Page 49 - History 2020

This argument is developed by Sudhir Hazareesingh in “How the French Think”

(2016). Hazareesingh is a Mauritius-born historian who teaches French politics and
international relations at Balliol College, Oxford, and author of “The Legend of
Napoleon” (2004) and “In the Shadow of the General” (2012) about de Gaulle’s place
in the French imagination. Apart from his academic qualifications, his Mauritian
background perhaps gives him greater objectivity as a cultural “outsider”. He says
that the French have a “style of the mind” that is essentially Cartesian, i.e. inspired by
Descartes.

He quotes the old EU joke that you can always recognise the French official; he’s the
one who asks, "This idea works fine in practice but will it work in theory?". Emile
Durkheim, a pioneering sociologist, said, “Every French person is to some degree,
whether consciously or not, a Cartesian”. Even French footballers, it seems: Christian
Gourcuff, manager of FC Lorient, described his 4-4-2 formation in an interview as
“Cartesian” (not for them “aussi écoeuré qu'un perroquet"*.

*Sick as a parrot.

To the French, he says, the theoretical construct is all; they adore speculation,
abstraction, theorizing, universal explanations. They revere intellectuals. All French
post-16 students have to study philosophy. They disdain the anti-intellectual, market-
driven approach of the Anglo-Saxons; naturally the British accuse the French of

having an intellectual superiority complex.

th
Hazareesingh cites the influence of Rousseau and Voltaire, in the 18 century,
th
Auguste Comte in the 19 , and the Existentialists, Structuralists and
Deconstructionists in the 20th. The French, he says, have a sense of destiny and a
love of the sweeping gesture. He describes the French cultural style as, "The
presentation of ideas through overarching frameworks; a preference for considering
questions in their essence, rather than in their particular manifestations; a fondness
for apparent contradictions; and a tendency to frame issues around binary

oppositions." He contrasts this with the "empiricist" British philosophers, Hobbes,
Locke and Hume; the British look at the facts then construct the theory; the French
vice versa (not strictly true of course; the British were happy to select facts to fit
fitted their Whig Interpretation of History).

He sees an element of frivolity in French thought, and a love of paradox; thinking as a

form of hedonism. He concludes that, however irritating the French may be, they
bring distinctive qualities, such as clarity, intellectual ease, elegance, sophistication
and curiosity. They take ideas seriously. They have their practical thinkers too; from