Wednesday, November 5, 2008

More on France

Well yes, France has comparable military and economy per capita. Let's look at some other statistics. According to Freedom House, the United States ranks as the 7th most free and France as the 26th most free for civil and political freedom. The only major Western countries that are listed as less free are Germany and Spain, and Spain at least is still recovering from a nasty dictatorship. I will grant that this data is from 2000-2001, and much has changed since then. When you turn to economic freedom, according to The Heritage Foundation, the divide gets even wider, with the US coming in at #6 while France comes in next to last in the West at #42. (Only Greece does worse at #56).

In short, France is the least free country of what used to be called the West. If the American Exceptionalism is about anything, it is about freedom, both political and economic.

The more important aspect of Dale's claim about France is historical, and of a longer historical period than Mike seems to be taking into account. From the 14th through the 18th century, France was the most important country politically, culturally, and militarily in what France regarded as the civilized world. (It does not matter that France's view of its power was false. The fact that Imperial China was bigger, and by most standards more civilized had no impact on France. They believed that it was so, and that is what matters in this argument.) Since the 18th century France had been surpassed by Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and the United States. And that's just listing the powers that France saw as in its world in its heyday. This, I believe, still grates on the French soul. They are not content with being one of the G7 or a permanent member of the security council. They were number one damn it. They matter. Really. Nothing sums up the French position like the statement "Today's lingua franca is English."

5 comments:

Brian Barker said...

I am sorry to disagree but a lingua franca for the World should be for everyone and not just for an educational or political elite. This is the position for English at the moment.

What about Mandarin Chinese as the future global tongue?

An interesting video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU

You can see detail at http://www.lernu.net

The Scrub said...

When the term lingua franca was created, French was the dominate language in culture and politics. The term itself means "Language of the Franks". The point of the post was that France has lost the dominate position it once had, so much that the "language of the Franks" for culture, politics and science is English.

I'm not sure why there has to be lingua franca for everyone in the world. Mandarin Chinese, although it is spoken by a lot of people, is limited in geographic scope, and so probably won't be the future global language, assuming that there will be one.

Bill Chapman said...

Brian Barker's right. Esperanto is the up-and-coming lingua franca - even if it's not so well known in the United Stastes.

Take a look at www.esperanto.net

The Scrub said...

The problem is it has been up and coming for 120 years, and still has only a small community of speakers. Esperanto is also exclusively European in its vocabulary and syntax. If a European language is going to be a the future world wide language, then English is much better positioned than Esperanto. (For that matter, so are French and Spanish.)

Bill Chapman said...

Yes, Esperanto has only been around for 121 years and so is a relatively new kid on the block. Its speaker population is remarkably widespread. What it lacks in numbers, it makes up for with structures. For example, free accommodation is available to Esperanto speakers in about 90 countries. There are people available to help tourists in Cambodia, Cameroon, Korea ...