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America has been described in such words as Bush and McDonald’s. References to Hollywood and Cowboy show that the attractions of America have been reduced to what can be seen through media (i.e. Hollywood).

The students at l'Ecole Polytechnique often associate President Bush with the United States, but there is only one reference to Chirac on the list for words associated with France. In the US, there is little news about Chirac, his policies and the support he has from the French people. How much coverage is there on President Bush in France? For the students at l'Ecole Polytechnique, do you hear about his policies, his decisions, his popularity or other aspects of his presidency? How much do his actions affect your opinion of the United States?

Je trouve l'analyse de Zahra P Karimi un petit peu rapide : des deux cotes nous avons reagi de la meme facon. Au pays d'en face nous avons associes des mots ou des images qui nous viennent de stereotypes, des medias ou des souvenirs de vacances. Pour nous l'amerique c'est la NBA, Mac Donald, Hollywood, Coca-Cola, le WTC, les cow-boys, les hot dogs et le baseball. Pour vous l'Europe et la France vous ont fait penser a "bread", "Eiffel Tower", "cheese", "wine", "fashion", le Tour de France, les baguettes, les cafes, les croissants (miam!!), Napoleon, les crepes, la provence, les "nice cities" et les "small houses".

Pour notre pays nous avons chacun plutot associe un jugement : pour les americains, leur pays est "great", "powerfull" et "world leader", mais ils reconnaissent les defauts de leurs compatriotes "ignorant of other culture", "fat", "greedy", "morons" (jugement parfois severe). De meme nous avons juge notre continent en parlant d'avenir, de projet, de reve ou bien de merdier et de desaccord. (d'ailleurs je pense que le mot Europe nous a plus inspire que le mot France. En tout cas ce fut mon cas.)

Apres la comparaison des reponses en ce qui concerne plusieurs mots, il se degage une tendance generale. Je m'interesse plus particulierement aux mots "Etats Unis", "Democracie" et "France", et je prends en compte les reponses dans leur globalite. A mes yeux la grande difference entre etudiants du MIT et mes camarades de l'Ecole Polytechnique reside dans la difference de profondeur de vue, meme si elle ne reflete pas, je l'espere, une difference de profondeur d'esprit. Les reponses americaines sont assez centrees sur des situations, des faits qui les touchent, sans en chercher les causes. Au contraire seules les concepts et les raisons semblent interesser en general les Francais. Ainsi en ce qui concerne le mot "Etats Unis", l'adjectif "fat" revient souvent du cote du MIT, alors que la cause de ce mot est plus souvent citee du cote francais : "Mc Donald", "puissance", sans insister autant sur les consequences. Pour repondre a Zahra P Karimi, ce n'est pas le Mc Donald en lui meme qui interesse les Francais mais le modele economique et social et dont il est le relais, ainsi que ses consequences. On retrouve la meme dynamique en ce qui concerne les reponses au mot "France". On retrouve evidement du cote francais des mots faisant reference a la gastronomie, mais en faible proportion par rapport aux reponses americaines pour les USA. Et alors que ceux ci ne semblent voir la France que sous l'oeil d'un touriste, les Francais insistent plus sur l'identite de leur pays : "culture, histoire, pays". Neanmoins les exemples les plus flagrants viennent de la comparaison des reponses pour le mot "Democratie". Le plus important au MIT reside dans ses applications directes : " vote", "freedom of...". De l'autre cote de l'Atlantique la tendance a une vision plus profonde : la Democracie est le regime politique qui permet le mieux la liberte (ce mot revient 7 fois), avec toutes lons consequences ideologiques qui en decoulent. Cette difference de profondeur de vue vient elle du caractere plus pragmatique des Americains ou de la tendance naturelle des Francais a se croire obliges de reflechir plus que le reste du monde ? Sans doute les deux. Cependant reste a savoir quelle est la meilleure attitude. Voltaire n'a t il pas ecrit "Travaillons sans raisonner, c'est le seul moyen de rendre la vie supportable" ? Avez vous des avis sur cette question ?

Desole pour ce message sans accents et assez autain, mais il parait que c'est tout l'interet du jeu.

En reponse a Zahra, il est vrai que nous voyons les Etats- Unis au travers de media comme les films ou les series tv, qui sont d'ailleurs a la base de la fascination qu'exerce votre pays sur beaucoup d'entre nous, au meme titre que vous ne semblez connaitre la France que grace aux cartes postales. Je ne pense pas que ce genre de cliches (les fast food et bush pour vous, le vin et la culture ou l'arogance pour nous) soient inutiles et dangereux, au contraire ils peuvent etre la base de reflexions plus profondes, a commencer par se demander comment et pourquoi les autres nous resument a ces cliches.

Par ailleurs j'ai eu la chance de me rendre aux Etats- Unis cet ete, et je me suis rendu compte que la critique sociale faite dans les Simpsons (dont je suis fan depuis quelques annees), si elle peut paraitre stereotypee, n'en est pas moins revelatrice.

De plus, et pour repondre a lee, je pense que le president Bush est cite plus souvent que le president Chirac dans la mesure ou ses actions ont infiniment plus de repercussions sur la vie du pays et meme du monde que celle de sont collegue francais. De plus, en France le president n'est que le chef de l'etat, et il s'appuie sur le premier ministre qui est lui le chef du gouvernement et decide donc de la politique a mener. Il faut de plus ajouter a cela la campagne de denigrement menee contre bush en france,et qui a pour consequence que beaucoup font un amalgame entre les choix contestables de Bush ( politique ecologique, reduction des fonds pour l'enseignement, mis en avant des religions pour justifier les conflits, mauvaise gestion de la catastrophe Katrina) et les traditions et modes de pensees americains. Pensez vous que le president Bush soit un bon ambassadeur des valeurs americaines?

It's interesting to see that most of the subjects have become a polemic between europeans and americans. I think both sides start with their own biases, after all it's much easier to see the wrong things of the other one and conveniently forget our own. Obviously there is absolutely no excuse for Bush's actions in the United States and all over the world. I think most people in this forum agree on that. However, many europeans, including myself, tend to forget the political situation in Europe. The Germans just voted for the Christian Democrats, the austrian fascists were in the government and in France, Le pen (sorry for the spelling) has 15% of the vote and was Chirac's opponent in the last presidential election. And talking about the arrogance of the Americans, Europe had the same imperialistic policy for centuries, colonizing and terrorizing the entire world. I'm not trying to find excuses for the dispicable foreign policy of the US, however rather than letting ourselves be consumed by intercontinental differences, we should instead recognize the fact that the main differences exist between classes and not nations.

Flavien asked if President Bush is good ambassador of American values. First of all if you ask MIT students most are likely to say no, mainly because college students are more liberal than the rest of the population and most liberals disagree with pretty much everything President Bush says. There are also other factors such as the fact that most of us are scientists and we are living in Massachussetts, a "liberal" state. Personally I would disagree with all these people, and so would the majority of the US because obviously we elected him, not once but twice. Why? Because he stands for what most of us believe in. So if it seems like a lot of Americans don't like Bush, it might be because freedom of speech allows people to rant, rave, and complain all they want and the media likes to cover all the negative stuff in the world.

In response to Felix:

I think you have made an interesting observation as to the different characters of the responses, but I can't say I completely agree with your resolution into the two categories of pragmatism and reflection. I think that a better way to characterize the difference is perhaps by instead invoking the difference between post-modernism and modernism. The american responses are like a stream of consciousness work: when someone says "green," I immediately say "blue," not "color." The reason for this is the essence of post-modern culture (to put it paradoxically), which is currently american culture: the culture which has no hope for a better tomorrow; the culture of driving along in a car made in Japan in a city filled with people who weren’t born there to get a slurpy from 7-eleven; the culture of being estranged from one's own country because of ideological and social disconnection; the culture of living in a region where there is no history to speak of but rather just rich, white americans who become more rich, white americans who drive big cars. I personally grew up in Dallas, TX, a city with the least culture one could think of; I call myself and act a Texan only in the absurd sense: pointing out the absurdity of my vegetarianism, which completely clashes with the general tone of a region to which not even my parents (or my car, or my shoes) are native. It is a culture devoid of culture which has no hope for the future and no ideals: one cannot respond to the word "democracy" with the word "freedom" because both of these notions are absurd, contaminated, and ravaged by post-modern cynicism and disregard. The only thing left for post-modernist culture to recall when considering democracy is the purely physical act of voting.

To believe in ideals one must have hope. And there is no hope in America today.

A question to Silvia: When you say "Because he stands for what most of us believe in", what exactly do you mean? Do you believe that abortion should be illegal? Do you believe that global warming doesn't exist? Do you believe that Bush succeeded in the war against terror? Do you believe that intelligent design is a sound scientific theory? Do you believe that the tax cuts for the 1% wealthiest americans helped the economy? Do you believe that letting the underprivileged black population of New Orleans die was fair?

The rest of the world is almost happy when something bad happens in the US and this is really really sad. But instead of blaming everyone else for being jealous and hateful, maybe we can start thinking about how power and wealth has corrupted american "democracy".

A Iordanis, "The rest of the world is almost happy when something bad happens in the US and this is really really sad." Je ne suis pas du tout d'accord. Nous ne sommes pas anti americain, et nous sommes juste antipathiques à la politique étrange des Etats-Unis. Quand le catastrophe est arrivé, nous avons eu le même sentiment que vous. Une chose que je suis tout à fait d'accord, si nous ne mettons pas l'accent sur le pouvoir et le fortune, le monde se dévelopera vers une meilleure direction.

A Cramer,"To believe in ideals one must have hope. And there is no hope in America today." Je ne sais pas pourquoi tu es si trist(e). Le future se fait par nous. Si tu as déjà perdu l'espoir, quand la culture americaine s'améliore?

In response to Yang:

I'm not being pessimistic at all. To say that "I have no hope" and that "I don't encounter the notions of freedom and liberty and etc. on a daily basis" is not in itself "good" or "bad." One can embrace the notion of our hopeless, meaningless, absurd existence without defaulting to platonic notions. I think Walt Whitman's poem "I sing the body electric" is a good example of this notion. One could, on the one hand, praise the human body by looking at its mathematical properties, its almost geometrically perfect features or its most perfect specimens, like works of ancient greek art. The poem by Whitman is completely different, however. Instead he speaks of the human body in all its disgusting, imperfect and awful details, ending the poem with simply a listing of physical objects associated with the body: "Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,...The circling rivers, the breath, and breathing it in and out,...The thin red jellies within you, or within me...O I say now these are the Soul!" This pronouncement, that truly the utter physicality of the body is actually the soul, is the essence of the optimistic post-modernist view that requires no hope. It is not necessary to rely on the platonic world of ideals for our happiness; we can find it just as well in our absurd, destined, futile, earthly lives.

To Iodanis: I believe this forum was meant to be a form of communication between the french students and american students. Also I hate that it has turned into a political debate because I am not one to get into politics. But since you asked, yes, no, kinda, yes, don't know enough about that to comment on it, and no one "let" anybody die.

"we can find it just as well in our absurd, destined, futile, earthly lives." Je suis tout a fait d'accord. Mais la dépendance de "platonic world of ideals" est un point essentiel à nous faire avancer sans cesse. IL pourrait changer un peu la qualité de vie.Comment tu peux expliquer que tu lis beaucoup de livres littéraires si tu as plutôt envie de chercher la plaisirdans la vie réelle et matériale.

To Yang:

When I say "It is not necessary to rely on the platonic world of ideals for our happiness" what I mean is the view towards platonistic ideals in the manner in which it was originally conceived. That is to say, viewing the world of ideals as a realm above our own, more important than our own; the notion that each chair in our world is striving to be like the ideal chair, not that the ideal chair is a product of all earthly chair; that man was made in the image of god, not that god was made in the image of man. In fact, I'm a pure math major, so all I do all day is revel in the world of ideals. That doesn't mean that I completely dismiss the human element involved in mathematics. In fact, the recognition of the human element in mathematics is a main feature distinguishing late 19th century Hilbertian optimism with the definite restraint of Gödel's incompleteness theorem which characterizes modern mathematics. One can effectively wield the world of ideals, but one should never forget their utterly human, physical dependence.