Hacker News Reader

Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

France is a colony? Who is their colonial overlord? And is this overlord also controlling the EU? And is this overlord truels suvereign, or does he answer to higher powers as well? If so, who are those powers, them? Because if it is them, I have a problem, they keep loosing my socks during laundery and it drives me crazy.

View on HN

Culturally we import more and more things from the US. It used to be music and movies, now it's identity politics and cultural issues

Abortion rights is absolutely not a cultural issue import from the US. While recent development about abortion rights in the US have sparked concern about those rights in France, they've been an ongoing fight for decades.

Some people call it imperialism, but for me US is more like an hegemon, a center which can impose its cultural norms to its periphery. But some people in France like to think that’s France is a US colony. I’m fine with that, because if it’s the case, french people are treated way better than the inhabitants of former french colonies.

Identity politics being an "import from the United States" to Europe is a laugh. During WWII's genocide was committed on the basis of identity. More recently in the Former Yugoslavia a war was fought with significant focus on national or religious identity. That's not even to mention the rote national identity politics present in European nations for at least 200 years.

It always existed, what didn't exist is using foreign events to attempt to explain local events.

For example you can't analyse French racism issues using the American history of slavery, the end result might be somewhat similar but the historical path is widely different. You can't use the French abortion history to analyse the American one either

I can't agree. If you look at the impact of Darwinism and "Social Darwinism" (English ideas) on Continental European politics in the lead up to WWI you would change your mind quickly. You can even go look at Christianity, a near-Eastern philosophy, and note how this form of identity politics is also foreign influence playing a role in domestic politics across Europe.

Sure. But one can take the occasion, and the fact US pro-life activists are everywhere from Ireland to Africa, and leap-frog this whole thing and ammend the constitution. Like, you know, accepting social and political realities and doing the right thing for once.

If you go that way you kind of have to admit laws have no power until they're made into the constitution, so everything you really care about and is threatened somewhere else in the world should be constitutionalised, that's not a small pandora's box. vasectomy ? lgbt rights ? same sex marriage ? unemployment benefits ? social security ? pensions ? where do you draw the line

Funny, a lot of the things you mentioned are either in the German Grindgesetz or enshrined in law. Partially as a reaction to movements trying to curb those laws.

No pandoras box, just reality.

Abortion in France was already a law, for decades, nothing was added nor removed by adding it to the constitution, and no one in France was questioning that right besides fringe sub 1% parties

So again, either the law is enough, and if it is enough it is enough for abortions, or it isn't enough for abortion, but in that case: which laws are constitution worthy and which aren't ?

You don't get it, do you? Putting it into the cobstitution clsed the door for something like the reversal on Roe v. Wade happening in the future. That is a good thing, that is what constitutions are there for.

You either don't get it, or want the door for such reversals to remain open. The former has been explained a lot by now, the latter would be disengenious.

And yet that's not the brand of identity politics popular in Europe. The popular one is the one imported from the US. Nobody thinks about Yugoslavia when it comes to identity politics, they think about race (specifically black) and queer. There were completely absurd BLM demonstrations around Europe and trans legislation only started being a subject after the US started dealing with it.

You think nationalism is not a popular brand of identity politics in Europe? Can you explain why you think that? In many nations in Europe nationalists have won elections even in recent years. In a more extreme case the idea that Ukrainian identity is "not real" is one of the often cited reasons for the Russian aggression against the Ukrainian state.

Actually trans legislation was spearheaded by the UK Government with the Gender Recognition Act of 2004. It had been opposed before and has been opposed since, both by left-wing radical feminist groups and by conservatives, for different reasons. The US has been relatively late to this disagreement.

France tried to stay independent after the war. Hence the refusal to join NATO, the powerful cultural industry of the 60s, the nuclear industry after the 70s oil crisis, the attempts at a third way with the now BRICS countries.

Since the 80s, it's over, France has been led financially by Germany, culturally by the USA, and its politicians are trained abroad or work abroad after having done their worst inside.

Nuclear power is really the best example, France was the world leader, then the Germans pushed it to abandon everything including its future Phoenix program. France sold everything to the USA, and now the USA is launching a nuclear program in Eastern Europe, and they call it Phoenix...

It always puzzles me how people can get the fact, some tiny ones, and still come to completly false conclusions.

E.g. NATO membership means a country isn't souvereign (independent is notbthe correct term) anymore. Or ignoring that France was a foibding member of the EWG. Or believing Hermany controls the EU (a claim that dates back to the financial crisis of 2008 and was as wrong then as it is now), or that Germany (small correction, you actually mean the German Greens) forced France to halt nuclear power. Or ignoring that the US nuclear industry is doing not great, including after the purchase of French companies. I could go on, but you get the picture I hope.

Perfect encapsulation of this lack of sovereignty - not only is OP not sovereign, for all the reasons they mentioned, but OP is being imperially instructed that they are not even allowed to mention that they are not sovereign any more.

France has such a rich history, it boggles my mind that they can't find more cultural inspiration there than from the USA.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com