Why the French Hate Us

     

     European, and French Anti-Americanism in particular, has deep historical roots that can be traced as far back as Columbus’ discovery of America. European elites (in this case, the Nobility, the Aristocracy and the Clerisy), feared that the opportunities of the New World could potentially undermine the rigid, hierarchical power structure that they lorded over. The sheer distance from the Old World to the New World would make total societal control of the newly discovered continents extremely difficult. And while the New World was also understood to be a vast place with the potential to extract great wealth, this opportunity was also seen as threatening in the sense that it would eventually become another competitive power structure. As European immigration to the Americas steadily increased from  the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, elaborate negative constructions of American identity were propagated in order to reinforce a sense of European, and especially French, civilizational superiority. French elites painted a picture of American inauthenticity, venality, depravity, degeneration and barbarity. America could never emulate the grandeur of France.
     But it was also not only a question of emulation, but also a sense of French resentment vis-à-vis American that fueled early contempt and a prototype of French Anti-Americanism; the French simply resented the moniker bestowed upon the Americas, The New World. The ‘New World’ implied the potential for a new civilization, the establishment of which could compete with French civilization.

      Even as the French revolutionary, the Marquis de Lafayette, rode alongside George Washington during the American War of Independence, French naturalists such as De Paw and Count de Buffon extrapolated the ‘theory of American degeneracy.’  De Paw and Buffon asserted that it was not necessarily the people of the Colonies that were flawed, but, rather, it was the climate. The American climate was said to retard the growth of animals. Human reproduction was impossible. When babies were born, they were born with birth defects. The vegetation and native animals were not fit for consumption. All of the factor contributed to an unhealthy population. The result of this kind of natural degeneracy was believed also to have a degenerative effect on character and personality. The environment made it impossible for Americans to ever become as civilized as the French. It is during this period, the late 18^th century, that we see the beginnings of one of the recurring themes of French Anti-Americanism: the ambivalence and changeability. On the one hand, the French admired and supported the American Revolution and its experiment with Republicanism and Democracy, but on the other hand, its culture was deemed as inferior, base.Science was enlisted to prove inferiority of the American colonial lifestyle.

         Beginning with the 19^th century, French-Americanism turned from the ‘scientific’ viewpoint of the Naturalists to cultural criticism of the American Way of Life. Still drawing on the theme of American inauthenticity and inferiority, during his exile in America, Talleyrand complained about the American lack of edible cuisine, the deplorable American manners and lack of decorum. Stendhal made similar complaints in the middle of the 19^th century. Both railed against the American propensity to focus on business and religion to the detriment of celebrating the finer things in life. To them, Americans were only capable of eating bland food and seeing ways to make fast money. The pragmatic, industrious American spirit was frowed upon and was something that was to be avoided. Eventually, this French disdain for the American bourgeoisie would develop into a more significant critique of capitalism and American-led globalization.    

    And it was also during the early nineteenth century that the roots of American-style multiculturalism took place. The Jacobins denounced their political rivals, the Girondists, who they accused of wanting to impose on France the American style of federalism. To this day the French oppose (and misunderstand) American federalism and see it as impediment to drafting legislation. After the Reign of Terror and the rule of the Jacobins, a profound fear of the French Republic being torn apart became part of the French national consciousness. The French feared and denigrated American multiculturalism and worry that it could be a destabilizing force for the current French republic. Here then, we see that the French also have a fundamentally different view of what a ‘Republic’ should be and believe that the American republic suffers from an excess of democracy.

      French anti-Americanism took on an even more sinister characteristic by the end of the nineteenth century. Modernization in the Western world was in full swing. The Industrial Revolution was moving into its second phase, urbanization as in full swing, and mass politics was normalized. New societal ills plagued the ever-expanding cities. The usual scapegoats were resurrected to address the fear of seeming societal upheaval. The Jews had long been the target of hatred by the Catholic French, but now anti-Semitism became linked with everything from urbanization, decadence, anti-Americanism, and the soulless nature of the cities. By the end of the twentieth century anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism were inextricably linked.

     Underlying nineteenth century French disdain for American civilization was the fear of the potential for the American way of life to infect French civilization. After a string of national setbacks, and even national disasters, such as their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War,  devastation experienced after World War I, and the economic disaster during the 1920’s and 1930’s, French leaders and intellectuals on the right fretted that American culture was infiltrating French society . France was becoming decadent and it was the fault of American culture. Intellectuals on the left denigrated American-style capitalism, and especially the American-style of industrialization, commercialization, and mechanization embodied in the American systems of Fordism and Taylorism. American society was run like a business and the people behaved like machines.  Again, the old critique that American society , represented by bankers and industrialists, was too enraptured by and too focused on making money was revived.  American society was too coldly rational and had become divorced from the human spirit. It was a kind of robot without a soul.
     

   

      Some French intellectuals from the New Right went so far as to say that the American capitalist system was nothing more than another form of totalitarianism that destroyed the human spirit and worse even, than the totalitarianism of the East, because at least there, there was room for hope, for reform. Further, after the success of the Bolshevik revolution, French intellectuals from the left increasingly sympathized with socialism and communism. Through the interwar period and all through the 1950’s and 1960’s, anti-Americanism in the form of anti-capitalist rhetoric was increasingly popular among French elites and in the French press. Again, the anti-capitalist themes origination of the middle and late nineteenth century took on a new form, but this time, it was taken up by the far left.

      After the end of World War II, France was completely devastated and demoralized. The historic ambivalence of French anti-Americanism again came to the fore, but this time, the French realized that if they were to rebuild their once great nation, they would need American support. Many were grateful, but many resented the presence of American industrial managers, the presence of American GIs and the seeming pervasiveness of what the French believed was the ‘base’ American culture. The appearance of Coca Cola, Hershey Chocolate candy bars, American pop music, and American  fashion was especially alarming and led to fears that France was being ‘CocaColaized.’ The degenerative effects of American culture seemed to be more acute than ever. Geopolitical humiliations such as decolonization, Dien Bien Phu and the Suez Canal crisis added to the anxiety and realization that France was no longer a great power. Resentment kicked in and America was seen as unsympathetic to France’s plight and unappreciative of the grandeur and contributions of the French to civilization and history. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that the British and the Americans seemed to leave the French out of what the French believed were the most important decisions involving the future of Europe. France viewed itself as the right heir and rightful heir of Continental Europe. The Americans, it was believed, had usurped the French birthright. By the time that De Gaulle had returned for a second time France was ready to openly defy American geopolitical initiatives, eventually even going so far as to withdraw from NATO.

     Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s with the resurgence of the French socialists and the rise of the Green parties, French opposition to globalization added another dimension to anti-Americanism. Nevertheless, since the beginning  of the Cold War and the division of the world into two ideological paradigms represented by American Capitalism and  Democracy  and Russian-style Communism, French anti-Americanism was nowhere near as vehement as it would become after the American invasion of Iraq. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the French, and Europeans in general worried that the Americans wielded too much power. Ever since the beginning of the 20^th century Europeans had been extremely concerned with the seeming unlimited potential for American to create wealth and manifest global military might. The collapse of communism, then, was an alarming event that triggered Europeans to reconsider the role of the European Community. The French and Germans led the push for greater integration as a means of checking American military and economic might. Interestingly, the French nationalist parties such as the National Front, played a supreme role in the success of the French anti-Globalism movement. Even as the French successfully adapted and prospered in a globalized world, French leaders simultaneously castigated American the raw, heartless capitalism practiced by the Americans. Again, globalization was viewed as harmful to France because it seemed to undermine French identity and French ambitions to global leadership. Many in France thought that Europe should create and promote an alternative to the American system. European identity was essential for creating a more unified Europe. Nationalism and anti-Americanism were more frequently used as tool to set up Americans as the “Other” and as a kind of rallying point for the creation of European identity.

      9/11 revealed the extent of the ambivalence of French anti-Americanism. The outpouring of French support was matched by its support for a US led invasion of Afghanistan. But when the Americans began calling for Saddam Hussein's head, too, French opposition erupted. Leading the anti-intervention protests were the French and German leaders and citizens. France is by no means a homogeneous nation. It is made of multiple constituencies that vary in their support and views of America; however, by February 15, 2002, the day of massive protests across Europe, French public opinion vis-à-vis American foreign policy had coalesced into vehement opposition. Indeed, it seemed that French anti-Americanism had reached its zenith. Many analysts spoke of an unbridgeable divide between the French and American worldview. A slew of ant-American literature hit the presses. Countless books were written on the flawed, even evil, American Empire. Distinctions between anti-globalization, anti-Westernization,  and anti-capitalism merged under the headline ‘Anti-Americanism.’ The nearly two-centuries-old critique of America had morphed from disdain to outright prejudice and hatred. Historical resentments and fears had bubbled to the surface and exploded. Anti-Bushism was especially prominent and was nearly impossible to separate from anti-American rhetoric in general.

      Polls taken after 2003 suggested that the French had possessed a double-minded attitude for a long time. Distrust of American economic and military policy was coupled with admiration. By the 2000’s, it was no longer to accurate posit that America was incapable of representing modernity. On the contrary, the very fact of the seeming global domination of global affairs proved the legitimacy of American civilization. Nevertheless, the French found new ways to denigrate America: now its very modernity was characterized as perverse and flawed. America was described as a hyper-power that needed to be checked. American was characterized as having an excess of democracy and was described as hyper-modern. Empathy for the victims of 9/11 was sat alongside indifference and schadenfreude, perhaps most famously exemplified by Jean Beaudrillard’s assertion that America had brought about the tragedy of 9/11. Beaudrillard asserted that 9/11 was a reaction to the American push for cultural and civilization homogenization. The America system to him posed a threat to national identities. And because it had become so powerful , it was only natural that the losers in the American-dominated international system would seek ways to bring down the behemoth. Terrorism was not only a natural reaction to American hegemony, but it was also the only way for the weak and disenfranchised to strike back.

      French critique was not only limited to the American military and economic might, but also its flawed culture. America, in French opinion, distastefully utilized identity politics, suffered from and excess of multiculturalism, practiced the death penalty, placed too much emphasis on religion, outrage against the American ghettoes,  and had promoted feminism in excess. The American Republic was inferior to the French republic. The French were, and are, completely baffled by the American insistence on federalism, which seems to mitigate against implementing effective laws. To the French, the American system of power based on decentralization is baffling. All in all, all aspects of American culture are considered barbarous and uncivilized. 
      After Bush was elected for a second term, his administration focused on repairing the French-American relationship. With the election of Sarkozy, the task was made easier and measurements of anti-American attitudes seemed to show some improvement by the time Obama was elected. In 2013 it seems that the American and French relationship has settled once again into a state of ambivalence, especially on the part of the French. Anti-American articles and books still well. French nationalists still successfully conjure the American bad guy at rallies. Nevertheless, the French still visit the United States in droves and French businessmen still understand the importance of Wall Street and the American way of doing business. Anti-Americanism will no doubt suffer from flare ups especially during harsh economic times.

Castelul Corvinilor

Castelul Corvinilor (Corvin Castle)

Castelul Corvinilor, or 'Corvin Castle,' is one of many where Dracula (Vlad Dracul, Vlad Tepes, Vlad III are but three of the iterations Vlad the Impaler of American vampire folklore) was said to have had connections. At the castle gates tourists can buy cheap knick-knacks that are supposedly linked to Dracula. The sellers make no effort correct tourist's misperceptions. You wanna believe that this is really Dracula's castle? So be it.. The sellers capitalize on the castle's tenuous claim to infamy and, no doubt, most tourists don't bother to check the veracity of the castle's supposed connection to Dracula. Most historians seems to agree that Vlad was held prisoner here by Janos Hunyadi, the Regent Governor of the Kingdom of Hungary, for seven years after Vlad was deposed in 1462. Many tourists confuse Corvin Castle with Bran Castle, which is located a few hours east, in Brasov, Romania. Much of the confusion comes from the most famous Dracula novel by Bram Stoker and his supposed use of Corvin Castle as a source of inspiration for his Castle Dracula. Even more confusingly, Bran Castle also has tenuous links based on folklore and legend and was never actually used by Dracula. Instead, Dracula's 'real' castle and home is now nothing but ruins. Poenoari Castle is located in Curtea de Arges and is visited by only the most die-hard, devoted Dracula seekers. So tourits, beware: Do you homework before travelling thousands of miles to visit Dracula's castle! 

Many of the pictures of Castle Corvin found on the internet present that castle as completely restored. In fact, it has been minimally restored and, I think, this was the right choice. Too often these old architectural artifacts lose their connection to history when they are fully restored. Restoration goes overboard when the subject is too clean, too glossy. Many of the pictures you'll find online are also not true to life. They've been Photoshopped and Instagrammed to such a degree that they don't really resemble the real thing.

The northern facade of the castle is perhaps its most well-known feature. Unfortunately, when we visited, it was  being renovated, so it was impossible to capture a good picture. Nevertheless, restoration was necessary, as this side of the castle had fallen into such disrepair that it was on the verge of collapse.

Breaking Down Beaux-Arts III: Petit Palais

The Little Palace (Petit Palais), Paris, France

Confusingly, Beaux-Arts is often referred to as Academic Classicism, Classical Revival, or Beaux-Arts Classicism. I prefer to use the term Beaux-Arts because this is the term first introduced to me by my late philosophy professor, Dr. Davey. Beaux-Arts is a sub-category of Neo-Classicism, and is situated at the later of end of this style. Because it does fall at the tail end of the Neo-Classical era, which also coincides with the dawn of modernism, it has a decidedly eclectic flair, incorporating elements of Greek, Roman and Renaissance forms. The Beaux-Arts style of architecture has its origins first in the French Acadamie Royale d'Architecture from 1671 to 1793 and then again in the French Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which was established in 1795. The style associated with the French school came about largely as a result of the Grand Prix de Rome, which was a prestigious competition that awarded the winner a chance to study his or her artistic discipline in Rome. As a result, the style is heavily influenced by ancient Roman and Greek elements. The Beaux-Arts teaching style reached its apogee in the middle of the nineteenth century and continued to flourish well into the twentieth century. The American Beaux-Arts style is traditionally found between 1880 and 1920 and is sometimes referred to as the "American Renaissance" style; however, after 1920, its influence was by no means completely extinguished, as evidenced by many of the public structures in the United States that were built  after 1920, especially in centers far from the most innovative centers, such as Chicago and New York City.  

Typical of the Beaux-Arts is the symmetrical facade, which feature Ionic or Corinthian pillars and capitals. Capitals are the part of the pillar that is composed of sculpted vines and other flora that crown pillars and pillasters. Qoins (pronounced "koyns") are the stones that dress the corners of buildings. The roofs are often flat, and low-pitched. They often have Mansard roofs, named after the French architect, Francois Mansart. Flamboyant garlands, floral patterns and cartouches rife with sculptural ornamentation. Smooth, light-colored stone, such as sandstone or limestone is often used for walls. The first story of the building is often made of rough-hewn stones to give it a rusticated look. The features that the viewer is perhaps most familiar with, though, are the free-standing statuary, colossal columns, and, hold your breath, pedimented entabulatures, which are the triangle-shaped roofs that are often found above grandiose entrances or windows. Ballastrades, ballisters, and highly decorative cornices are all common elements found in Beaux-Arts structures. Tying all of these parts together is the highly decorative, often flamboyant nature of the styling, which reflects the newfound prosperity of the pre-Modern era.

Šv. Onos Bažnyčia: St. Anne's Church Vilnius, Lithuania

Šv. Onos Bažnyčia: St. Anne's Church, Vilnius, Lithuania.

     

     St. Anne's Church. located in the Old Town of Vilnius, Lithuania, is perhaps best know to westerners as the "little" cathedral that Napoleon, during the Franco-Russian War of 1812, supposedly expressed his wish to cart this gem back to Paris where it would reconstructed and fully restored. Napoleon's remark is the stuff of legend, but the church's beauty, typical of both Flamboyant and Brick Gothic, is not. The Flamboyant Gothic style was popular from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century and is characterized by its dramatic attention to detail, the flame-like windings of its tracery and the dramatic lengthening of gables and the tops of arches. One of the key features of the Flamboyant style is the ogee arch, which you can read about and find examples of here: Ogee arch. The design of St. Anne's arches is supposed to represent the Lithuanian coat of arms, the Columns of Gediminas.

The Columns of Gediminas, the Lithuanian Coat of Arms, from which legend has it that facade of St. Anne's was modeled after.

     The Brick Gothic style is prominent in Northern Europe and the Baltic Region due to the fact that there were no natural rock sources available for construction, which meant that red brick had to be made, or more precisely, baked from the copious supply of clay found in Northern Europe. The beauty found in the Brick Gothic style is usually due to the contrast between the different style of brick (glazed, red, or even white lime plaster) and lack of architectural sculpture. Instead, there was more of a reliance upon built, or pre-sculpted, mass-processed, ornaments. St. Anne's exemplifies both styles.

     The church is named after Anna, the Grand Duchess of Lithuania, and wife of Vytautas the Great, and was built originally a wooden structure that caught fire and was destroyed in 1419. The church was then reconstructed from brick by Grand Duke of Lithunia, Alexander in 1495 and was finished, rather quickly actually, in 1500. Its design has essentially remained the same since then, although it has undergone the occasional restoration, most recently in 1960-70, when the towers and arches were fortified with iron. Today, the interior is undergoing comprehensive restoration, with the focus on the fading frescoes, paintings, benches and sacral art. When the interior is finished, it will be every bit as glorious as the exterior.

Breaking Down Beaux-Arts II: Palais de la Decouverte

Beaux-Arts II: Palais de la Decouverte

Palais de la Decouverte, Paris, France.

Palais de la Decouverte, Paris, France.

Palais de la Decouverte, Paris, France.

Palais de a Couverte, Paris, France: A Masterpiece

       Confusingly, Beaux-Arts is often referred to as Academic Classicism, Classical Revival, or Beaux-Arts Classicism. I prefer to use the term Beaux-Arts because this is the term first introduced to me by my late philosophy professor, Dr. Davey. Beaux-Arts is a sub-category of Neo-Classicism, and is situated at the later of end of this style. Because it does fall at the tail end of the Neo-Classical era, which also coincides with the dawn of modernism, it has a decidedly eclectic flair, incorporating elements of Greek, Roman and Renaissance forms. The Beaux-Arts style of architecture has its origins first in the French Acadamie Royale d'Architecture from 1671 to 1793 and then again in the French Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which was established in 1795. The style associated with the French school came about largely as a result of the Grand Prix de Rome, which was a prestigious competition that awarded the winner a chance to study his or her artistic discipline in Rome. As a result, the style is heavily influenced by ancient Roman and Greek elements. The Beaux-Arts teaching style reached its apogee in the middle of the nineteenth century and continued to flourish well into the twentieth century. The American Beaux-Arts style is traditionally found between 1880 and 1920 and is sometimes referred to as the "American Renaissance" style; however, after 1920, its influence was by no means completely extinguished, as evidenced by many of the public structures in the United States that were built  after 1920, especially in centers far from the most innovative centers, such as Chicago and New York City.  

Palais de la Decouverte, Paris, France

Palais de la Decouverte, Paris, France.

     Typical of the Beaux-Arts is the symmetrical facade, which feature Ionic or Corinthian pillars and capitals. Capitals are the part of the pillar that is composed of sculpted vines and other flora that crown pillars and pillasters. Qoins (pronounced "koyns") are the stones that dress the corners of buildings. The roofs are often flat, and low-pitched. They often have Mansard roofs, named after the French architect, Francois Mansart. Flamboyant garlands, floral patterns and cartouches rife with sculptural ornamentation. Smooth, light-colored stone, such as sandstone or limestone is often used for walls. The first story of the building is often made of rough-hewn stones to give it a rusticated look. The features that the viewer is perhaps most familiar with, though, are the free-standing statuary, colossal columns, and, hold your breath, pedimented entabulatures, which are the triangle-shaped roofs that are often found above grandiose entrances or windows. Ballastrades, ballisters, and highly decorative cornices are all common elements found in Beaux-Arts structures. Tying all of these parts together is the highly decorative, often flamboyant nature of the styling, which reflects the newfound prosperity of the pre-Modern era.

Palais de la Decouverte, Paris, France.

More Human than Human: Clones and Androids in Never Let Me Go and Blade Runner

Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner and Mark Romanek’s film  Never Let Me Go  simultaneously offer visions of dystopia and utopia. Blade Runner takes place in the near future, while Never Let Me Go takes place in the not-so-distant-past. Both films allow the viewer to decide whether they are dystopic or utopian. What is not up for debate, however, is both directors’ visions of states and corporations that dehumanize individuals. Individuals lose their humanity even as the state and powerful corporations create artificial life both as a means of prolonging human life and as a means of augmenting it. As trans-planetary corporations create androids (or replicants in Blade Runner’s terminology) in Scott’s vision and as the state breeds clones and harvests their organs in Never Let Me Go, the ability of the replicants and clones to assume identities and characteristics more human than their human creators and handlers serves as a foil to the human protagonists of both films. The question, “What does it mean to be human?” assumes a poignant, ironic twist as the viewer realizes that the clones and replicants are actually the more sympathetic, more human agents. The technocracy of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles and the anonymity of Great Britain’s healthcare bureaucracy in Never Let Me Go have both robbed their human consumers of empathy and effectively dehumanized them. In this paper I intend to draw comparisons between the ‘soulless’ replicants of Blade Runner and the clones of Never Let Me Go  and argue that it is, ironically, these artificial life forms that behave more human than their human handlers and creators. By exhibiting empathy and by consciously building past identities for themselves, they become the more sympathetic characters of both films.

            Before moving on to the plot and substance of both films, perhaps we would be better served if we were to examine the characteristics of both utopian and dystopic films. I will begin first with a brief explanation of what is meant by utopia and how both films feature some elements of utopia. I will then move on to explore the dystopic character of both films. As I mentioned in the introductory paragraph, it is possible to envision both films as either dystopic or utopian; however, I take the stance that both are dystopic films. After a brief discussion of the elements of dystopia and utopia, I will explain this ambiguity.

            In Towards a Definition of Utopia, Paul Sawada lays out the etymology of the term ‘utopia’ as a place that does not exist. It is a ‘no-place,’ yet it is also the’ preferred place,’ or ‘the good place.’ Utopia is also an imagined place, a “vision of another better world…free from the ordinary restraints of the factual and the historical.” Hailsham, the institution where the clones were raised in Never Let Me Go, is a kind of utopia that the clones long for and this longing becomes more intense as they near closer to completion. In Blade Runner, the Tyrell Corporation’s depiction of an off-planet paradise purports to fulfill a utopic dream. The new space settlements are supposed to be places where time has been reset, where nostalgic people can return to a past that is modeled on Earth before nuclear disaster struck. Roy Batty, the replicant leader who has escaped from one of these off-planet paradises confirms that the topos sold by the Tyrell Corporation is, indeed, a real place, but the promise of paradise is an illusion, a lie sold to desperate humans intent on distancing themselves from a disintegrating human society filled with human detritus. In fact, it is a place of misery, a place where a “plastic place” lacking connection to the human spirit. Scott’s vision of utopia, then, is a maliciously deceptive with the sole purpose of being sold and consumed, a vision that mocks the notion of utopia itself. Scott seems to assert that reality lies closer to dystopia. In his cynical view, utopia takes on a pejorative term. It is a fanciful place for dreamers and it is a trap from escape is nearly impossible.

            In “Warcraft and Utopia,” Alexander Galloway discusses the Marxist notion of dystopias serving a predictive function. Marx associated utopic states as an ideal that would happen after capitalism.  Tyrell’s off-planet paradises parallel this idea. Joshua Nichols emphasizes the role of surveillance of the individual in dystopic worlds and emphasizes the way in which bureaucracies reduce the individual to a “unit of measurement that must be observed and counted in order to perfect the techniques of policing and administering the community." Surveillance is the norm in both films analyzed here, but at Hailsham, this surveillance takes the form not only of continual monitoring by guardians and electronic check-ins, but by the more ominous, invisible paternalism of the state science and welfare apparatus. Deckard has actually become a surveillance tool himself and ironically, it is this function that bestows legitimacy on his existence. Neither the clones nor Deckard aware of their status as the ‘surveiller and the surveilled,’ which is one symptom of their total dehumanization by the state. Anxiety also becomes a crucial characteristic of dystopic worlds. We witness this anxiety in Deckard as he returns every night to drown his remaining humanity in booze while Tommy furiously, albeit likely subconscious, lashes out against his futile, predetermined existence. A more specific form of anxiety produced by globalization often serves as a major focal point in dystopic film and literature. Uncertainty about the political, economic and environmental future abounds.

Blade Runner was based upon Philip K. Dick's science fiction novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

Blade Runner not only attests to these anxieties, but illustrates that those anxieties are justified by positing a polluted, crumbling world in which individuals are totally dehumanized by vast bureaucracies, omnipotent corporations, and crumbling infrastructure (which is also a result of bureaucracies and their failed planned urbanization schemes). But what happens if the state itself succumbs to capitalism and trans-national, non-governmental structures, to the rule of inter-galactic corporations and international bureaucracies? Dystopias need not be limited to Marxist prediction, as Blade Runner well illustrates.  Indeed, Scott’s dystopic Los Angeles embodies the post-capitalist world predicted by neo-liberal capitalist theories. It is a land “between modernism and post-modernism” characterized by “tension, insecurity, confusion, panic and even exhilaration and excitement.” The dystopic, post-modern film genre to which Blade Runner belongs is scarred by decay, which “exposes the dark side of technology, the process of disintegration.” The streets are littered with trash, buildings are melted by acid rain, and humans themselves are reduced to dispensable objects of consumption and waste. Never Let Me Go more subtly illustrates the potential totalitarian character of dystopia, except in this film, it is not humans who are oppressed, but, rather, their clone creations who can be seen as another metaphor for the dehumanizing nature of technology and suffocating surveillance. The clones become resources to be used and discarded as they are subjected to endless check-ups, check-ins, psycho-analysis (through examination of their ‘art’) and the omnipresent, seemingly omnipotent adult supervisors and indoctrinators. In both films, flesh (whether human, clone or replicant) is reduced to the function of consumption, decay and ultimately, throwing away.

In Scott’s vision, the world of the replicants and Blade Runners takes place in the near future, in a post-nuclear Los Angeles, California. It is a city littered with trash, shrouded in a polluted mist, that is slowly being eaten away by acid rain. Elites escape to their Mayan-like palaces in the sky via automobile-plane hybrids as the masses far below scurry to and fro like mindless rodents and insects. The city is illuminated by neon advertisements that promise the consumer a more glamorous life both on the planet Earth and in the off-planet regions somewhere in space on another planet. It is on this off-planet destination that utopia is offered. It is portrayed as a kind of Club Med or Mallorca in outer space that is stress-free, clean, pure, and promises the intrepid a life of leisure facilitated by one’s personal slave force in the form of replicants. As the humans left behind on Earth are consumed by the very trash they create and as they lose their identity in an ever more international population, those who can afford to leave the rapidly emptying planned suburbs do so. The Tyrell Corporation, producer of the human-like replicants, has created a utopia in space with profit as the only goal. National narratives explaining the purpose of society no longer knit society together; instead, narrative has been replaced by consumption, accumulation and mindless existence. Earth, then, has become a dystopia, while the off-planet destination and narrative sold by Tyrell promises restoration and meaning.

            In contrast to Scott’s futuristic vision, Romanek’s film takes place in the past, even though the viewer understands that this vision is expected to extend far into the future. Never Let Me Go takes place in the idyllic English countryside at what we first believe is an orphanage, a manor called Hailsham. The children’s health at Hailsham is meticulously looked after and all the children appear to be the perfect specimens of health. Not only is their physical well-being looked after, but so, too, is their spiritual well-being. The irony, indeed, the cynicism, of their spiritual lives being nurtured become cruelly apparent later in the film. As the children play games, participate in art projects and sing life-affirming songs, the viewer is lead to believe that the children are living in some version of utopia, even though it appears to take place at an orphanage. We soon discover, though, the horror of this seeming utopia, for the children are special in the most sordid, most horrifying sense: they are clones raised and fed like cattle with the explicit purpose of providing organs to an aging society that demands the state to find ways to prolong their lives. For the clones who reach a kind of maturity, Hailsham assumes a utopic quality, but for the viewer looking at the film from above, it is clearly a dystopia, a reflection of Great Britain and the world as a whole.

            The clones’ horrific purpose is located not only in their status as residents of dystopic post-World War II Great Britain, but is also reflected in their limbo state of sentient existence. Even though they are capable of introspection, empathy and love, just as humans are, their status as human clones disqualifies them from experiencing full human actualization. They are sub-humans with a specific purpose: manufactured to prolong the lives of their human creators. They are in a very real sense an extreme representation of the human capacity to create, consume and discard. Human flesh is merely organic building material that is expendable.  Because they were born in a laboratory and have only DNA donors for parents, it is believed that they do not possess ‘souls’, the ultimate proof that one is human. And even if it could somehow be proved that they have souls (Madame Marie and Ms. Emily, two of Hailsham’s guardians and administrators actually attempt to prove this) society has come to rely too much on them for its own existence and the possibility of returning to ill health and short lifespans is simply not an option for the human beneficiaries. Even though the clones clearly have the capacity to feel love (as demonstrated by Kathy H. at a very young age vis-à-vis her love for Tommy), they are never allowed to live out that love. As instruments of the state, the clones are stripped of their free will and robbed of any chance to demonstrate their potential as humans. Even in death the dehumanization of the clones is reinforced. They are not said to die, but to ‘complete.’ But even here, though, the clones wonder what happens after “completion” and demonstrate yet another human quality: metaphysical uncertainty.

And neither do the clones possess a past, and without a past, they can have no identity.  The simplest representation of their status as a non-human entity is the fact that they only possess one letter for their last names. Both Kathy H. and Ruth are acutely aware that they are disconnected from humanity and desperately search for ways to connect their lives to a past that will identify them with their human progenitors. When one of the teachers at Hailsham tells the class, “You have to know who you are and what you are. It’s the only way you’ll lead decent lives,” she is only half correct. The more important question for Kathy H. and Ruth is “Whose am i?” Unless they know ‘whose’ they are, they cannot construct a past. Without a past, they have no identity. Kathy H. frantically searches the advertisements of pornography magazines believing that she might find her mother there amidst the lower dregs of humanity, while Ruth embarks on a mission to hunt down a woman in a nearby city who supposedly is her human model.

Neither Kathy H. nor Ruth find what they are looking for and it this inability to create a link with the past that makes the clones metaphors for post-modern individuals. For the post-modern individual, not only have grand historical narratives been deconstructed and discarded, but, according to Giuliana Bruno in “Post-Modernism and Blade Runner,” so also have the narratives of individuals. When Kathy H., the narrator of Never Let Me Go says, “Not looking forward, but looking back, to the cottages, to what happened to us there,’ she is attempting to craft an identity for herself by building a bridge to the past and through introspection endow her past experiences with meaning. When Kathy and Tommy finally muster the courage to request permission to prolong their lives because they are in love, we realize that not only are empathy and compassion perquisites for a human identity, but we also understand how dehumanized their human handlers have become. Headmistress Emily refuses to intervene on their behalf and when Madame (the child psychologist who has attempted to prove that the children of Hailsham have souls by examining their artwork) says to them, “You poor creatures,” they refuse the chance to redeem themselves as humans.

In Blade Runner much more emphasis is placed on the replicant’s supposed inability to develop and act upon human empathy. Nevertheless, through a conscious, constructive identity building processes, both Rachel and Roy Batty demonstrate that it is possible to live intense live full of feeling, compassion and empathy, even as their human counterparts are dehumanized by the same corporatist, bureaucratic process that created their ‘inhuman,’ replicant counterparts. Roy Batty, the leader of the replicant escapees from one of the off-worlds, takes his first step to discovering his humanity when he relates to Deckard his memories of a massacre. By witnessing human violence and suffering, he learns empathy. He experiences sadness and suffering. Ironically, empathy is something that Deckard has been unaware of and slow to learn. After Batty waxes poetically on his exclusion from human existence and after he spares Deckard’s life, it is only then that Deckard realizes that his own existence is hollow. Without compassion, empathy, and love, he is nothing.

In Deckard’s world, identity has been lost in the internationalization of San Francisco’s urban landscape, through the failed urban planning schemes (which is itself an indication of failed technocratic planning and, thus, representative of the dehumanizing effects of bureaucratization), through the pastiche of the architectural landscape (the Baroque, Mayan and Frank Lloyd Wrightian styles exist side by side, with little consideration for historical continuity, a key concern of post-modernist theorists which reflects an inability to form identity),  and through an ideology of consumerism which perpetuates itself through manufacturing, consumption, and decay. The replicants signify this process of decay. They serve a purpose and are dispensed with. Their lives are sped up and their lives are defined by an intensity that serves as a foil to the human’s existential languor. Batty, much like Kathy H. and Tommy in Never Let Me Go, urgently seeks a life extension. Much like the clones, the replicants have only a limited time to serve their purpose and retired.  Also like the clones, Batty seeks legitimation through his human creator but is denied. Batty’s desperation, his rage, is driven by his desire to live and to be accepted. Tommy’s rage can be seen as a similar, though less self-conscious, desire for acceptance from the world that created him. Batty’s rage is visceral and menacing, while the wellspring of Tommy’s existential fury is more resigned. Batty and Tommy thus express an appreciation for life and a desire to express their humanity that is lacking in Blade Runner’s humans.

If Batty and Tommy represent more passionate, more desperate representations of pseudo-humans seeking to become human, Rachel is more reflective, more deliberate and more imitative. In Bruno’s words, Rachel is “the perfect simulacra…a convergence of genetics and linguistics, the genetic miniaturization of enacting the dimension of simulation.”  Rachel perfectly embodies Baudrillard’s description of the simulacra: “an operational double, a metastable programmatic, a perfect descriptive machine…” Rachel’s first step to becoming human takes places when she becomes aware of her true nature as a replicant. The engineers at Tyrell have implanted within her false memories that are designed to fill the void of an empty existence. Presumably the superior intelligence of the replicants would instigate a process of self-reflection that would lead to a destructive impulse as the replicant attempts to form an identity. Their human creators feared that due to their superior intelligence and strength, they would potentially take over the world. By implanting a self-destruct mechanism and by manipulating their identities, this risk was eliminated; that is, until Rachel found a way to overcome her situation. Beings without memory, without a connection to a past that can be reinterpreted and reflected upon in the present, experience the vertigo of a hollow existence. Rachel’s memories, then, serve as an existential balm. When Deckard reveals that the picture she carries of her mother is really a false one,  the schizophrenia of her own non-existence, is revealed to her. This experience is what Bruno labels ‘the temporality of post-modernism’s new age of the machine.”  With her identity shattered, she must quickly establish a new one or risk total disintegration. She restructures her identity first by playing the piano and accepting this gift as her own rather than as a skill implanted by her engineers. She then lets down her hair and imitates the women in Deckard’s photos. Finally, she allows Deckard to make love to her, a symbolic act of the synthetic flesh merging with human flesh. Rachel’s metamorphosis to human coincides with Deckard’s own human rehabilitation and escape from dehumanization. Both have achieved a new lease on life and, in a sense, salvation.  

 Rachel successfully appropriates the attributes of a  human woman. She has managed to actually implant feelings within herself that perfectly resemble those of humans. She understands the isolation of existence and she understands that the only means of overcoming isolation is through sharing her life with Deckard. For her, giving her self to Deckard implies a frightful leap, a leap that Deckard forces her to take during the highly controversial  “rape scene.”  Nevertheless, as the perfect simulacra, Rachel overcomes the “schizophrenic vertigo of fragmented temporality” and the alienation that comes with her status as replicant. Kathy H., on the other hand, overcomes her own existential vertigo through a meticulous reexamination of her life and her relationship to her friends at Hailsham. With her status as a carer,  Kathy has been given a short reprieve by the bureaucracy that created her and gains space to accept her condition. Rather than succumb to suicidal rage (which is intensified by such short life-spans), Rachel and Kathy H. have chosen to accept the limits of their existence (in both cases their limits are defined by an externally imposed short lifespan). Rachel chooses to love Deckard and to live out her short life with him. While both Blade Runner and Never Let Me Go present grim post-modern futures in which people are defined by dehumanization, shallow existences and schizophrenic vertigo, the also present a map by which people may through reflection and willful adoption (or simulation) of human characteristics become human again.

What Makes A Terrorist: Review

At a series of lectures given at the London School of Economics Alan B. Krueger attempted to systematically explain the causes and effects of terrorism using statistics drawn from multiple databases, some governmental, and some drawn from the previous work of other scholars. After 9/11 scholars, national leaders and terrorism experts settled upon the seemingly obvious assumption that terrorism was primarily driven by low levels of education and poverty, both of which fostered despair, resentment, and fanaticism. The prevailing view was that if nations could tackle poverty and ignorance, terrorism could also be eradicated. Even though this view was widely propagated throughout academia and the media, many experts had already shown that terrorists actually tended to come from middle and upper middle class families and that they also tended to have university educations. Krueger’s lectures are an attempt to more conclusively demonstrate the false relationship between terrorism, lack of education and poverty. By dispelling this myth, policymakers have an opportunity to confront terrorists’ geopolitical grievances, such as American support for autocratic regimes, the American military presence in Iraq and unqualified American support for Israel.

 The first chapter employs research from the Pew Global Attitudes Project that supports the idea that educated people with good jobs are very likely to support terrorism. Research conducted by Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research is used to examine terrorism at the individual level in combination with sophisticated statistical analysis to isolate common characteristics of individuals who join terrorist organizations and commit acts of terrorism. Again, the well-educated with good jobs tend to support terrorism the most. Chapter two “contains a quantitative analysis of the national origins of foreign fighters captured in Iraq” drawn from the United States State Department report Patterns of Global Terrorism. Rather than defining the characteristics of terrorists, Krueger instead illustrates what they are not: poor, uneducated, illiterate. Foreign fighters in Iraq tend to come from countries with low civil liberty and political rights index scores. Country of origin economic circumstances are not correlated to foreign terrorists motives for participating in the Iraqi insurgency. The third chapter serves as a literature review on the psychological, economic and political impact of terrorism, along with commentary on the media’s role in propagating fear of terrorism. Krueger concludes that American’s fear of terrorism plays an outsized role in our national psyche, causing us to expend a disproportional amount of resources to protect against an event that is unlikely to occur. The potential to erode civil liberties in the name of internal security should not be ignored. Western policy-makers need to be realistic about the potential of another major terrorist attack and be prepared, but must also wisely measure the costs of trying to cover every contingency.

Obviously terrorists and terrorist organizations excel at secrecy and this makes investigating the characteristics of individuals who participate in terrorist acts nearly impossible. One of the primary goals of chapter two was to show just how little the United States government really knows about terrorists. Because of the dearth of information on  terrorists and their motives, the author chose to limit his examination to individual data gleaned from the State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism. The period covered runs from 1997 to 2003. This extremely limited time frame does not allow the author to make historical comparisons. For example, Zionists terrorists of the 1930’s, terrorists from Northern Ireland in the 1970’s and the 1980’s, and German and Italian terrorists from the 1970’s are excluded from the study. Instead Krueger seems to have focused his research on terrorists from the Middle East. Terrorists from this region may tend to be better educated and to have once held good jobs, but one is left wondering if these tendencies are particular to the author’s sample. Nevertheless, Krueger’s limited data set does allow him to generalize that lack of education and poverty do not play a role in terrorists’ motives, or at least not in the manner that leaders and experts expect.

Because the book is based upon a series of lectures, its organization is a bit unorthodox. For example, chapter three examines the political, economic and psychological costs of terrorism, but is only marginally related to the title “What Makes A Terrorist.” Using data collected from surveys conducted by other organizations, in chapter one Krueger rehashes the results and examines the attitudes of everyday people towards terrorism and provides some insight as to what causes an average person to join a terrorist organization. He is not, unfortunately, able provide any insight into terrorists’ motives. To be fair, terrorists are not in the business of disclosing the psychological profiles of their members. Chapter two isolates several variables that have traditionally been linked with the terrorist mindset (GDP of home country, literacy rate, religion) and concludes that none of them are causes of terrorism. Moreover, most terrorism is local and not international. This leads the reader to question whether terrorists who commit terrorist acts in foreign nations have different motives than those who commit them locally. Krueger concludes that foreign, or Western, targets are often chosen because terrorists believe that they are more influential, but he does explain how attacking influential, Western nations will affect change in the origin nation. Perhaps international terrorists are responding to Western foreign policy and other geopolitical grievances. It is difficult know for certain. It makes sense, then, to investigate terrorist motives indirectly by examining geo-socio-demographic data as Krueger has done. Krueger has really shown us what does not motivate or characterize a terrorist.

 Despite limited biographical information Krueger’s data analysis successfully shows that poverty and lack of education really do not inspire terrorists to become terrorists, or at least not the contemporary terrorists that he studied. It is unfortunate that Krueger did not clarify why international terrorists tend to attack richer, democratic nations in the hope of spurring change in their home countries. If nearly ninety percent of terrorists attacks are local and are a reaction to local conditions and a lack of civil liberties, why do terrorists think that attacking another nation will have an effect at home? Krueger asserts that terrorism really “should be viewed more as a violent political act than as a response to economic conditions,”and this is no doubt true. However, more research needs to be done to understand how a terrorist from Syria is motivated to become an international terrorist. Krueger makes a compelling argument that if policymakers are to craft strategies to root out terrorism, they must first commit to collecting more detailed information on those who engage in terrorist acts. They must also seek ways to evaluate whether currents strategies are working or evaluate if they are exacerbating the problem. By demystifying terrorism and by understanding its root causes, perhaps Western leaders will be able to craft more effective policies that do not antagonize and inflame resentment as much as they do to support societies committed to instituting basic civil liberties.

Update: December 6, 2012:

I found this 'Prezi' today and thought that it supplemented some of Krueger's arguments quite well, especially his finding that poverty seems not to be driver of terrorist acts.

Global Terrorism Index