Momo chez nous en france en liberté
malin fraternité l’égalité sur les pieces de monnaie
la liberté d’accord mais passons la monnaie
l’egalité too much mais pas pour le confort
fraternité y en a mais pas pour le porte monnaie
mais du travail y’en a pour toi la plonge et au chantier!
That is… actually I was going to try a Cultural Translation), but I gave up mid-way. Emile can attest that this is a tough one. The point this fragment tries to make is that, despite France reclaiming the heritage of the Revolution and Enlightenment, going as far as printing the motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” on the money coins, doesn’t change the fact that those are money coins: in other words, that the extreme idealism in those words is constantly belied by the daily life. Nevertheless, the fact that the State uses those symbols and ideals as a source of national pride, cohesion, and self-legitimization has the drawback that in every era there are people who actually believe in the stuff, rather than merely Cheering And Professing like they’re supposed to, and are ready to go to great lengths to make it real. AFAIK, the USA have the same problem with the Constitution (especially the Second Amendment), the Communists had this with actual communism, the Divine Right monarchies with The Fundamentalists...
To sum it up, as far as I can tell, the French are very proud of the Revolution, and of the Empire too, and some of them may go as far as to think the entire world owes them the gift of enlightenment and liberalism… but don’t ask most of them to enact its ideals, especially the politicians. Amirite, Émile?
If you will forgive the musical interlude:
That is… actually I was going to try a Cultural Translation), but I gave up mid-way. Emile can attest that this is a tough one. The point this fragment tries to make is that, despite France reclaiming the heritage of the Revolution and Enlightenment, going as far as printing the motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” on the money coins, doesn’t change the fact that those are money coins: in other words, that the extreme idealism in those words is constantly belied by the daily life. Nevertheless, the fact that the State uses those symbols and ideals as a source of national pride, cohesion, and self-legitimization has the drawback that in every era there are people who actually believe in the stuff, rather than merely Cheering And Professing like they’re supposed to, and are ready to go to great lengths to make it real. AFAIK, the USA have the same problem with the Constitution (especially the Second Amendment), the Communists had this with actual communism, the Divine Right monarchies with The Fundamentalists...
To sum it up, as far as I can tell, the French are very proud of the Revolution, and of the Empire too, and some of them may go as far as to think the entire world owes them the gift of enlightenment and liberalism… but don’t ask most of them to enact its ideals, especially the politicians. Amirite, Émile?