[extropy-chat] National Character (was Italian football victory)

[Lee Corbin]

Patricia had written

> The French did not immigrate to the US in the same numbers or waves.  They didn't have the same economic or social imperatives.
They did not create "Little Frances" or keep their traditions.  They assimilated as individuals.  (My father's mother was one of
these French-Americans.  There was no incentive to marry a Frenchman -- she couldn't find any in her new country!  She married a
Russian immigrant instead and my father's upbringing was in no way "French.")  Of course, there was much French immigration to parts
of Canada, since it was once a French colony until the British won it by force.  And Quebec is a proudly French cultural province.
But unfortunately, the French have no love of their Canadian or Tahitian or any other colonial descendants.
<

I believe it's true that the French (in the sense you are speaking
of have no love of *anyone* outside Paris). Probably only slightly
do they hold provincials in higher esteem than the real degenerates
overseas  :-)

> The impression I have received is that the French consider their colonial brethren inferior -- and they speak bad French (to the
Parisians, of course)!  Unpardonable!  So why should French immigrants be proud of France?
<

Could it be that they're proud of French culture, but not of France?

Amara writes

> Flag waving is not part of the French 'cultural character', Spike. I
> think the answer is simply that.

Do you suppose that it ever was?  On the one hand, in the days
of revolutionary France, they waved the tricolor around a lot, no?
And perhaps before that, the Fleur-de-lis?  But I wouldn't know.
Anyway, if anything has truly changed since the days of Philip
the Second, I'd love to know exactly what and when.

> You could ask similar questions about Spain. They are even less 'united'
> than Italy; their regions are really autonomous.

That's right. It goes all the way back nearly a thousand years, when
the kings of Leon and the kings of Catalan had little more use for
each other than they had for the Moors, and sometimes less. There
is an absolutely stunningly great book on Spanish character and
history, "Spain: The Root and the Flower", by Crow.

> What role did Franco play in their unpatriotism? Maybe half, but
> I'm not convinced it is all of the reason.

I'll bet I know by the end of the book, if I ever get there. Right
now I'm understanding how it came to be that they drove the Moors
out, a civilization that was superior in technology, superior in
culture, superior economically, and in every other way that you
can think of. But Crow explains and describes the one thing that
seems to have made all the difference: the indomitable Spanish
character. I myself like to think that maybe it's no coincidence
that outside the English speaking countries, no one has more
people signed up for cryonics than Spain.

Lee