TONY JUDT INTERVIEWED

The remarkable and impressive Tony Judt is interviewed in the London Review of Books

In ‘Postwar’ you argue that Europe’s singularity lies not in its laws but its way of life. I live there but do not know what that is.

Every time an opera company comes from Paris or Lyon to Ljubljana, you live the European way of life. The opera house is subsidised either by the country sending or receiving it, or by Brussels. The people who work in it all have contracts, health and pension benefits, unemployment benefits, security that no American company gives to any of its dancers or singers. In America they pay them more but they give them none of the benefits or protections. The European way of life is when you travel on trains rather than having to drive a polluting car or take a polluting airplane for a relatively short distance, because you have subsidised public or semi-public transport. Yet you assume this is the normal way to commute certain distances. The EU and its members discourage you from using your car with high gasoline prices and taxation. The European way of life is that you can speak English and feel just as comfortable in Brussels, Barcelona, Geneva, Vienna, London as anywhere else because you are a citizen of a larger space than the space where you started out and which defines you only narrowly. I suppose above all the European way of life is that the risks you run in your professional life are to some extent reduced by guarantees, for example of state support in the event of losing your job. This creates a sense of a space where you are safe. From America it is easy to see the difference as this is a space where you can do very well or very badly but it’s not a space where you feel safe..

Comments

[Raining Acorns]

Thank you for highlighting this. Tony Judt is one of a kind, and you've chosen well in your excerpt from the interview. He makes a powerful point.

[Niall]

I think it's important to note an invisible asterisk at the end of Judt's paean to the European way of life:

*If you're white.

[dan m.]

His Europe sounds like a lovely place for him, but there's a cost, I think, for safety, and nice opera houses and guarantees, that makes me glad it's not the only way of life.

[(The Other) Niall]

"*If you're white"

Heavens above. As an Irishman who lives half the time in England and half the time in France (and travels a fair bit for work), there's a lot in Tony Judt's description of Europe that doesn't ring true to me. But Niall's little remark is trolling of a particularly unreconstructed kind.

What has the price of gasoline got to do with racism? What has train travel got to do with racism? Or is there something about the word "Europe" that just sets off a spasm of reflex negativity?

[Yawny]

Niall needs to read some Wittgenstein, ASAP.

[Niall]

Other Niall -

I've lived and worked in Europe - Germany, France and Scandinavia. And racism is rampant there, of a very overt and institutionalized variety. As has been noted by many European commentators. I don't see why it's wrong to bring the race question into any discussion of Europe's way of life, just as Europeans habitually do when discussing the "American dream".

And I love it when lilly white Europeans tell me they've never encountered racism in Europe. I hear the same thing from white people in Alabama about the US.

Though it is entirely typical of Europeans to fall back on knee-jerk denial whenever the subject is raised.

[Niall]

Yawny -

Ich habe Wittgenstein gern, and habe sein Werkausgaben in 8 Baenden gelesen. Vielleicht eines Tages koennten wir ein fabelhaftes Tee haben, bei dem wir seine Sprachphilosophie diskutieren koennten.

[Yawny]

Niall,

Veliko zahvalo za okusno ponudbo. Jaz pa bi se izognili pijte veliko čaja. Zelo se raje viskija naravnost, no Progonitelj. Ali ugrez piva. In odkrito rečeno, razprava o Wittgenstein bi rodila me strašno. Bolaño morda, ali Rolling Stones, so za moj okus. I čakajo svoj odgovor od roba mojega blata.

[Niall]

Yawny -

Nu, mne kazhet'sya shto vy ne seryozniy chelovek (ili, mozhet' byt' ne seryznaya zhenshchina). Vam vazhnee igrat' chem dumat'. Vam khochet'sya prosto boltat', a ne istolkovat'. Ya nadeyus'shto v budushchem, vy naidete bolee seryozniye interesy.

Vsego luchshego...

[Yawny]

Niall,

Да, я люблю играть. К жизни нельзя отнестись слишком серьезно! Но позвольте нам не путать дела. Я наслаждаюсь интеллектуальным преследованием также, я просто хочу не щеголять ими каждому человеку, с которым я сталкиваюсь. Позвольте нам стоять перед этим, Вы предпочитаете быть в состоянии сказать, что Вы читаете некоторого неясного автора, чем фактически читаете его, нет?

[(The Other) Niall]

"it is entirely typical of Europeans to fall back on knee-jerk denial whenever the subject is raised"

Is that what I did? I don't think so. Anyway, to sum it up, I think you make the same sort of mistake about Europe as Tony Judt does - which is to judge it as a single polity. That many Europeans make the same mistake when talking about America is your mitigation, but it's no excuse.

If you will reserve the right to bring race into "any" discussion about Europe, then don't expect to be taken as anything other than a troll on this issue. And if you think you can sum up a single "European way of life" by simply using those words, then you haven't spent enough time in Europe.

Or is it like Humbert's trip to America? "We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing."

[Niall]

I'm not treating the EU as a single "polity". But as a political and social entity where not being white is a huge liability throughout most of its extent. This has certainly been true of the US in the past, despite its great diversity in other respects.

I note you still can't bring yourself to address, concretely, the issue I actually raised. Again, this is typical of Europeans.

[misanthropicus]

Nah, nah. Judt (who is a good writer, indeed), has wormed his way in the American academia by tending some anachronistic, lingering inferiority complexes nurtured by, believe ir or not, university cubicles Americans, but now he goofs mightily in his pan-European thing. So, what's this story with the Lyon opera in Bratislava? (While I have no problem with neither towns I can't help inserting here the thought that French are parochial, insecure and boring, while Slovaks are sort of boon fellows - before you reach the Hungarians & the gypsy thing). Now, how does the health benefits of the sorry lot that toil in the wings of the opera house in Budapest or Dusseldorf show those societies' ability to withstand the hits of history? Is opera, the most ridiculous, un-compelling and over-rated artistical genre in the world's history (yes Audrey, kabuki is very close to it as ridiculousness), the mark of a mighty superior social arrangement? (I leave aside Placido Domingo's robbing the LA Opera - my, what Pancho Villa act! But they got what they deserved - hehehe - the LA Times losers live in terror that Dudamel might be caught one day on the border with the seasons' receipts sawn in the belt - eat my pants, Mark Sweed!). Anyway, do you think that the "opera world" would fare better than Texas when the bomb will strike? I don't think so - and I always successfully illustrate this type of analogy with a formidable page from Jorje Semprun (I will nor reveal it), page THAT painfully illustrates the Europeans' self-destructive wishful thinking and the reality... that ticks... ticks... creeps on the wall... creeps on the wall...

[(The Other) Niall]

"I note you still can't bring yourself to address, concretely, the issue I actually raised"

Which is what, exactly? That there is racism in Europe? Agreed.

But (and this is where I came in) what has this to do with the price of gasoline, or subsidised public transport - the things that Tony Judt was eulogising? How do you get from there to racism? Or, to put it more constructively, what changes in the polity that Tony Judt is describing would help eradicate racism?

Of course, in writing this, I'm making the presumption that you'd actually welcome a decrease in racism in Europe. But that would provide you with fewer opportunities for witless trolling, so maybe not.

[Niall]

Other Niall -

I find it amusing that think my raising of the race issue with respect to Judt's piece is somehow opportunistic or completely out of left field. If Judt's piece were on beekeeping in Portugal, and I replied, "But what about all the RACISM in Europe?", you might have a point. But that's not what he's writing about. He's making a broad judgment/comparison between the way of life in America, and that in the EU, and finding the EU superior. In the context of that sweeping judgment, pointing out that that egalitarian, stress-free, secure life enjoyed by EU citizens is only enjoyed by those who are white is hardly irrelevant or off topic. In exactly the same way that any Europen would respond (and do respond) to claims that the American way of life is best by pointing out the race issues in our country. Sauce for the goose.

I also think racism is much worse in the EU, largely because it's still unacknowledged and legally institutionalized (Germany, for example, only criminalized discrimination in housing and employment in 2008 - 40 years after the US did). When I go to Europe, I feel as though I've stepped back to 1960 in the US with respect to race.

And bear in mind that I speak German and French, and so have no trouble understanding the conversations around me that people think I can't understand. They are more than revealing of the rampant racism in Europe.

It's a measure of your desperation to avoid this issue that at the end of your last post you have to insinuate that I wold prefer racism to persist in Europe. Such a comment is - or ought to be - beneath you. But it's so typical of the lengths Europeans will go to pretend that racism does not eat away at the core of their dreaming paradise.

[tim Vaughan 145 Stamford st Stalybridge cheshire]

tim Vaughan writes

guardian interview march 20 2010

Tony judt gave a brilliant and fascinating interview in the newspaper this saturday. good luck with the book, those whom take it on will wait.

[(The Other) Niall]

Niall -

But you bring all this up as though it's not already part of Judt's critique. To wit:

"The old French ideal of egalitarian republicanism with no distinctions, no compromise with religion or localism, with everyone having the same opportunities, speaking the same language, living in the same France – an ideal that was invented in the late 18th century as a way to make a radical break with the Ancien Régime – is now used to paper over the disadvantages of young people, particularly if they are black or brown, from the suburbs or North Africa. The old egalitarian language has been transfigured into saying we all have the same opportunities, we are all equal, we will not talk about the fact that you are female and brown, or allow you to dress differently, because that would not be republican. This subterfuge enables very illiberal behaviour in the name of a ‘liberal ideal’."

And notice that Judt is talking just about racism in France. My main objection to what you've posted on this point (if it's not already clear) is that it is precisely an instance of 'sauce for goose'. To talk about Europe, as you do, as a polity with a singular malign attitude to race is as innaccurate and unhelpful as those over here who talk grandly about racism in America: as though there were no gradations in the experience, severity, causes and mitigations of racism throughout the continent. Judt's point about France strikes me as being entirely right and on the money, but you couldn't make those points about Britain, for instance, because the polity (and in particular the idea of citizenship) is almost diametrically opposed to that of France. This is an issue where 'Sauce for the goose' thinking is just insulting humbug - and insulting for its own sake.

[Yawny]

Well yeah Other Niall, but you're...you're...typical European!

[Niall]

Other Niall -

As European countries differ from one another, so also does their expression and institutionalization of racism also differ. This doesn't make it any less racism. In the same way that racism expresses itself in politically correct, holier-than-thou New England than it does (and did) in Mississippi. The fact that that difference exists - and is as great as the differences in Europe - in no way makes racism disappear as an issue in both places.

I find that whenever I try to discuss this subject honestly with Europeans, they fall back on some version of what I call the "containment argument". After a series of very brutal racist attacks in Germany a while back, I asked my German friends what they thought of it. They all said, almost word for word, the same thing: "Oh, well, all of that is in eastern Germany, and it's really only a problem there, so nothing to worry about." When I pointed out several of these attacks had occurred in western Germany, it led to some awkward moments.

So Europeans can admit to racism, as long as it's somewhere over there, a fluke of some sort, almost an eccentricity. But it's not real racism, you know, because this is Europe and we are all unique snowflakes about which no generalization could possibly be made (this attitude disappears immediately when Europeans want to boast about their superior way of life, naturally).

But speaking of France: As I'm sure you know, when you apply for a job in France you have to attach a picture of yourself to your CV. So they automatically know the color of your skin before you even walk in the door. A few years ago I was helping the French office of my employer staff up a new department. One day I noticed a bunch of CV's tossed into the garbage. Every last one of them was from a black African candidate. I asked why they were in the garbage, and the hiring manager said, "Oh, well, we don't want any black people here." He said it like it was nothing. And to him, and to his office, it was nothing.

Same thing in Germany. If you're a German citizen of Turkish descent you will have a terrible, terrible time getting a job in Germany. "Cultural compatibility" is always the reason given. Certainly not racism. No. Never.

[(The Other) Niall]

Niall -

I hope you know that what you witnessed in France is prosecutable, for several reasons. Starting with evidence of discrimination on grounds of race and continuing with mass infringement of data protection. Depending on the sector, it may also have infringed against the length of time that an employer is supposed to keep candidates' details on file. And I hope you caused a fuss about it. I wouldn't like to think you were disparaging other people's offhand attitude to racist discrimination while having stood idly by yourself.

I also wonder how 'honestly' you've had the conversation about racism with Europeans, given that you don't appear to be able to have a conversation about it at all. You have a settled prejudice which you'd like to express, and which does not admit of complicating factors - or indeed conversation. Any complication smacks to you of a deflection of responsibility, but you're notably short of constructive advice as to how that responsibility might better be shouldered. I mean, what does your argument finally amount to except for a recognition that bad things are happening 'somewhere over there' which somebody else is responsible for? A containment argument, in other words.

Seeing as I've been pressed into service as the representative European here, may I just say, if it's not already clear, that I have no trouble admitting there is racism within Europe, that - while there may be local differences in its expression, and in the legislation that allows it to happen - it is a consistent problem that demands a consistent solution across Europe. But I don't see the contradiction in suggesting that when it comes to setting France's house in order (for example), the primary responsibility lies with the French government, employers and people.

Now, we could have an argument here about how centralised pressure might be brought to bear on individual European nation states through the instruments of the European Union and its courts. We could argue about the strengthening of existing legislation, or extension of the EU's executive power to enforce compliance. We could even argue about Tony Judt's idea of fostering a consistent collective identity as Europeans, as a means of addressing the question of who is and isn't effectively a European.

But I don't think you actually want to have those arguments, because they would involve practical politics. Whereas you would clearly rather judge Europeans as a singular mass of wayward animal spirits, whose innate racism is punishable but not really reformable. So why not just draw a line somewhere in the mid-Atlantic and let us go to hell in our own style? It wouldn't be the first time.

[Niall]

Other Niall-

I think the cavalier attitude of my French colleagues towards overt racism shows that they have exactly zero fear of French anti-discimination laws, at least with respect to race. But don't believe me:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4399748.stm

Laws that are not enforced are meaningless.
As for your suggestion that I should have "made a fuss" - well, I can only laugh. Me, an American interloper, trying to import prissy American political correctness into a French office? Ha ha ha ha. Yeah, that would have been a huge success.

I think my conversations are quite honest. I simply ask my European friends, "Do you think there is evidence of significant racism in your country?" Then, of course, the containment arguments are thrown up like fortresses, or it's simply denied, explained away as "cultural differences" not racism. When you constantly observe incidents of the most overt racism, in multiple European countries, the conclusion that racism is rampant is not a "settled prejudice", but an empirical conclusion.

"conversation. Any complication smacks to you of a deflection of responsibility, but you're notably short of constructive advice as to how that responsibility might better be shouldered."

Well, first of all, why is this my responisibility, a foreigner, and not yours? But it just so happens I have made such sugestions, you've just been ignoring them. First, acknowledge the true seriousness and extent of the problem. Stop trying to explain it away as something else. Secondly, pass meaningful legislation that bans discrimination on the basis of race in employment and housing. The EU is finally doing this, which is good. Then enforce these lies ferociously and consistently, and make it easy for victims to file claims.

Since I'm making those arguments, it's quite amusing to hear you say I don't want to have those arguments.

[Niall]

LOL -

I meant "enforce these laws" not "lies". Total Freudian slip there. Sorry.

[(The Other) Niall]

So let me get this straight. You found documentary evidence that your employer was engaged in illegal discrimination on grounds of race, had commited a criminal act against the privacy of French citizens, and in all likelihood an infringement against civil law with regard to the auditing of personal details in business. And you did nothing.

All of these things are punishable under French law, let alone European law. And yet somehow, because I am a European, this is more my responsibility than it is yours. So you did nothing.

Niall: that isn't just a containment strategy, it's lunacy, and it reveals the utter bad faith in which you've been posting on this issue.

[Yawny]

Other - Why can't you just admit it's your fault that Niall's employer is racist?

Niall - I've travelled to many European countries, and I've seen no evidence of overt racism. So my empirical conclusion would be there is absolutely zero racism in the EU. However, here I would engage my logic, and refrain from making such wildly broad generalizations, because I'm sure racism still exists there. I'm sure you have a salient point somewhere, and in a lot of what you say, but you manage to bury it in screaming hyperbole.

[Meg]

The people who work in it all have contracts, health and pension benefits, unemployment benefits, security that no American company gives to any of its dancers or singers. In America they pay them more but they give them none of the benefits or protections.

Stepping aside from the racism conversation for a moment, Judt isn't accurate when discussing the benefits "no American company" provides. There are absolutely American dance and opera companies that give contracts, health and retirement benefits, and unemployment benefits to their dancers. Just a brief look at the AGMA website will show you that a number of major American ballet and modern dance companies have contracts providing those things as do opera companies. (In fact, the contracts and agreements are all right there for the public to read)

It's true that these companies get much of their money through individual donations and ticket sales as opposed to government funding and it's true that small companies can't necessarily afford those benefits but it seems like Judt made assumptions about employment in U.S. companies without doing much (if any) research on the subject.

[Niall]

Other Niall:

Ah, so I'm now the one responsible for racism in France, not the French. That's a nice containment strategy. I did in fact report the incident in writing to HR in the US, and sent a copy to the manager of the French subsidiary. There was nothing more I could really do. I was never invited back to that office again.

In fixating on me, you are of course ignoring the rampant racism my anecdote illustrates, and the legal impunity with which it operates in France. You're blaming the messenger, namesake.

I note you have no response to the BBC article I referenced on rampant racial discrimination in employment in France. I suppose you are going to lash out at the BBC for not solving that problem?

Yawny:

I'm not blaming Other for anything. I'm blaming French society. And how can I be "generalizing" when I'm mentioning specific examples?

Please advise.

[Yawny]

Niall -

To quote (sarcasm alert): "But it's not real racism, you know, because this is Europe and we are all unique snowflakes about which no generalization could possibly be made."

To paraphrase: "I've noticed some overtly racist things in Europe. Thus, all Europeans are overtly racist."

[Niall]

Yawny -

I neve said all Europeans are racist. That's what you want me to be saying, so that you can ignore the evidence I have presented.

And in the quotation you provide, I'm not generalizing about racism in Europe, but about the tendency of Europeans to say the EU cannot be judged as a whole because of its diversity if the judgment is negative, but then make sweeping generalizations of their own about the EU if they are positive.

Try to keep up.

[(The Other) Niall]

"There was nothing more I could really do"

I'm sure you sleep soundly, believing that. And I sympathise with your position, working - however briefly - in a country so very uncivilised that you had no possible recourse to law.

"I note you have no response to the BBC article I referenced on rampant racial discrimination in employment in France"

How would you like me to respond? If I'm allowed to quote myself:

may I just say, if it's not already clear, that I have no trouble admitting there is racism within Europe, that - while there may be local differences in its expression, and in the legislation that allows it to happen - it is a consistent problem that demands a consistent solution across Europe. But I don't see the contradiction in suggesting that when it comes to setting France's house in order (for example), the primary responsibility lies with the French government, employers and people.

Are you sure it's my head that's in the sand, Niall? If you'd treat me as a person you're having a conversation with, rather than as a representative of a class that you've invented (all of whose responses you can anticipate), then we might get somewhere.

Of course, you don't actually want to get anywhere. You're trolling.

[Niall]

Other Niall -

I was not a victim of racial discrimination in France, so it would have been difficult for me to declare discrimination. And you are still fixating on me as the person responsible for all this, not the French themselves. Again, a clear strategy of containment and misdirection.

The BBC story is in response to your claim that since French law forbids such discrimination, it's not the problem I say it is.

And I am trying to have a conversation with you. In the course of which I have been accused by you of wanting to perpetuate racism in the EU. Who is resorting to hyperbole and distortion?

Anyway, since you agree with me that racism is a huge problem in the EU, I look forward to hearing what you plan to do about it.

[Yawny]

Niall, I don't "want" you to say anything, trust me. You do a fine job of discrediting you all by your self.

"I look forward to hearing what you plan to do about it."

I've got to hand it to you, that's comedic gold right there. Congrats, you've entered the realm of self-parody.

[(The Other) Niall]

"I was not a victim of racial discrimination in France, so it would have been difficult for me to declare discrimination"

So this could only have been dealt with through employment law? Man, European jurisprudence is infinitely more fucked up in your invented version than it is in reality. As I've said, this was a criminal matter in at least two regards: you had recourse to the police. You didn't take it. I trust your employers continue to prosper?

"I have been accused by you of wanting to perpetuate racism in the EU"

Well, pardon me for asking you just what subsidised public transport has to do with race. And forgive me for not knowing the countries in Europe that sell gasoline at different prices depending on the ethnic background of the customer. This is where I came in, if you remember; and to post what you did initially you were either drunk, consciously trolling or engaging in a little reflexive negativity towards Europe.

And you do have form on the last item in that list. There's something about any kind of laudatory - or even cautiously positive - remark about Europe that sets you off like Richard Perle's balls when he contemplates another Iraqi oil well.

"since you agree with me that racism is a huge problem in the EU, I look forward to hearing what you plan to do about it"

Do I have to quote myself again? Here we go:

- [more] centralised pressure [should] be brought to bear on individual European nation states through the instruments of the European Union and its court. [The Treaty of Lisbon allows for this, by empowering the Commission to treat active member states more or less as it does applicant states: that is to say by removing privileges if a state does not comply with legislation]

- extension of the EU's executive power to enforce compliance [as above, but removing the vetoes currently enjoyed by France, Britain and Germany]

- Tony Judt's idea of fostering a consistent collective identity as Europeans, as a means of addressing the question of who is and isn't effectively a European [Practically, what this would mean is more direct democracy in Europe. At the moment, only France, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic are constitutionally bound to vote in matters regarding the European constitution and the rights enshrined therein. Most of the other governments in Europe sign off on treaties and legislation as they appear, without consulting the public. You can see the obvious problem with this, and it's a problem that affects all races in Europe, not just the lily-white folk. Without a sense of public ownership or responsibility for the institutions and operation of the European super-state, no coherent notion of collective citizenship can be developed.]

Is that a start, Niall?

[Niall]

"So this could only have been dealt with through employment law?"

Obviously not. On the other hand, it's unclear why think it was primarily the responsibility of a foreigner in country for only four days to solve, and not the citizens of the country itself. You still have yet to explain that.

"Well, pardon me for asking you just what subsidised public transport has to do with race."

We've been through this maze before. Judt isn't just talking about subsidized public transport (which exists in abundance in the US). He's using a few talking points to make a general point about the superiority of life in the EU. As I've pointed out before, in that context my observations are entirely apt. In any event I'm not sure how this is relevant to your charge that I want racism to persist in Europe. It's an obviously outrageous charge, and I see you can only respond with nonsense.

[(The Other) Niall]

"You still have yet to explain that."

More repetition then:

- when it comes to setting France's house in order (for example), the primary responsibility lies with the French government, employers and people

However, had you witnessed an assault or even a traffic accident in France, I doubt your Monroe-ist approach to the legal systems of European countries would have persisted. You wouldn't have waited for a Frenchman to pick up the phone: you would have called the police yourself. But, as I said, I'm sure you sleep soundly knowing what you did - or rather didn't do.

"I see you can only respond with nonsense"

I've answered every point you've made on this. Hell, I've even come up with a plan for how anti-discriminaton laws might be strengthened across Europe. And I could go much further down that line.

But do you know what - you don't actually seem that interested. You have nothing constructive to say. And you don't respond to the constructive remarks of others. So you're basically just trolling.

And note: this is not the same as me saying you'd like to perpetuate racism in Europe (a racist cell run by you would in any case be hilarious; you'd kill each other before you could even agree on graffiti tags) - this is me saying that you don't really care one way or another.

So, again, either draw that line down the mid-Atlantic and leave us to go to hell, or say something constructive.