The_FD

of course someone's name is important and italian or polish integration in France in the early 20th century is much different from what we have nowadays (no colonial history, not the same immigrant proportions etc...). But as I can think of, at work for exemple, there is Dr. Lamberto, Dr. Pham, and how about Kaczowski or El Hasnaoui ? ... just to let you know that famous artists always have something to say, to express through their art... even though it is not just as evident as their name.
Moreover, despite humor is culturaly marked, it remains an intercultural way of communication... and it includes deeply universal characteristics.

What I want to say is that we made Coluche, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret and so many more, french and typically french, but what they show, what's in them is their history, no matter how unbelivably crazy and hard to handle with they are. What's important is that France made them its children. you can be sure that someone who would directly come from France would never have such a career as they had. It would have been different for sure... but would it be more french?? hmmm not quite sure.

hope you get what I want to say here

__________________
L'histoire de la famille Bourdillon
Les fêtes d'Hébé
The flying dancer dancing

Jean Fred

F.D.,
Guess I grasp the general idea.
"Would had it been more french" if instead of Ivo Livi the guy had been born
Yves Machin ? Is that your question ?
If it is, then the answer is definitely NO.Because what is french is what you the French decide is french, just as any cultural group in the world does.
Influence, adoption, twisting, are key to building a culture/civilization.
And France is probably the best example of cultural gulping since your language "le Français" was imposed by royal power(against degenerated
latin), and you have since borrowed and integrated a large number of alien words an expressions, from Arabic (over 400 words not including derevatives)
English, German, Italian, Spanish ...) and at the same time fed other languages with subtleties (or so do we look at them).
La langue française est probablement parmi toutes celles de l'Europe, la plus métissée, car elle est à la fois d'origine latine et germanique dans des proportions uniques et anciennes (plus que la francisation de l'Angleterre après 1066.) et le réceptacle des influences intellectuelles des 18ème et 19ème siècles, comme la résonnance des échos des conquêtes coloniales.
Woooo!hope this sounds french. What I mean is that french means universal
not because you people care for the rest of the world, but because your country has been for long THE greedy melting pot of the World's ideas and wordings.

chinoise

What is existence? Cognito ergo sum, quoting from your famous French philosopher Descartes. I haven't read his books, I just learnt about his famous idea from other books. "I think, therefore I exist". I had a similar experience like Descartes, one day in my youth, the thought comes to me, if everthing I see and hear are unreal, what if everything doesn't exist, mere illusion? But then my conclusion, if I tell myself I don't exist, there where comes this voice telling me I don't exist? It's just illogical.

To me, things and people I don't like are so real, the chores I have to get through every day, things I can't leave undone. The things and people I like seem unreal, too good to be true. Even if I think the living world is unreal, I must have money to pay for the house, the electricity, water etc, and I must work or have someone to support me. These are things that must be done even if you think they are unreal.

Jean Fred

Ni hao, Chinoise !
In fact good old René wrote "Dubito ergo cogito (not cognito), Cogito ergo sum": I doubt hence I think, I think hence I exist.The beauty with Descartes's formula is that doubt is the key not only to thinking but also to feeling as a human being. It's about such notions as dignity and responsability too.
Its consequences on knowledge and freedom are fabulous, because no ayatollah, no guru, no tyrant will ever let you have a try at Descartes's maxim.
So, Chinoise, wondering about what is real or unreal may be quite healthy
provided you explore the subjects methodically(Discours de la Méthode) and progress with confidence from an assessed step to another one.

Chevaliertuc

Hi dear Jean Fred
Well, I thought you could understand all that without me... "Tant de bruit pour rien"
OF COURSE i don't judge people according to their nationality! (Did you read my posts??) But your humor is British par excellence. It's an evidence to me. I didn't understand that at the beginning, i just thought you were very... "condescendent" (english word?), ironical and aggressive. I didn't understand why you couldn't stop making so ironical jokes when it was necessary to apologize. And suddendly i understood: you're English. you can say brits have not the same humor, it's definitively not the subject. It was not an attack from me. But i thought you could understand your own humor... But i'm sure that other french could have had the same feeling as me. Keep smiling, Jean Fred!
(Ow, to Gigi, i'm a boy)
Nonetheless, I think your feeling of Nietzsche is BAD!!!!
He was NOT an antisemit (proof in "Götzen-Dämmerung", i don't remember the chapter, it's one about "Zähmung und Züchtung", where he explains how people could be accused by others and persecuted (not his aim, but...): in a letter, he says that the Jews were exactly in this case: persecuted because of jealousy, anger of the "Untermenschen". He was not racist or else. I admit he loved Germany, but he used nationalities as SYMBOLS!!! (Remember his sister read some of his books) I think his books are complex. Don't make as if it was a dictionnary, without humor or so.
Certes, he has not the same humor as you...

For this sentence of Descartes, i'm glad chinoise has quoted it, because i think it's the worst, the more stupid sentence you can write with words. And actually, it's typically a sentence that has NOT ANY sense. "I think hence I am"
chinoise, you said, you must exist. I understand what you mean. (or i think), but i have said something against your argument in my posts, because i knew that it's easy to missunderstand my opinion. I can feel, write and speak, but that's not enough to say that the word "I" is definited. it doesn't mean there is a soul and so on. i think that thinking is chemical, it's a phenomenon as electricity: there is "a movement" that make others happens, so it has no end until the machine break down. You can say that the speed exist, it has no sense for me and for you. If you admit i'm right, and if thinking is not due to something that "exists", so you understand why i think this sentence has no sense: he definites an existence, and then it says: "hence i'm right": i mean "Cogito ergo sum" it's the same as " "I" exist hence "I" exist " or "oierjgerjkg ergo erogijergij". It's a sentence which need itself to have a sense, and if it wasn't credible for many, as "roigjerg ergo erogijrgoij", it would be ridiculous. It's not rigorous at all.
Of course i explain very bad, but with hours of thinking and "translation" of my sentence (not tranlation as with a foreign language i mean), maybe you could admit your idea of "I" and "existence" are a prejudice, and when you have prejudice, it's easy to say "of course, it must be true, it's self-evident" as Descartes did.

I say it's a prejudice, so don't reject the argument immediatly: if it's not a prejudice, you can explain it, demonstrate something, can't you?
Your argument was mine years ago, but now, i'm not believing in it anymore.

To Gigi: another post...

Salut tous!
Olivier.

Chevaliertuc

correction for Jean Fred:
my sentence about your nationality WAS an "attack" from me.
a retort to their humor. I wondered what you could answer. I didn't think you could missunderstand it.

Jean Fred

??????,
??? ???? ???? ?

You should remember that both the Nazis and the Italian fascists
thought Frederik N. had found the philosopher'stone, i.e. the Jews are those who murdered Christ.