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Another Perspective

Splendid Isolation

By on 3.18.11 @ 6:08AM

After six months away, our correspondent finds the U.S. suffocatingly inward-looking — and gauche.

(Page 2 of 2)

The most surprising American cliché to emerge recently is the allusion to Proust’s doorstop novel that nobody reads, Remembrance of Lost Time. The madeleine cake scene, in which the taste triggers childhood memories, has been extended, at least in the Boston suburbs, to any memory event. One Sudbury woman tells me, “A certain type of person uses it with abandon today.” I read a newspaper account recently that proves her point. A Canadian Air Force colonel who made a habit of stealing women’s underwear from the neighborhood and videoing himself prancing around in it was re-creating the “Proust moment, the biting into the madeleine that brings back the rich memory,” rhapsodized a Columbia University criminologist. Proust was also in the background when he watched his video of himself strangling his neighbor’s wife. She had caught him hiding behind her furnace.

A peek into the uptight world of newsgathering can be had for two dollars and a look at page 2 of the New York Times, the Corrections section. One can only imagine the shame a reporter suffered for mentioning GLAD instead of GLAAD (two competing gay-lesbian groups), or the reviewer of the book Red Herring Without Mustard who wrongly said a Gypsy woman turned up dead when actually she was only badly beaten. But my favorite is the sloppy cricket writer who referred to Raugarajan Sricharan instead of Sricharan Rangarajan. At least Sricharan cared.

Want to buy insurance in America? Apparently it is a hilarious experience. The Geico pig, the Aflac duck, the Allstate reckless driver, the Flo the Progressive agent all want to let you in on the fun. Insurers used to try to scare you into buying their wares. Now they pick your pocket while you’re laughing.

But coming in from the outside, it’s the mangling of the American language that bothers me most. Next time some divorcée tells me she is “in a better place” I may scream. If a politician or a businessperson tells me of plans “going forward” I just may say I prefer going backward. Beware of anyone who tells you a policy or a budget is “transparent.” And “mashup” now appears in the public prints, even in the prose of the estimable Michiko Kakutani, who apparently was stuck for a real word to compare a new book to three other genres thrust together. Please, can we all go backward together?

Perhaps the word with the most curious history is “suck”, now common parlance among the young but viewed suspiciously by their parents, who know what it really means. A few years ago, as the word was working its way into daily speech, a woman came to McGraw-Hill to sell us her magazine. She said it was worth a lot because the competition “sucked.” I thought six white-shirted, tight-suited McGraw-Hill executives were going to choke. But they agreed with her and she walked away a very rich woman. The magazine was the now-defunct Byte.

Suck has a controversial history. Even Mel Brooks fell afoul of the language police when he made his movie Life Sucks. The studio forced him to change the title to Life Stinks. Now my daughter has to censor her kids when they sing along with Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You.” Kelly is perhaps mild compared to Cee-Lo Green, who leaps straight to the F-word. And what is one to make of his passage, “I don’t know what you came to do but I came to get this thang crunk for you.”

I think I’ll go back to France.

Page:   12

About the Author

Michael Johnson spent 17 years at McGraw-Hill, including six years as a news executive in New York. He now writes from Bordeaux in France. He also spent nine years on the board of the London International Piano Competition.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (74) |

stu| 3.18.11 @ 6:46AM

seeya

Kitty| 3.18.11 @ 6:54AM

I second that emotion.

Sam Vaughn| 3.20.11 @ 5:36PM

I am simply reminded, that America, for all it's fault's was the one place in the world my great-grandparents chose to escape to,, from; the lower class prison for which the only reason they were thrown into it was where they were born ----France and more broadly Europe. France, a wonderful place, where my grandfather having volunteered for his adopted country was buried, God only knows where, but he died fighting for the land he loved after escaping the one he didn't......France

PCC| 3.18.11 @ 6:51AM

Why in the world would the author suppose that the ignoramus working at the AT&T store didn't earn his political science degree at Harvard?

"You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much."

Sheila| 3.18.11 @ 10:34AM

This.

Ken (Old Texican)| 3.18.11 @ 7:06AM

I just love to read mush from hoity toity guys like this Johnson guy.
He is such a welcome change to the normal common sense we read here.

Mitch Angoop| 3.19.11 @ 4:25PM

This is frighteningly appropriate for this post since it is about the horror of 'multiculturalism" in France and what is coming our way unless we CRUSH the morons and cretins in the media and academia who love the idea of multiculturalism. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/embed/A3YQANdvvbY This is TERRIFYING and exactly what we have to look forward to as the lib morons give away OUR COUNTRY. The Europeans are beginning to fight back, but if we try, we're called racists, and worse.

Please send this on to everybody you know. We are in deadly danger. Paste this link to everything you send and have your friends do the same.

Will| 3.18.11 @ 7:07AM

Bordeaux got them an urbain sensible? Say hello to Crumb for me.

Cabermon| 3.18.11 @ 5:59PM

Bordeaux isn't a state or a country, it's a whine region!

Appleby| 3.18.11 @ 7:29AM

Thank you for reminding me why I continue to believe the only thing about France worthy of notice is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and that only because of the pronounced absence there of the French.

Has this twit ever heard the phrase *Act [as if] you have been there before?* Coming home and writing about the home folks as if you had suddenly become European is the surest way to brand yourself a rube.

P.S. Stupid twentysomethings are everywhere. I am amazed this pert bimbo even knew what you meant by a book.

Herb| 3.18.11 @ 7:52AM

I have always heard that those expatriates who live in the "south of France" are the most disconnected from their American homeland. They marvel at the wines and cuisines and oh so sophisticatedness of their French neighbors, and condescend toward us materialistic rubes in the great Flyover. Usually, however, these expats form their critique of America from the left, at selfish Yanks who rebel against high taxation and governmental interference. But this guy gives his address as Bordeaux, then laughs at the store clerk who doesn't grasp in which country it is located.

Some extreme snobbery here, surely.

Sheila| 3.18.11 @ 10:40AM

Yes. I've lived in and visited (short and long-term) more than a dozen countries. Why must most American tourists go to extremes? It's either the loudly spoken lout in a Hawaiian shirt in London or the disdainful snobbery of a American bedazzled by the "other" culture. I can find something to appreciate in all of Europe - even France - but to return and sneer just signals the writer's ignorance and alienation from what ought to be his homeland. His alienation is quite surprising, actually; his sniff about the non-Harvard educated should make him feel right at home with Da'Won (and David Brooks).

Slowcooker| 3.18.11 @ 11:58AM

Dear Herb: Bordeaux is in northwestern France. Reverse Snob much?

Publius| 3.18.11 @ 2:13PM

Not unless it has been moved, Slowcooker. Bourdeaux is in southeastern France.

For the record, I don't reverse-snob at all but I do try to comment only when I know what I'm talking about.

Publius| 3.18.11 @ 2:24PM

Sorry, that should be southWESTERN France.

David T| 3.18.11 @ 4:10PM

And, mon ami, I'm sure someone of your sophistication also knows the correct spelling of BORDEAUX.

RWinks| 3.18.11 @ 3:24PM

Makes me remember when movies would have someone say they had been to Paris and, after some confusion be asked, "You mean, Paris, FRANCE!!?". Of course the clerk was confused. He had never heard of Bordeaux, Mass.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.18.11 @ 7:41AM

Shouldn't this have appeared in Mother Jones?

Lesser Weevil| 3.18.11 @ 12:54PM

Even worse, he wrote essentially the same column here six months ago, under the title "Thinking Outside the Bubble." Is this some kind of recurring practical joke?

Melvin| 3.18.11 @ 7:49AM

Another overly used word is, "Awesome." From per-pubescent girls gushing over Justin Bieber to New Age mothers giving their babies kudos for taking a dump in their diaper.
As an infant or toddler if I had realized that filling one's diaper was an, "Awesome," event to my mother I would have done it more. Funny thing fathers don't quite look at junior quite that, "Awesome," way.

borninsocal| 3.18.11 @ 11:50AM

Awesome, Awesome to the max!

JimP| 3.18.11 @ 7:58AM

Is this an immitation of IowaHawk's hilarious "T. Coddington Van Voorhees" character, but done as a leftwing snob instead of a Rockefeller Repub snob? If not, I'm with Bill Hussein, shouldn't it be in MJ?

Either way, thanks for the laughs, Monsieur Johnson. Adieu and bon chance. Or as we say here in America, AMF.

jt| 3.18.11 @ 8:31AM

Vanity - you are better off by yourself in France

Le Cracquere| 3.18.11 @ 8:56AM

So many empty, pallid gestures of savoir-faire from notre correspondant mondain. Yet how oblivious he remains to the most elementary cultural issues! Heed these words, M. Johnson: when a lady offers to crunkify a thang for one's benefit, one responds with a thank-you note.

JimP| 3.18.11 @ 9:06AM

"Le Cracquere". A magnifique nom de plume.

Peter Espada| 3.18.11 @ 9:26AM

PLEASE go back to France, you insufferable twit!!

Petronius| 3.18.11 @ 9:36AM

Oui. There are some great places to live in Europe, IF you don't have to make a living. Should I win the big one, look me up in Lonato. For now; repair to the Garonne and drink heavily.

David W| 3.18.11 @ 9:46AM

Those who don't know where Boredough is (or how to spell it) may not be rocket scientists. However, these people are more than likely to sacrifice their possessions/life to help those who can spell it.

dennis b| 3.19.11 @ 10:06AM

Damn right David W. You win best comment of the week.

PamM| 3.18.11 @ 9:46AM

Guilty as charged: I say "suck," as in, "This commentary sucks." It's too bad Mr. Johnson decided to condemn the entire American population (of which he no longer considers himself a part) based on a few encounters. I may say "suck," but I do know what's going on in the world, including the problem of an ever-growing, non-assimilating Muslim population in France and other European nations. I would have liked Mr. Johnson's perspective on that, but he prefers to lecture us on our collective cultural sins. Go back to France, Mr. Johnson, and please have a croissant on me.

Mitch Angoop| 3.20.11 @ 5:17PM

This is frighteningly appropriate for this post since it is about the horror of 'multiculturalism" in France and what is coming our way unless we CRUSH the morons and cretins in the media and academia who love the idea of multiculturalism. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/embed/A3YQANdvvbY This is TERRIFYING and exactly what we have to look forward to as the lib morons give away OUR COUNTRY. The Europeans are beginning to fight back, but if we try, we're called racists, and worse.

Please send this on to everybody you know. We are in deadly danger. Paste this link to everything you send and have your friends do the same.

Paul| 3.18.11 @ 9:49AM

Please, go back to France. That's obviously where you belong. America is too robust a place for you.

missbosslady| 3.18.11 @ 9:53AM

Hmmm, I wounder if this piece, in the reverse would read the same, which is to say, would the author have us believe that the same converations held with twenty-somethings in France would be oh so sophisticated in comparison?

I have my doubts.

I find Mr. Johnson's examples dubious at best. Were he really trying to take the temperature of the US he should have flung farther a field than CNN and a 20 year old sales clerk.

Publius| 3.18.11 @ 2:22PM

So, missbosslady, you find comfort that French young people might be as ignorant as ours? I don't get it.

missbosslady| 3.19.11 @ 11:56AM

Publius,

Certainly not! I am surprised that would have understood my comment in this way.

You have made a silly assumption not supported by my post. Seriously, do you really think that I "take comfort" in anyone's ignorance?

"I don't get it" was an apropos response.

David T| 3.18.11 @ 10:44AM

Excuse me, Mr. Johnson, but Geico's mascot is a gecko, not a pig. You have spent too much time with the French swine.

Carson Ringol| 3.18.11 @ 11:26AM

While GEICO does have a series of gecko commercials, it also has some with a Serlingesque fellow who asks rhetorical questions, e.g., "did the little pig go 'wee, wee, wee' all the way home?" David, you really must try to keep up if you are going to pile on with the others.

David T| 3.18.11 @ 1:16PM

Sorry--I've spent too much time in La France.

Matthew Quigley| 3.18.11 @ 10:49AM

Go back to France, and take Moochelle Antoinette and POTUS Nero with you. The United States isn't gauche and idiotic, just certain enclaves of the northeast, Hollywood and San Francisco. So why don't you stay in France? Any country that has better than a hundred kinds of cheese, but can't defend itself (the French got beaten by the Mexicans...the Mexicans, for God's sake! How lame is THAT? Do you remember the Battle of Puebla? How's THAT for being ignorant poltroons, you putz!) seems to be your kind of country.

Steve A| 3.18.11 @ 11:14AM

Hey Michael, Go back to Bordeaux, strap on your beret & go mingle with the intellectuals with the thin moustaches at a cafe over double lattes. Next time an opressive force comes to crush your little tea party, don't call us when you hoist the white flag. We will be busy reading the funny papers.

Steve A| 3.18.11 @ 11:26AM

Oh & by the way. As for the kid from Brookline not knowing about Bordeaux, the logical reason is because it's irrelevant. I'm sure all the kids in Bordeaux have an intimate knowledge of Brookline.

Publius| 3.18.11 @ 2:20PM

Of course, the "kid" from Brookline has a college degree. Says volumes about our educational system.

Paul McGrath| 3.18.11 @ 11:49AM

Another rather crass phrase used by Americans is "Bite Me." As in, "Bite me, Mr. Johnson, you supercilious twit."

Steve Evans| 3.18.11 @ 12:57PM

I hereby nominate Paul McGrath for the post of U.S. ambassador to France.

JRGIERLACH| 3.18.11 @ 1:14PM

Second!

Robert Pinkerton| 3.18.11 @ 12:22PM

I see this piece as a stop-motion (as in one frame of film every second or two vs. the usual 24 frames per second) snippet of the progress of a disease.

We Americans call our Body Politic, with humorous affection, "Uncle Sam." The metaphor of "Body Politic" looks at the People as comparable to an organism whereof each citizen is like unto an individual cell. By that same metaphor, decadence is equivalent to senility in the flesh-&-blood person. This piece is a stop-motion snapshot of the unfolding of the decadence of this country (the senile dementia of "Uncle Sam") on its deathbed.

J.C.Eaton| 3.18.11 @ 1:00PM

Well Mike, I don't know why you wrote this column, certainly the suits that run this site didn't pay you anything for it. My estimate is that you just wanted to scribble off a few condescending paragraphs to needle the rubes. Looks as though you did. Just a few words back at ya': Le petit marmot! Oh, and a couple more; a clue: they aren't 'let's dance."

PCC| 3.18.11 @ 1:32PM

A contemporary Americanism that I like and my English friends can't stand: "You are not the boss of me!"

Publius| 3.18.11 @ 2:18PM

While I can understand some of the comments that regard Mr. Johnson's comments as snobbish, I agree with the general thrust of his article. We have become a spoiled, mooching, self-centered culture. Our president can't be interested in a tragedy that occurred to one of our most reliable allies, preferring to play golf instead. We're at war in Afghanistan but as a Nation, do we care? It's not apparent to me that we do. Finally, our population seems to interest itself in meaningless pursuits, few of which contribute to any positive benefit. Time for the next Ronald Reagan. I wonder who he or she is?

Padoux| 3.19.11 @ 1:59AM

And the French who strike if the government proposes the slightest cut in giveaways are not self centered, spoiled and selfish? Ah yes. the wonderful French who let Hitler steamroll them and occupy France until we and our allies had to invade to save their behinds, get thee back there my man.

Griff| 3.18.11 @ 2:29PM

"I doubt that it was from Harvard."
Having worked with several Harvard graduates through the years, I would have bet that it was from Harvard.

Mazzuchelli| 3.18.11 @ 3:15PM

The American Spectator is no place for metrosexuals. Editor, don't let it happen again.

MacAoidh | 3.18.11 @ 3:37PM

Reading Monsieur Johnson's oeuvre, I'm reminded of this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

RWinks| 3.18.11 @ 3:47PM

Mr. Johnson spends some time in MA and thinks he has the pulse of the nation---Don't think so. I agree about the cluelessness of the young but, in their defense, they have been comprehensively lied to for 13 out of their first 18 years in the socialist schools.

Fredrick Ward| 3.18.11 @ 8:52PM

Dude, all I have to say is get out and be gone as fast as you possibly can because we do not want you here. Thanks for stopping by, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Fredrick Ward| 3.18.11 @ 8:53PM

This is the absolutely WORST article I have ever read on spectator.org.

general summerall| 3.18.11 @ 10:54PM

There might have been a very interesting conflab between Monsoor Johnson and the Harvard BA if le Monsoor had said that he lived in Condom (it's south of Bordeaux). I assume Johnson is fluent enough in French to know how to pronounce Caen, Lille, and Fisme properly.

traditions| 3.19.11 @ 2:55AM

Very disappointed that you printed such a tedious
article by a pretentious expatriate, or is it "an ugly American'.

WickedDickie--Virginia| 3.19.11 @ 10:51AM

Even my favorite poet, Robert Service (Attention: Culture Snobs) who's rollicking verses brought us a memorable look at the Alaska Gold Rush, succumbed to the negativity of France with: "E'er death shall slam the door; Will you, like me, Face fate and count the score--Futility", awhile before he croaked in Lancieux. Of course, a sampling from the commonwealth which continues to wallow in taxes, a fondness for critters like Kennedy, My Boy Lollipop Barney Frank and MassaCare is hardly indicative of modern America. At least, I hope not.

missbosslady| 3.19.11 @ 12:06PM

In the words of the inimitable TV character Frank Barone, remarking on the French: "If it weren't for Americans, they'd all be speaking German".

Je vous en prie

Glein| 3.19.11 @ 12:22PM

Remember that our President wants to make the US, France. There will be no need to go back to France in two years you will already be there.

doolittle| 3.20.11 @ 12:33AM

back in the dark ages when living in germany I'd put on my loden coat and speak my best local dialect in the cafe then listen to the locals speak about the americans who came in and the americans speak about the germans who ran the place...great fun. and best of all, when some local actually asked me directions to get someplace and I could actually tell them how to get there..those were wonderful days..before all the tourists came and the cold war ended.

Tom Ladd| 3.20.11 @ 12:44AM

This is the same pundit who, some months ago, declared here that the French had control of their Muslim situation. All the while numerous cars are set afire by "youth" every night, and numerous Muslim sections are declared "no go zones" by the French police. How does this demonstrated fool rate a column in a respectable conservative intellectual forum?

Sam Vaughn| 3.20.11 @ 5:35PM

I am simply reminded, that America, for all it's fault's was the one place in the world my great-grandparents chose to escape to,, from; the lower class prison for which the only reason they were thrown into it was where they were born ----France and more broadly Europe. France, a wonderful place, where my grandfather having volunteered for his adopted country was buried, God only knows where, but he died fighting for the land he loved after escaping the one he didn't......France

jo blo| 3.21.11 @ 3:03PM

Au revoir, stupide!

Auf Wiedersehen, Aschloch!

Cheerio, wanker.

There, I Europeanized my American sentiment: if you don't love it, leave it!

jo blo| 3.21.11 @ 3:10PM

Sorry, one more thing, re: the fellow working at AT&T. Eric Voegelin, a brilliant European conservative theorist was asked by his German students about American students - Dr. Voegelin had taught in the US for a good while. He said that German students tend to be more academically prepared - more languages, better knowledge of history, etc., but that American students had COMMON SENSE. I could care less if most of our people know where Bordeaux is - I do care if they can't tell the difference between a socialist or an American or if they can't tell the difference between knowledge and snobbery.

Christian Louboutin | 6.23.11 @ 6:00AM

But no, domestic squabbles over education, healthcare, and taxation seem to blot out the world, even for President Obama.

sex toys | 7.4.11 @ 1:16AM

The fact that Trump has come out against the Korea-U.S. trade deal and this week's pulling of a vote on a trade deal in the House by the leadership shows there a very fluid House GOP caucus against the kind of trade deals which benefit only corporate interests and infringe upon U.S. sovereignty

Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 11:47PM

is good

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