Note from My Desk: When Americans think of France, especially Paris, they imagine high culture: philosophy, art, refined cuisine and serious political debate.
- Ellie K
- Jul 11
- 1 min read
When Americans think of France, especially Paris, they imagine high culture: philosophy, art, refined cuisine and serious political debate.
What they often misunderstand is that many of the things they consider exceptionally sophisticated are, in France, thoroughly bourgeois.
Local wine. Good produce. A long vacation. A baguette from the neighborhood bakery. None of this is especially elite. Even talking about politics is usually less “Derrida at the café” and more “here is what I saw on TV, followed by my opinion.”
A working- or middle-class family can buy decent bread, drink local wine, take a vacation and care about the quality of food without imagining they are participating in some rarefied intellectual tradition.
We see the wine, the cheese and the café terrace and assume refinement. The French often see normal life.
From a communications perspective, it is a useful reminder that symbols travel badly.
The same object can signal status in one country and ordinariness and middle class in another.
