Friday, May 11, 2012
Wires

Everywhere I have been in Europe, electric strips are used to maximize the number of apparati that can work at once. Of course, many buildings in Europe are old, and unwired for the number of machines driven by electricity. Knowing nothing of electric wiring, I cannot assess whether having so many plugs feed into one power source is advisable or not, only that the phenomenon is ubiquitous.

On the other hand, in France, the cost of electricity is low, as nuclear power (once known as la force de frappe) provides it cheaply. Metal grills driven by electricity supply electricity in much of France. This may, though not last, as the new President wants to close down the Fesenheim nuclear reactor, a concession to the Green Party, which supported his election.

There is a school of French thought that argues that using less-- decroissance-- is the only way to deal with the environmental repercussions of energy dependence. My guests for dinner last night, Theo Thouvet and his girlfriend Laura, are inclined to this view.

Theo is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, specializing in the physics of liquids. Laura is a graduate of Harvard, also a physicist, earning a masters degree in Paris with a concentration on acoustics. Theo is now studying circus arts at a school outside of Paris. In his second year of a five-year program, he will graduate with a job with a circus. His specialty is the Cyr Wheel, acrobatics done while rolling within the parametrers of a wheel made of light-weight metal.

Theo rides his bicycle to meet Laura and me, pulling up to the restaurant, Jadis at 204 Croix-Nivert, and anchoring his bicycle against a pole before joining us. Tall, blue-eyed, his easy-going manner hides a far-ranging intelligence. Laura, the daughter of Berkeley professors, met Theo when each were working on internships at M.I.T.

Both believe in teaching the public that consumption will be deleterious to their children and grandchildren's futures. They understand the natural resistance of countries that have not enjoyed the West's pattern of consumption to curtail their own consumption, but believe that in the West, populations can learn to live with less in the interest of the future.

This is an anti-growth orientation, a different model from that of the United States, where many believe that growth is good, and that permitting economies to develop allows creative solutions to problems to be found. Government, of course, has a large role to play in convincing publics to reduce their consumption of energy and to cooperate in programs like recycling. The risks of too-much government are not as salient in France as in the United States, so there is confidence that publics can be led. This can, of course, be related to the fact that France was a monarchy until 1789, and state-run industries existed even then. Colbert, finance minister to Louis XIV established the system of state-controlled industries known as dirigisme in the 17th century; Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, was patroness of the Vincennes porcelain factory to the east of Paris, and is even said to have gotten the King to help her pack plates. Today, employees of Sevres, on the West side of the city, are government workers, as the factory is a state concern. So the idea that a cadre of functionaries make policy that is enforced by other functionaries with direct contact with the public, is accepted in France. The most brilliant students go to one of the Ecoles Nationales (of which Theo's school, the Polytechnique, is one), and become government officials. This reliance on elites is completely foreign to Americans, of course, but explains why France and the United States are sometimes at odds when they have so much in common.