The One Thing the French are Right About
The French are wrong about almost everything
concerning America, except for one thing: American culture. As little as we may
wish to face up to the fact, American culture, whether of the popular or "elite"
variety, is a sad mess.
We all know that the French are, in all matters
relating to foreign policy, absolute and despicable cowards. Their fears of
American "hegemony" are not simply wrong-headed, they are silly and insane.
Their talk of America as a "hyper power" beneath contempt. Who would they
prefer to be the world's leading power? China? Russia? Or do they yearn for
the days when France was the world's leading power, as it was under Louis XIV
and, later, Napoleon Bonaparte? If so, they are in desperate need of
psychiatric help. How could anyone who is not completely delusional believe
that France will ever become a world power again? That nation of left-wing fops
and sissies? Get real. Nor, if we can judge by historical precedent, would it
be a good thing. Was the world really a better place when King Louis XIV was
running amuck in Europe, alienating almost every other power against him? Did
Napoleons brief decade or so of glory really make the average French citizen any
better off?
There's no use beating a
dead horse. Every sensible person knows that France's anti-Americanism is based
on little more than
ressentiment.
So we will waste no more breath about it. There is, however, one thing that the
French are right about America. They are right about the blight of America's
culture. They are right to fear it and to protest the dominance of American
culture on the world's stage. In fact, all of Europe is right to be wary of
what passes for culture in America, especially of the "popular" variety. Let me
state the fact as plainly as it can be stated: American popular culture is
little more than a hideous confection of the vulgar and the stupid. Commercial
television is little more than a conspiracy against intelligence and good taste.
It's primary purpose is to propagandize consumerism. That is why there are so
many commercials, endlessly repeated. There are many Americans who are under
the illusion that the raison
d'etre for television is the so-called
"programming"—that television exists, in other words, to broadcast TV
shows. Nothing could be more mistaken. Television exists to broadcast
commercials; which is to say, to convince absolute morons to buy things that
nobody, not even a moron, really needs. Television shows insult intelligence
for a reason. Commercial broadcasters don't care whether intelligent people
watch their shows, because intelligent people are much less likely to succumb to
the sway of to the manipulative techniques of commericial propaganda.
What about that horror of horrors, pop
music? A mere horror show of adolescent emotions. If hormones could sing, they
would produce the sort of noise featured on such commercial obscenities as MTV.
Any self-respecting European, living in countries that produced Beethoven and
Verdi, Berlioz and Elgar, must shudder at the depths that American popular music
has sunk to. Is there anything uglier, more hostile to all that is true,
honest, just and lovely, than this so-called "rap" music?
What is America's one great crime against
humanity? That its popular culture produced rap! The French and their European
neighbors are right to despise us for it.
Posted: Thu - September 18, 2003 at 03:48 AM