I can subscribe to the last sentence more than the rest.
French are generally very interested in politics from youngish age, for better or worse (the amount of outright communism supporters there among young anywhere I spoke to is disheartening, especially for somebody like me who went through proper communism and saw first hand how it always fucks up individuals and nations for generations, and consistently fails to deliver on every single promise that looks nice on paper). I attribute this to their naivety, seeing wrong in the world and instinctively going for some direct quick solution, despite proofs that it never worked that way and side effects were nasty.
French and some other southern states have really rich social support, even in decades it will be above-average for western world. So french complaining about it going south need to travel the world a bit and get a reality check.
There is too much information readily available, and humans for some reason tend to focus much more on negative part, as do media. So if already pre-teens are watching gruesome combat footage, hardcore porn, reading about depressing future prospects re climate and environment, demographic curves, terrorism and so on and on... its hard even on grown ups, and not even kids that should be carelessly running outside without a worry in their head. It can be just few in the group/class, but they will easily 'spoil the rest of the basket'.
> French are generally very interested in politics from youngish age, for better or worse (the amount of outright communism supporters there among young anywhere I spoke to is disheartening
I think it is normal and even desirable for young people to be interested in extremist politics. Communism but also anarchy, dictatorships, etc... Modern day "free market" democracies are really a "least bad" system, there are many things wrong with them, things that communism or why not a ruling king can address. In practice, most people discover soon enough that it doesn't work, but to go to that conclusion, you have to at least consider it, and it is better to do that when you are still young and not involved in actual politics.
Also, being able to consider other systems is a sign of a well functioning free country. If any idea other than "democracy is the best" is being suppressed, then it is not really a democracy.
It may be bullshit, but certainly not obvious bullshit. Communism is a real solution to a real problem, thousands of people fought for that. It didn't work out in the end, but if you think it is obvious then you probably didn't think about it enough.
History books? Let's look at the French Revolution, often credited with so many great things. The period following it is called "the terror", you can't get more explicit. Anyone reading just that part would want to bring back monarchy, and that's actually what happened. But anyways, for many young people, me included, history books are either stuff to memorize for the test, or something that reads like The Lord of the Rings, but with slightly less magic.
It takes some experience to actually understand what's behind history books, and considering "obvious bullshit" as you call it is the kind of experience that get people to better appreciate history books. At least the ones that are not an excuse for propaganda.
Communism was obviously bullshit to me based on just a basic knowledge of human nature. It didn't take much life experience to figure that out, and reading a few history books only confirmed what already seemed obvious. Thinking deeply about nonsense is a total waste of time; I had better things to do. The problems were real enough, but Communism has never been a solution to anything. If young people saw it as a solution then I have to assume they were just too trusting and naively believed the lies that ambitious idealogues sold them.
Because it is a fallacy to attribute to nature what is clearly at least significantly product of social relation.
This is one of the very interesting things everybody (no matter their political affiliation) can learn from Marx and the whole group around Adorno and Horkheimer, but you will find this echoed by more conservative sociologists and historians, too.
Zizek also frames this quite nicely in The Perverts Guide to Cinema, where he explains, that ideology is never a pair of glasses [EDIT]you wear[/EDIT] but the very eyes through which you see.
Right now I sadly cannot look through my books to find you less leftist references for the topic.
If you are interested I can link to some less controversial works of sociology once I have access to them again.
(Edited for some typos and the marked addition.)
> French and some other southern states have really rich social support, even in decades it will be above-average for western world. So french complaining about it going south need to travel the world a bit and get a reality check.
No. We are just not naive and we know that all of our social support comes from the WWII aftermath, thanks to communist politics. This implies that we'll probably not have anything more than what we have now and we know it. Most of the french don't want anything more, but we will absolutely fight against every aggression against our social security net because we are really confident that anything we lost is lost basically forever.
They support communism because they see the current leading power, unbridled capitalism, also has its downsides. It's a classic case of figuring out consumer desires from what they say.
Most of them just want some kind of regulation which keeps greed in check and allows them to be confident in a future of relationships, family, home ownership and security. Surely the success of games like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Sims and and such would showcase how important this is to individuals.
They support communism, like in Italy, because it is customary for teenagers in affluent blocks to do so or to join extreme right wing parties. Half of my friends have been senior members or founders of minuscule communist parties before finishing high school.
It has nothing to do with their understanding of capitalism, whatever that is supposed to be.
Because Italy is an elderly care state with a hierarchy that is so rigid it might even impress the Japanese. No wonder everyone young leaves or becomes an extremist.
>Because Italy is an elderly care state with a hierarchy that is so rigid it might even impress the Japanese.
This is the best description of my homeland I've ever seen. By reading the Italian news one would think the main enemy of the Italian State are young people that are constantly berated, ridiculed and forced to keep hearing how lazy they are.
If I get stabbed in Italy the newspaper would title “A 34 year old boy has been stabbed in the park”, if a 18 year old get stabbed in the UK the newspaper would title “A 18 year old man has been…”
Wow. Italy's demographics are basically reverse pyramid in just a decade. New babies are still precipitously falling off a cliff. There are actually an astonishing number of 80+ year old women.
Communism is not right wing. Maybe a typo, but historically the young on average prefer left leaning idealogies and become more conservative as they get older.
You have to differentiates between French Socialist and do communists of the east. French Socialism was very successful in the 70s and 80s. The reason France is so successful today is because of the communist regime in the 70s and 80s.
> French Socialism was very successful in the 70s and 80s. The reason France is so successful today is because of the communist regime in the 70s and 80s.
This is wrong as in those two decades there were at most 4 years of socialism ("programme commun de la gauche"):
-----------------------------------------------
Party | President ........................| Tenure
-----------------------------------------------
Right | Charles de Gaulle ..........| 8 January 1959 – 28 April 1969
Right | Georges Pompidou ........| 20 June 1969 – 2 April 1974
Right | Valéry Giscard d'Estaing | 27 May 1974 – 21 May 1981
Left ..| François Mitterrand ........| 21 May 1981 – 17 May 1995
(yet soon the number of people out of work topped 2 million, and in March 1983 they drop most socialists policies when they introduced the "austerity turn" and in 1986 Jacques Chirac (Right) was prime minister up to 1995)
My bad. I meant 80s 90s.
And even before and after that presidents had to interact with a strong socialist parliament. Living in france and germany I see the benefits of that time. I mean we have health care and transit systems and etc….
There is a huge difference between the democratic sovialist movements of the west and the totalarian socialist regime of the east.
Edit: litle other example. In france there is a shitload of free culture sponsored by the state to make it accesible to everyone.
Oh there was no real socialism after 1984 either. The Parti Socialiste always had an unclear/contradictory agenda, pro banks, anti industry, pro unions, anti low pay/service workers.
The insanely huge "code du travail" distinguishes between many kind of workers. Depending on your status or the kind of branch you work, you might work 35h/week, 48h/w or 60h/w. In the two later cases exceeding working hours must be compensated at a minimum of 50%, but it can be at suitable times for the employer.
Daily work duration must not be above 10 hours per day but it is permitted to work 12 hours per day if there is a "convention collective", the employer has only to permit a rest time of 50% of exceeding working hours.
For some categories of workers this daily work duration limit legally does not exist at all. For example employees on a flat rate in days (like "cadres"/low level executives) are not subject to this limit.
Fortunately for the Parti Socialiste, service workers, lorry drivers, housekeepers, nannies, etc do not vote much and it is very difficult for them to integrate a union, as most unions (CGT/CFDT/SUD) only protect workers with a contract (roughly half of workers in France).
Ok thats true … but stil compared to the US there are some social goals. And there are many unions and rights for workers. For sure there is a shitload of bad things, I mean its france ..cmon, but there are some milestones compared to other countries. Specialy the US. Like right to abortion(downvotes incoming) and the right to maternal vacancy… they can even protest without getting fired….
To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher “Socialism works great until you run out of other people’s money”.
And the ironic part is when the people asking to maintain social programs complain too much attention is paid to economic growth - the very source of what pays for those programs.
The truth is as economies stagnate and the demographic shift happens, Western Europe will have no choice but to cut back programs.
You cant maintain the same system when you go from 1 worker and we retired to 1 worker and 2 retired.
It’s amazing how many fans of socialism, such as yourself, don’t see the connection.
The UK would be even less able to afford social programs if the economy had continued on its pre-Thatcher slide down.
And calling the UK third world just shows how laughable the understanding is - try “socialist paradises” like Greece where much of the economy has gone underground because the tax burden is so high in people who can barely make ends meet.
It was a dumb idea to conect the social system to the economie…. But still a social system has a lots of benefits that are apparent if you once lives in the us and europe. What would be your solution for schooling, housing etc… just keep dumb people dying on the street because somehow the market will regulate it??
Edit: because even if the economie goes bad there are humans living there that need a certain baseline of living. In the capitalist world there is only taking more debt , cuttings and hope … if that doesnt work.. what then??
Adorno once said that one cant do right in the wrong world. Right can only be done in a right world.
Its hard to sustain socialism if its bound to capitalism
French are generally very interested in politics from youngish age, for better or worse (the amount of outright communism supporters there among young anywhere I spoke to is disheartening, especially for somebody like me who went through proper communism and saw first hand how it always fucks up individuals and nations for generations, and consistently fails to deliver on every single promise that looks nice on paper). I attribute this to their naivety, seeing wrong in the world and instinctively going for some direct quick solution, despite proofs that it never worked that way and side effects were nasty.
French and some other southern states have really rich social support, even in decades it will be above-average for western world. So french complaining about it going south need to travel the world a bit and get a reality check.
There is too much information readily available, and humans for some reason tend to focus much more on negative part, as do media. So if already pre-teens are watching gruesome combat footage, hardcore porn, reading about depressing future prospects re climate and environment, demographic curves, terrorism and so on and on... its hard even on grown ups, and not even kids that should be carelessly running outside without a worry in their head. It can be just few in the group/class, but they will easily 'spoil the rest of the basket'.