38 ms·

112 Gripes About the French

408 points by samclemens 5y ago

muststopmyths 5y ago
Question 78: A 73% casualty rate for the French in WWI seemed bonkers to me at first glance, but it probably makes sense for the kind of war it was Ref: https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-democracy/politics/casualties-world-war-i-country-politics-world-war-i https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-demo...
julienfr112 5y ago
I kind of wonder why it's always acceptable to have general critics about the Frenchs, but take exactly the same discours and replace it replace it with Jews or Blacks, and sundenly, it becomes completely racist and unacceptable.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  You can't compare a nationality to an ethnicity/religion and a race, respectively.
  - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
    Why?
    - danans 5y ago
      Race operates on an individual regardless of their behavior. It is a construct that is based on physical appearance only. Race is something that an individual has no control over. Culture and ethnicity are constructs derived from behaviors, including language, manner of dress, interests, etc. Culture/ethnicity is something that depending on the individual, they can have far more (though not total) control over, via changing manner of dress, language, etc. Discrimination can be based on either one, but the immutability of the former distinguishes it from the latter.
      - julienfr112 5y ago
        Yeah, maybe French people could just unfrench their frenchiness...
        danans 5y ago
        The whole point of the pamphlet is they shouldn't have to in order to be accepted by the American troops, but a white French person with sufficient linguistic and cultural flexibility could pass for a white American, and largely would in contexts where they did not have to speak. And black person could never do the same.
        seszett 5y ago
        A black person could pass for a white person in contexts where did not have to show their skin colour, it's not that different or even rare.
        danans 5y ago
        > A black person could pass for a white person in contexts where did not have to show their skin colour So basically on the phone or email only. In every other scenario, like when walking down the street or encountering law enforcement, it's pretty much impossible.
  - epivosism 5y ago
    Which is more important, culture or race? Same-culture bonds of language, ideals, values, traditions look stronger to me. I connect to people from my hometown, of my culture, regardless of race, way more than to people who just randomly have my race but don't know any of my memes or have similar values. Another example: bonds within military units are cultural, not racial; if race were more powerful you'd expect soldiers from mixed-race countries to change sides due to stronger racial pulls - which I don't think happens, and which would be super problematic, wouldn't it? A Japanese-American soldier is American first, right? Suggesting that race is incomparably larger of a gap than culture has some really serious implications.
    - CydeWeys 5y ago
      It's not about what's most important to one's identity, it's about what's more harmful in present times. Racism is still deeply harmful, in a way that making fun of the French/British/Americans/whatever isn't. A lot of the latter just devolves into mostly good-natured international ribbing, about Yanks being fat, the French being smelly, British food sucking, etc. Also, it's easy to say that one's perceived race isn't important if that's not an issue that affects you, but if you were black and were experiencing frequent racism from people merely looking at you (not otherwise even interacting with you in a way that could allow them to determine your national identity), then you might sing a different tune. I'm a white American, and my experiences at home and abroad are much different to those of black Americans, for reasons having everything to do with perceived race. In most countries you will be treated substantially differently if you're visiting as a white westerner vs a black one. That has nothing to do with national origin and everything to do with racism. Anyway, point is, all the differences I identified plus all the ones you identified mean that the two are quite different and aren't equivalent.
- afarrell 5y ago
  As a mixed race person married to a Jew, I think it would be tremendously healthy for a well-informed person to write one of each —- but within a specific national and time-bounded context.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Yes, I agree. Modern writers have no such freedoms to do this type of writing. Imagine the backlash of just page after page of "The blacks are X" or "the Jews are Z". Even writing down the criticisms to be debunked would send the Twitterverse into a meltdown.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  Have you watched any stand-up comedy. Lots of comedians are making fun of the idiosyncrasies of different ethnicities, nationalities, religions. The problem is generally, who is doing it and how you do it.
CPLX 5y ago
The actual text: http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/112-gripes-about-the-french.pdf http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads...
- hef19898 5y ago
  That text is as important now as it was then. And it can easily be used everyone, with slight adaptions, by replacing France and the US with other nations.
  - danieldbird 5y ago
    Israel and Palestine? That would be a good read.
  - lotsofcows 5y ago
    Other way around. This text seems very similiar to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-British-Servicemen-France-1944/dp/1851243356 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-British-Servicemen-Fra... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-American-Servicemen-Britain-1942/dp/1851240853 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-American-Servicemen-Br...
j4yav 5y ago
The actual document in pdf format seems to be here: http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/112-gripes-about-the-french.pdf http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads...
k__ 5y ago
Interesting. I always had the impression, the US citizens and french citizen where buddies. Because of the independence war and the statue and everything.
- afarrell 5y ago
  I had plenty of gripes about my brother when I was growing up. Those gripes were trivial but real and talking about them is far healthier than not. I miss him terribly now.
- neximo64 5y ago
  One of the 'gripes' is: "One Frenchman told me the French practically gave us the statue of liberty. How do you like that?"
  - k__ 5y ago
    :D
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Not sure if you are joking? > France is the country with the deepest, most sedimented reservoir of anti-American arguments. Its long genealogy has been well documented over the years, most recently by Philippe Roger, who argues that French anti- Americanism is older than the United States (Roger 2002). https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/meuniercesnewsletter0105_0.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/meunierces...
  - morsch 5y ago
    > Surprisingly, polling data reveals that France is not drastically more anti-American than other European countries – even less so on a variety of dimensions. ibid
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      I'm going to suggest to you that when trying to get the most out of a research paper, you might want to read beyond the second sentence of the abstract. It balances and talks about the paradoxes - such as the French obsession with McDonalds.
QuesnayJr 5y ago
I've never heard of this. I'm reading the original right now -- it's amazing.
- QuesnayJr 5y ago
  This website has serious problems with its voting culture. The serial downvoters should be banned from the site, but they never will be, because dang doesn't see the problem. You can't take disagree, and you can't agree. Whatever, I'm out. Life's too short.
  - _Nat_ 5y ago
    On some sites, folks will up-vote things that they agree with and down-vote things that they disagree with. Or, sometimes up-votes are a mode of expressing emotional-support or communal-acceptance. Maybe that's what you're used to? Here, folks tend to prefer substance. They'll often down-vote you even if you express a view that they agree with if your comment doesn't contribute something worth reading. And they might up-vote your comment, even if they disagree, if it was interesting to have read. This is more of a place to exchange ideas than find validation. You're not being rejected on a personal level -- down-votes aren't personal attacks. And people don't necessarily disagree with you, either.
  - sydthrowaway 5y ago
    I’ve found ‘chat’-style comments are downvoted i.e the internet equivalent of small talk.
    - howaboutnope 5y ago
      Except when they're not. For example, when something about a specific retro computing feat is posted, people will just ramble about something very faintly related that they saw or did or purchased or dreamed about recently. E.g. topic is about an Amiga accelerator card, and there will be someone mentioning how they recently cleaned up the Amiga 500 they had in the garage -- like, who cares? Exactly like the comment we're discussing now: nobody cares except the author of that comment. Yet I never see those downvoted, and I know if I responded to them pointing out that this isn't their blog, I'd get downvoted. I just looked at the front page, this is literally the first discussion I clicked on before even getting to search for "retro" or "Amiga" as I would have otherwise: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27864139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27864139 What is the content here? "For some reason I thought something else"... okay? Yet that isn't greyed out, it is the top comment. Why? Because of "Karnaugh map"? There are no replies because it offers nothing to discuss except more such ramblings about what someone might have encountered or lazily assumed (or pretends they have assumed so they can casually drop that they know a thing).
baby 5y ago
I'm guessing such a book exists in south korea at the moment? I've heard that there's a lot of tension between the US army and the locals. One soldier even raped some local girl back in 2011. The problem is that people in the army are not the most educated people, and thus they're not the best ambassadors when abroad.
- nradov 5y ago
  Military personnel on average have more formal education then the general public. High school drop outs aren't even allowed to enlist anymore without a special waiver. Almost all officers, and many enlisted, have Bachelor's degrees. Senior officers usually have Master's degrees.
  - baby 5y ago
    That doesn't coincide with the amount of kids that are hired in the military.
  - deregulateMed 5y ago
    >without a special waiver Oh wow so difficult for a recruiter who is paid per recruit to fill out. /s The military is often the last resort for many people, as a result it attracts a different demographic. >officers, and many enlisted, have Bachelor's degrees. So? Aren't most deployed people non officers?
    - nradov 5y ago
      The availability of waivers is strictly limited. Recruiters are only NCOs; they lack the authority to grant waivers on their own and they aren't paid per recruit (although failure to meet quota could result in a negative fitness report). https://www.thebalancecareers.com/us-military-enlistment-standards-3354009 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/us-military-enlistment-sta...
  - ShinyRice 5y ago
    Officials are probably more educated than the general populace, since they almost always need a university degree, but enlisted personnel might even be high school dropouts, so I wouldn't trust any regular soldier to be humble and respectful.
ThePadawan 5y ago
> (...) tensions began to rise between the French and the U.S. military personnel stationed in the country, with the former seeing the latter as arrogant and wanting to flaunt their wealth, and the latter seeing the former as proud and resentful. Well. I mean... Joking aside, the text is amazingly blunt and honest, in a rather refreshing way. "The French don't bathe." The French don't bathe often enough. They can't. They don't have real soap. (...) The Germans took the soap.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > the text is amazingly blunt and honest It would likely have been written to be comprehensible to people with a fairly low reading level.
  - read_if_gay_ 5y ago
    There's also an excerpt from the NYT in there, number 33.
  - eplanit 5y ago
    People weren't as fragile and sensitive then. It was better in that way.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      Except that it's actual nonsense. Not long after WW2 the congress tried to ban comic books for spoiling the youth,just couple decades later people were holding public protests against the Simpsons, and the first TV show to mention the word "period" was met with similar level of protests as if that's something dirty and unspeakable. No, it's the exact opposite - "back then" people were far more fragile and sensitive and doing or saying the wrong kind of thing could have serious consequences on your life.
      - eplanit 5y ago
        Those are examples of a morally conservative society, in which a Judeo-Christian value system was in place, and when there was a stronger emphasis on conformity. I guess the sensitivity was in breaking those rules. In those times too, however, children were taught "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me". Now, everyone is comfortable with talk of sex and biological realities...but a book critical of transgenderism is literally called "violence": https://www.rt.com/usa/529308-american-booksellers-association-trans/ https://www.rt.com/usa/529308-american-booksellers-associati.... I guess critics of such topics are today's Juvenile Delinquents. /s
baby 5y ago
This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came to Europe because we in America were threatened by a hostile, aggressive and very dangerous power. > In this war, France fell in June of 1940, We didn't invade Europe until June of 1944. We didn't even think of "saving the French" through military action until after Peary Harbor -- after the Germans declared war on us I can't stop reading, this is so interesting, this is really a lesson on racism and discrimination. I'm curious about who wrote this. > It was inevitable that some Frenchmen would rub some Americans the wrong ray=. City people often rub country folk the wrong «ay the same goes for a Pittsburgher in New Orleans or Texan on Fifth Avenue. We Americans believe in the value of differences -- if basic political beliefs and goals rest on a common foundation. "Unless you bear with the faults of a friend you betray your own." another one: > You don't have to love the French. You don't have to hate them either. You might try to understand them, The more important point is not to let your feeling blin d you to the fact that they were and are our allies. They were in 1917, too. The most important question any people can ask itself is this: "Who fights with us? Who fights against us ?" This one could apply to our relationship with China maybe? > Yes, we quarrel with the French. The members of a family argue pretty freely inside the home ; We quarrel with our allies, We don't quarrel with our enemies -- we fight them. I like how this one is phrased so that it sounds like France gave more money. I also really thought that France gave the statue to the US entirely. > In France, 180 French cities, forty general councils, and thousands of anonymous Frenchmen contributed a quarter of a million dollars (not francs) towards the statue, (The United States raised $280,000.) that's how much a cocktail was back then: > A. G.I., comes out of a night club in the States and says, "A buck and half for a Scotch and soda". that one can apply to the homeless crisis in the US: > Some of the French are scroungers. Hungry people lose their pride. An empty stomach does not worry about losing face. France sounded like a muslim country back then: > Most French girls before the war had far less freedom than our girls back home. A great many were not permitted to go out without a chaperone. France is dominantly Catholic in religion and in morals. The immoral Frenchwomen are, of course, the easiest women for us to meet. That's why we meet so many of them. this one is hilarious: > This always startles Americans - at first . Kissing on both cheeks is the traditional French greeting between old friends. For their love making, the French prefer privacy, if available, just as we do. It's interesting how the second part goes into "germans are so much nicer than french people". PS: holy shit I can copy/paste from an old picture of a book O_o
nicbou 5y ago
The answers to each gripe are simple, straightforward and convincing. I love how it's written.
- hollander 5y ago
  It's prejudice vs logic and wisdom.
  - eplanit 5y ago
    To me it is logic and wisdom, with some (appropriate) bias towards its audience.
  - fffdkkkj 5y ago
    Its simple propaganda from the war department..
- roland35 5y ago
  I wish that people would listen to responses to common misconceptions on Facebook and Twitter these days. The answers are all great, but I could also understand why an American soldier would have those gripes in the first place!
drglitch 5y ago
The original is a delight to read. Sadly, I can't help but wonder how many would be "triggered" by the answers today. How do we, as a society, start accepting rational self-criticism again?
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  > How do we, as a society, start accepting rational self-criticism again? A good starting point would be to stop using the word "trigger" when someone reacts in a way you don't like to something you say. Personally I interpret it as a way to diminish the other side position by suggesting they don't have control over their emotions regarding some subjects. Not a good start.
  - drglitch 5y ago
    Is there a more appropriate word to describe this? Honest question as a non-native English speaker. Seems like this is a commonly used term/usage: https://www.google.com/amp/s/dictionary.cambridge.org/us/amp/english/triggered https://www.google.com/amp/s/dictionary.cambridge.org/us/amp...
    - adamjb 5y ago
      "Offended" would be my suggestion. "Triggered" is only really used in this sense as part of bad faith culture war discourse, mocking the idea of trigger warnings.
      - bkirkby 5y ago
        I've heard advocates of trigger warnings share their lived experience by talking about what "triggered" them, using that word specifically.
        wffurr 5y ago
        There's a big difference between describing one's own experience and labeling others.
tamaharbor 5y ago
As Steve Martin once said, “Those French have a different word for everything!”
rsynnott 5y ago
Question 74 is kind of astonishing in a modern context. I mean, I suppose maybe the average soldier in the 40s didn't understand what the Nazis _were_ in the way they would now, but I'm surprised it needed to be addressed.
holografix 5y ago
I find this an embarrassingly entertaining read! I particularly like this bit: “The French are not up-to-date. They’re not modern. They’re living in the past." “… The World Almanac for 1945 concludes that as far as social legislation is concerned, "France is in the vanguard" .. The French were certainly up-to-date in establishing old age pensions, compulsory insurance against illness, disability and death, maternity insurance, and so on. It was France that introduced the forty-hour work week.” Clearly the author views theses social policies positively. I wander if that was what the average American thought back in 45.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  Nobody worked 40 hours weeks after the war in France, except maybe civil servants.
  - fcantournet 5y ago
    That's not the point. It never was the point, it's never been the point of ANY law about ANY duration of the work week. It defines the LEGAL duration of a week's work because that's going to be used for calculating the PAY. Wehn we went from 39h -> 35h for instance with the same pay, we're just compensating for the massive increases in productivity that occured while salaries stayed flat for 30 years. And civil servants basically work the same hours per year as workers in the private sector, in France. Always have since 1945. In 2019 it was 1640h vs 1703h effective hours per years, a 3.8% difference.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      > And civil servants basically work the same hours per year as workers in the private sector, in France. Not, not at all. They retire many years before the private sector and have way more vacation. You forgot that tiny detail.
- Archelaos 5y ago
  > Clearly the author views theses social policies positively. I wander if that was what the average American thought back in 45. Probably most of those who voted for Roosevelt in 1944 and some others who voted for Dewey for other reasons. The results of Roosevelt's New Deal led to a comparatively wide support of social policies in the US for decades.
tasogare 5y ago
Did the book address the topic of rapes by US soldiers? This was a big issue after liberation, and still is a major issue near US bases nowadays (in particular Okinawa).
- fvdessen 5y ago
  No. 75 years later this topic is still taboo
  - orwin 5y ago
    It's honestly not taboo anymore. Multiple history books have breached the subject, and we can now say that while they were rape from US soldiers, the sentiments were inflated because the liberation let a lot of locals distraught, angry an hungry. Also US military had a bad reputation for multiple other reasons (some racism maybe, but also the bombing and the fact that they sort of replaced the germans as an occupation forces (it was temporary however). When looking for stories about US rapes, historian saw that the sotries were extremely localized (None came from brittany, although this was one of the first liberated area and also a poor one). Also, US soldier were rude, assertive and agressive towards women, and this was caused by racism and too much ego (French woman image from back home and stories from WW1, and their own self-inflated image)
    - eplanit 5y ago
      "US soldier were rude, assertive and agressive towards women, and this was caused by racism and too much ego" Do you regard French and Americans as different races?
      - Jasper_ 5y ago
        What's considered "a different race" has changed over the years and the classifications we have today is mostly along social and political boundaries. Before WWII, Polish natives were often seen as of a different race, today we would consider them Caucasian. Note how the remaining big race classifications recognized by the US Census are divided up mostly based around areas with which we still have some political tension or heavy political history: Asian, Middle-Eastern European, Latin American and African, and Native American and Native Alaskan, and Hawaiian.
cerved 5y ago
I like the French translation, Our Friends the French
rgoulter 5y ago
Does anyone know whether this had any impact on relations? My experience with seeing discussions online doesn't give me much confidence in the persuasive ability of "here are logical reasons why what you're feeling is wrong".
- afarrell 5y ago
  Online discussions are a lot more scatterbrained than sitting down to read a book. People are more willing to take a second & more logical look before responding when they cannot tweet back. Also, this has a lot of reasons why the reader is right to feel a certain way.
  - rgoulter 5y ago
    I saw a comic from 1898 "Un diner en famille" https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_d%C3%AEner_en_famille https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_d%C3%AEner_en_famille which I understand the captions to be "Let's not discuss the Dreyfus affair" and "they discussed it". I won't disagree that the internet can exasperate things like this.. the comic feels _too_ familiar in the internet-age.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
As a french, it reminds me very much of the FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency manual: a pragmatic and clear book that tries to make approachable what seems an impossible topic to handle. That's really a side of the american culture I'd like we promote more. Also a proof militaries are not devoid of humanism.
- jhugo 5y ago
  In case anyone is interested in a link: https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf It's indeed an interesting read.
- seirl 5y ago
  > As a french Aaaaaargh https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/jldsdr/sérieux_les_mecs_arrêtez_de_dire_as_a_french/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/jldsdr/sérieux_les_...
nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
> France sounded like a muslim country back then: >> Most French girls before the war had far less freedom than our girls back home. A great many were not permitted to go out without a chaperone. France is dominantly Catholic in religion and in morals... Can you imagine: from that to disallowing fathers to do a DNA test in less than 100 years!
- Bayart 5y ago
  What are you on ? It's perfectly legal, there's just a process to follow because it's completely illegal to take someone's DNA without their consent, unless there's a criminal procedure with sufficient proof. Sneaking a paternity test by taking someone's DNA surreptitiously would be not only worthless as a legal document, but also put you on the spot for litigation.
  - nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
    Following your logic: 'French girls were fully permitted to go out but there was just a process to follow - presence of a chaperon.' Seriously, just open Wikipedia and read about different countries e.g.: In the United States, paternity testing is fully legal, and fathers may test their children without the consent or knowledge of the mother. Paternity testing take-home kits are readily available for purchase, though their results are not admissible in court and are for personal knowledge only.
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      Except that taking someone's DNA without their consent (or the consent of their guardians) is nothing like making girls (and women) be accompanied by a chaperone. I always find it fascinating that many American people believe very strongly in individual freedoms, the same people often believe these freedoms do not apply to children (or teenagers) and parents should have unconditional ownership over their children.
      - true_religion 5y ago
ronjouch 5y ago
What's the copyright situation of this book? Say I want to restore it, clean it up, and publish a nice epub (using as source the PDF already linked in a comment here). Is it copyright infringement, or is its copyright expired now? "112 gripes" was published in 1945, thus sites like https://www.biblio.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-determine-if-a-book-is-in-the-public-domain/ https://www.biblio.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-determine-if-a-bo... suggest it's expired . But also, it was republished in the US in 2004 (ISBN 1-4191-6512-7). Does this make it "freshly-re-copyrighted until 2004 + 70 years?", or is the year that counts for copyright the original publishing date? -- (More general question: how can I check if a book is still copyrighted? Webpages like the one I linked above aren't very precise and leave room for interpretation; is there something easier / more canonical to use?)
- nmcfarl 5y ago
  Most US government publications are are public domain: https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-laws-in-u-s-government-works/ https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-laws-in-u-s-governme... But determining the copyright status of anything old is really much harder than it should be.
  - ronjouch 5y ago
    Thanks and thanks for the link; didn't know about this sub-case. Repeating a point of my original question, in case you have something to say about it: "112 gripes" was published in 1945, thus sites like https://www.biblio.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-determine-if-a-bo https://www.biblio.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-determine-if-a-bo... suggest it's expired . But also, it was republished in the US in 2004 (ISBN 1-4191-6512-7). Does this make it "freshly-re-copyrighted until 2004 + 70 years?", or is the year that counts for copyright the original publishing date? EDIT okay forget about the re-publish question, another HNer commented about it.
- bencoder 5y ago
  > Does this make it "freshly-re-copyrighted until 2004 + 70 years?", or is the year that counts for copyright the original publishing date? Any changes (spelling, typos, the typesetting) in the new publication would be under a new copyright term. In practice, if you make your copy from the earlier out of copyright edition then you're fine. (Assuming you are correct that the earlier edition is truly out of copyright)
kimchidude 5y ago
"Our friends the French" (the book's title in France) is a much softer title.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  American soldiers griping about the French wouldn't have wanted to read Our Friends the French. And French people tired of American soldiers griping wouldn't have wanted to read 112 Gripes About the French.
kxter 5y ago
Amazing read, to get a glimpse of 'gripes' of Americans back in the day. Reminds me of the whole "Freedom Fries' fiasco. Times may change. Some gripes stay.
gregsadetsky 5y ago
Fantastic read! Via the French Wikipedia page about this booklet [0], I learned that the probable author is Leo Rosten, author of “The Joys of Yiddish” [1]..! That makes sense as “Joys” is an incredibly funny and witty read on the interplays between Yiddish and English in the US. Much recommended From Rosten’s Wikipedia page [2]: — In his book, The Joys of Yiddish, he defines the word chutzpah as "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan." —- [0] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nos_amis_les_Français https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nos_amis_les_Français (Funnily, the booklet’s title was translated to “Our friends the French”) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joys_of_Yiddish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joys_of_Yiddish [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Rosten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Rosten
- vanous 5y ago
  Omg. Kaplan. HYMAN KAPLA*N. :) Thank you.
- yesbabyyes 5y ago
  Wonderful. I found that book in my mother's library--love it!
everyone 5y ago
It is a great read. Thanks for the link!
fortran77 5y ago
The France of 75 years ago sounds like a paradise compared to the France today, which I don't feel particularly safe in--at least in Paris. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_21st-century_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_21st-century_F... and the fact that murder is not prosecuted: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/world/europe/sarah-halimi-murder-trial.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/world/europe/sarah-halimi...
Ostrogodsky 5y ago
Only 112? Joking, I like the Frenchies.
ryanianian 5y ago
Thank you for adding this. It’s faded/hard to read. Anyone got an OCRed or retyped version?
- ronjouch 5y ago
  I couldn't find one and am considering working on a restoration. See thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27865583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27865583 EDIT see also https://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/ https://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/
animal_spirits 5y ago
> For the right to speak involves the duty to listen. The right to criticize involves the responsibility of giving "the other side" a fair chance to make its point. I wish this could be chiseled in rock somewhere prominent
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  It would be spray painted then the legislature would vote to remove it.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  I love the idea of this, but it also plays poorly with > Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage that emphasizes the difficulty of debunking false, facetious, or otherwise misleading information: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it." But I guess, to be fair, giving the other sides a fair chance to make it's point doesn't mean you need to provably debunk it if it's wrong.
  - shijie 5y ago
    This just seems like a rather clever permutation of ad hominem. “The reason I won’t refute your argument is that it is so incorrect that it would take me forever to explain why.”
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - robgibbons 5y ago
      Not really. Ad hominem is directing the subject of your argument at the person instead of their ideas. Brandolini's law is more like the adage, "a lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is lacing up its boots." It's very easy to spout correct-sounding lies in such a volume that countering them becomes an academic challenge.
    - RHSeeger 5y ago
Jkol 5y ago
The opening paragraphs are lovely and absolutely not what I'd expected based on the name. This is the America we want to live in. "We insist upon the right to express our own opinions. But we also believe in the right of others to express their opinions. For the right to speak involves the duty to listen...We know that the truth can only be found through open and honest discussion, and that the common good is served through common attempts to reach common understanding".
- echelon 5y ago
  We need to be reminded of this. The left and right are so divided that they're intolerable of one another. Neither side believes the other is worth listening to. It's a shame. We're all animals traversing a complicated landscape. There's daily pain and suffering, and then we die. We should remind ourselves how similar everyone actually is, and that the diversity of our views are humanity living and breathing through our mortal, aging bodies.
  - techrat 5y ago
    Right there with the 'both sides are the same' false equivalence... In case you're wondering why.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
      - mvid 5y ago
        I literally watched him say it, live
      - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
        Oh look, video evidence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmaZR8E12bs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmaZR8E12bs
    - overgard 5y ago
      I think if you are willing to ignore 50% of the population, well, I don't know what to tell you other than that history does not look kindly on partisans.
wyck 5y ago
As an outsider who speaks both french and english, and has been to both countries, it always stuck me how similar Americans and French people are. Both sides would rather die than admit they are so similar in terms of spirit an attitude, and this brotherly hate is the main reason they are so similar. It's pretty funny.
- dudul 5y ago
  Can you expand on that? I have dual citizenship, have spent each half of my life in both countries and I find French and Americans very different. How do you see them as similar?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - supergarfield 5y ago
    Not the OP---I agree they're very different, but there's a striking resemblance in how both countries think their political and intellectual culture is civilization's crowning achievement and the entire world should adopt it. (Of course, the US has been more able to do export theirs than France in recent decades.) IMO this shapes both countries' relationships to the rest of the world. I have less first hand experience, but I also think the level of distrust in the government (esp. central / federal) among rural populations is particularly high in both countries by developed nation standards.
    - dudul 5y ago
      I couldn't disagree more. International policies are completely different in the US and in France. The US are extremely interventionist and some may say "aggressive", this is not at all the French doctrine. It was very clearly apparent during the 2nd war in Iraq. France ignored NATO for decades until recently. As for a more philosophical point of view, again, disagree. Universalism is indeed a concept of the French Republic while the US vision is exceptionalism. These are complete opposite. Finally, I guess there is a certain amount of distrust of the government in rural areas (is it specific to France and the US?) but where in the US the expectation is that the government should be doing as little as possible, in France the expectation is that it should do much more to help/support people. The relationships of Americans and French to their respective government are complete opposite again. In France, people expect a lot from the government who is supposed to be the great equalizer.
danans 5y ago
The questions in the chapter entitled "the French and the Germans" paint a picture that despite defeating the Nazis and witnessing their atrocities, many American servicemen harbored deeper sympathies to German culture than to French, and this pamphlet was intended in part to fix that. Examples of questions in that section: "The French aren't our kind of people . The Germans are" "The French are not as clean as the Germans" "The Germans are easier to get along with than the French, because the Germans are law abiding" This is reminder that despite the US being at war with the Nazis in WWII, the heinous beliefs behind the Nazi agenda had a lot of resonance in many other countries, including the United States. In fact, in recent years, it's become better understood how Nazism was inspired in part by the Jim Crow laws and culture in the US. https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/nazism-and-the-jim-crow-south https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/nazism-and-th... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-r... https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-...
overgard 5y ago
What strikes me me as amazing is that straightforward answers are viewed as "omg". We live in a society where its viewed as shocking that people shared their thoughts.
agumonkey 5y ago
Impressive honesty in the first pages
jtlienwis 5y ago
Left out my favorite from Steve Martin. "The French have their own word for practically everything!" But seriously, left out from the list of great of Frenchmen Laplace, Lagrange, Galois, DeLambert etc. But I guess the list of mathematicians would have made the book too thick.
jollybean 5y ago
Same thing in the UK during the years long wait for D-Day. Americans were very well paid relative to their UK peers and of course didn't have the existential angst of broken nation facing uncomfortable odds. American GI's would be jovial and upbeat while having definitely enough money to spend at the pub, which caused problems.
FabHK 5y ago
Delightful. Plus ça change: > 49 "Why do they knock of work for two to three hours every day?" > They keep their stores open two to three hours later than we do. (They did when there were things to sell; there's no point in keeping a store open if the shelves are bare.) > The long lunch hour is a custom which is not confined to France. It is found in Italy, Spain, the Balkans and many parts of Germany. It is a custom we find annoying because it interferes with our comfort (as tourists) and because it differs from our way of doing things. > The average Frenchman maintains that a lunch eaten at leisure is a lot better than a chicken-salad-on-toast gobbled down at a drugstore counter. "We take time to live as well as work," one Frenchman said. ETA: It does take a more sombre turn in the chapters about France vs. Germany (Questions 69 etc.), which appears to indicate that many soldiers felt that they should have sided with the Germans rather than the French.
richk449 5y ago
I'm intrigued by the choice to conclude with this: "France is a decadent nation" How does one measure decadence? The Germans said, "Democracies are decadent".

408 points by samclemens 5y ago

Question 78: A 73% casualty rate for the French in WWI seemed bonkers to me at first glance, but it probably makes sense for the kind of war it was Ref: https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-democracy/politics/casualties-world-war-i-country-politics-world-war-i https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-demo...

julienfr112 5y ago

I kind of wonder why it's always acceptable to have general critics about the Frenchs, but take exactly the same discours and replace it replace it with Jews or Blacks, and sundenly, it becomes completely racist and unacceptable.

CydeWeys 5y ago
You can't compare a nationality to an ethnicity/religion and a race, respectively.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
  Why?
  - danans 5y ago
    Race operates on an individual regardless of their behavior. It is a construct that is based on physical appearance only. Race is something that an individual has no control over. Culture and ethnicity are constructs derived from behaviors, including language, manner of dress, interests, etc. Culture/ethnicity is something that depending on the individual, they can have far more (though not total) control over, via changing manner of dress, language, etc. Discrimination can be based on either one, but the immutability of the former distinguishes it from the latter.
    - julienfr112 5y ago
      Yeah, maybe French people could just unfrench their frenchiness...
      - danans 5y ago
        The whole point of the pamphlet is they shouldn't have to in order to be accepted by the American troops, but a white French person with sufficient linguistic and cultural flexibility could pass for a white American, and largely would in contexts where they did not have to speak. And black person could never do the same.
        seszett 5y ago
        A black person could pass for a white person in contexts where did not have to show their skin colour, it's not that different or even rare.
        danans 5y ago
        > A black person could pass for a white person in contexts where did not have to show their skin colour So basically on the phone or email only. In every other scenario, like when walking down the street or encountering law enforcement, it's pretty much impossible.
- epivosism 5y ago
  Which is more important, culture or race? Same-culture bonds of language, ideals, values, traditions look stronger to me. I connect to people from my hometown, of my culture, regardless of race, way more than to people who just randomly have my race but don't know any of my memes or have similar values. Another example: bonds within military units are cultural, not racial; if race were more powerful you'd expect soldiers from mixed-race countries to change sides due to stronger racial pulls - which I don't think happens, and which would be super problematic, wouldn't it? A Japanese-American soldier is American first, right? Suggesting that race is incomparably larger of a gap than culture has some really serious implications.
  - CydeWeys 5y ago
    It's not about what's most important to one's identity, it's about what's more harmful in present times. Racism is still deeply harmful, in a way that making fun of the French/British/Americans/whatever isn't. A lot of the latter just devolves into mostly good-natured international ribbing, about Yanks being fat, the French being smelly, British food sucking, etc. Also, it's easy to say that one's perceived race isn't important if that's not an issue that affects you, but if you were black and were experiencing frequent racism from people merely looking at you (not otherwise even interacting with you in a way that could allow them to determine your national identity), then you might sing a different tune. I'm a white American, and my experiences at home and abroad are much different to those of black Americans, for reasons having everything to do with perceived race. In most countries you will be treated substantially differently if you're visiting as a white westerner vs a black one. That has nothing to do with national origin and everything to do with racism. Anyway, point is, all the differences I identified plus all the ones you identified mean that the two are quite different and aren't equivalent.
afarrell 5y ago
As a mixed race person married to a Jew, I think it would be tremendously healthy for a well-informed person to write one of each —- but within a specific national and time-bounded context.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Yes, I agree. Modern writers have no such freedoms to do this type of writing. Imagine the backlash of just page after page of "The blacks are X" or "the Jews are Z". Even writing down the criticisms to be debunked would send the Twitterverse into a meltdown.
cycomanic 5y ago
Have you watched any stand-up comedy. Lots of comedians are making fun of the idiosyncrasies of different ethnicities, nationalities, religions. The problem is generally, who is doing it and how you do it.

CPLX 5y ago

The actual text: http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/112-gripes-about-the-french.pdf http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads...

hef19898 5y ago
That text is as important now as it was then. And it can easily be used everyone, with slight adaptions, by replacing France and the US with other nations.
- danieldbird 5y ago
  Israel and Palestine? That would be a good read.
- lotsofcows 5y ago
  Other way around. This text seems very similiar to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-British-Servicemen-France-1944/dp/1851243356 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-British-Servicemen-Fra... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-American-Servicemen-Britain-1942/dp/1851240853 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instructions-American-Servicemen-Br...

j4yav 5y ago

The actual document in pdf format seems to be here: http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/112-gripes-about-the-french.pdf http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads...

k__ 5y ago

Interesting. I always had the impression, the US citizens and french citizen where buddies. Because of the independence war and the statue and everything.

afarrell 5y ago
I had plenty of gripes about my brother when I was growing up. Those gripes were trivial but real and talking about them is far healthier than not. I miss him terribly now.
neximo64 5y ago
One of the 'gripes' is: "One Frenchman told me the French practically gave us the statue of liberty. How do you like that?"
- k__ 5y ago
  :D
chrisseaton 5y ago
Not sure if you are joking? > France is the country with the deepest, most sedimented reservoir of anti-American arguments. Its long genealogy has been well documented over the years, most recently by Philippe Roger, who argues that French anti- Americanism is older than the United States (Roger 2002). https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/meuniercesnewsletter0105_0.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/meunierces...
- morsch 5y ago
  > Surprisingly, polling data reveals that France is not drastically more anti-American than other European countries – even less so on a variety of dimensions. ibid
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    I'm going to suggest to you that when trying to get the most out of a research paper, you might want to read beyond the second sentence of the abstract. It balances and talks about the paradoxes - such as the French obsession with McDonalds.

QuesnayJr 5y ago

I've never heard of this. I'm reading the original right now -- it's amazing.

QuesnayJr 5y ago
This website has serious problems with its voting culture. The serial downvoters should be banned from the site, but they never will be, because dang doesn't see the problem. You can't take disagree, and you can't agree. Whatever, I'm out. Life's too short.
- _Nat_ 5y ago
  On some sites, folks will up-vote things that they agree with and down-vote things that they disagree with. Or, sometimes up-votes are a mode of expressing emotional-support or communal-acceptance. Maybe that's what you're used to? Here, folks tend to prefer substance. They'll often down-vote you even if you express a view that they agree with if your comment doesn't contribute something worth reading. And they might up-vote your comment, even if they disagree, if it was interesting to have read. This is more of a place to exchange ideas than find validation. You're not being rejected on a personal level -- down-votes aren't personal attacks. And people don't necessarily disagree with you, either.
- sydthrowaway 5y ago
  I’ve found ‘chat’-style comments are downvoted i.e the internet equivalent of small talk.
  - howaboutnope 5y ago
    Except when they're not. For example, when something about a specific retro computing feat is posted, people will just ramble about something very faintly related that they saw or did or purchased or dreamed about recently. E.g. topic is about an Amiga accelerator card, and there will be someone mentioning how they recently cleaned up the Amiga 500 they had in the garage -- like, who cares? Exactly like the comment we're discussing now: nobody cares except the author of that comment. Yet I never see those downvoted, and I know if I responded to them pointing out that this isn't their blog, I'd get downvoted. I just looked at the front page, this is literally the first discussion I clicked on before even getting to search for "retro" or "Amiga" as I would have otherwise: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27864139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27864139 What is the content here? "For some reason I thought something else"... okay? Yet that isn't greyed out, it is the top comment. Why? Because of "Karnaugh map"? There are no replies because it offers nothing to discuss except more such ramblings about what someone might have encountered or lazily assumed (or pretends they have assumed so they can casually drop that they know a thing).

baby 5y ago

I'm guessing such a book exists in south korea at the moment? I've heard that there's a lot of tension between the US army and the locals. One soldier even raped some local girl back in 2011. The problem is that people in the army are not the most educated people, and thus they're not the best ambassadors when abroad.

nradov 5y ago
Military personnel on average have more formal education then the general public. High school drop outs aren't even allowed to enlist anymore without a special waiver. Almost all officers, and many enlisted, have Bachelor's degrees. Senior officers usually have Master's degrees.
- baby 5y ago
  That doesn't coincide with the amount of kids that are hired in the military.
- deregulateMed 5y ago
  >without a special waiver Oh wow so difficult for a recruiter who is paid per recruit to fill out. /s The military is often the last resort for many people, as a result it attracts a different demographic. >officers, and many enlisted, have Bachelor's degrees. So? Aren't most deployed people non officers?
  - nradov 5y ago
    The availability of waivers is strictly limited. Recruiters are only NCOs; they lack the authority to grant waivers on their own and they aren't paid per recruit (although failure to meet quota could result in a negative fitness report). https://www.thebalancecareers.com/us-military-enlistment-standards-3354009 https://www.thebalancecareers.com/us-military-enlistment-sta...
- ShinyRice 5y ago
  Officials are probably more educated than the general populace, since they almost always need a university degree, but enlisted personnel might even be high school dropouts, so I wouldn't trust any regular soldier to be humble and respectful.

ThePadawan 5y ago

> (...) tensions began to rise between the French and the U.S. military personnel stationed in the country, with the former seeing the latter as arrogant and wanting to flaunt their wealth, and the latter seeing the former as proud and resentful. Well. I mean... Joking aside, the text is amazingly blunt and honest, in a rather refreshing way. "The French don't bathe." The French don't bathe often enough. They can't. They don't have real soap. (...) The Germans took the soap.

rsynnott 5y ago
> the text is amazingly blunt and honest It would likely have been written to be comprehensible to people with a fairly low reading level.
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  There's also an excerpt from the NYT in there, number 33.
- eplanit 5y ago
  People weren't as fragile and sensitive then. It was better in that way.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Except that it's actual nonsense. Not long after WW2 the congress tried to ban comic books for spoiling the youth,just couple decades later people were holding public protests against the Simpsons, and the first TV show to mention the word "period" was met with similar level of protests as if that's something dirty and unspeakable. No, it's the exact opposite - "back then" people were far more fragile and sensitive and doing or saying the wrong kind of thing could have serious consequences on your life.
    - eplanit 5y ago
      Those are examples of a morally conservative society, in which a Judeo-Christian value system was in place, and when there was a stronger emphasis on conformity. I guess the sensitivity was in breaking those rules. In those times too, however, children were taught "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me". Now, everyone is comfortable with talk of sex and biological realities...but a book critical of transgenderism is literally called "violence": https://www.rt.com/usa/529308-american-booksellers-association-trans/ https://www.rt.com/usa/529308-american-booksellers-associati.... I guess critics of such topics are today's Juvenile Delinquents. /s

baby 5y ago

This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came to Europe because we in America were threatened by a hostile, aggressive and very dangerous power. > In this war, France fell in June of 1940, We didn't invade Europe until June of 1944. We didn't even think of "saving the French" through military action until after Peary Harbor -- after the Germans declared war on us I can't stop reading, this is so interesting, this is really a lesson on racism and discrimination. I'm curious about who wrote this. > It was inevitable that some Frenchmen would rub some Americans the wrong ray=. City people often rub country folk the wrong «ay the same goes for a Pittsburgher in New Orleans or Texan on Fifth Avenue. We Americans believe in the value of differences -- if basic political beliefs and goals rest on a common foundation. "Unless you bear with the faults of a friend you betray your own." another one: > You don't have to love the French. You don't have to hate them either. You might try to understand them, The more important point is not to let your feeling blin d you to the fact that they were and are our allies. They were in 1917, too. The most important question any people can ask itself is this: "Who fights with us? Who fights against us ?" This one could apply to our relationship with China maybe? > Yes, we quarrel with the French. The members of a family argue pretty freely inside the home ; We quarrel with our allies, We don't quarrel with our enemies -- we fight them. I like how this one is phrased so that it sounds like France gave more money. I also really thought that France gave the statue to the US entirely. > In France, 180 French cities, forty general councils, and thousands of anonymous Frenchmen contributed a quarter of a million dollars (not francs) towards the statue, (The United States raised $280,000.) that's how much a cocktail was back then: > A. G.I., comes out of a night club in the States and says, "A buck and half for a Scotch and soda". that one can apply to the homeless crisis in the US: > Some of the French are scroungers. Hungry people lose their pride. An empty stomach does not worry about losing face. France sounded like a muslim country back then: > Most French girls before the war had far less freedom than our girls back home. A great many were not permitted to go out without a chaperone. France is dominantly Catholic in religion and in morals. The immoral Frenchwomen are, of course, the easiest women for us to meet. That's why we meet so many of them. this one is hilarious: > This always startles Americans - at first . Kissing on both cheeks is the traditional French greeting between old friends. For their love making, the French prefer privacy, if available, just as we do. It's interesting how the second part goes into "germans are so much nicer than french people". PS: holy shit I can copy/paste from an old picture of a book O_o

nicbou 5y ago

The answers to each gripe are simple, straightforward and convincing. I love how it's written.

hollander 5y ago
It's prejudice vs logic and wisdom.
- eplanit 5y ago
  To me it is logic and wisdom, with some (appropriate) bias towards its audience.
- fffdkkkj 5y ago
  Its simple propaganda from the war department..
roland35 5y ago
I wish that people would listen to responses to common misconceptions on Facebook and Twitter these days. The answers are all great, but I could also understand why an American soldier would have those gripes in the first place!

drglitch 5y ago

The original is a delight to read. Sadly, I can't help but wonder how many would be "triggered" by the answers today. How do we, as a society, start accepting rational self-criticism again?

johnchristopher 5y ago
> How do we, as a society, start accepting rational self-criticism again? A good starting point would be to stop using the word "trigger" when someone reacts in a way you don't like to something you say. Personally I interpret it as a way to diminish the other side position by suggesting they don't have control over their emotions regarding some subjects. Not a good start.
- drglitch 5y ago
  Is there a more appropriate word to describe this? Honest question as a non-native English speaker. Seems like this is a commonly used term/usage: https://www.google.com/amp/s/dictionary.cambridge.org/us/amp/english/triggered https://www.google.com/amp/s/dictionary.cambridge.org/us/amp...
  - adamjb 5y ago
    "Offended" would be my suggestion. "Triggered" is only really used in this sense as part of bad faith culture war discourse, mocking the idea of trigger warnings.
    - bkirkby 5y ago
      I've heard advocates of trigger warnings share their lived experience by talking about what "triggered" them, using that word specifically.
      - wffurr 5y ago
        There's a big difference between describing one's own experience and labeling others.

tamaharbor 5y ago

As Steve Martin once said, “Those French have a different word for everything!”

rsynnott 5y ago

Question 74 is kind of astonishing in a modern context. I mean, I suppose maybe the average soldier in the 40s didn't understand what the Nazis _were_ in the way they would now, but I'm surprised it needed to be addressed.

holografix 5y ago

I find this an embarrassingly entertaining read! I particularly like this bit: “The French are not up-to-date. They’re not modern. They’re living in the past." “… The World Almanac for 1945 concludes that as far as social legislation is concerned, "France is in the vanguard" .. The French were certainly up-to-date in establishing old age pensions, compulsory insurance against illness, disability and death, maternity insurance, and so on. It was France that introduced the forty-hour work week.” Clearly the author views theses social policies positively. I wander if that was what the average American thought back in 45.

ekianjo 5y ago
Nobody worked 40 hours weeks after the war in France, except maybe civil servants.
- fcantournet 5y ago
  That's not the point. It never was the point, it's never been the point of ANY law about ANY duration of the work week. It defines the LEGAL duration of a week's work because that's going to be used for calculating the PAY. Wehn we went from 39h -> 35h for instance with the same pay, we're just compensating for the massive increases in productivity that occured while salaries stayed flat for 30 years. And civil servants basically work the same hours per year as workers in the private sector, in France. Always have since 1945. In 2019 it was 1640h vs 1703h effective hours per years, a 3.8% difference.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    > And civil servants basically work the same hours per year as workers in the private sector, in France. Not, not at all. They retire many years before the private sector and have way more vacation. You forgot that tiny detail.
Archelaos 5y ago
> Clearly the author views theses social policies positively. I wander if that was what the average American thought back in 45. Probably most of those who voted for Roosevelt in 1944 and some others who voted for Dewey for other reasons. The results of Roosevelt's New Deal led to a comparatively wide support of social policies in the US for decades.

tasogare 5y ago

Did the book address the topic of rapes by US soldiers? This was a big issue after liberation, and still is a major issue near US bases nowadays (in particular Okinawa).

fvdessen 5y ago
No. 75 years later this topic is still taboo
- orwin 5y ago
  It's honestly not taboo anymore. Multiple history books have breached the subject, and we can now say that while they were rape from US soldiers, the sentiments were inflated because the liberation let a lot of locals distraught, angry an hungry. Also US military had a bad reputation for multiple other reasons (some racism maybe, but also the bombing and the fact that they sort of replaced the germans as an occupation forces (it was temporary however). When looking for stories about US rapes, historian saw that the sotries were extremely localized (None came from brittany, although this was one of the first liberated area and also a poor one). Also, US soldier were rude, assertive and agressive towards women, and this was caused by racism and too much ego (French woman image from back home and stories from WW1, and their own self-inflated image)
  - eplanit 5y ago
    "US soldier were rude, assertive and agressive towards women, and this was caused by racism and too much ego" Do you regard French and Americans as different races?
    - Jasper_ 5y ago
      What's considered "a different race" has changed over the years and the classifications we have today is mostly along social and political boundaries. Before WWII, Polish natives were often seen as of a different race, today we would consider them Caucasian. Note how the remaining big race classifications recognized by the US Census are divided up mostly based around areas with which we still have some political tension or heavy political history: Asian, Middle-Eastern European, Latin American and African, and Native American and Native Alaskan, and Hawaiian.

cerved 5y ago

I like the French translation, Our Friends the French

rgoulter 5y ago

Does anyone know whether this had any impact on relations? My experience with seeing discussions online doesn't give me much confidence in the persuasive ability of "here are logical reasons why what you're feeling is wrong".

afarrell 5y ago
Online discussions are a lot more scatterbrained than sitting down to read a book. People are more willing to take a second & more logical look before responding when they cannot tweet back. Also, this has a lot of reasons why the reader is right to feel a certain way.
- rgoulter 5y ago
  I saw a comic from 1898 "Un diner en famille" https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_d%C3%AEner_en_famille https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_d%C3%AEner_en_famille which I understand the captions to be "Let's not discuss the Dreyfus affair" and "they discussed it". I won't disagree that the internet can exasperate things like this.. the comic feels _too_ familiar in the internet-age.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

As a french, it reminds me very much of the FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency manual: a pragmatic and clear book that tries to make approachable what seems an impossible topic to handle. That's really a side of the american culture I'd like we promote more. Also a proof militaries are not devoid of humanism.

jhugo 5y ago
In case anyone is interested in a link: https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf It's indeed an interesting read.
seirl 5y ago
> As a french Aaaaaargh https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/jldsdr/sérieux_les_mecs_arrêtez_de_dire_as_a_french/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/jldsdr/sérieux_les_...

nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago

> France sounded like a muslim country back then: >> Most French girls before the war had far less freedom than our girls back home. A great many were not permitted to go out without a chaperone. France is dominantly Catholic in religion and in morals... Can you imagine: from that to disallowing fathers to do a DNA test in less than 100 years!

Bayart 5y ago
What are you on ? It's perfectly legal, there's just a process to follow because it's completely illegal to take someone's DNA without their consent, unless there's a criminal procedure with sufficient proof. Sneaking a paternity test by taking someone's DNA surreptitiously would be not only worthless as a legal document, but also put you on the spot for litigation.
- nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
  Following your logic: 'French girls were fully permitted to go out but there was just a process to follow - presence of a chaperon.' Seriously, just open Wikipedia and read about different countries e.g.: In the United States, paternity testing is fully legal, and fathers may test their children without the consent or knowledge of the mother. Paternity testing take-home kits are readily available for purchase, though their results are not admissible in court and are for personal knowledge only.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    Except that taking someone's DNA without their consent (or the consent of their guardians) is nothing like making girls (and women) be accompanied by a chaperone. I always find it fascinating that many American people believe very strongly in individual freedoms, the same people often believe these freedoms do not apply to children (or teenagers) and parents should have unconditional ownership over their children.
    - true_religion 5y ago

ronjouch 5y ago

What's the copyright situation of this book? Say I want to restore it, clean it up, and publish a nice epub (using as source the PDF already linked in a comment here). Is it copyright infringement, or is its copyright expired now? "112 gripes" was published in 1945, thus sites like https://www.biblio.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-determine-if-a-book-is-in-the-public-domain/ https://www.biblio.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-determine-if-a-bo... suggest it's expired . But also, it was republished in the US in 2004 (ISBN 1-4191-6512-7). Does this make it "freshly-re-copyrighted until 2004 + 70 years?", or is the year that counts for copyright the original publishing date? -- (More general question: how can I check if a book is still copyrighted? Webpages like the one I linked above aren't very precise and leave room for interpretation; is there something easier / more canonical to use?)

nmcfarl 5y ago
Most US government publications are are public domain: https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-laws-in-u-s-government-works/ https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-laws-in-u-s-governme... But determining the copyright status of anything old is really much harder than it should be.
- ronjouch 5y ago
  Thanks and thanks for the link; didn't know about this sub-case. Repeating a point of my original question, in case you have something to say about it: "112 gripes" was published in 1945, thus sites like https://www.biblio.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-determine-if-a-bo https://www.biblio.com/blog/2010/07/how-to-determine-if-a-bo... suggest it's expired . But also, it was republished in the US in 2004 (ISBN 1-4191-6512-7). Does this make it "freshly-re-copyrighted until 2004 + 70 years?", or is the year that counts for copyright the original publishing date? EDIT okay forget about the re-publish question, another HNer commented about it.
bencoder 5y ago
> Does this make it "freshly-re-copyrighted until 2004 + 70 years?", or is the year that counts for copyright the original publishing date? Any changes (spelling, typos, the typesetting) in the new publication would be under a new copyright term. In practice, if you make your copy from the earlier out of copyright edition then you're fine. (Assuming you are correct that the earlier edition is truly out of copyright)

kimchidude 5y ago

"Our friends the French" (the book's title in France) is a much softer title.

pseudalopex 5y ago
American soldiers griping about the French wouldn't have wanted to read Our Friends the French. And French people tired of American soldiers griping wouldn't have wanted to read 112 Gripes About the French.

kxter 5y ago

Amazing read, to get a glimpse of 'gripes' of Americans back in the day. Reminds me of the whole "Freedom Fries' fiasco. Times may change. Some gripes stay.

gregsadetsky 5y ago

Fantastic read! Via the French Wikipedia page about this booklet [0], I learned that the probable author is Leo Rosten, author of “The Joys of Yiddish” [1]..! That makes sense as “Joys” is an incredibly funny and witty read on the interplays between Yiddish and English in the US. Much recommended From Rosten’s Wikipedia page [2]: — In his book, The Joys of Yiddish, he defines the word chutzpah as "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan." —- [0] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nos_amis_les_Français https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nos_amis_les_Français (Funnily, the booklet’s title was translated to “Our friends the French”) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joys_of_Yiddish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joys_of_Yiddish [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Rosten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Rosten

vanous 5y ago
Omg. Kaplan. HYMAN KAPLA*N. :) Thank you.
yesbabyyes 5y ago
Wonderful. I found that book in my mother's library--love it!

everyone 5y ago

It is a great read. Thanks for the link!

fortran77 5y ago

The France of 75 years ago sounds like a paradise compared to the France today, which I don't feel particularly safe in--at least in Paris. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_21st-century_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_21st-century_F... and the fact that murder is not prosecuted: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/world/europe/sarah-halimi-murder-trial.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/world/europe/sarah-halimi...

Ostrogodsky 5y ago

Only 112? Joking, I like the Frenchies.

ryanianian 5y ago

Thank you for adding this. It’s faded/hard to read. Anyone got an OCRed or retyped version?

ronjouch 5y ago
I couldn't find one and am considering working on a restoration. See thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27865583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27865583 EDIT see also https://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/ https://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/

animal_spirits 5y ago

> For the right to speak involves the duty to listen. The right to criticize involves the responsibility of giving "the other side" a fair chance to make its point. I wish this could be chiseled in rock somewhere prominent

ARandomerDude 5y ago
It would be spray painted then the legislature would vote to remove it.
RHSeeger 5y ago
I love the idea of this, but it also plays poorly with > Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage that emphasizes the difficulty of debunking false, facetious, or otherwise misleading information: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it." But I guess, to be fair, giving the other sides a fair chance to make it's point doesn't mean you need to provably debunk it if it's wrong.
- shijie 5y ago
  This just seems like a rather clever permutation of ad hominem. “The reason I won’t refute your argument is that it is so incorrect that it would take me forever to explain why.”
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - robgibbons 5y ago
    Not really. Ad hominem is directing the subject of your argument at the person instead of their ideas. Brandolini's law is more like the adage, "a lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is lacing up its boots." It's very easy to spout correct-sounding lies in such a volume that countering them becomes an academic challenge.
  - RHSeeger 5y ago

Jkol 5y ago

The opening paragraphs are lovely and absolutely not what I'd expected based on the name. This is the America we want to live in. "We insist upon the right to express our own opinions. But we also believe in the right of others to express their opinions. For the right to speak involves the duty to listen...We know that the truth can only be found through open and honest discussion, and that the common good is served through common attempts to reach common understanding".

echelon 5y ago
We need to be reminded of this. The left and right are so divided that they're intolerable of one another. Neither side believes the other is worth listening to. It's a shame. We're all animals traversing a complicated landscape. There's daily pain and suffering, and then we die. We should remind ourselves how similar everyone actually is, and that the diversity of our views are humanity living and breathing through our mortal, aging bodies.
- techrat 5y ago
  Right there with the 'both sides are the same' false equivalence... In case you're wondering why.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
    - mvid 5y ago
      I literally watched him say it, live
    - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
      Oh look, video evidence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmaZR8E12bs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmaZR8E12bs
  - overgard 5y ago
    I think if you are willing to ignore 50% of the population, well, I don't know what to tell you other than that history does not look kindly on partisans.

wyck 5y ago

As an outsider who speaks both french and english, and has been to both countries, it always stuck me how similar Americans and French people are. Both sides would rather die than admit they are so similar in terms of spirit an attitude, and this brotherly hate is the main reason they are so similar. It's pretty funny.

dudul 5y ago
Can you expand on that? I have dual citizenship, have spent each half of my life in both countries and I find French and Americans very different. How do you see them as similar?
- deleted 5y ago
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- supergarfield 5y ago
  Not the OP---I agree they're very different, but there's a striking resemblance in how both countries think their political and intellectual culture is civilization's crowning achievement and the entire world should adopt it. (Of course, the US has been more able to do export theirs than France in recent decades.) IMO this shapes both countries' relationships to the rest of the world. I have less first hand experience, but I also think the level of distrust in the government (esp. central / federal) among rural populations is particularly high in both countries by developed nation standards.
  - dudul 5y ago
    I couldn't disagree more. International policies are completely different in the US and in France. The US are extremely interventionist and some may say "aggressive", this is not at all the French doctrine. It was very clearly apparent during the 2nd war in Iraq. France ignored NATO for decades until recently. As for a more philosophical point of view, again, disagree. Universalism is indeed a concept of the French Republic while the US vision is exceptionalism. These are complete opposite. Finally, I guess there is a certain amount of distrust of the government in rural areas (is it specific to France and the US?) but where in the US the expectation is that the government should be doing as little as possible, in France the expectation is that it should do much more to help/support people. The relationships of Americans and French to their respective government are complete opposite again. In France, people expect a lot from the government who is supposed to be the great equalizer.

danans 5y ago

The questions in the chapter entitled "the French and the Germans" paint a picture that despite defeating the Nazis and witnessing their atrocities, many American servicemen harbored deeper sympathies to German culture than to French, and this pamphlet was intended in part to fix that. Examples of questions in that section: "The French aren't our kind of people . The Germans are" "The French are not as clean as the Germans" "The Germans are easier to get along with than the French, because the Germans are law abiding" This is reminder that despite the US being at war with the Nazis in WWII, the heinous beliefs behind the Nazi agenda had a lot of resonance in many other countries, including the United States. In fact, in recent years, it's become better understood how Nazism was inspired in part by the Jim Crow laws and culture in the US. https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/nazism-and-the-jim-crow-south https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/nazism-and-th... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-r... https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-...

overgard 5y ago

What strikes me me as amazing is that straightforward answers are viewed as "omg". We live in a society where its viewed as shocking that people shared their thoughts.

agumonkey 5y ago

Impressive honesty in the first pages

jtlienwis 5y ago

Left out my favorite from Steve Martin. "The French have their own word for practically everything!" But seriously, left out from the list of great of Frenchmen Laplace, Lagrange, Galois, DeLambert etc. But I guess the list of mathematicians would have made the book too thick.

jollybean 5y ago

Same thing in the UK during the years long wait for D-Day. Americans were very well paid relative to their UK peers and of course didn't have the existential angst of broken nation facing uncomfortable odds. American GI's would be jovial and upbeat while having definitely enough money to spend at the pub, which caused problems.

FabHK 5y ago

Delightful. Plus ça change: > 49 "Why do they knock of work for two to three hours every day?" > They keep their stores open two to three hours later than we do. (They did when there were things to sell; there's no point in keeping a store open if the shelves are bare.) > The long lunch hour is a custom which is not confined to France. It is found in Italy, Spain, the Balkans and many parts of Germany. It is a custom we find annoying because it interferes with our comfort (as tourists) and because it differs from our way of doing things. > The average Frenchman maintains that a lunch eaten at leisure is a lot better than a chicken-salad-on-toast gobbled down at a drugstore counter. "We take time to live as well as work," one Frenchman said. ETA: It does take a more sombre turn in the chapters about France vs. Germany (Questions 69 etc.), which appears to indicate that many soldiers felt that they should have sided with the Germans rather than the French.

richk449 5y ago

I'm intrigued by the choice to conclude with this: "France is a decadent nation" How does one measure decadence? The Germans said, "Democracies are decadent".