Hmmm, Let's see... Because French is a mother tongue for me. I was raised with de Balzac, Hugo, Dumas, Molière, Verne, Voltaire, etc. (My Petit Larousse 89 save

Hmmm, Let's see... Because French is a mother tongue for me. I was raised with de Balzac, Hugo, Dumas, Molière, Verne, Voltaire, etc. (My Petit Larousse 89 saved me). I read Pascal's "Pensées" and Descartes "Discours de la Méthode" as a teenager. (blows the mind) Reading in high-school ranged from Freud and Adler, to Nietzsche, Hume, Socrates and Marcus Aurelius. To Dostoïevsky and Ostrovski. To Bandler/Grinder/Dilts/Erickson... I speak 5 languages fluently (on a daily basis), read a book or two, and I'm never sick at sea. How many 'occidental philosophers' have you read? Don't take that patronizing route. I may seem to have a great sense of drama, but the art of disguising a slap as an advice is being lost. If there was someone who loves French culture and art, it'd be me.. And this has nothing to do with France specifically. This is about Governments (any, including ours) giving lame, unconvincing justifications. In other words: "You can try to screw me, but when you say it's for my own good, at least make it convincing".. >I think you should read occidental philosophers a bit more, starting with socrate and aristotle, as well as history books written by objective historians, because many of your points either reduct to logical fallacies or gross exagerations... >You seem to have a personnality attracted by absolute / binary things and a great sense of drama, so reading a bit of greek discussions will probably help you see that things aren't black and white and cool down a bit. As for french culture specifically, a bit of Voltaire and Rousseau will be a good start, because what you look as "prextexts and hypocrisies" are probably the kind of subtle reasoning that would let your country be in not such a miserable state.