Instead of utilizing the more well-known works of the era, allow me to show you guys this instead:
This is Gustave Courbet’s “L’origine du Monde”, which still hangs at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. Despite the fact that this museum contains more renowned pieces like Renoir’s Bal du Moulin de la Galette, Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone, and Whistler’s Mother, Courbet’s visually arresting oil-on-canvas of a woman’s hairy cooch is the one painting I remember the most of all. I found in it something glorious and subversive, and overall, quintessentially French. If preserving French culture means anything, it means not just preserving all the usual stuff, but also that very picture.
This leads me to the discussion about my first and last experience of John Oliver. After the Paris attacks, the heir apparent to the ‘Progressive Televangelist’ mantle left by Jon Stewart made a two-minute spiel that involved this statement:
“Here is where things stand: As of now, we know this attack was carried out by gigantic f*cking assholes. Unconscionable flaming assholes. Possibly working with other f*cking assholes. Definately working in service of an ideology of pure assholery. Second, and this goes almost without saying: F*ck these assholes. F*ck them, if I may say, sideways.
“And third, it is important to remember, nothing about what these assholes are trying to do is going to work. France is going to endure and I’ll tell you why. If you are in a war of culture and lifestyle with France, good f*cking luck. Go ahead, bring your bankrupt ideology. They’ll bring Jean-Paul Sartre, Edith Piaf, fine wine, Gauloise cigarettes, Camus, Camembert, madeleines, macarons, and the f*cking croquembouche. You just brought a philosophy of rigorous self-abnegation to a pastry fight, my friend. You are f*cked.”
The first hilarious part is the last line of that Uproxx article plugged, which noted: “Well, I think that just about covers the subject.” I guess it does… if you’re stupid and love cheap catharsis. That’s what Oliver’s spiel is: cheap catharsis, in that you get to call a bunch of murderers a name then pivot to the idea that they would lose the culture war with France. However, said bankrupt ideology is armed with AK-47s and IEDs. Had Oliver tried to show off those ‘armaments’ to them in real time, he’d be cut off by machine gun fire before he even reaches Edith Piaf.
Either that or these events happen:
- Sartre would probably interrupt Oliver, deconstruct every single word Oliver stands for, and then politely shuffle to the side of the shooters muttering his preface to Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth.
- Edith Piaf would either be killed. If alive? Probably raped.
- The wine would be drunk, disposed of, or sold. Unknown whether the shooters actually VALUE the wine enough to start their own vineyards.
- Gauloise cigarettes would just be smoked until they run out. Like the wine, will they value it enough to run the tobacco plants for them?
- Camus would probably be confused while he wasn’t grouped with Sartre and Piaf before dying horribly. This is unfortunate, as nihilism was something he fought against. Then again, this is a nihilistic age.
- They don’t even LIKE most of those pastries. They’ll just dump em.
So by and large their ‘philosophy of self-abnegation’, contrary to Oliver’s claim, will fuck over the pastry fight by a wide margin. It’s also quite spineless as it screams “Hey you like these things!? Don’t kill us! You won’t have any of them anymore!” That doesn’t defend culture insomuch as compel them to probably monetize them and put such culture holders into involuntary servitude. But anyway…
This all brings us back to the aforementioned well-painted vagina. If it stood athwart alongside those examples, what would happen? It’d either be taken from its place at the Musee D’Orsay to be part of some terrorist flophouse, or it would be destroyed. A culture is only as strong as its people want it to be, and it really can only be such if there’s a hardy defense of it by arms. French culture isn’t just those piffling things (seriously quite piffling. Where’s Voltaire? Versailles? Charles Martel? The Resistance? Charlie Hebdo!?), but also things like say: the French Foreign Legion and the FAMAS Rifle. Those guys I would hope are sandwiched in-between the pastry table and the self-abnegators, ready to fire. Casualties? Maybe, but it sure beats saying things like fighting them with flowers, or “Imagine”, or any posturing that has people say in a nutshell: “We’ll keep doing our things, but I won’t hate or be violent.”
You do not hate what’s in front of you if you’re interested in maintaining an active defense, but loving what’s behind you. If people keep maintaining that virtue signaling danse macabre, then that philosophy of self-abnegation is gonna keep negating…
And negating…
And negating…
…Until there’s nothing left to negate anymore. This is terrible for me, as I would really like to see those hairy lady parts again. And I hope some Frenchie feels the same way and makes sure he doesn’t go down without a fight if they come for it.
The Runner at Daybreak 