NOTES 3.3.16

Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime,

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon 1805 - 1806

There were partisan polemics in the months after the Charlie Hebdo attacks but they were not about security. One focused on the national school curriculum, a fetish object the French rub whenever they feel unsafe. To the question “Who lost French Muslim youth?” the instinctive response of many was the educational system, and they pointed to everything from the declining number of hours students study French history to the deemphasis on Greek and Latin. Articles were even written on the epidemic of orthographic mistakes on student exams as a sign of civilizational decline"

Jean Meslier, "If God is incomprehensible to man, it would seem rational never to think of Him at all" Testament pub 1729

There is in fact a multitude of ways to practice philosophy, but out of this multitude, the dominant historiography picks one tradition among others and makes it the truth of philosophy: that is to say the idealist, spiritualist lineage compatible with the Judeo-Christian world view. From that point on, anything that crosses this partial – in both senses of the word – view of things finds itself dismissed. This applies to nearly all non-Western philosophies, Oriental wisdom in particular, but also sensualist, empirical, materialist, nominalist, hedonistic currents and everything that can be put under the heading of "anti-Platonic philosophy". Philosophy that comes down from the heavens is the kind that – from Plato to Levinas by way of Kant and Christianity – needs a world behind the scenes to understand, explain and justify this world. The other line of force rises from the earth because it is satisfied with the given world, which is already so much
- Michael Onfrey


Intellectuals and politicians have been arguing about the causes of le malaise français for decades, calling on the French to change their policies and thinking, on the assumption that their destiny was in their hands. That assumption no longer holds. The globalization of economic activity, including the American financial crisis and the transfer of decision-making to the opaque institutions of the European Union, has been eroding the sense of national self-determination for some time. And now the refugee crisis and international jihadist networks are eroding confidence that the state, which the French expect to be strong, can protect its citizens.


jihadism has nothing to do with Muslim institutions and little to do with Muslim life. He noted that the large majority of French jihadists are second-generation Muslims who, unlike their parents, speak French, grew up with little to no contact with mosques or Muslim organizations, and before their conversions drank, took drugs, and had girlfriends. They are estranged from their parents and don’t know where to fit in. Or they are recent converts, largely from rural areas and many from divorced families...jihadism is a nihilistic generational revolt, not a religiously inspired utopianism.
-NYRB Can France be Saved

Jules Bastien-Lepage, Joan of Arc