stages? Hell with biology, it still it is.
Anglophones considering it rude to correct people's English is partially a result of English never being a de jure official language in most Anglosphere countries.
Adding to that with where Americans (and other Anglophone folks) add their ethnicity in front of their citizenship, it doesn't usually happen outside of there, unless they hold multiple citizenships.
Yes, and the RE/USSR also were notoriously anti-Jewish prior to and after the existence of Hitler's Germany.
Michael D. Gordin's book "Scientific Babel" answers this question in detail. Latin began falling out of use in natural science during the 17th century, and French, German, and English became the languages natural scientists had to publish in to reach an audience beyond their home country. Newton's "Principia Mathematica" was among the last pioneering works in Latin. After 1945 English and Russian became science's lingua franca, and after 1991 English established itself as practically the sole bridge language among scientists. The only use for Latin now is to create new terms such as the scientific names for species (although Greek and even Chinese are also used for this purpose).
English is de jure is Canada alongside French, and it's official in various ex-British colonies such as India, Nigeria, and Singapore. I think three factors explain why it's considered rude to correct people: the vastness of the Anglophone world, the fact that it's the lingua franca of almost every region at this point, and the relatively low standards of integration in the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. French is one of the few world languages that remains associated with a single country despite being official in many. With English, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese different dialects are considered equally valid, whereas France remains a linguistic metropole.
People from NYC being ridiculously provincial and thinking nothing exists west of the Hudson River is pretty classic...I would hope that had changed by now, but back in the day it wasn't that unusual to meet people there who had literally never left the city. Obnoxiously unwarranted snobbery.
I haven't found people in DC to be the same way...they have a very international orientation there, moreso than anywhere else in the country, bc so many work in policy or federal positions that involve international aspects. Plus they're used to living in a place where the entire power structure and who's in and out entirely flips on its head every 4-8 years.
The only bubble-like snobishness I notice about DC is that like Boston, they're both places where the very first question you get asked is where you went to school, and you're either granted leave to be a person or dismissed, based on your answer.
This comment is spot-on. It is provincial and close-minded in its own special way to think, "BuhT New York."
DC is weird. I *loved* it because I'm uptight and enjoy things like long-form essays in National Affairs and I own about 15 Nancy Reagan-esque blazers.
I 100% agree that is a pretty "open" city because almost everyone is transplant and people change jobs often. You sort of *have* to be open to survive socially.
BUT, DC can be snobby based on your job and where you went to school-- even in some conservative communities that supposedly resist elitism. I have literally been at dinners or parties where someone almost immediately stopped the conversation after learning what I do for work (I worked at a well-funded and well respected think tank...)
I used to live in Rogers Park!
I think the midwestern regions that are adjacent to the Great Lakes are more Faustian because the lakes are connected to the ocean by the St Lawrence seaway and that had a big impact on how rust belt cities developed vs landlocked cities like Omaha.
technically Omaha is as well
but the interstate destroyed America’s 19th century riverrine culture and IMO really cemented low openness Burger mentalities throughout corn country
but yeah when I talk about Hobbits it’s basically Nebraska/Kansas/Iowa
What I perhaps didn't convey well was that in my experience, people in NYC and DC sometimes have overinflated egos coupled with very tiny worlds. They think the sun rises and sets over their city (often a suburb) which is a form of provincialism in and of itself.
yeah I agree with that, obv there are loads of well-traveled and educated Bilbo types in Kansas and I'd never say people like that are automatically less worldly than e.g. Snooki
but I guess for me the Faustian Spirit is not purely about openness; it's also about the willingness to lean into conflict and discord as positive goods, and that's something you def see more on the coasts (not the rural south or NE as much but def in Florida and metros like Atlanta and esp in NYC)
I think the primary temperamental difference between us is that you are much higher agreeableness and higher conscientiousness than me and value living in an orderly / nice civilization whereas I sort of crave Somalia
Not to mention the numerous enclaves of Chinatown, Little Italy, etcs that exist in the Mid-Atlantic/New England while the Midwest wants you to assimilate, at least most of it.
Nice! I did field work there when I was in graduate school. I used to *love* taking the Brown line to nearby Devon to get my eyebrows threaded and then get Indian food. CHicago wasn't for me, but it had its upsides.
The Daily Wire is down the hall on the left, ma’am.
Only published there once, and it was paywalled!
‘Milk toast blank slatist converses with Walt’
“ woman with a business who writes under her real name and works professionally in public policy, converses with Walt”
Yet you couldn’t engage in a basic logical discussion because it “wasn’t your expertise”.
Typical lying jew
Typical braindead anti-semite
During the eighties, I was stationed in Germany in the Air Force, and I transited all sorts of NATO bases in western Europe. Consistently, the most friendly reception I received was in France, which really surprised me, due to the rep France had. But, every time, a friendly faced greeted me on the tarmac, and I always had extra squadron patches to swap. A few times, they even gave us lunch. The Dutch were nice, too.
Once had a French girl as a roommate here in Cascadia, and she was super direct, but friendly too. Beats the passive-aggressiveness so common here.
This sounds like a variation of the line, "France is a great country if you pretend that Paris doesn't exist."
Love it! And thank you for your service 🇺🇸
Your philosemitism continues to be your biggest weakness.
She lost me at “I’m not comfortable with the phrase ‘jewish power’”. How disappointing.
Most other Germanic countries actually do assimilate folks better, both historically and currently. It's only due to mass migration (in-part caused by needless wars) that this changed. And as I have stated numerous times before, Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. literally don't and never had English as an official language, but should.
I don't think it's true that it is cringe that Millennials are calling for desprawlification. At least better than Zoomers just staying at home in the burbs or buying a house in the burbs (Zoomers don't tend to like car-independent areas). However, I've seen just as much of an impulse from the Baby Busters and Boomers (and even the pre-Boomer gens) alike, if not even more, to return to urbanism.
It would encourage far more assimilation and help people wake up to reality much faster just by making America car-independent again. It would also help solve obesity too, and destroy the "basic bitch" conservative/liberal stuff. Car-dependency really destroyed the Anglosphere and took away much of the assimilation values.
France provides us a clue for a higher TFR without all the cookie-cutter houses.
And as for a Draft, I am in favor of one, in the right leadership/conditions. That said, the whole military needs to be reformed (no mandatory vaccines or any of the Anti-White/Misandrist/Anti-Western/etc things), and so does the education system. Maybe cut down the entire schooling system to a skeleton curriculum or the very least, have schools give children a place to stay and teach Home Econ again!
Dear me. Trying to separate ethnic identity from ethnic politics is impossible and in this case disingenuous.
Dear me! The possibility of a thriving multi ethnic society where identity is respected and not weaponized and equal protection under the law. 😱
You can have a thriving multi ethnic society but racism is an important part of that. Look at Rome or 20th century America.
Both racism and diversity are necessary ingredients for success.
I doubt you can have even that. An economy make be thriving yet the underlying society and culture poisonous.
I maintain that the American Experiment's unique founding principles allow for a thriving multi-ethnic (distinct from multicultural or "diverse") society in which peoples' unique ethnic identities can foster community support *and* we can have equal protection under the law. In fact, the two work together.
At best a delusion.
Ethnicities compete naturally for dominance - look at what happened in the US after the Ellis Island tsunami - and will try to dominate other ethnicities by reason of naturally occuring in-group preference and the use of tactical subversion eg dei. The 'elite' universities are it in microcosm.
Yup, and languages too!
The U.S. not having an official language at all doomed it to this. Same with the separation of the Church and the State on top of that.