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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (239363)	6/30/2005 6:57:39 AM
From: Taro	Respond to of 1572099

Thanks, Gus. That was a great post, full of solid info and funny as well. (those Germans...) Taro

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (239363)	6/30/2005 2:37:58 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572099

Re: Some suggest its because they have an inferiority complex. I'm afraid it's rather the opposite: French nurse a superiority complex... People who have a superiority complex typically feel inferior and use superiority to mask those feelings of inferiority. Psychologists on both sides of the Atlantic agree to that premise. That's why the French are much less likely to travel outside of their country. They are the least traveled of western Europeans outside their own country. You know that as well as I do. And when the French are confronted one on one or as a nation as a whole, they typically back down. In fact, they are wimps. The whole world knows it..........why don't you? They don't see why French culture and worldview should surrender precedence to the Anglo-American civilization. Otherwise, France --like Europe as a whole, for that matter-- is an old, seasoned polity... Hence her dismissive "been there, done that" attitude towards up-and-coming Yanks. That's particularly true for the current Iraq crisis: starry-eyed, trigger-happy yanks were gung-ho about "liberating" Iraq from bugbear Saddam and expected the whole crusade to be over after 3 or 4 years... Yet the French knew better, they saw that the Yanks were merely re-inventing the wheel --the same wheel that ground and destroyed France's colonial hubris in Algeria 50 years ago... I agree with you there. The Europeans in general are much more clever when it comes to foreign diplomacy. Another big cultural difference between France/Europe and the US is the preeminence of the macro-political over micro-interests. For the French, it doesn't matter whether they can do it or not, more important to them is the way the social fabric is changed by innovation --the less change, the better. Another good quality. France/Europe's conservative mindset dates back to the guilds system of the Middle Ages... What Europe as a whole has not understood yet is that you can't have technological innovation without social innovation. Technological innovation in the XXIst century is not like that of the XIXth century --it's no longer the cozy preserve of wealthy bourgeois with ample time to spare on scientific/technological experiments. Europe doesn't conceive of high-tech as a way for (lower-)middle-class wannabes to get rich quick... Europe still dreams of the Ernest Solvays, Michelins and Roland Morenos of yore: idle rich splurging time and money on their private labs to provide the world with their solitary, genial inventions.... Europe still expects that the Tim Berner-Lee philanthropic business model will save her from (technological) decadence: Yup. Good article. That's where Americans are kicking Europe's butt. Its why the Neuer Market has all but failed in Germany. Each side has things to learn from the other side. ted