http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/return-of-memoire/ Tim King on French politics Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:00:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/return-of-memoire/#comment-34537 Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:47:50 +0000 http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/return-of-memoire/#comment-34537 Nothing grotesque about telling a child of ten what happened to children his own age during WWII. The problem is with teenagers who misbehave when they are taken to Auschwitz. Thank you Tim for referring us to Tony Judt's piece in the NYReview of Books. The difficulty is that in France "the Holocaust" is hardly taught or even mentioned at school for fear of "hurting"...our little muslims among others. I have been trying to get in touch with a psychoanalyst friend of mine to have her last word on guilt but with no success. I have no sense of guilt , I loved going to "catéchisme" because I was brought up with straight agnostics. But this is so individual as to being of no interest. What may be more relevant is that when I was 10 I read about little Louis XVII dying in prison after horrid treatment at the hands of his gaolers. I had no nightmares but acquired for life a horror of French revolutionaries. I really mean "French" because we were taught the French Revolution and I knew something about the context. It would be so sound to grasp what was "diabolical" in Hannah Arendt's sense about the commonplace evil of the French Revolution . Fat chance, alas! To my mind Emmanuelle Mignon is probably among the most intelligent people of her generation. With NS, she may be tring to heal the hang-ups of this country which is mine but which is , too often, uncongenial. Nothing grotesque about telling a child of ten what happened to children his own age during WWII. The problem is with teenagers who misbehave when they are taken to Auschwitz. Thank you Tim for referring us to Tony Judt’s piece in the NYReview of Books. The difficulty is that in France “the Holocaust” is hardly taught or even mentioned at school for fear of “hurting”…our little muslims among others. I have been trying to get in touch with a psychoanalyst friend of mine to have her last word on guilt but with no success. I have no sense of guilt , I loved going to “catéchisme” because I was brought up with straight agnostics. But this is so individual as to being of no interest. What may be more relevant is that when I was 10 I read about little Louis XVII dying in prison after horrid treatment at the hands of his gaolers. I had no nightmares but acquired for life a horror of French revolutionaries. I really mean “French” because we were taught the French Revolution and I knew something about the context. It would be so sound to grasp what was “diabolical” in Hannah Arendt’s sense about the commonplace evil of the French Revolution . Fat chance, alas! To my mind Emmanuelle Mignon is probably among the most intelligent people of her generation. With NS, she may be tring to heal the hang-ups of this country which is mine but which is , too often, uncongenial.

]]> http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/return-of-memoire/#comment-34508 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:47:38 +0000 http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/blog/franceprofonde/return-of-memoire/#comment-34508 I must say, I thought it was a very sensible suggestion, much better than the grotesque idea of burdening a child with a sense of guilt for something for which s/he has no responsibility and no means of redeeming (hmm, is it prejudiced to suggest there was something particularly Catholic in such thought as went into the original idea?). I must say, I thought it was a very sensible suggestion, much better than the grotesque idea of burdening a child with a sense of guilt for something for which s/he has no responsibility and no means of redeeming (hmm, is it prejudiced to suggest there was something particularly Catholic in such thought as went into the original idea?).

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