Hate Mail

Oh, there's a lot in French culture that I admire enormously.  The music,  Debussy is one of the greatest of all composers,  I also have a great deal of admiration for Olivier Messiaen,  Paul Dukas, Henri Dutilleux, and a large number of others.  François Couperin, .... I could probably come up with several dozen just off the top of my head. More if I made a comprehensive list.   Not to mention many, many French musicians. French organists are some of the greatest in the world, especially in the art of improvisation.   I have only had the good fortune to play on a well maintained French piano, a Pleyel, only once and if I could afford more than one piano it's what I wish I had more than most other things. 

And then there is the jazz, I love Gildas Boclé and his groups, the players who play with Nelson Veras...  The French have certainly treated American jazz with more respect than American audiences have, which proves their generally superior taste.

I have a great deal of respect for a number of French thinkers, though not generally the ones most often heard about here.   I greatly respect Emmanuel Mounier, Xavier Le Pichon . . .   I have to confess that I am quite fond of the writing of Marcel Aymé,  George Sand,  Victor Hugo ...

And then there is the SERIOUS French journalism which tends to be among the best in the world.  I try to listen to Radio France Internationale every so often.  During the terror bombings in France, their coverage was in just about every way superior to the coverage National Public Radio would do if it had happened here.   I've recommended their Journal in Easy French to at least a dozen people (I don't meet lots of people the age of students these days except music students).

I will never not be grateful to the French government's position on the disastrous American invasion of Iraq, which subsequent events proved to be so right.   They were a far better partner than the British government was on that issue.  If we'd taken their advice, the world would almost certainly have been vastly better off than it is. 

I wouldn't expect any French person who admires something about the culture of the United States (though, please, don't have it be the goddamned movies and pop culture or goddamned Hemingway or Gertrude Stein) would do so uncritically.  And I would hope that they would feel free to point out our shortcomings.  I said that just about everything I criticized going on in France had its counterparts in the United States - A LOT OF THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT-ABUSE HAPPENED IN THE UNITED STATES - And that's not to mention Donald Trump is sitting in our White House!