[quote=briansd1]
A servant who is an intellectual and reflects upon class discrepancies is less likely to work with a smile.

The French are poorer than we are because they think too much and work too little.

What is the balance between working and thinking? If you think too much, then you can’t work. But if you don’t work, you don’t have money. And if you don’t have money, you need to work but then you can’t think.

Service in America is better than in Europe because the workers think that will move on to bigger and better things (a myth Arraya pointed to). But without that myth, servive will be worse.[/quote]

Brian: I’m curious. When was the last time you visited France? You seem very enamored of the French, specifically their culture, and it seems you have this vision of French people strolling along the Left Bank, smoking Gauloise cigs and all with copies of either Camus or Sartre in their back pockets.

The idea that the French are all “intellectualizing” in their spare time isn’t very accurate, unfortunately. Like most of Europe, they’re busy consuming American monoculture with the rest of the planet (those that can afford it, that is).

The French electorate has moved rightward as well, and now Sarkozy is aping the expressions of National Front leader Marine le Pen (yeah, THAT le Pen).