Sciolism Rocks

Many know that I’m pursuing a Master’s in French, and that such a degree requires more than Literature and Language classes. One of the classes this semester is on the period of French history known as the “Belle-Époque,” roughly 1871–1914: the vast time of peace and prosperity between the first two wars with Germany.

If you worry that you don’t know what it was like to live in those times, never fear : we’re repeating them now.

One of the required texts is France: Fin de Siècle by the Romanian author Eugen Weber.

Here he’s describing the French attitude towards Italians at the time.

All societies harbor some suspicion against outsiders. It usually flares into resentement and hatred when things go badly. The French were, and continue to be, a hospitable nation. But in times of penury or war they are as ready as any other to turn first against the aliens who compete with them for scarce goods or jobs, or who appear to threaten national cohesion.

…

The italians, we are told, are violent, dirty, and uncouth; they “behave as in a conquered country”; the hatred directed against them is “unfortunately justified,” for there are too many of them and they take the bread of French worker’s mouths. Furthermore, they bring disorder in their wake. A doctoral dissertation written in 1900 explains why: they take what work they can find, accept less than the going wage, live “stingily,” saving money out of their meager earnings to take something home. In other words, “more sober and thrifty than the French…they attract the hatred of French workers.”

…

Two hundred years before Jesus Christ, Plautushad pointed our that, while beasts prey on other beasts, man alone preys on his own kind: man is a wolf to men.