Passage of the day

From Jeremy Jennings' magisterial Revolution and the Republic, A History of Political Thought in France since the eighteenth century, pp 410-11:

"[W]e might turn our attention to Charles Fourier's Theorie des Quatre Mouvements, first published in 1808. With its accounts of copulating planets, the sea tasting of lemonade, and the nine degrees of cuckoldry, this is undoubtedly one of the strangest books ever written... There is no need to analyse Fourier's taxonomy of what he took to be our 'luxurious,' 'affective,' and 'distributive' passions, nor to dissect his classification fo the 810 personality types which derived from it: the point was that Fourier believed that it was a mistake to repress the passions. This explains why he allotted such a central place to 'amorous freedom' and what he termed 'combined gastronomy.' If, as Fourier believed, sensual pleasure was the primary and immutable source of human activity, the trick was to so arrange society that it should be maximized. Exquisite food and a rich diet of sexual partners would secure social harmony."

Ah, France

Fast-food chain Quick triggers an uproar and is accused of acting "contrary to the principles and spirit of the republic" when it makes the business decision to serve only halal beef at some restaurants. (Mind you, it's not as though this means only serving Muslim customers-- Christians and non-believers can eat halal beef without getting cooties.)

Compare, of course, the Quebec sugar shack case.

Obviously false dichotomies

One sees this kind of thing from time to time, and it baffles me.

“The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue; it is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “The burqa is not a religious sign; it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women.”

Why would one possibly think that either of those sentences contains two mutually-exclusive categories? What generates the idea that something cannot be both a religious symbol and a symbol of women's subjugation? Is it polyanna-ism about religion?

I'm not commenting here on the merits of Sarkozy's insistence that "the burqa is not welcome in France" (though I'll probably do so at some point). But the attempt here, I guess, to deny that there are any costs or trade-offs in banning it (if it's not a "religious issue," then there's no constitutional value to balance against the constitutional value of sex equality-- that kind of thing) seems to me pointlessly dishonest.

Update

There's sophistry aplenty in the following section, expanding on why a prohbition on the burka would be costless in terms of liberty:

Où en sommes-nous avec la liberté ? Qu'en avons-nous fait ?

La liberté, ce n'est pas le droit pour chacun de faire ce qu'il veut. Être libre, ce n'est pas vivre sans contrainte et sans règle. Quand il n'y a pas de règles, quand tous les coups sont permis, ce n'est pas la liberté qui triomphe, c'est la loi de la jungle, la loi du plus fort ou celle du plus malin.

C'est le débat que nous avons sur l'école : rendre service à nos enfants, c'est leur enseigner qu'il n'y a pas de liberté sans règle.

C'est le débat que nous avons sur l'économie, sur la finance, sur le capitalisme. Nous voyons bien que le capitalisme devient fou quand il n'y a plus de règles.

C'est le débat aussi que nous avons sur le droit d'auteur. Car enfin, comment pourrait-il y avoir dans notre société de zones de non-droit ? Comment peut-on réclamer en même temps que l'économie soit régulée et qu'Internet ne le soit pas ? Comment peut-on accepter que les règles qui s'imposent à toute la société ne s'imposent pas sur Internet ? En défendant le droit d'auteur, je ne défends pas seulement la création artistique, je défends aussi l'idée que je me fais d'une société de liberté, où la liberté de chacun est fondée sur le respect du droit des autres. C'est aussi l'avenir de notre culture que je défends. C'est l'avenir de la création. Voilà pourquoi j'irai jusqu'au bout. (Applaudissements.)

Le débat sur la liberté, c'est aussi le débat sur la sécurité et sur les prisons. Quelle est la liberté de celui qui a peur de sortir de chez lui ? Quelle est la liberté pour les victimes si leurs agresseurs ne sont pas punis ? Comment peut-on parler de justice quand 82 000 peines ne sont pas exécutées parce qu'il n'y a pas assez de places dans les prisons ?

So: imprisoning women who go out of the house fully covered prevents the law of the jungle; prisons are liberty; restrictions on capitalism are liberty; copyright restrictions are liberty. No rules can possibly restrict liberty, because liberty is not the absence of rules.

I suppose I should view it as ideologically useful to have the French economic model linked so closely to the French model of laicite, both in opposition to Anglo-Saxon liberalism. But it just makes me cranky.

Promoting equality of the sexes...

by excluding women from citizenship. Notice that her husband, who presumably shares her religious views, is already a citizen.

Wishful thinking alert

November 15: France's Conseil constitutionnel judges unconstitutional a proposed law authorizing social scientists to gather statistical information on ethnicity, on grounds that it would violate Article 1 of the French Constitution:

"La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale. Elle assure l'égalité devant la loi de tous les citoyens sans distinction d'origine, de race ou de religion."

(This is the same article that was used to strike down a law on Corsican autonomy/ As Jeremy Waldron has been telling us for years, an active court enforcing a written constiution will not necessarily protect minorities, nor will a democratic legislature necessarily imperil them. The complaints that follow are agnostic about whether the CC correctly interpreted Article 1; I'm willing to believe that it did, but am sure that Article 1 is the source of much constitutional mischief. If it means what the CC says it means, it ought to be amended.)

The last two nights: Immigrant-populated Parisian banlieues erupt in violence, again, this time with rioters bringing out guns. 77 police officers injured overnight, after two teenagers of African descent were allegedly (though the allegation doesn't seem very persuasive) killed by police in a hit and run.

While good social science analyzing the multiply-caused multiple ills of the banlieues won't by itself solve those ills, it well might be a prerequisite to such solutions. To the degree that the research can't seriously consider ethnicity because it can't ethnicity, the social science will be seriously impaired. There's a real level of ostrichness here.

That the French state normatively aspires to the irrelevance, invisibility, and non-existence of ethnic and racial distinctions within French society doesn't make such distinctions sociologically irrelevant. No matter how "imagined" categories like race and ethnicity are, they do not become unimagined just on the state's say-so.