Original article for French readers: <http://www.lepoint.fr/edito/document.html?did=164024>
"The infantile narcissism of the French no"
Peter Sloterdijk is among the 'maverick' fraction of European 'public intellectuals' who were for the Yes vote (Antonio Negri being probably its most famous exponent), and are now turning in anger against that of the majority, both in France and in the Netherlands.
He quickly dispatches the later ("a no inspired by distrust, petit-bourgeois susceptibility, and simply fear") in order to turn his ire against the former. 'The French' are made out for spoiled brats wanting to turn their despicable no into an heroic act worthy of the Revolution (French, of course) but merely churning out rituals of postrevolutionary surrealism. Upon which he goes for the usual split between populace (obviously illiterate) and elite, wich stands accused of 'mediocrity', apparently not because of what it does, but of how it does (and 'communicates') it.
Speaking of communication, the new heights of collective and interactive internet use by the many canvassers for the no vote is dismissed in terms usually reserved to demonize the pop culture and the gutter press ("while the net was spreading the most paranoid of rumors, the written press remained rational and advocated the yes vote. The press was mainly pro-european, the net was almost entirely negative - and this negativity was based on a rejoicing in its own, assumed smartness.")
What I find frightening about this position (pace the anti-netism, very akin to the 'newbie' hatred of the old 3133337) is that it almost exactly parallels the bashing of 'privileges' of the salaried and/or social benefits dependent lower classes which has been part and parcel of the ideology since the restoration of the eighties (aka the 'One Idea System'). But then, as Michel Foucault has become an idol of the French patronat of late, nothing surprises any more. Yet, this kind of alternative and avant-gardist TINA thinking spells nothing good for the future of (dis)united Europe. May I remind that the choice for Yugoslavia in 1991 was absurdly simple: (economic) restructuration without end or war. I never fail to ask my interlocutors: "what would you have chosen?"