Bravo, Roger. Well said and well written. Your voice is that of humanity.
21
I sure hope that the French-American bond is strong enough to survive one egomaniac and self adsorbed US president.
When I emigrated from France to the US twenty years back the image of the US being a land of opportunity welcoming of foreigners was I believe a lot shinier.
Still there is so much common history and ideals, with still a majority of decent people even though many of them may have voted for a fraud, and yes they also believe in American exceptionalism as an pre-ordain thing and not something you earn through your actions [like stopping fascism, fighting AIDS in Africa] .
In any case, my wife and I were welcomed (she got a exceptional ability "genius" visa as a scientist so we could become resident quickly), worked hard and succeeded professionally, raised one child. We would do it again if we could go back in time.
One thought, from my silicon valley home it does not feel like there is one America. There are rich and liberal coastal communities that are very inclusive and part of the country that seems stuck in the past with politic of grievances and fear of the future. How can we help them ?
21
Sir You are one of the reason I read the NYT everyday
19
The pendulum swings. Just as a far left government , in a true democracy, does not produce a Stalin or a Mao a far right one does not produce a Hitler.
If one were to take to heart the laments of most of the media one would think our very nation is in pearl. It is not so!
Trump won the presidency. Get over it. Also it just might be that ‘ the great unwashed ‘ were right .
4
Please go tutor at the White House.
4
Regrettably, I hear Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” on an annoying sound loop as I drink my morning cafe au lait with a day-old baguette.
“It was a wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become.”
Coldplay (2008)
18
There are so many memorable phrases in this heartfelt and intelligent column.
Some of the ones that struck me:
Paris is where Cohen “understood the moral abdication of the bystander and the moral imperative of engagement and decency, that word dear to Camus.”
“What stands between civilization and barbarism is the idea that nobody is above the law. There’s a reason the American president’s oath is to the Constitution, not to the people.”
“History is not an argument leading to a logical conclusion, any more than human nature is a thing of black and white. History is flux and our natures conflicted.”
“President Trump beckons us into the abyss of the hateful. The arc of his mind bends toward injustice. ”
Like Cohen, I have a deep love for Paris and the French nation where even cab drivers have deeply studied philosophy.
Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, lived for months in Paris. I think it is no accident that many of their famous pronouncements are ideas the French also embrace.
The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was adopted in August 1789 by the National Constituent Assembly. It said:
“Liberty consists of being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man or woman has no bounds other than those that guarantee other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. “
Yes, Mr. Cohen, the reaction of the French to the flames at Notre Dame remind us: embrace hope again! Strongly!
12
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder with a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, (I am a stable genius) excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. Those affected often spend much time thinking about achieving power or success, or on their appearance. They often take advantage of the people around them. (Wikipedia)
I have no formal training in psychology, but who this reminds one of is obvious, though psychologists are loathe to give a diagnosis without a personal consultation.
Donald Trump receives most of the attention, but he is not the primary cause if it. He is a symptom and the consequence of a larger problem.
40+ percent of eligible voters support him. The majority of the Senate approve of him.
As you state Mr. Cohen, "the specters of nationalism and xenophobia have stirred". This is the cause of the political unrest in the world today. We need to focus on what causes this and what we can do to stop it.
One possibility is the rapidly increasing growth in population. If this is the primary cause, we face a grave problem that will be very difficult to solve, if not impossible.
A crisis the likes of which has never been seen before is coming and the elimination of our species is the most likely outcome.
12
"Esperance " is "expectancy " or " expectation ".
Sure not very poetic in English ...very trivial.
Life expectancy is shorter in the USA or the UK than in France .
What about " violent " ?
" violent expectation " there we are already far into american translitteration. with 2 t " is it trash ?
2
Alas, the American dream in trashed beneath our feet. We have “elected” the most unfit, corrupt leader. But the bigger issue is that the Republican Party have surrounded and will protect him. Why, because to them power is total control. The fulfilling of the demands of the donor class, power and money for the powerful. The masses are thrown the crumbs of nationalism and fear, with the fringe issues of abortion, guns and religion thrown in for good measure. This is the twenty-first century America, a former world power, now a narcissistic autocrat, a failed nation.
7
This column verges on the irrational. Mr. Cohen describes his love for Paris, his sadness about the fire at Notre Dame, and his proper concern about the fact that Jews now fear for their lives. And he then, without any explanation or transition, writes that "Trump beckons us into the abyss."
Surely, Mr. Cohen is not claiming that Trump started the fire at Notre Dame. Nor, I hope, that Trump is causing those of another religion (whose name we cannot speak) to act with prejudice and hostility to Jews.
But I guess it gives Mr. Cohen comfort to blame all his woes on Mr. Trump.
11
We should appeal to Sweden to establish a new international prize, The Ignoble. Deliver it on a red carpet and the prize itself should be gold plated, or similarly glitzy. They could award it to Trump, and explain that it is a new version of the prize established just for him. He doesn’t read much, nor spell, so this should work fine. Then perhaps he could retire, having attained an international prize while in the Oval Office, to his golf courses. Sweden could get the peace prize the next year.
5
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR.
Trump?
1
Since you mention Flaubert, I am reminded that he wrote, regarding politics, I understand only two things — riot and assassination. Plus ca change, brethren.
1
You mentioned the rise of nationalistic bigotry, as currently personalized by the current brutus ignoramus, and vulgar bully, in the Oval Office. Remember Joseph de Maistre? He suggested that people do get the government they deserve. Although I have my doubts sometimes, if this thug gets re-elected in 2020, the people surely would deserve him. It would prove that stupidity is in ample supply. What a calamity that would be, requiring our heads examined.
4
Everything sounds better in French.
7
The lesson of Paris, which you have failed to draw, is that when your beloved Notre-Dame was engulfed in flames, the diversity that you are so in love with started badmouthing the white civilization that created it, victoriously proclaiming the demise of white Europe -- and by extension everything that you hold dear. If you care about European civilization and values, then today's left to which you constantly attach yourself is not your friend, because it seeks to undo or vilify it. There's an inherent contradiction in your love of Europe versus modern liberalism.
7
Lemme share a story, the year s 1984, a young Jewish refugee fam from Moldova is staying in Marcelles on it's way to Israel. The kids are wide eyed about the West after all the horrors of the Ussr. To their dismay, they find out the locals treat them like dirt, call them names , show a finger. Their old babushka when falling ill, is made wait for over an hour for the ambulance, then two more to be admitted in the hospital, all whole suffering a heart attach, as a result she died there and they gave us hard time _ refused to burry her at first, take her urn to Israel they said. As a complete reverse, we come to America " to Ohio of all places, two years later, we are completely and utterly embraced. France is not welcoming to those who do the look like Her. America had been, untill the Trump pickup. That is why I love this country, and will never visit France. The ghettos they created for the Arabic youth, the Turks, the Algerians.?! What crying shame!
4
Trump and nationalists are roundly criticized here in caricature. Yet the reason French Jews keep a very low public profile is not because the political right. The right is opposing leftist open border policy that resulted in the troubles Jewish folks face in France today. When leftist policy backfires? Blame others.
6
Formidable! Bien fait Roger!
2
The "idea of Paris." Mais oui. Fraternité, liberté, égalité. A bright beacon in these days of oppression. Well said, monsieur.
5
Pedant, as usual.
American decency, Pax Americana, the US for liberal and global justice, the stalwart against the behemoths of Communism, China and Russia... actually they have joined all the evils of capitalism with all the ills of communism...
Yes, that America is long gone.
Has been gone for a while.
Trump emerging to wear its actual face should not have been a surprise.
DT is a symptom, he is not the disease.
The actual syndrome of apathy, intrusion in foreign state affairs, our foreign policies, gerrymandering, conservatives leaving their conscious at the door with Trump, that pervasive lack of courage, truth and decency... is far worse.
And alt right parties rising their ugly heads barely less than 75 years since Holocaust-- human memory is a thing to be pitied. This fact which we all think but don't acknowledge-- if it hasn't happened to me, what does it matter it is happening to others all over the world-- this is that bystander abdication you talk about.
When Jewish cemeteries are vandalized, temples, mosques and black churches shot at or burned, minorities threatened, when Quran is burned and in name of free speech- Muslims Prophet is ridiculed, people's religious freedom questioned and restricted-- and we all stay quiet--- because, it has not happened to me, yet!
It may. It probably will.
Then, the meaning of this silence dawns on you, when you don't condemn evil, wrong doing, violence: you condone it.
6
Then why are Muslims so marginalized in France? They live in no-go, high-rise ghettos and can't even gain access to the most prestigious universities, the "Grande Ecoles." Certainly this separate and unequal state of affairs did nothing to stop the Paris massacre. And Muslims can't even wear what they want. Despite the constant hand-wringing about racism in America, Muslims there are far better assimilated into mainstream life and opportunities.
"... that bastion of law, that European Union"
"... fact-based journalism. What a ridiculous tautology!"
Or should that be oxymoron?
Jose Manuel Barroso, 11th President of the European Commission
Independent, 26 May 2005:
"Asked to account for his holiday aboard Spiros Latsis's 51ft yacht last August, Mr Barroso described the motion as "unfair, unjustified, illegitimate and absurd".... He went on the cruise shortly before a Latsis company received European Commission approval for state aid worth €10m (£6.8m). However, the cruise was also before Mr Barroso took up his post and the state aid decision was taken by the previous European Commission."
https://web.archive.org/web/20071001091311/http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article223215.ece
Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission
"was hit by media disclosures—derived from a document leak known as Luxembourg Leaks—that Luxembourg under his premiership had turned into a major European centre of corporate tax avoidance." (wikipedia entry on Nigel Farrage)
Guardian, 5 Nov 2014:
Luxembourg tax files: how tiny state rubber-stamped tax avoidance on an industrial scale
"Stephen Shay, a Harvard Law School professor who has held senior tax roles in the US Treasury said: 'Clearly the database is evidencing a pervasive enabling by Luxembourg of multinationals’ avoidance of taxes [around the world].'"
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/05/-sp-luxembourg-tax-files-tax-avoidance-industrial-scale
3
France has to answer for it's white European Catholic colonial conquest ethnic sectarian supremacist bigoted prejudiced past.
From Haiti to Cambodia to Vietnam to Laos to Louisiana to Mali to Tahiti to Senegal to the Ivory Coast to Vichy there is the blood, sweat and tears of men, women and children. Left by monsters like Charlemagne, Louis XVI, Robespierre, Napoleon, Clemenceau, Petain and De Gaulle.
I am an Anglophile who appreciates French art, food, literature and museums. Along with Frenchman like Vercingetorix, Ho Chi Minh, Alexander Dumas, Frantz Fanon and Toussaint L' Overture.
6
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray," that Pax Americana is not at an end. And yes, all loyal Germans would do well to wear kippahs now, as all loyal Danes once wore yellow stars.
5
I love living in a country where anyone can be President - be it a black community organizer with little political experience or a real estate tycoon with no political experience - but for no more than 8 years.
I love living in a country that has the technology to travel to the moon, generate massive power from atoms, and that has made enormous strides in genetic engineering of stem cells that will forge cures of devastating diseases.
I love living in a country that, with reasonable limitations, guarantees everyone the freedom to say whatever they want no matter how hateful or obnoxious.
I love living in a country that nearly destroyed itself rectifying the evils of slavery, and helped bring down the most evil regime in the history of mankind in the 1940s, and helped bring down communism in the 1980s.
Are we perfect? Who is? Certainly not France.
But I love America.
Do you?
8
“How slow life is, and how violent hope.”
Humanity is maturing into its collective coming-of-age, capable of measuring time by transcendence rather than by the details of our individuality, losing nothing of the present moment while gaining the movement of the stars that surround us. The transition from our selfish individual adolescence tore apart a life before our transcendence into cooperative adulthood, violent tests tore at a world built entirely around our childishness, forcing surrender into a larger grace not yet fully formed.
It is entirely appropriate and timely that a man-child would emerge upon the collective stage of our world newly transcended into global communication, to reveal the destructiveness of our childish ways. We begin to think as a transcendent single organism when our survival is confronted by that which tears the heart of our humanity apart. We retain the individual's memory of gaining a cooperative whole, while hope is still violent, gazing only dimly into the infinitude of inevitable collective transcendence.
2
I too am a naturalized US citizen. Beguiled 30 years ago by a country of audacious thinkers, extraordinary do-ers, boundless optimists and people of immense generosity. Maybe I was too much of a dreamer. Maybe it was just California where I was fortunate to land.
Yeats said of Ireland in the 1920s: "All's changed. Changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born". He could be referring to today's America.
6
Thank you for this Mr. Cohen. For years I was so very close to a large, distinguished French family, the association having begun when I was a GI serving in Europe, mid 50's. Every time I returned to France I was reminded of the affection that family and other French friends had for me, and how my being American enriched their affection for me but also got me off the hook when I created a faux pas. The visit after 9/ll was the most poignant of all. My friends and strangers sought me out to express their shock and sympathy, always speaking of the ties that were created by the Second World War. The member of that wonderful family closest to me fell victim to dementia, had to be removed to a retirement home. On my last visit to her, she was sitting among others with dimmed minds, alone in her own world even among the others in a community room. I stood over her for few minutes, she looked up, a bright smile came across her face. "How did you find me?" she asked, and then turned to all the moribund around her and announced, "Ce mon ami Americain" and all looked up, or away from the great tv and sighed in admiration. It was hard not to weep then, but I can cry now over this column in despair of what we've lost..
13
There is a large dose of hypocrisy in Mr. Cohen's column today. He bemoans apathy in fighting evil, but the French contributed almost nothing to stop the Balkans war. It was stopped by the U.S. Air Force. And even though NATO acted on behalf of oppressed Muslims in the Balkans, the only thanks we got was 9/11 and additional bombings in London, Spain, and Paris. And while Mr. Cohen greatly admires Paris, he ignores the fact that the city's ambiance is due in part to effectively banishing immigrant Muslims to slums in the outer suburbs. Mr. Cohen is a good writer, but he needs to abandon such woolly headed thinking.
9
Ironically, it was Apollinaire who gave us the word "surreal."
He coined the word to convey a cosmic spirituality that is at odds with today's usage, freighted with danger.
One thing I think is clear: Trump and his minions have forever destroyed any notion of American exceptionalism.
5
Cohen is a wonderful columnist. It was weird for me to read this. I went to Paris at about the same time, discovered many of the same things, and even pursued writing as a career.
2
I always appreciate the sincerity of Roger in his passion for Europe and especially France. That being said this citizen of France and America believes that DeGaulle was right about Europe in the 1960s. It is an unworkable idea plain and simple.
4
I never actually copy columns - I bookmark them, maybe. But I literally copied this one. It speaks in prose poetry to my very soul, for some reason. It also shouts of urgency, and in French. (I am a frustrated USA-dwelling Francophile...)
I'm trying to hold on to hope in these dark days, understanding a bit more clearly now why doing so does indeed deeply wound me. Nevertheless, I will take courage and still fight on for what is good and right.
Thank you, Mr. Cohen.
3
This piece is beautifully written however it must be noted that France is undergoing a change not too unlike that which has occurred in the US. The rise of the “gilets jaune” is very much like the tea party in America. The gilets jaune, while professing an apolitical stance are far more right wing gravitating to the party of Marine LePen. An all the center right parties, in a bid to siphon off her supporters, use their “language” and ideology.
There IS a resistance to things tRump but a worrying and growing movement FOR things tRump a la françaises like anti-semitism and racism. Let’s hope the resistance can persevere and prevail. And hopefully it can inspire America to come back from the abyss.
1
Era without a name? I call it the Age of Deconstruction, where virtually everything I have held dear has been taken apart or is well on the way. Old alliances are scrapped, old friends are pushed aside ,treaties are broken, corruption is accepted as the new normal , and new alliances with the wrong people, are forged. And yes, once again Roger tells it like it is.
138
@Antoine
Social Deconstruction:
Beginning with Reagan, our policy made it more feasible to break up companies than to invest and manage them. Trump is the culmination.
This policy was replicated in gutting social programs like mental health and head start.
Bush II wasn't much better as we spent massively on unnecessary wars.
There's a sucker born every minute....
Corruption, indeed, is the norm.
6
I’ve never lived in France. But it seems to me that the French people have little patience, and much contempt, for Fools. Civilization is much more than manners and diplomacy, and a deep respect for intellectuals, Learning and progress is essential.
They gave us the Statue of Liberty. Maybe we should return that Torch, at least metaphorically. Right now, we don’t deserve it. Babysnatching and Toddler Jails, extreme symptoms of a dying government, and an inhumane, malignant Regime.
Bon Chance.
120
France dodged a bullet about two years ago when Macron defeated Marine Le Pen. But the xenophobic, reactionary sentiment is alive and well in France, in Europe more broadly, and in the US.
It’s easy to get complacent that momentum is with progressive thinking and towards inclusiveness, but that’s a false hope. Human instincts have not become sophisticated as the rest of human civilization has. Take nothing for granted, and do what you can to make society what you want it to be.
96
@NM
The French, with a history of revolution, are lucky - as they have the Yellow Vest movement, which has refused to quit and has also refused to ally with any political party. They are in dialogue with the Macron government now. And we have?
4
Americans are so caught up in consumerism and entertainment that it will take a lot for them to confront the undermining of democracy by the far right, which after decades of effort has emerged from the fringes into the mainstream. Likewise, Americans are having a hard time responding to the existential threat of climate change which young people are beginning to realize gives them nothing but a dark future. I hope Americans are still capable of doing more then buying stuff and watching shows and games. The people who do not support authoritarian government must act to preserve democratic government or it could be 8 years of Trump and perhaps even something worse to follow.
164
As a frenchman I deeply feel the bond with USA and the american people. The fight for freedom is our common history, since centuries, I will always remember as I was a teen, my grandfather drove me through the Dday beaches an to lay down some flowers in an US cemetery not far away from Omaha beach. He taught me to never give up and to never forget what all these young men coming from so far away had done in the name of freedom and democracy. Trupism is a symptom of a society in disarray but will never represent what's America for its friends. Don't give up!
215
@Gadea..Merci beaucoup for your kind and thoughtful message. And thank you to Roger Cohen for this fine piece on these dark and troubling times.
As I think about the current and very disturbing rise of, for want of a better word, “neo-fascism, both here and abroad, it is all too easy to allow fear to take over. Indeed, that is what the forces of hatred want and which Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Marine LePen and all of the other reactionary demagogues represent. Indeed, we see this every day among the morally and intellectually bankrupt Republicans on Capitol Hill as they allow themselves to be bullied by a hateful con man and his deluded cult. We, who believe in the rule of law are being tested. As Ben Franklin responded to the woman who asked him what kind of government do we have, “ A republic, Madam, if we can keep it.” A republic, and not a dictatorship, as Trump and his twisted crowd of sycophants and lackeys are doing everything in their power to create.
18
Nice article. If people haven't read the Bret Stephens article read that one too. Both Cohen and Stephens are at their best today.
3
"Democracy is fragile, like that toppled spire." Like Democracy, our one beautiful planet is fragile. The U.N. reports that we have 10-12 years to respond adequately to this climate crisis or it is hopeless. The U.N. also reports that a million species are on their way to extinction.
We are part of the kindom of animals. Like any other animal, we humans can get irritable and even mean when our homes are disturbed. Our home is burning. Of course, higher ideals like democracy are suffering because we are suffering. Time to get to work and prepare and mitigate and pull together and above all simplify our consumptive patterns to address this Climate Crisis and Great Extinction. Continuing to do little or nothing to address these issues is suicidal. In my opinion, the Climate Crisis, if left unaddressed, will take democracy down it.
166
@Earthgirl: It would have been nice if you addressed your response to the topic instead of pounding your one note drum about climate change.
I’m an American who moved permanently to France 2 years ago, just after Trump’s swearing in. The timing wasn’t intentional, as we thought Clinton would be president.
I live in the Marais, and I can hear the demonstrations that happen regularly at Place de la République through my kitchen window (and I walk through the Place on my way to the gym most days, as well).
As I’m typing this comment, it’s Saturday morning, and I expect the gilets jaunes will be out again today, even if their momentum is fading somewhat. (I separate them from the anarchists who have joined with them just to make trouble.)
In this environment, I am constantly amazed by Americans’ complacency right now. We’ve woken up to yet another mass shooting in the news. We’ve endured another week of lies by the president. We’re seeing women’s rights being stripped away daily. The administration denies climate change, and on and on.
What will it take for Americans to literally get off the couch and get into the streets?
There’s a reason why the French protest regularly. It works.
But yes, it does take courage: courage that I know Americans still possess, even in the face of this disaster we’re currently living through. My hope is that I’ll wake up one day soon and see photos of Americans flooding the streets demanding a return to democracy — well ahead of the 2020 election.
348
@Mary Well written. I live in London but spend part of my time living in SW France next to the Spanish border. France remains a more political society today that the UK or the US. I am also shocked by the lack of engagement of the US society, where are the demonstrations against Trump in D.C.?
Gun control, climate change, wealth concentration to top strata of society, are many Americans just too complacent these days yet happy to spend hours on end on social media doing worthless tasks. America and UK have simply become vast commercial societies where success is only measured in the wealth one has accumulated, and at the detriment of ideas and values. Any left wing thoughts are branded as "socialist" i.e. bad by the right, one of the most overused/misunderstood political terms in America. Whilst the average Joe just works, had his mortgage and credit card debts to pay off, eats badly and is tired and lethargic by the time he comes home. Hardly someone who will scale the barricades and protest in D.C.
73
@Marc Faltheim
Thank you for putting a southern country on the map...of Europe. Mr. Cohen's article is beautifully written, as all comments rightfully note, yet I am struck, again, by how the concept of Europe and paeans such as this elide the presence of southern nations of the continent. Spain was an early casualty of the struggle between fascism and democracy in the 1930s and if a fascist system endured for 40 years after the fall of democracy in 1939, it was with the collusion of the victorious Western allies in WWII. Had non-Spanish Catholic groups and the frenzied anti-communism of the immediate post-war period not lobbied to keep Franco in power and guarding the entrance to the Atlantic for the post-war hegemons, Spain would not have been excluded from European reconstruction and self-affirmation. Not everything about recent European history is edifying and admirable.
10
I share your concern, as the apathy of those who simply don't have the time or interest to research truth over lies is astounding, given the ease and plethora of websites where information can be fact checked.
Political energy seems consolidated in the Trump base, even though the balance of numbers--per polls-- speaks otherwise. What I fear most is that the return of street protesters may one day be Trmpists marching for dictatorship.
I have no idea where the longstanding political energy and spirit of those supporting democracy has gone. Unless it returns, we're cooked.
21
"Looking ahead to 2020, I feel uneasy. Americans are decent people.
Your unease is well founded. But your belief that we really are decent people is debatable.
A little over 40% of Americans have consistently approved of this most indecent of Presidents. It seems that tens of millions of Americans willing join Trump in "the abyss of the hateful". The arc of their minds bend toward injustice too, or at least are easily led there. More Republicans supported Trump's child separation than opposed it.
Trump may have applied the coup de grâce to Pax Americana and any notion of American Exceptionalism. We also need to consider that he may have exposed our self image of collectively being a "decent people" to be nothing more than a fantasy.
Perhaps this too will pass. But will we ever be the same? Feel the same? Will we ever be what we once thought we were or could become?
396
A most lovely, wise column by a great writer, Mr. Cohen, and hauntingly, prescient reply. I don’t possess their eloquence... But in very blunt terms, while Paris and Europe somehow are eternal survivors, I can’t say the same for the US. I have seen what was a great, albeit, young country’s love of Paris, London, and the magic of Europe become blinded by a fear and rage that is a total stranger to my ideals. And while I abhor the orange man, I know it would not be possible for his takeover without a cult I can’t recognize as the America I love, grew up in and was always so proud to call “my home.” I do not see the love of knowledge nor the scientific logic I was taught to respect. I don’t see the kindness of my parents, second-generation immigrants who forged an atmosphere of acceptance and friendship among ethnicities whose cultures were as different as my Russian /Jewish mother from my Irish /Catholic father. I can’t pick a year when this new resentment, tribal atmosphere took hold and grew, but it is present now, as hard an idea it is to painfully accept.
I, too, pray that this strange man and his followers pass quickly into the winds of history; and we remain allies, friends with the unspoken bond so great as to allow the last horrid wars fade into history. Much as I wish those horrors from both world wars never rise again, I do know we will not disappoint our great allies. We will always love “Paris” and our European friends.
This too shall pass.
53
Very well put, you’re in great company with Mr. Cohen. Keep commenting, you are good and we need all the reminders we can get. Born chance.
16
We can have uncontrolled immigration or we can have democracy. We cannot have both.
We can have deep, searching, individual justice or we can have the lazy “justice” where the accused are presumed guilty. We cannot exchange one Supremacy for another and pretend that it is now justice.
We can give daily dignity of living wage work and respect to our fellow citizens who lack skills, employment or even high intelligence or we can pretend that we care more about the poor of Indonesia through market mechanisms while really just liking cheap stuff and the out sourcing environmental degradation.
14
We all know the bond between America and France from our school lessons about the crucial assistance of the Marquis de Lafayette against the British at the Battle of Yorktown.
We also know about a more complicated French partnering with the young United States to the detriment of Britain: The Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
If one looks at a map of The Louisiana Territory purchased from France, one is struck by a great irony in the Trump Era. All or parts of 15 present states were included in the purchase, and they form the heart the rural support for Donald Trump today outside the old Confederacy.
Appropriately, in 1812 the name of the area was changed to The Missouri Territory.
1
I share many of his sentiments but I don’t buy the centrality of the EU.
The fate of the EU...now that makes me shrug
2
@Robt Little
Likewise. For rich banker cosmopolitan types France, Italy, London, Spain, etc. tend to be places where sentimental minds run amok and simply are incapable of seeing these places as ordinary geography with actual common people living there. The EU is and always has been a terrible idea birthed in fear of Germany. The famous “German problem” of 1870-1945. Now the EU has become another problem this time French given their central role in its creation.
2
I love the French.
I love their culture.
VIVE LA FRANCE.
10
Hope is not violent in the US. The man with the gun over there is violent. And we have adapted to it. Along with a few other new developments in our culture, our government, our much-revered and talked-about Constitution. We have accommodated to this horror. Swallowed it whole. We lave learned our lessons well and are not concerned with central conflicts, but with "fitting in."
Or perhaps we don't even know what the horror is. The Mueller report? What's the big deal? Great white leader commits numerous felonies? Catch 22. OK. "Pass the onion dip."
In France people know things, talk about things, read things, are passionate about their ideas - right or wrong - the elevator operator, the cab driver, the college student drinking beer in front of a cafe on the street, a mother standing in line with her groceries in the Monoprix. Everyone has an opinion about something!
In America we are pablum eaters who are quite satisfied with our desensitizing media and talking about the weather.
9
Thank you for this elegant column. If I think about Paris & take the long view my blood pressure is lower. Still I feel the urge to march as we did in the US in middle of the last American Century—but I wonder if Twitter & Facebook have become the preferred outlets for rage. There’s a wonderful little movie - Wall-E might be the title - where people are carried by moving chairs & sip soft drinks through straws all day. I often think of that image as pure late Capitalism USA. How to inspire people to stand up and take to the streets...
5
I've lived in Paris for 10 years. Life in the U.S. under current Republican rule is intolerable. I read daily of how the Republican leadership is destroying, quickly, or completely ignoring, the Constitution, the laws and the traditions of over 200 years.
France has its problems, but our attitude is different. Macron, although many think of him as a capitalist banker, is trying to hold the European Union together -- the last bastion of democracy -- against the non-transparent, authoritarian regimes of China, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and the U.S.
I feel very lucky to live here, not just for the beauty, which is abundant, but for the passionate, well-educated people and their great sense of humour, for the Constitution of the 5th Republic, and for the "us, not me" mindset of the French.
The EU vote solidified the fact that few want the EU to crumble, except the Far Right and Russia. I was happy to see the Far Right lose a seat in the EU Parliament.
Now if only the UK could get it's act together and nix the Brexit. What a mess.
13
Mr. Cohen, This piece is fabulous. As a Franco-American I totally relate to your spirit which lives in the middle of the Atlantic, swaying according to the winds. I admire French determination, at times belligerence. It has served them well throughout the centuries. I also admire the American MGM style feistiness, creativity, willpower and damn-dogged pursuit of what’s around the corner. Forces are at work now to bring us both our societies down, (tragically more than both). But I never give up on the power of the human spirit to fight for good. The Résistance still breaths in France. Need we say more? The Continental Congress is also alive in countless Americans. The beliefs of George Washington percolate in those who know Trump is doomed. Evil forces are determined to try to brain wash us but the American spirit is as feisty as the French one is gutsy. That’s why FR/USA have this crazy, wonderful love hate relationship; « en fin de compte » it is true love. Thank you for this terrific piece!
11
If only we could trust that, at heart, ‘we’ll always have Paris...’
7
Why does every mainstream media columnist fail to connect the spectre of xenophobic/bigoted nationalism to the failures of the post-war political economic order?
They all want to impugn Trump and signal their opposition to his worst impulses, but they're wholly uninterested in understanding why he happened in the first place. If you can't make an honest attempt to link Trump to the failures of Liberalism, you're unequipped to challenge him in any meaningful way.
11
Spirit and veracity: this special piece emanates both.
2
Ever since Trump I've had this deep unease. The beast is loose. And it's here.
6
"Americans are decent people". So why do so many support the racial discrimination that is Trump's stock in trade?
6
@We'll always have Paris
American exceptionalism is a blinder that keeps Americans from seeing who they've become. Americans' belief that they are good people, that their democracy is the strongest, that their economy is the best, that they are generous, and that their country is the greatest possible has left them unable to see the slow, steady cultural and political decline they've been in for decades now. As in any country, most Americans are good people. But the reality is that a critical mass of bad people—bad people now approaching 40% of the population—has been reached and the country, because of that, is now one where the good is overwhelmed by the bad: a country that locks children in cages, does nothing about the slaughter of its own children in their schools, encourages police violence against minorities, cannot guarantee basic health care to its citizens, treats the poor and weak with disdain, revels in greed and selfishness, supports murderous dictators, itches for war, and chooses to be governed by a cabal of corrupt and lawless liars. Living outside the United States now, I see more clearly how derelict American culture has become. We have our problems here in Canada—and some of the same nationalistic trends have ominously arisen here—but there's still a fundamental difference. In Canada we care about making our society good for everyone. In the US it's me first. Belligerent chants of U-S-A may hide the truth for Americans. They reveal it for everyone else.
4
Thank you for this beautiful expression of how France can help us keep our free view of the world and ourselves.
I only spent one year in France, but it was a formative one: a junior year in France, in the 1950’s, at a time when the scars of World War II were still quite vivid and the defeat in French Indo-China was still raw. Yet there, people could look at all that had happened and simply be more independently themselves and free. I learned that I didn’t have to hold any professor or exam in awe — I had to develop my own thoughts and learn what I had to bring to any essay (or oral essay in the French public final exam tradition). In other words, I had to learn to think and express a view of the world. It was wonderful being in Paris, but still more precious a gift to learn who I was as a thinking individual, and to experience what one might call French intellectual freedom. Think, really think and develop your thoughts, and you will exist; no one can take that from you. Certainly not the hollow bombast of Trump.
5
Amen, Mr Cohen from a fellow traveler - just somewhat “antipodal” - an American living in Paris. Amen on the yarmulke idea and amen on the quote from the bridge. This may have been said earlier in the comments, but let’s also remind ourselves of the debt we owe to French Enlightenment Scholars and to France, in general, as the US’ first ally in the Revolutionary War.
12
To be or not to be, seems the question democracy in America faces. What would D’ Tocqueville observe if he were here now?
That old prime directive, immigration policy, haunts the atmosphere. As orange man gets more desperate he will cling to and focus on exploiting immigration fears. After all, it’s his Trump card.
5
Roger I too lived in Paris and Paris is Not France just as New York City is not the United States...
Go to the hinderlands of either France or the United States you will find many people who hate The Other be it because of religion or the color of their skin...
So while I do love France and Europe in general I do not wear rose colored glasses to the reality of the facts of humanity be it where ever it may be..
6
@Rjnick indeed, Sir, you have spoken the truth. If you are not white , preferable of Western European mint, you are treated as second class by the French. That is a true fact.
2
No city is perfect, but Paris has more charm oozing from every corner than any other city I've ever seen. All empires come to an end. But if America goes down in flames, it could take the world with it. Or, things could reverse in 2020 -- always on a knife edge. And while there have been numerous regional wars, the fact that we haven't had a world war in 70 years is something to celebrate, and is at the heart of the European project.
7
We have been to Paris on three separate occasions. Our last was 2014, we think it is time now for a return. We need refreshment of our souls.
Thank you for an excellent article Mr. Cohen.
6
2020, another year when we here in the USA will see again what kind of people are we.
Will we respond to the challenge of removing the stain that is Trump and his Republican enablers before it has sunk too deeply into our national fabric to be removed?
I truly think we will. It will not be easy but we will rise to the challenge our forbears gave us that is to be able to wisely govern ourselves.
In the heartland where Trump eked out his electoral college win there is a subtle but constant shift in opinion against Trump .
In November 2020 the USA will do us all proud.
8
@Edward B. Blau
From your lips to God's ears.
I too am a naturalized US citizen. Your oblique message via France, a country I do not know, is for me more inspiring than another blast against trumpism (much as we need these!), this un-American trumpism. Thank you.
5
The generation that saw how bad things could get when ideology, intolerance, and hatred hold sway has largely passed from the scene. Among the subsequent generations are many who do not realize how fortunate they are. Some of them, like Trump and his minions, are ready to smash everything to get their way. If they succeed, the horrors of the past are but prelude.
9
I am beginning to appreciate you more Roger. This reads like an elegant postcard from Paris, an elegy to your golden years in the City of Lights. Cosmopolitanism is good.
After nine years of public school French, all I learned was "Brrr, Il fait froid" and "Pitou mange le gateau!"
Why did you transition from kippah to yarmulke? Perhaps we should all don kippahs.
"Violence of Hope." Nice. But I worry that we may be in for more violence before the promise of hope is realized.
5
@Andrew Shin cosmopolitanism is cancer that destroys civilizations. Without livenfor ones roots, ones culture, ones country, there is no love _ active live _ for Earth, for humanity.
The Ugly American was written by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick many years go, without a hint that we would eventually elect a president who bares indignity and ignorance with pride. If good emerges from these dark days, it will result from reminding Americans that we are better than our president. In the end, our democracy relies upon active voter turnout. I worry less about a fractured Democratic Party than its proclivity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Re-electing Trump is unthinkable. As for me, my wife and I will return to France next year to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. As with a kidney stone, Trump too shall pass.
14
Some Americans feel French at heart, Roger Cohen. We lived and studied in France, loved the French people, their society and culture and history past and present. "La Marseillaise" still sings in our blood.
Today the world's developed countries are tribal. America, among so many other countries, is xenophobic and nationalistic. Who can forget the bigoted homogeneous society that murdered milllions in Europe last century? We bore witness.
Our president is a living golem -- the embodiment against American truth, moral values and the rule of law. Human rights mean nothing to Trump. His ignorant loyalists, like the bases of fascist leaders last century, are nationalistic bigots. Will they defend him till the last man, woman or child dies?
We are living and suffering through trumpism Old politics have died. Trump's malign hegemony stains and shames our country today and for the immediate future.
Meanwhile. Roger Cohen, we'll always have Paris, as Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca in 1942 (midst WWII). That movie hasn't ended.
17
@Nan Socolow: And as William Faulkner told us decades ago, the American Civil War hasn't ended.
6
@Bearded One: And as a Delta Force commander said to me in Afghanistan in 2009, "Faulkner's problem is the same problem that way too many Southerners have: When you go through life looking in the rear view mirror, you miss what's right in front of you. And what's right in front of us is life. I'm from New Mexico and I didn't grow up being told that the Union was wrong to fight and win the Civil War, to fight and end slavery. The best general was Grant and thank God he fought for us." No, Bearded One, the Civil War ended everywhere but in William Faulkner's mind. Poor Faulkner, he spent his life moaning that he couldn't write as good as Hemingway. Hemingway, unlike Faulkner, was not obsessed with self-pity and the idiocy of "The Lost Cause." But then, Hemingway's grandfathers rode for Grant. Wise men, to ride for Grant. And it was the men who rode for Grant who ended, and won, the Civil War, for good and for true. Lee handed Grant the unconditional surrender in 1865, not the other way 'round.
@Nan Socolow la marseliese is about going away with the ruling class, exploitation, capitalism as we know it... Is that what you advocate? Coming g from the Ussr, I thoroughly pray you don't. We be stepped on that rake before.
As always, so poetic and inspiring
5
It sounds as though Mr. Cohen was a free man in Paris, and felt unfettered and alive.
8
Thank you, Roger, for your inimitable grasp of our states of being. There are better ways to live and the history of France has shown us that. As a North American with one foot in my dearly beloved USA and the other planted in my ancestral home of Canada I know how ripped and ragged we have become from New York to LA. The decades progress in my mind and the remembrance of things past tells me we can become better, we need to become better, but will we become better? The hope is violent. Without it we are lost.
5
“It is a time to fight without relenting...”
The first definition of fight is, according to the dictionary, “take part in a violent struggle involving the exchange of physical blows or the use of weapons.”
To be sure, there are other definitions which don’t imply violence, but i am always curious why people use this term. If they don’t advocate the use of violence, then they should explain what fighting actually means. As a citizen, the only “weapon” I possess is my vote, yet I don’t think that’s what Mr. Cohen means. So what does it mean to “fight without relenting”? As it stands, this platitude is meaningless.
4
Ah, Paris. The boulevards, the winding streets, sunrise and cafe au lait - the people and the neighborhoods. I can taste Paris again.
Thank you for this vision.
13
After my thirty-one years in Paris, then 13 in Brooklyn Heights, including 8 on Remsen Street, I can read your column in the small (now 550 "souls") village which accepted me and my family so long ago. After knowing exactly what you mean about Paris and France remaking yourself to become a permanent outsider, again Camus, but fitting into your role, making your contribution and sharing the wonders of life lived NOW, on the Pont Mirabeau or the profondeurs de la France profonde, it can be pure therapy to think, read, converse and dream en français and in English.
Keep writing, please,
John
14
I am a fan of your writing, Roger Cohen, but this is the most beautiful piece i've read, and one of the most beautiful essays I've read this year. The first paragraph alone floored me, as an American living in France for 10 years now. "To be a Francophile is a life sentence. It’s not exactly a badge of honor, not a burden either, but a slightly illicit gift of ever-renewed pleasures." It could not be more true. Thank you.
31
Such a beautiful and moving essay; thank you, Roger Cohen.
I’m personally struck by the juxtaposition of you growing up and coming of age in Paris and then moving to the US and making it your home. Conversely, I’ve just done the same, only in reverse: Grew up in the heartland of America (Nebraska), raised two kids, spent my career in research science, first commercial, then government. When Trump got elected, I decided it was time to make the leap and live in France. I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am for the change of venue. While it’s impossible to escape Trump’s blight anywhere in the world, it’s certainly tempered a great deal here. And the people are genuinely friendly and love the same slower lifestyle I aspire to.
Your closing quote reminds me of another of my own favorites, from Victor Hugo: “Le beau est aussi utile que l’utile”—the beautiful is also as useful as the useful (or utilitarian). Trump would understand the English translation just about as easily as the French original.
19
@David Walker. You seem to be living in the shadow of our President, which you haven't escaped by moving to France. While the move itself is totally fine, escaping one's Motherland due to disagreement with its politics (however temporal) appears childish. I am sure Nebraska could benefit from a liberal political activist mounting a sound opposition to Trump's policies and, perhaps, even running for an office to swing this red state! You have not chosen the higher road, I am afraid.
2
I understand and sympathize with your sentiments. If anything, I feel like the “one degree of separation” is helpful to (a) maintain my sanity, and (b) keep up a rational, consistent, deliberate resistance to Trump and his minions. I’m not giving up: One of the first things I did upon moving was vote in my home state (Colorado) by mail. I will continue to do so. I just choose to live my life in peace and quiet amongst other like-minded people, that’s all. We are a world community, despite Trump’s nationalistic (if not jingoistic) policies. Thanks for expressing what I’m sure many others are feeling.
4
I was born and raised in France, but left just over fifty years ago for what I thought would be a two year stint on a scholarship at Oxford University .
As it turned out, I never returned to France to live permanently . My professional and personal life brought me to the US (twenty years), Brazil Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and now Thailand (part-time) and the US again (part time) .
I enjoyed living in all of these countries, and for many years I enjoyed my US experience the most . Whether I lived in Knoxville, Philadelphia, New York or San Francisco, I found an openness among both friends and colleagues that was not just curiosity for the oddity that I often represented. There was a keen interest in how things were different "in your country" socially, politically, economically and personally .
This is no longer true and I cannot blame Trump alone . I remember all too vividly the "freedom fries" and the insults hurled at France during the ill fated second Gulf war, insults that I am sure I took all too personally .
As I look at the US now, I just see an aggravation among a goodly portion of the population of this disdain for "others" and I can lay that at the foot of trump and his acolytes .
Only in the US have I ever been asked why, after all these years, I had not become a citizen . Answering that I really love my country used to be enough of an answer . In some American circles it is now considered an underhanded insult to America . Bof !!!
41
@pgd, I’m immigrant myself, and have chosen to naturalize and become an American. I too have lived in half a dozen countries, but I choose to commit. I too would have asked you that same question, or why you would not want to be an American, yet consider a privilege to opine. To be a citizen in a country requires commitment, and it is a privilege to be able to vote and have your voice heard. While I don’t consider your decision not to naturalize as an insult to America, I do reckon that your choosing to remain an outsider means your voice and opinion doesn’t matter to me or the politics here.
To be a Citizen Of The World is nice, but it’s loaded with meanings. Yes, you enjoy the mobility and freedom. You prefer to be at arm’s length of everything. You can pack up and leave at the first sign of distress (of anything). In contrast, those who stay, those who have to, and those who choose to, are the ones holding down the fort, they are the ones bearing consequences.
And so, if you are resentful why people treating differently, remember this: This is a result of your decision, not a deficiency from someone else.
3
@pgd. I applaud your sense of patriotism for all things French, Sir. In all too many elitist circles in this country to be openly and unabashedly pro-American is considered passe. I see nothing wrong with the populous of ANY country to be proud of it. To be anything but used to be considered a "fifth column". Fashionable disdain by the coastal elites for America and Her simplest hardest working folk is what did the Democratic Bid of 2016 in; that is a fact. Will the Democrat Party learn this lesson in 2020? I hope so.
4
@tiddle I do not resent people treating me as different . I do resent people treating me as inferior because my allegiance belongs to my country of birth and not to the place I happen to live . I am not a citizen of the world : unless you missed it, I am a citizen of France who happens to live abroad .
3
One typical trait of the French is that not only they preach the art of persuasion they live it and practice it,over family meal time or gathering of friends or business lunch,etc.Wine+Cheese at hand.When we venture to the unforeseen or not yet seen or to the future our crunches are the hitherto established facts , rational arguments based on most sound reasoning,time tested Axioms,etc.and the natural conclusions we arrive at.The US Pres.s they have The Academy of Sci.Folk's advisement at their disposal and have to consistently delegate Science related major prominent issues to them.When these Folks and their peers conclude that The Climate change threat is real humanity have to go by that not insist that their assertion is a Hoax.There are unaddressed questions or conjunctures whose resolution affects the fate of the universe and beyond.Dealing with such challenges requires the participation of the best minds at their sharpest state of mind and here the empirical alone falls short.Though the traits I mentioned above is not necessarily the French's monopoly their culture is one catalyst and major challenges of Humanity can not be resolved without the participation of EU,other major powers with other partners as side kicks or extras.The integrity of EU shouldn't be diluted by emotion driven elements with extremist bent.TMD.
4
Trump has aspirations of somehow re-branding Independence Day with his name.
I suggest that on that date--annually--all Federal employees who have sworn an oath to the Constitution of the United States re-affirm that oath at a public gathering of their constituents (there are so many Fourth of July parades / picnics / fireworks from which to chose).
Democrats and thoughtful Republicans should have no problem with this. But there are others....
9
@Michael Steinberg
The most ridiculous idea of the American culture is lying under oath to the Constitution.
That is so American .
Most Americans think that " inalienable ", a french word, is due to the constitution. It is God in the text.
This is so funny !
Trump is a boomer narcissist and an old man. It's unlikely that he is some turning point.
9
"...the blemished beneficence of American power"?
As long as we continue to offer up these lies and assuagements, there will be no confronting the Trumps of this world.
Comfortable enablers of the age's fundamental untruths, who populate this page: for once, come clean!
This essay equates Paris with France and, to a lesser extent, it equates New York with the US and Berlin with Germany. It suggests that “making it there” assures that “you can make it anywhere.”
Paris was just too much for me. I preferred Nice. I moved from New York to Raleigh/Durham. And I taught in Hamburg, not Berlin. Mega-cities have constant identity crises. If you live somewhere with a local identity, the weight of the world is not always weighing you down.
18
I have never been to Paris, never been to France ... Born in Ithaca, NY, in 1950 yet... grew up in Montreal, Que., college there and grad school ... my (deceased) wife a Montrealer, my children born there ... Thank you for this column.
It is the very end of your column that the point resounds for me. "Some things just sound better in French ..." In my education, experience, I was at least bi-lingual (sorta hadda be) in Quebec, but I learned, on my way to ordination, Koine Greek, some Hebrew (Latin was done in High School) ... and the world was always expanding.
Living in the United States now, but looking to move if the trump is reelected, I am pursuing a new language.
But I have never lost my French ... and never lost the realization that when one can think in different languages, one can think in different ways. One can see from different perspectives, feel from distinct angles ... Just better all around.
Sadly, our 'president' hasn't even mastered his own language. As sadly, this country hasn't moved to bilingualism (yes, English and Spanish - be wonderful for us all) ...
Wittgenstein said it best: Everything is language... Yeah, some things sound better in French. Fin de Trump...
24
@George Campbell. Is everything in the world about the President? I hope not. Why can't we just enjoy the article - with all its misgivings and misstatements for its topic - that of an American in Paris, so to speak? Why not leave the President to His own devices for once?
2
Do make Paris HAPPEN, you will surely not regret it, and just think, you already practically speak the language! I mean you could drive on to Provence or other luminous points... but to walk along the SEINE, or stand in front of the LOUVRE? Oh well, you can’t not plan for it...
3
Love the Parisian idea of banning the burqua. So free, so open, so just terribly idealistic.
And those banlieues. So picturesque, so full of opportunity, so "l'egalite."
I think a bit too much of that sauvignon blanc Roger? The French, and Europeans, like us, have plenty of issues. The issues didn't start with Trump or a few years ago. I remember decades ago, going to ask for directions in a French police station in Marseilles, to see a cop abuse a helpless Muslim man. May have been some Gaulois around. May have been some wine and croissants. But there was nothing pleasant about that scene. I do still love the life one can enjoy in France. But no delusions about how so many of its citizens are not really privy to it.
19
Great comment! There is a terrible lack of precision, balance and attention to detail in what many people are saying here.
4
@AJ, totally agree with you. Cohen offers up the idyllic version of France, the idolized beauty of Paris, as something America under Trump is not. Yet, underbelly in Europe, and France more specifically, isn’t that much different from anywhere else, not even US. Cohen would us believe that just because that country speaks French, not English, makes it a far more open country, by default, but that’s a fallacy.
I, too, have lived in a number of countries in my life, speak a few languages and immerse in their culture. Every country, every culture, has their pitfalls. It’s where one chooses to look, that decides if one would see a rosy (or ugly) picture. But, they are all but human nature. Marine Le Pen is rising just as steadily as Trump has garnered his support. Perhaps Cohen is speaking too soon. Where would the cohorts of Cohen run to for covers of his idyllic Paris turns out to be just another mirage?
4
Mr. Cohen occasionally writes these love letters to European countries, most often France and Italy. Then he'll go and write another of his celebrations of mass immigration, along with denunciations of those who oppose it. Somehow it never occurs to him that the things he loves about France are being diluted by all the foreigners that he insists must be welcomed.
12
@Bob Roberts you were a foreigner not too distant ago, willing to pay for your ancestry DNA testing to confirm, unless you are a Native American
3
You have formed the words that underpin why this lifelong Texan decided to vote with her feet and retirement dollars against her home state and country whilst remaining very active with Dems Abroad.
14
The Paris of Roger Cohen's brilliant but poignant article stands in for Europe and for the world. In a similarly-themed Guardian article about Europe, Timothy Garton Ash recently wrote:
".....it would not be wrong to say that many.....who have grown up in this relatively whole and free continent do not see Europe as a great cause..... Why be passionate about something that already exists? Unless they have grown up in the former Yugoslavia or Ukraine, they are unlikely to have much direct personal experience of just how quickly things can all unravel, back to European barbarism."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/09/why-we-must-not-let-europe-break-apart
We humans have long memories of traumatic events as individuals, and entire societies have long memories. But as one era gives way to another, we individuals don't do a good job warning future generations of Parisians, Europeans or Americans against falling back into old patterns of nationalist rivalry. Having lived through WW II, and the relative peace and prosperity that followed, and now seeing ugly nationalism rise again, I can't help a sense of foreboding.
21:20 EDT, 5/31
12
Beautiful piece, and yes, it does sound better in French. But how about: "How life flows slow, and Hope comes as a blow"? Unlike French, it's monosyllabic throughout, but that's in keeping with Anglo-Saxon short words. It keeps two internal rhymes, just like in French (or quasi-internal rhymes, Espérance and violente, with an extra -s, flows slow). Hope this helps.
4
Dear Sir;
While reading your chronology of your first half, i was comparing yours vs mine. Both look alike yours in the other half of the planet, mine within méxico.
Looks to me that the various changes you involve while growing old, were made with wisdom, always taking into consideration adventages.
We both enjoying a 4 kids familly trying to overcome (desafios)
Iwill be watching your other half of your life, whishing you the best. regards.
1
Things about the French are quite overrated. There's much to discover in other parts of the world.
3
Very moving essai. I was overwhelmed by it. I was also a journalist in Paris for a time and your words came directly to me. Toutes mes félicitations !!!
5
The column lacks rigour.
A) "[Paris] is where I came of age, escaping the damp clutches of Oxford."
Average annual rainfall in Oxford: 631 mm
Average annual rainfall in Paris: 637 mm
B) "t’s where I... discovered that, despite appearances, I was an outsider."
If you were an Englishman in Paris, why would it be a "discovery," rather than an obvious fact, that you were an outsider? If you mean something deeper--about some philosophical discovery of your orientation to the world--it remains an odd thing to say, since you evidently thought you were an insider before and later moved to the US which made you feel an insider. So you weren't a philosophical outsider for very long, just in Paris? It's all vague and weirdly anglophobic, as if France (which made you feel like an outsider) and the US (which made you feel an insider) gave you something the UK couldn't (even though it had previously made you feel like an insider).
C) "that bastion of law, the European Union" The EU? The organization that allows Germany and France to break its fundamental laws (think budgets, think the Dublin Agreement on migrants) because they are Germany and France? That then forces poor southern members to obey the letter of the law to the point of self-destruction? Whose constituent nations often ignore mundane EU laws they don't like? That abandoned its own anti-corruption reports because they inflamed opposition to the EU?
12
Great column, but a bit too negative... America has a head cold, but it is still great, and will recover soon.
3
@Smitty Wish it were true. What America actually has is a severe case of swelled head, as did Germany at one time ( 'Deutchland Uber Alles.') I fear that it will require the same kind of cure (massive disaster of some kind) to rid itself of the condition.
13
@Rethinking. Ask an Afghani, and Iraqi, or a Grenadian, my friend, what a "severe case of swelled head" (courtesy of the US) might be. They have been forced to live through it.
6
How much I agree with Roger Cohen, having made similar eperiences, although as a sixty-year expatriot. Despite all the adverse lectures of Trump´s America, I still haven´t given up hope for a reconvalescing America. Would, that all those living in the USA with first-hand experience of the worst, be proven wrong and that those decent Americans I lived with in my younger years still exist.
3
Il accuse; je suis d'accord. Some of the benefit of learning--engaging with--a foreign language is that differences among common expressions can stop us in our tracks and force us to see human conditions anew. Perhaps because I came from a divided place in Ireland, the idea that national legends (e.g., Britannia Rules the Waves!) aren't exactly true was clear to me long before I saw the problems with America's tale of greatness. There has always been good here, and always a potential for greater good; a potential that more Americans would realize that greatness did not always come from the barrel of a gun. France may have been a nuclear power, but was nevertheless a bit-player on the world stage. That challenge helped to keep their feet somewhat on the ground. In America, Trump offers a rancid message, but it is a message, and it falls into an era of the pettiest hedonism and greed. Much of human activity here is bent towards the "pursuit of [a tawdry form of] happiness, and every moment and every human activity have a dollar value. Americans know the cost of everything and the value of little.
12
Simply the best Roger Cohen article I’ve read. Thank you for putting to word so eloquently so many things some of us are feeling during these dark days of Trumpism let loose on humanity.
33
Mr. Cohen, I find it marvelous that you, too, became a person tangled up in the glory of France. You write this beautifully, and with the genuine appreciation of one who has succumbed and dives deeply. Up to reciting poetry on bridges...
I, too, have mused thus— and made up a line of two to Henri IV on his statue near the front of the île de la Cité. But then I also had background. My father was in the American Diplomatic Corps. I was born in London and my first language was Italian. My mother was also a person who insisted I learn French, starting early. Returning abruptly to California in my childhood my parents mourned living abroad and I grew up feeling utterly estranged from my more sheltered American children not raised to defer to any ideal except their own might. I found even the kids barbarians— though I was one of them. There is something very good about being humbled by history, and wakened to the potentials of treachery, villainy and spreading blight. There was Vichy, lots of France was corrupt, or collaborated, to their shame. This good, this insight, even among the less powerful, is daily exemplified to me in France. I am another one of the letter writers who lives half the time in France, and half California. I am grateful no one blames me here for Trump, and everyone in my small village looks upon Americans en masse as somehow conned by the big con, perhaps riddled by too much tv mania, or driven crazy by gun violence from their addiction to Westerns.
14
My daughter ( here in France, too) commented that I better make clear that “my children, ” from whom I felt estranged in the above letter, were NOT my two beloved biological children, one in California and one in France, but my bullying majority or alternately and rarer marginalized, shy, “weirdo” childhood schoolmates. That’s the subject of lots more letters.
5
Paris is a rendezvous for a certain view of America, for an America that has been brave and came across the sea to confront and defeat authoritarian threats three times in one century. The threats arose from dysfunctions in the modern capitalist system where the machine impoverished the workers through concentration while the concentrated capitalist-fueled economic power became the backbone of nationalist and expansionary empire under universal ideologies. France has been both a mirror to the wider world while also serving as a fulcrum where alternative views could find purchase.
But that America is now gone. The words of its sacred founding documents are now just words on parchment lying unexercised on the law books. But the words await their renewal.
Trump is a dichotomy that cannot stand. He is waging a fight on all fronts to isolate and withdraw the US from the world economy which nourishes and supports the domestic economy while promoting the politics of domestic insularity through distrust and hatred of the world beyond the borders. How can one wage economic war on one's neighbors and expect domestic prosperity? The Trump constructs are self-defeatingly contradictory.
The capitals of modern America are Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, London, Paris, Berlin, Ottawa, Mexico City, and New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Washington will again rise to provide leadership.
Today, Washington is under occupation by authoritarian billionaires. First we free Washington, then ...
24
Thank you Mr Cohen. After reading the news articles of the day and feeling despondent, I am again inspired by your thoughts and observations.
Vive la France. Some things DO just sound better in French.
22
When I first came to live in France 40 years ago, I scoffed at the popular saying “Impossible n’est pas Français.” As much as I loved living here, compared to Americans, the French often seemed to me to be disorganized, exasperatingly individualistic, and not particularly civic-minded.
And yet - the famously cynical and irascible citizens and legislators of France have delivered healthcare for all, generous paid vacations and maternity leave, and virtually free higher education to everyone. French citizens do not clamor for the right to own military-grade weapons and its lawmakers are not seeking to control and abrogate the reproductive rights of French women in the name of religion. I know of no leading French politician denying climate change or questioning the validity of science. The “yellow vest” movement, which starts from a very high bar compared to the average American worker, is a healthy democratic protest against income inequality and unchecked and mismanaged globalization and Macron and French legislators know they ignore it at their peril.
Social progress in France has never been smooth, but always done in fits and starts. By contrast, America under Trump seems irrevocably stalled, or worse, moving steadily backward.
59
Cheer up! There were other American Presidents that are NO MORE! Surely, even if you support all the good political moves and life in Paris, there were folks not too long ago that held on to dear life and thought the French Or Paree would never recover... this, here, as well as FOX news, will soon pass, as it does every 4 yrs. An immigrant in America... as well as a 60’s child. One must remember that emerging from the American Revolution... there have been more joyous ones. And times here, are always a changing!
Dear Mr. Cohen,
I am an American who has chosen to live part time in France in a small village in the countryside. I as well live in NYC the other part of my life.
It becomes more apparent everyday that my choice is a good one. Even with the problems facing the EU there is more feeling of respect of law than now exists at home.
Here in "my" little village I am the only American but am treated as a member of the larger family called France.
I respect and admire the culture and being an artist feel quite at home in the situation of my choice.
I hope for more from the America that I remember and maybe in 2020 the voice of reason will return and we can once again say we truly live in the "Land of the Free".
20
What an impressive, beautifully written article. I am even more impressed by the many eloquent comments. But when will you, smart and thoughtful Americans, leave your studies and start to show up on the streets before it is too late?
20
The French know their history and their monuments remind them of it. They revolt because they are well informed about events that affect their lives.
The 1789 revolution was against the dominance and power of the aristocracy. Since then, protesting and fighting injustice and equality for all is in their DNA.
America like any privileged family has spoiled its kids to believe they are special, exceptional. That mentality led to arrogance and a false sense of superiority. For people to grow, humility is a must. If we think we know it all, we stop learning and excelling.
Americans expect change to come from the top while the French demand and fight for change themselves.
31
We love France, and have certainly studied more French literature and art than Mr. Cohen. After Notre Dame burned, our faces could be seen on French TV attending a mass in French in Brooklyn on Good Friday honoring the cathedral .
But France is a pygmy shadow of its former self. Since WWII it has forgotten how to give birth to great men and women, for the first time ever. It piggy backs on the US for defense and on Germany for economic growth and stability as Europe tries somehow to evolve from being a mini-me of the United States and evolve something more consequential and more respectful of its own citizens and its own great history.
We love France deeply and dearly. But we wish the country would give its citizens more of an opportunity to advance, and would make more use of its history and traditions in areas not involving tourism and lifestyle.
But wait. There are stirrings that France is rising up to the challenge of Le Défi Américain . We read that French TV stations have joined together to create a worthy competitor to Netflix, but French! And to show they mean it, they will spend euros 50 millions for original programming. Fifty million euros! Of course, Netflix alone will spend more than $15 billion this year, including a decent amount of programming in the French language.
We cant wait to visit Paris again. Hope the road and the trains are not being blocked by citizens furious with their masters.
8
@Frank D. Who are “we?” And how do “we” know “we” have “certainly studied more French literature and art than Mr. Cohen?”
1
"Looking ahead to 2020, I feel uneasy. Americans are decent people. Trump authorized the forced separation of thousands of children from their parents. On that basis, the result of the presidential election should be a foregone conclusion."
But it's not, is it?
Roger, America has always been like this. This country was born via genocide and slavery. After the Civil War, it employed a brutal apartheid regime against Blacks, enforced by both the boot of the state, and brutal extra-legal lynchings. Mexicans and Chinese were not to be spared either. As that went out of vogue, it constructed a vast carceral state that is the largest in the world, and among its most brutal and inhumane. And how can we forget that police in the United States can and do get away with the murder of nonwhite people on a regular basis.
At times we've been able to hide these dark characteristics of America's soul better than others. But there are times like now where the mask comes off and the ugliness is bare for all to see.
And the "decent" Americans will furrow their brows and wish it were another way, but in the end they'll do nothing. Violence, injustice and oppression of nonwhites doesn't *really* bother white America. If that were so, things would be much different. The thousands families who were destroyed at the border would have enjoyed different fates. But in reality they simply don't register - they're not white.
50
On a recent visit to Paris, we made our third visit to the Marais, the old Jewish quarter which has still been a center of Jewish culture with synagogues, falafel delis and cafes. We learned that many of these businesses are closing as the real estate is sold for gentrification. (Sound like New York?) Many Jews are moving away from central Paris because of security concerns.
We then made a pilgrimage to D-Day sites in Normandy, as the 75th anniversary nears. We participated in a memorial ceremony at the Colville-sur-Mer cemetery,, then turned around to sing the Star Spangled Banner in tribute to more than 9,000 American who lost their lives in the 1944 invasion. The thought crossed my mind: I hope America is not losing our dream, the vision of liberty and justice for all for which these young soldiers and sailors died. A second term for Trump could turn that dream to darkness.
21
Wow. These words flowed with such beauty and power. And sadness for the folly that we humans seem never to free ourselves.
7
What a lovely piece! My mother, who died before I entered high school, made it clear that French was the language I should study. For 4 years in high school I took French. My teacher, Mr. Nunn, would parade before the class singing "La Vie en Rose" imitating Charles Aznavour. Most students were asleep. At 16 I was driven through Paris by my racist father and stepmother as we passed the foot of the Eiffel Tower in a fog. They had no interest in the vast cultural history of France and were only on their way to Luxembourg where we were to take a flight back home to Virginia Beach. Thank you reminding me how much I missed on that stupid trip and how much more I have to learn.
24
@Suzanne Wheat You know the meaning of "Esperance " it is not "hope " .
Roger: You say that "Americans are decent people" but Trump has demonstrated that deep down a significant chunk of them are not. Oh well. C'est la vie.
39
Nice column ! I can’t believe it ! Roger Cohen praising the French without condescendence !
This is as unusual and paradoxical as the inversion of the yield curve for bonds. Could it be ominous, as well ?
5
Trump on Omaha Beach ?! For all I can think of, he probably knows neither where Omaha Beach is, nor that the Earth is not flat.
Of the US-France historical ties, one reads and hears only about Marquis de Lafayette. Wholly silenced is the betrayal by the US of their faithful ally in the War of Independence, Louis XVI and his family, that were abandoned by the US in the hands of murderous Jacobines.
1
All of the recitals against the present government argue for the electoral remedy.
4
There is a name for this period in time: The Era of Shame.
11
A new factor that has empowered bullies and demagogues, (which humanity has always had to deal with,) is the new so-called “social” media. But a person’s social needs stem from their psychological and emotional condition.
So, social media are really channels into the minds and hearts of their users.
This has given the demagogues of the world — Trump and Putin and others — an unparalleled tool to pour lies directly into the minds of the masses.
Perhaps another technology company — ?Microsoft — will use its new AI tools to quickly spot and label all the misinformation Trump and Putin are spreading through Facebook?
But an international consortium may be needed — to regulate Facebook and Twitter and Instagram — cutting off their internet channels in their airspace if these companies put propaganda on their platforms.
Perhaps Europe, especially France and Germany, can lead this cause.
7
Oh, here we go again, another aging liberal having another, "we'll always have Paris" moment of regretful nostalgia. Wake up! Time to get to work. Conservatism places responsibility on the individual, liberalism in the group. Arguments can be made for either point of view, but if we take nature as our guide, conservatism must prevail. Social progress is always fundamentally material progress. The energetic, superior individual, taking advantage of his greater gifts, climbing on (above), selfishly exploiting his less well endowed (or lucky) fellows is how nature progresses. Is this a pretty picture? Well, probably not. The plight of the poor is one of liberalism's strongest heartstring tugging arguments; how can we abandon them, the group must help them. Yet it must be admitted, which liberals do not like to do, that the poor are a blight on even a rich society, and help them all we may, they never cease to drag us down, consuming wealth without producing it, or even apologizing for doing so (in fact, they blame us). As a practical matter society is willing to tolerate (subsidize) a certain amount of this, but at some point enough is thought to be enough. That's where we are today, that explains the gathering success of conservatism, not Mr. Trump's willful boorishness. The left has gone as far as it can in excusing and carrying the unproductive. The wellsprings of social progress are not exhausted, but the pendulum does swing.
4
@Ronald B. Duke. Your ideas are too limited in your binary of “conservatism/individual” and “liberal/group”. I see both individual and group effort and goals within each side. It just depends on the topic and who is benefiting. But more importantly our progress (and sheer survival) as humans has benefited equally from individual striving and community building. The community needs the diversity of its individuals and individuals need the support of the group. After all, families are groups, and from there grew clans, villages, towns, civilizations and the institutions and traditions that arose.
16
@Ronald B. Duke So the poor are unproductive and the super rich are paragons of productivity? Most poor Americans work very hard, often at multiple low-paying jobs. Many members of the economic elite, on the other hand, work in the finance industry, where protected by laws that keep their tax rates low, they manipulate markets in ways that enrich themselves without helping the economy.
As for your naive celebration of individualism, in nature it is species not single organisms that thrive. The same is true in society. A healthy community creates institutional supports for its members so they can take advantage of the opportunities the economy offers. A society of isolated individuals would be a disaster.
59
@Ronald B. Duke
Sometimes the difference between being a “successful” Conservative and a “parasitic” poor person is a very fine line. The value of human lives shouldn’t be reduced to a simpke Darwinian struggle. Many factors can lead to a person being in need. On the other hand, hopefully, your comment was meant as some form of subtle irony, but I missed it.
4
I've looked to Camus and to Whitman for some guidance in responding to the present danger. Walt offered hope through democratic optimism and Albert showed that decency and pessimism can exist side by side through humility. If we lose - and we may - it will be to a cynicism greater than we imagined.
10
@jim morrissette: Tony Judt offered a critique, Past Imperfect, that updated Benda's La Trahison Des Clercs. We are all human, and need to ask the key questions over and over. There are few absolutes, but honesty with oneself is central to good government.
3
Those of us in Louisiana do not need to visit Paris to know that the French-American bond is indelible and unbreakable. It is born of history, convenience, kinship and style. Franco-American food, music, literature and art are like the people of our state: interrelated in ways we rarely articulate but always demonstrate.
Like any good New Orleans family, mine appreciates the cultural legacy the French bequeathed while relishing the uniquely American lives our people confected over nine generations. But for all the romanticization of France that we or Mr. Cohen may adduce, France's past, like most nation states, is a checkered amalgam of achievement and atrocity. They helped us during our Revolutionary War, but sought to undermine us during the Civil War when a weakened Union might have better served France's 19th-century designs on Mexico.
Perhaps the lesson from Mr. Cohen's essay is that countries and cultures--including ours--invariably go through periods of ascendance and descent, but that we should never be passive, fatalistic observers. We always have inspirational examples in our lives upon which to draw and should do so to help us though difficult times to make them better.
The uniquely inspired genius of the French toward blending hope and cynicism was instructive in coping with uncertainty centuries before Apollinaire penned his poems. Today we have the dependably thoughtful columns of Mr. Cohen for similar encouragement. Merci, mon copain !
26
Cohen's words are poetic, as usual, but unrealistic and impractical.
The movie of the American century ended because of the recklessness of Baby Boomers like Cohen, who squandered the inheritance of peace and prosperity bequeathed to them by the Greatest Generation.
And the post-Cold War era has been one long downward spiral for much of the American middle class, so its demise is to be celebrated, not lamented.
The world, including America, is entering a new era, and the transition from the past to the future is unnerving, particularly for those like Cohen who cling to the past, even as the scale and scope of its failures have become impossible to ignore any longer.
But it is premature to surrender the 21st century to anybody, including China.
Trump will indeed pass, and this transition offers a historic opportunity for a desperately needed course-correction, so a new generation can rebuild what Cohen's generation destroyed in a way that is aligned with the realities of the 21st century.
There is absolutely no reason for America not to emerge stronger than ever.
And Macron, too, will pass. Indeed, in many ways he already has, but Cohen assiduously avoids addressing this topic.
And so too will the EU pass, sooner than Cohen thinks, despite the Happy Thoughts that he expresses here.
It is simply unequal to the monumental challenges of the 21st century.
4
@TB: The baby boomers did not create human nature, and they surely did not create the bankers who crashed the economy in 1929; nor were they the whiz-kids whose ignorance and arrogance created the CDOs at the heart of the property crash of 2007.
4
A century ago, America gave economic refuge to my mother and political refuge to my father. Your sense of the uniqueness of our country is correct.
However, I think that your appreciation of the institutions of the West should be more critical.
You call for vigilance in safeguarding NATO, as an institution that transformed and protected Europe. However, NATO's evolution since 1990, or so, calls for more than praise and nourishing.
But, one might ask "why?" The Atlantic countries, the West, are in a new Cold War with Russia, and perhaps we should add that Hungary, Turkey, and others are circling. In this setting, shouldn't our most important military institution be supported unambiguously?
Maybe not. To do so ignores history we need to recognize. There is some Original Sin involved in our new Cold War. Whatever we should do now to strengthen or adapt NATO, we need to understand how we got here.
The papers are filled with remembrances and revelations about Tienanmen. It is as though a crucial but forgotten key to modern history has been found, at last.
We need a similar rediscovery of the August Revolution of 1991, when the Russian people and army fulfilled Western dreams by overthrowing Communism, establishing a democratic state and a market, and reaching to us for friendship and permanent peace.
We need to ask ourselves why we turned away from the new world within our grasp, and why we chose to threaten our new friend by pushing NATO to its border.
3
In five days Trump will be at the American cemetery above Omaha Beach in Normandy for the 75th D-Day observances.
I wanted to go over on June 6 as I have for the 60th, 65th and 70th commemorations. It was a time for renewal of Transatlantic relations and remembrance of the allied cause against the axis.
But this year is different. In his eloquent column today, Roger Cohen demonstrates that Trump has tried to pulverize the spirit of cooperation with allies, preferring instead to admire dictators.
Will Trump make this occasion a time to honor the sacrifices of so many from that generation or will it be all about his grievances at home and abroad? If last November is any indication when he was in Paris to observe the end of WWI, It will be all about himself and just one more blow to any unity left in the Atlantic Alliance.
15
From the depths of Mr. Cohen’s heart, is this a siren song to all of us? Is another 1968 approaching? Will we be called upon to defend our freedoms and liberties? Certainly, the yellow vests of the last six months have also been sending warnings that humanity and social responsibility need to be restored to our lives, that we are all in this together.
7
Poetry is a good solace from these troubled times, and the author has done an excellent job in this poem in prose. But, times have never been good. In the 60's and the 70's, Paris was the center of bitter disputes with well-known French intellectuals defending Maoism and Stalinism, and drawing many workers and students to undemocratic and totalitarian ways. It was a tough time to be a student in those times and take a stand against the polarization of the cold war.The cold war years were as threatening and as bad as these days. We overcame those times, but we were close to obliteration. Now we feel, perhaps correctly, that the situation is much worse because the solution to overpopulation, global warming, depletion of natural resources and extinction of species requires the collaboration of many people with very different cultures and values.There are too many parameters in the solution of this equation.
6
I too fell under the spell of Paris at a young age. Being now at a much older age I can confirm that once under her spell you never lose that love. I remember visiting when I was well into middle age, after a long absence; as I rode in a taxi through that little opening in the Louvre, on past the Pei pyramid, being flooded with so much emotion that I could barely control it for a few seconds.
I find that the only way that I can get through this period is to remember the big picture historically. In Rome, things got to a point where many decent people were forced to commit suicide in order for their families not to be dispossessed at the time of their death, which was to happen inevitably by one method or another. Now that Roman Empire is gone. Our empire is gasping its last breath, and I think there is no way to stop that. It's the way of the world. The future is in Asia, and there's nothing wrong with accepting that. It would, however, be nice if we could go out with a little more decency and even dignity, but I'm not sure that's in the cards.
9
Mr. Cohen clearly has deeply felt emotions, but ones that are no longer historically relevant to the challenges of 2019. The great issue of the 21 Century, for Paris, France, Europe and the developed world as a whole is what to do about the coming demographic inundation from the Global South. Mr. Cohen just getting angry some more at the kind of people he has always hated is, while no doubt comforting to him, now irrelevant.
6
@Steve Sailer Well, that inundation from the south is likely to come more and more. If you can understand that the flood of asylum seekers to our border does not consist of rapists and drug dealers, but of ordinary people fleeing from unbearable fear and poverty, then you can understand that, as climate change makes conditions more difficult generally throughout the Global South than the North, people will flee in numbers we can't fathom. When people can't find enough water, food, and ways of making a living, and can't be safe, they will flee. Wouldn't you? There will be wars over the disruptions of resources, and people flee from wars.
I'm afraid, really afraid, that we ain't seen nothin' yet.
16
Speaking of the Decline of the West, but no mention of Marine Le Pen? Francophilia is quite understandable, but it shouldn't put up blinders to France's own problem with thunder on the Right.
6
Thank you, Roger Cohen for this and all your other columns. The wisdom of your words stems from a background that is rooted in several places around the world. Oh, do I wish our young people could experience more of other countries and different cultures. The opportunities are there, but they are taken by the very few. I myself am a naturalized American, born, raised and come of age in Germany. My wife is a Jewish American who lived with me in Germany for eight years. She and I have a common understanding of the opportunities and threats both countries pose. I find it hard to empathize with those on either side of the Atlantic who have never experienced anything but their own culture, yet firmly believe that their view of the world is unique and superior to that of others. Lately, I find it extremely hard to cope with the emerging nationalist and jingoistic population in the US, devoid of knowledge and curiosity. The political culture in this country is hardening. I have always had difficulty understanding the American self-perception of and "exceptional" country. Perhaps the constitution strives for some kind of exceptionalism, but reality tells me there is nothing exceptional about this country. It is as ordinary and plaques with problems as any other country. The current political responses to these problems is disheartening. My fervent hope is that the current regime in the US does not kill all the good that is possible.
14
Great civilizations are like sand on the beach. They wash in and out.
50 years ago, we were the greatest nation on earth, first or close to it in every category that counted. Now, we are last or close to it among industrialized nations in the same categories.
Our best universities are still admired worldwide, but their costs have soared beyond belief.
We need someone to bring us back to greatness. Trump is simply greasing the skids downward.
55
Reading Roger Cohen'c column is like reading the poet laureate of politics. Poetry and politics seem never to belong in the same sentence, but he makes them work.
Cohen can summarize what is wrong with our President in two short sentences. "President Trump beckons us into the abyss of the hateful. The arc of his mind bends toward injustice." How terribly true, but Cohen's confidence in the American people, the American voter, seem not to be deserved.
Trump is not alone in the American Century to beckon Americans to hate and injustice. There is McCarthy and Wallace both leaving in their wake a generation damaged by fear. Then there are the wars and invasions in the latter half of the 20th Century generated by implanting a pathological hatred of socialism into the minds of voters.
Trump's perverted arc of injustice would collapse at the feet of voters who were informed by history rather than a false sense of national pride.
59
Mr. Cohen, you write with moving clarity, wisdom and grace.
66
President Macron has the style that President Trump lacks, but the policies are very similar, unfortunately. But my hat is off to the French working classes who refused to acquiese when Macron gave them a one-two punch....first he gave a tax cut to the already rich, then followed it up with a "climate saving" gas tax on all. The working classes, pushed out of cities due to costs, often have to drive far for work - as small town economies have been devastated by globalisation. Hence, the Yellow Vests, who have refused to quit. They are now in dialogue with the Macron government on twin questions of urgent importance - how to have an economy that is more fair to all; how to pay for climate change but not on the backs of those barely scraping by. Where are our Yellow Vests?
102
@Ellen It is no wonder that news coverage in the US has been very limited on the French Gilets Jaunes movement. Powers that be in the US are not anxious to see a similar uprising here - especially given the number of guns in the hands of the would be revolutionaries. Fear not. Baseball season is at hand, and that alone will keep minds occupied. From there it's a quick slide into our real national sport - football. No one can tear themselves away from the tv until the Super Bowl is over. Just no time for all those pesky real existential questions. Let the French handle it for us. We'll watch the film once Hollywood boils down the ideas to one line laughs.
49
I worry that these pastimes will take too much of our focus away from the very real threat who could destroy our way of living; a clownish orange figure who can’t keep from dishonoring a heroic, brave American who has been dead for ten months. If they do a movie, it will be a science-fiction horror one.
9
@Walterk55
Yes, bread and circuses here, though not that much bread for the commoners. One of the Yellow Vests put it succinctly: "We don't want the crumbs; we want the whole baguette."
I admire the French - when things get too awful, they have a revolution. Too bad "we" are too busy with amusements such as baseball, video games, i-phones, tweeting.
27
Russia is no more a power than when the Berlin Wall fell. China is a rsing power but it's not yet a global power ket alone THE power. Iran and Saudi Arabia may have glorious ambitions but they are hardly in a position to execute on them.
So what we have now is a time of fading Western dominance with no one in charge of a uplifting vision - only dark ones.
It's the Age of Yearning.
10
@Larry L
"Russia is no more a power than when the Berlin Wall fell."
You're wrong, because you are thinking only about what used to be the sole attributes of power, the economy and the military. But Russia is using a new kind of power to punch far above its weight.
The cold war did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It merely became dormant for a few years until a former KGB boss inherited his Soviet predecessors' mantle. Russia's effective use of cyber-power has made America's conventional defenses look like the Maginot Line. The ghosts of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and the rest must be applauding Putin with a mixture of envy and admiration.
21:45 EDT, 5/31
6
@mancuroc, 80% of Russia's economy is dependent on energy products. In many ways, it is in the same position as Iran and the Saudis. There is a reason that OPEC reached out to them in order to try to support the price of oil. The Russian economy is smaller than that of France.
While you are right that they have developed cyber capabilities in the past decade, it is the fault of our government and companies for being cavalier and not being vigilant in the defense of their own customers and infrastructure. The U.S. can respond like it did after 9/11 by adapting (we eventually did kill Bin Laden) or it can just sit here and cry about it. We are not helpless but we need different leadership that takes the situation seriously.
I love the ideals of my country - equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and I love the liberte’, egalite’, et fraternite’ of France. I weep for my country right now. I pray that the ignorance, hatred, and greed prevalent here here doesn’t overtake France.
29
It is sad to say that our greatest hope lies in the transition from those born before to those born during the digital, globalized world. They are a generation of a species with enormous potential. Unfortunately prior generations may have doomed their survival on the planet they inherited.
7
Thank you again, Mr. Cohen.
Beauty is endless. Decency too. Not so, the American century or the thin answers that militate against civilization, cooperation and decency that give solace to populists persuading them they own the right.
How wonderful that you could come here and not be a stranger. How wonderful that Paris remains the embodiment of civilization, culture and worthy aspirations. Such a contrast between Notre Dame and Trump Tower. Please keep reminding us to live toward and support the real prizes of life.
I remind too that only America could have given rise to Walt Whitman.
29
Below is how Piketty, Author of Capital in the 20 th Century
views the US - French relation under Macron
'It is customary to contrast Trump and Macron: on one hand the vulgar American businessman with his xenophobic tweets and global warming scepticism; and on the other, the well-educated, enlightened European with his concern for dialogue between different cultures and sustainable development. All this is not entirely false and rather pleasing to French ears. But if we take a closer look at the policies being implemented, one is struck by the similarities"
"Now, here is what Macron has proposed in France. The rate of corporation tax will gradually be reduced from 33% to 25%; a lower rate of 30% will be introduced for dividends and interest (as an alternative to the 55% income tax rate applicable to the highest salaries); the wealth tax will be abolished for the largest financial and business wealth holders holders
For the first time since the Ancien Régime it has thus been decided in both countries to set up an explicitly derogatory system of taxation for the benefit the categories of income and wealth held by the most affluent social groups."
http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2017/12/12/trump-macron-same-fight/
I like Mr. Chohen's column, but in this case, I agree with Picketty
Mr. Macron is a polished version of Trump
85
Yes, this is a sad conclusion I came to by studing the history of the french tax system and economic policy of mr Macron. Whole generation of franch economic elite is poisoned by Néolibéralisme, roughly 20 blnEuros of taxes are yearly transfered to the 0.1%.
Maybe this is why Macron did not have problems in trying to crate à good relation with the Orange clown?
But Macron is no more then that. There is very ambitious anti-poverty plan, serious effort to improve elementary school results in poor areas, recent serious measures to improve lower middleclass incomes, continuos education plan for the workforce....
So, trumpism stops at the economy
3
Another fine, elegiac column from one of the finest columnists this paper has. I love how he straddles England, Europe, and America, with solid affection for each. I love how he pays America the ultimate compliment: I felt like an insider overnight.
And yet, his columns make me sad, because things are sad everywhere these days. Particularly at home but also abroad where Jews are scared again in Germany, and the 75th Anniversary of Normandy occurs next Thursday; marking the passage of a long time--long enough to erode memory.
So many compare today to the years before WWII. Born at the end of '46, much of my life perspective was shaped by it, from my Navy vet dad's stories to the shared experience of my baby boom peers.
I naively thought America's leadership role in the world would last my lifetime. But no: technology has accelerated the transition from major world events, to their unraveling.
Or maybe, just their repetition?
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I too love France and the French.
Like us, they have much to be proud of and much to be distressed about.
But I have confidence. While the world has turned to trump, Brexit, La League, Hungary, Poland, Netanyahu and other nationalists, the French, while conflicted are still not fully endorsing the far right.
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France is no panacea and has had more than its share of ignominious behavior throughout the centuries. Yet deep in their hearts, the French know this only too well and often temper their Gallic pride with their imperfections.
We, on the other hand, are still relative teenagers to the world and have yet to possess the perspective to judge ourselves as we should. Time will tell, but only if we still have enough of it left to last us through the next few years.
Vote.
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When I am in Paris I often pass a building where the Marshall Plan was enacted-a marble placard tells the story. When JFK learned of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, he called NATO members. When he told President de Gaulle he asked him if he needed to see photos. de Gaulle said "no, I have your word". One cannot imagine that same trust today with our SCOTUS. May we all get through this, and Mr. Cohen is right, some things just sound better "en Francais".
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@beth reese: I believe you meant POTUS rather than SCOTUS, but yeah - and I'd even doubt the photos he provided.
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@CwnidogThe SC stands for So Called and i forgot the P!
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Such a lovely and beautifully written column. Let's hope your optimism is warranted. But definitely a timely warning about the precarious situation in which we find ourselves.
You are certainly my favorite writer for the NYTimes. Keep up the excellent work.
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I love France and I love the French. We have a more enduring friendship than even the British. I'm saddened that we are at such an autocratic place.
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Bravo Monsieur Cohen! A beautiful and timely article by a great journalist and writer. Thank you for reminding me of my time as an American expat in France and why I will always love both countries and societies. Our values and ideals, not our politics and jobs, define us.
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This is a lovely column, with which I agree wholeheartedly. Yes, Putin, Trump, Le Pen, and Farage will pass...but hopefully before the damage they cause reaches the ruin that was 1945.
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Well put! But, for lack of reliable U.S. friends, hopefully only for the time being, Europe now has to fend for itself, as General de Gaulle anticipated. How will the dithering Eurocrats and this heterogeneous Parliament manage? I wish them all the best! For our sake, too ....
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The forces of decency are mounting a fierce resistance to Trumpism and his acolytes in Europe. In the elections for the European parliament, the Center held. The participation hit a record and the young people have shown a deep interest in the European Union. I am optimistic that the coming years will see a reversal of the so-called populist wave. The younger European generation is better educated, has had the opportunity to meet and get to know other Europeans, and deeply resents nationalism and xenophobia. The Trump contagion will be reversed. It will be remembered as a passing madness.
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History teaches us that even the most horrible and murderous moments eventually pass. What is important is not to give in. The beacon that is the Constitution will guide us, provided that those in charge of keeping the flame alive do their job. Trump as well his imitators in other countries will also pass. Let's hope that those individuals who are contributing to this dangerous situation by their active or passive participation, will finally awake to their responsibility and join in the hoped-for recovery .
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A lovely and graceful column, well needed today and every day. My thanks to the writer.
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Such a lovely writer, and such clear, true observations.
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