Woke American Ideas are a Threat, French leaders say

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps there has been some linguistic confusion here. In English a strict distinction is drawn between integration and assimilation: while not necessarily opposed, they are seen as being entirely distinct as concepts. To assimilate (whether at an individual level or at the level of an entire minority group) is to dissolve into the majority 'community' and to cease, eventually, to be distinct in anything more than a few minor peculiarities, such as surnames and family history. To integrate is to become a full member of society and of the polity by means of a two-way process of accommodation and compromise with the host society and state, of give and take. In the end it is about making the foreign domestic. In a British context it is about knighted Imams, Rabbis in the House of Lords and elderly Sikh veterans having tea with the Queen.

[ingemann]

I think that assimilation and integration are general a good things, but I think the most important things with a immigration are these things:

1: Do the immigrants cause problems or disruptions?

2: How major disruption or problems do they cause?

3: How much do these problems reproduce in the next generations?

If you have a immigrant group which doesn't disrupt things or cause problems, I honestly don't care whether they integrate or assimilate. If we have a group causing some problems but these problems doesn't reproduce next generation, I think you can live with them.

If Xahar is a good citizen and his children grows up be good citizens, he can decides to live in his parallel society for all I care. As long as he doesn't cause problem for other, why should I care about his life choices or religious views, and to be honest I would also prefer none of my relatives or children marry a Muslim, so I would be hypocrite for condemning him for sharing my views.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

2) I am not going to lie; I would genuinely give religious Christians a "free pass" or at least condemn that less because European countries have all been historically Christian. It is far from ideal and may make me seem a bit of a hypocrite but whatever.

Ay, there's the rub!

Of course, France is a country that makes secularism by far a huge part of its national identity; so part of "being French" certainly involves leaving religion at home (which includes not wearing christian necklaces, or head veils, or turbans, etc).

Yes, and that's a bad thing.

However, assuming he has the "standard" parents came home in the early 1900s and does not have anything Italian about him other than perhaps a surname; yes, I don't think he should really identify as Italian-American.

I mentioned him precisely because he seems to have plenty Italian about him.

I am not fully against hyphenated identities for people who came as kids, or who have both parents born abroad, but by the time you get to grandchilcren, shouldn't they identify fully with the country they were born and raised in, instead of a country they have literally nothing in common other than a surname (and often not even this!) and having very distant relatives?

Are you aware that those grandchildren relatively often are literally citizens of the 'ancestral' country? Among other things.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

@tack50 literally what the f**k

1. Wait you're serious about Xahar's life choices? Wanting to marry within one's faith group is... standard religious practice. That in itself has little to do with self-ghettoization or whatever.

2. Religiousness is for the most part irrelevant. Most "native" Europeans are largely secular... and so? Do you believe that those who aren't are less 'integrated'? Of course you think immigrants 'should' be secular, that's what you think about people in general!

3. I mean, what are you even talking about? So you think e.g. Sprouts should not identify as Italian American? Your phrasing sounds almost like "hey erasing identities is good, actually".

4. I think instead parochial boy's eventual kids should do the f**k they want.

1) Yeah, I'll apologize if it comes off as too judgemental of life choices which was not my intention (same goes with parochial_boy). I am aware it is standard religious practice but it is one that does still lead to ghettoization and marginalization? Being standard practice does not mean it is good practice. If all muslims marry among each other, well, that creates an "us vs them", "in vs out group" dynamic very fast.

I hope I don't have to explain why such dynamics are bad.

2) I am not going to lie; I would genuinely give religious Christians a "free pass" or at least condemn that less because European countries have all been historically Christian. It is far from ideal and may make me seem a bit of a hypocrite but whatever.

Of course, France is a country that makes secularism by far a huge part of its national identity; so part of "being French" certainly involves leaving religion at home (which includes not wearing christian necklaces, or head veils, or turbans, etc).

3) The US have a very different approach to immigration than European countries and I am not sure of what Sprouts family history is.

However, assuming he has the "standard" parents came home in the early 1900s and does not have anything Italian about him other than perhaps a surname; yes, I don't think he should really identify as Italian-American.

I am not fully against hyphenated identities for people who came as kids, or who have both parents born abroad, but by the time you get to grandchilcren, shouldn't they identify fully with the country they were born and raised in, instead of a country they have literally nothing in common other than a surname (and often not even this!) and having very distant relatives?

In general, I think "When in Rome, do as Romans do" is a good policy to have.

Certain Americans who like to feel superior often talk about how racist and casually xenophobic Europe and Europeans supposedly are, but in my experience it’s not often you get a nice guy FF red avatar saying that people should stop identifying with their grandparents’ culture and that Christians shouldn’t have to follow the same social rules as Muslims (as if the very existence of Muslims or immigrants wouldn’t create an out-group dynamic for some people) because Spain is part of Christendom or whatever.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

3) The US have a very different superior approach to immigration than European countries.

This is the real problem here. Just copy us, lol.

[Former President tack50]

3) The US have a very different superior approach to immigration than European countries.

This is the real problem here. Just copy us, lol.

I will recognize that the US are far superior on this aspect, but the European people are not Americans I wish it was that easy lol

Basically the US (and actually, no country in the America were never founded as the explicit "homeland of the Americans" in the same way that many European countries were founded by nationalist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries as the "homeland of the Germans", "homeland of the Czechs", "homeland of the Italians", etc.

I am not sure to what extent this historical argument applies and it is definitely not an insurmountable barrier. However I do think that all things equal, the pressure to conform or soft "civic nationalism" will always be bigger in Europe than the US.

Certain Americans who like to feel superior often talk about how racist and casually xenophobic Europe and Europeans supposedly are, but in my experience it’s not often you get a nice guy FF red avatar saying that people should stop identifying with their grandparents’ culture and that Christians shouldn’t have to follow the same social rules as Muslims (as if the very existence of Muslims or immigrants wouldn’t create an out-group dynamic for some people) because Spain is part of Christendom or whatever.

If it serves as consolation I will say that I do agree with those Americans and Europe on average is definitely more casually racist (I could play the "islam is not a race" card but I won't cause even I recognize it is a bad faith argument). I am pretty sure that there are multiple polls that confirm this by the way.

And I don't think I have ever hidden I lean conservative on the very broad issue of immigration and integration. As for the rest, yes, I do recognize that makes me hypocritical and I even pointed it out.

To be honest forced conversions or forcing people to abandon their religion are very bad and I would never endorse them (and I apologize if it came off that way).

However, my argument was was with regards to one of the polls posted before; and I do genuinely think that children of non-Christian immigrants abandoning the religion in general is a good sign that they are well integrated. I would never force anyone to abandon their religion, but generally immigrants who are better integrated do tend to be non-religious.

Correlation definitely does not equal causation, but the correlation is there.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

3) The US have a very different superior approach to immigration than European countries.

This is the real problem here. Just copy us, lol.

I will recognize that the US are far superior on this aspect, but the European people are not Americans I wish it was that easy lol

Basically the US (and actually, no country in the America were never founded as the explicit "homeland of the Americans" in the same way that many European countries were founded by nationalist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries as the "homeland of the Germans", "homeland of the Czechs", "homeland of the Italians", etc.

I am not sure to what extent this historical argument applies and it is definitely not an insurmountable barrier. However I do think that all things equal, the pressure to conform or soft "civic nationalism" will always be bigger in Europe than the US.

This is a point I agree with instead, except you completely flipped the wording in the last part - civic nationalism is the US kind, while ethnic nationalism is the thing you mean that will always be bigger in Europe.

[WMS]

Certain Americans who like to feel superior often talk about how racist and casually xenophobic Europe and Europeans supposedly are, but in my experience it’s not often you get a nice guy FF red avatar saying that people should stop identifying with their grandparents’ culture and that Christians shouldn’t have to follow the same social rules as Muslims (as if the very existence of Muslims or immigrants wouldn’t create an out-group dynamic for some people) because Spain is part of Christendom or whatever.

DEUS VULT!

[Intell]

France forces migrants to integrate to its culture and customs which is the right approach, you shouldn't  bring in a backwards culture to a liberal western society and expect it to be tolerated.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Of course, France is a country that makes secularism by far a huge part of its national identity; so part of "being French" certainly involves leaving religion at home (which includes not wearing christian necklaces, or head veils, or turbans, etc).

That description of laïcité is very much a rose-spectacled one. In practice it has always meant an in-group seeking to suppress the culture of another group it looks down upon and wishes to exclude from power. It used to be about the elite marginalising peasants from the Vendée, now it means the elite marginalising Muslims in the banlieue. It's not a national identity, it's a state identity and I don't see that that kind of hypocrisy deserves to be treated with respect.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

3) The US have a very different superior approach to immigration than European countries.

This is the real problem here. Just copy us, lol.

I will recognize that the US are far superior on this aspect, but the European people are not Americans I wish it was that easy lol

Basically the US (and actually, no country in the America were never founded as the explicit "homeland of the Americans" in the same way that many European countries were founded by nationalist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries as the "homeland of the Germans", "homeland of the Czechs", "homeland of the Italians", etc.

I am not sure to what extent this historical argument applies and it is definitely not an insurmountable barrier. However I do think that all things equal, the pressure to conform or soft "civic nationalism" will always be bigger in Europe than the US.

I'm well aware of this fact (and it's for this very specific reason that I can gravitate towards lowkey American exceptionalism) but that doesn't mean Europe can't choose to change the way it approaches immigration. Clearly, immigrants in the United States integrate and assimilate much more effectively than those in Europe, even though we don't try and force cultural values on them top-down. Perhaps the government doing that and looking for every opportunity to "other" immigrant groups instead of allowing assimilation to happen from the bottom-up is what's causing your problems. You can choose to approach this differently.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

France forces migrants to integrate to its culture and customs which is the right approach, you shouldn't  bring in a backwards culture to a liberal western society and expect it to be tolerated.

You know what's "backwards"? Your attitude towards immigration.

[Cokeland Saxton]

I agree with this

[Kingpoleon]

I don't see that the language used at home necessarily matters, providing that they're able to speak the national language fluently.

There is a issue with some older Muslim (primarily Pakistanti) women in the UK not speaking English well, because it limits their ability to have an active life outside the home. There's no issue with a kid using Urdu at home and being fluent enough to get a GCSE in it - it's functionally the same as white couples who bring up their kids to be bilingual, which nobody has an issue with.

In America, the English language requirements for citizenship have been widely derided by left wing activists who insist a bilingual society can function just as well as a society where everyone speaks at least one common language.

[Intell]

France forces migrants to integrate to its culture and customs which is the right approach, you shouldn't  bring in a backwards culture to a liberal western society and expect it to be tolerated.

You know what's "backwards"? Your attitude towards immigration.

Yes people from Muslim countries have a great culture and attitude!

[Meclazine for Israel]

What does WOKE even mean in this context.

Do you really think the French could care any less about what Americans think?

We tend to build these false conversations in the media based on pretention.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

France forces migrants to integrate to its culture and customs which is the right approach, you shouldn't  bring in a backwards culture to a liberal western society and expect it to be tolerated.

You know what's "backwards"? Your attitude towards immigration.

Yes people from Muslim countries have a great culture and attitude!

Given what goes on in countries like India and Nepal, such as child marriage, slavery, religious violence, lynchings of dalits, or forcing women on their periods to live in a squalid huts outside of the main home, perhaps we should suppress South Asian cultures in the West as well then

[Intell]

France forces migrants to integrate to its culture and customs which is the right approach, you shouldn't  bring in a backwards culture to a liberal western society and expect it to be tolerated.

You know what's "backwards"? Your attitude towards immigration.

Yes people from Muslim countries have a great culture and attitude!

Given what goes on in countries like India and Nepal, such as child marriage, slavery, religious violence, lynchings of dalits, or forcing women on their periods to live in a squalid huts outside of the main home, perhaps we should suppress South Asian cultures in the West as well then

Great Idea! South Asian culture is only slightly less worse than muslim culture.

[morgieb]

France forces migrants to integrate to its culture and customs which is the right approach, you shouldn't  bring in a backwards culture to a liberal western society and expect it to be tolerated.

You know what's "backwards"? Your attitude towards immigration.

Which given his own background, is hilariously ironic.

[CumbrianLefty]

France forces migrants to integrate to its culture and customs which is the right approach, you shouldn't  bring in a backwards culture to a liberal western society and expect it to be tolerated.

You know what's "backwards"? Your attitude towards immigration.

Yes people from Muslim countries have a great culture and attitude!

Given what goes on in countries like India and Nepal, such as child marriage, slavery, religious violence, lynchings of dalits, or forcing women on their periods to live in a squalid huts outside of the main home, perhaps we should suppress South Asian cultures in the West as well then

Great Idea! South Asian culture is only slightly less worse than muslim culture.

Genuine question - why do you have a dark red avatar?

[Estrella]

France forces migrants to integrate to its culture and customs which is the right approach, you shouldn't  bring in a backwards culture to a liberal western society and expect it to be tolerated.

You know what's "backwards"? Your attitude towards immigration.

Yes people from Muslim countries have a great culture and attitude!

Given what goes on in countries like India and Nepal, such as child marriage, slavery, religious violence, lynchings of dalits, or forcing women on their periods to live in a squalid huts outside of the main home, perhaps we should suppress South Asian cultures in the West as well then

Great Idea! South Asian culture is only slightly less worse than muslim culture.

Genuine question - why do you have a dark red avatar?

Old habits die hard, I guess.

I am proud of my white skin, just as a Chinese is proud of his yellow skin, a Japanese of his brown skin, and the Indians of their various hues from black to coffee-coloured. Anybody who is not proud of his race is not a man at all. And any man who tries to stigmatise the Australian community as racist because they want to preserve this country for the white race is doing our nation great harm... I reject, in conscience, the idea that Australia should or ever can become a multi-racial society and survive.

— Arthur Calwell, leader of Australian Labor Party, 1960-1967

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's okay, Europeans have their own equally stupid but probably more dangerous forms of identity politics.


Is anyone else a bit tired of how the word "woke" is being used now? What the hell does it even mean? Like "identity politics", it's another scare word or term that means whatever you want it to mean.

While I'm somewhat critical of the phenomenon in a liberal US context, "cancel culture" discourse in this country is extremely moronic where the left is marginalised at almost every lever of power. Conservatives run the state broadcasting company and people in the (all of the most-read) papers manage to complain about "cancellation" as something that meaningfully exists in a UK society where transphobes have the run of things. The intellectual colonisation here has been by "anti-woke" ideas if anything.

[ingemann]

What does WOKE even mean in this context.

Woke here means Anglophone "progressive" ideas and identity politics being pushed into a France context, where the French feel it make even less sense than in USA and UK.

Do you really think the French could care any less about what Americans think?

The French care about what the Americans think, but at the same time if Americans fling abuse on them, the French see it as a example of the superiority of French culture and ideals and the inferiority of American ones. The only exceptions are if the French themselves feel badly about a thing they do or did, in that case it's a extra embarassment if the Americans are right.

There's a reason that #MeToo still have a effect in France and that's because it's a issue which resonate deeply among a large group of French people.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The fundamental difference between the United States - or basically any country in the Western hemisphere for that matter - and France is that the child of immigrants in the United States is automatically, without question, treated as being an American. In France, this is not the case.

A Muslim in France who is academically oriented, speaks French, knows about Montaigne, Rousseau but who is still refuses to eat pork, opposes laicite and prays has their identity questioned. Macron has bashed Muslims repeatedly and on purpose to win votes, using thinly veiled language to make it appear as if he was targeting "Islamism", when he also placed parts of civil society in the dragnet. Now he is blaming intellectuals for questioning what it means to be French and publicly, implicitly picking a fight with America.

I humbly suggest that whatever France has been doing, it is not working. Integration is not taking place. France is pushing Muslims further away from French identity and nationality.  I assure you, everything that Macron is doing will breed further extremism. I support cracking down on "Islamism" but one must contrast wearing a burqa or burkini from radical, apocalyptic and violent extremism. One is a key part of living in a free society, one is a threat to life itself.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I think that assimilation and integration are general a good things, but I think the most important things with a immigration are these things:

1: Do the immigrants cause problems or disruptions?

2: How major disruption or problems do they cause?

3: How much do these problems reproduce in the next generations?

If you have a immigrant group which doesn't disrupt things or cause problems, I honestly don't care whether they integrate or assimilate. If we have a group causing some problems but these problems doesn't reproduce next generation, I think you can live with them.

If Xahar is a good citizen and his children grows up be good citizens, he can decides to live in his parallel society for all I care. As long as he doesn't cause problem for other, why should I care about his life choices or religious views, and to be honest I would also prefer none of my relatives or children marry a Muslim, so I would be hypocrite for condemning him for sharing my views.

What you fail to recognize, and I mean this sincerely, is that starting from a basis where you immediately start questioning whether immigrants are "causing problems" is the very source of tension. If you start with the assumption that immigrants will assimilate and that they are mostly good because they are people, they will assimilate because this assumption undergirds some form of birthright citizenship, which has been shown to dramatically improve integration at all levels. There's no serious debate about this!

Europeans who refuse to learn lessons from the immigrant society when dealing with immigration are welcome to do so, just as Americans who decide to believe that guns are good and universal healthcare isn't important are welcome to do so. They will bear a cost for this foolishness but one value of our countries is that we are free to entertain foolish thoughts.