Just
as we Americans love our peanut butter, the French love their Nutella, that
sweet chocolate-hazelnut spread that kids grow up eating at breakfast.
So
it was shocking when French philosopher Régis Debray recently attacked Nutella,
causing a national uproar. Why not just
attack God and Motherhood while you’re at it?
The
background is that a series of educational reforms is scheduled to take place
next year, including a de-emphasis on the teaching of Latin and other
traditional subjects. Debray feels that
these reforms will make school too easy and that the existing high standards
should be kept in place. He chose to
express his view this way, “Civilization is not Nutella, it is Effort!” Cue the gasps.
A
writer for Le Monde responded with humor, demonstrating the ways in which
Nutella is, in fact, at the center of French civilization. I’ve attempted to translate it below.
Vive la France !
KVS
Régis Debray Knows Nothing About Nutella
Régis
Debray has said that “civilization is not Nutella, it is Effort!” One feels that the school reform debate has
now reached its summit. The image is
strong, profound, grandiose. One imagines
how many years of silent reading Debray must have committed - studying ancient
languages, in dialog with the great writers - to come to this conclusion. Where once was the battle between Culture and
Candy, now it is between Civilization and Nutella. One looks forward to Peanut Butter and
Heideggerien Worldliness. The image is
sublime but, unfortunately, inexact.
Nutella IS effort.
-
Because it is practically impossible to stop
eating. Every day, Nutella is a battle
against oneself, against one’s impulses, against one’s own excesses. Nutella is a form of spiritual exercise, the
fight against the demon of piggishness.
It is therefore an art of self-mastery.
-
Because it demands that we overcome a thousand
ignoble ideas: all of its nasty
ingredients. There are certain things in
it that we must look beyond (one eats these crappy things because they taste
good. One deals with the hours of trying
to digest them in order to attain intellectual nirvana.)
-
Because it demands, after eating, long efforts
to lose weight. We learn to measure the
consequences of our actions.
-
Because it requires that we clean the knife and
the spoon by hand before putting them in the dishwasher. Thanks to Nutella, the young learn the
traditional gestures from their grandmothers, which modernity might otherwise
cause us to lose. It is a link between
generations, a vector of tradition.
-
Because it is difficult to get its damned lid
off. And it is difficult to scrape out
the last bits from the jar (one tries the spoon, the knife, the round knife,
etc.) Like learning Greek, it requires
us to delay the moment of satisfaction.
It refuses the “now now now.”
-
Because one NEVER puts it in the
refrigerator. Nutella is proof of
resistance, eternity, sangfroid. It
refuses the diktats of the “consume-by date”, the food supply chain, of all
things electric (it economizes electricity enormously and, in its manner, saves
the planet.) It commits for the
duration, the long term – it is devilishly Braudélian.
-
Because once you eat Nutella, you really don’t
want to eat anything else. It does not
participate in the civilization of channel surfing. One learns to concentrate on one object,
simple and unique, without dissipating one’s energies.
In sum, it is inappropriate for Monsieur Debray to exclaim on
a subject as grave as Nutella without understanding it. Talking about education policy without being
informed is one thing – I do it all the time.
But Nutella, no, never about Nutella.
http://maragoyet.blog.lemonde.fr/2015/04/29/regis-debray-ne-connait-rien-au-nutella/#xtor=AL-32280270
