True France, True Europe: A Survey of Mercury, Venus and Marr
If you had to pick one man and one woman to represent the spirit of France, a good choice would be Voltaire (1694-1778) and the film-star Brigitte Bardot (born 1934). They stand for brains and beauty, wit and style, irony and compassion.
First consider Voltaire, that icon of free speech and the unfettered mind. He was like the god Mercury, sharp-witted messenger of the gods, wing-footed and roaming the universe. Liberals and neo-conservatives have invoked his name again and again since the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.
Raging Fanaticism
But if Voltaire were alive and writing today, those same liberals and neo-cons would be clamouring for his head. This is because he did something forbidden in the modern West: he noticed racial patterns.
All of the other peoples have committed crimes, the Jews are the only ones who have boasted about committing them. They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if this nation some day became deadly to the human race. (Letters of Memmius to Cicero, 1771)
It is commonly said that the abhorrence in which the Jews held other nations proceeded from their horror of idolatry; but it is much more likely that the manner in which they at the first exterminated some of the tribes of Canaan, and the hatred which the neighboring nations conceived for them, were the cause of this invincible aversion. As they knew no nations but their neighbors, they thought that in abhorring them they detested the whole earth, and thus accustomed themselves to be the enemies of all men. (Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)
Can you imagine how the freedom-loving neo-conservatives would react to passages like that? But the neo-cons would be wise to consider what he said about “raging fanaticism.” The murdered liberals at Charlie Hebdo could have learnt something from Voltaire too. Their cartoons were crudely obscene. Voltaire could be obscene with style:
Were the Jewish Ladies Intimate with Goats?
You assert that your mothers had no commerce with he-goats, nor your fathers with she-goats. But pray, gentlemen, why are you the only people upon earth whose laws have forbidden such commerce? Would any legislator ever have thought of promulgating this extraordinary law if the offence had not been common? (Philosophical Dictionary, entry for “Jews,” Vol. 6)




