French Secularism and the Law of 1905

The French law of separation between church and state is one of the most concrete steps in the development of French secularism (“laïcité”), which remains a defining characteristic of the country today. During the French Revolution of 1789, the rise of secularism spurred a “de-Christianization” (“dechristianisation”), leading to a decrease in the power and omnipresence of the Catholic Church in society. With Napoleon's seizure of power in 1799, many old traditions were upset: both the shift from Monarchy to Empire and Napoleon’s symbolic coronation ceremony (in which he crowned himself in lieu of the Pope doing so) created a perception of the State as equal to the Church. Lastly, Napoleon’s Concordat agreement of 1801 with the Vatican was not well-received in his Catholic country, a reaction that helped lay the path to the secular society that would take hold, and still persists today.

Another large contributor to the rise in secularity and in anti-Catholic sentiments was the increase in publicly educated citizens. Long after Napoleon I, during the “guerre scolaire” (school war) of the 1870s, the French state began to build free, secular public schools to compete with the country’s traditional Catholic schools. In 1881, the Ferry laws, named for the prime minister of the time, required school for all children, forcing poorer children who would otherwise have been in the labor force to attend public, secular schools. Moreover, by encouraging the education of girls in public schools, the government began to shape mothers, families, and citizens without religion. Then, in 1894, the Dreyfus Affair completely disrupted the Third Republic, polarizing a society which was already cracking in two. After the intense media coverage of the Dreyfus Affair, and thanks to the very high rates of literacy and education of that time, “popular front secularism” began: a widespread anticlericalism. Criticisms of luxury and lust in the Church, and suspicions that it was corrupt, spread throughout society with the help of yellow journalism and an increasingly educated population. Because of these scandals, Protestants began to push for a smaller and poorer Catholic Church. 

By the early 1900s, French society was nearing the end of a long-anticipated change. Many public officials realized that the damaged relations between the Church and the State were irreversible and pushed for a complete “divorce” of the two entities. Progressives were generally in favor of the separation, with support from anti-monarchists (known as Republicans) varying, and little support from Catholics. The main principle leading to the law’s passage was that it allowed religion to continue to be exercised without interruption. After about four years of Senate and lower house negotiations, the famous 1905 law, the Separation of Church and State, was enacted. 

Its first article emphasizes that the Republic “guarantees the free exercise of worship,” ensuring that religions are not prohibited in France. The second article, the most important one in terms of change, says the “Republic does not recognize, does not pay, nor does not subsidize any worship.” This revolutionary article forced the Church to become a smaller and less powerful entity due to diminished financial resources. It also broke Napoleon’s Concordat agreement of 1801, which declared Catholicism the majority religion of France and guaranteed state support of the Church. 

After the law’s passage, some Catholics said “acceptance of the separation would be a humiliating capitulation,” and that because the Concordat was an agreement between two entities, one must consult the other before it could be nullified. Of course, the friendly relations between the Vatican and France were also disturbed: Pope Pius X condemned the rupture, saying it was not compatible with the Church. Others raised the possibility of the law's harmful effects on the Republic by giving the Church total freedom of maneuver.

An interesting exception to the law of separation is the region of Alsace-Moselle, which was under German control in 1905. When it returned to France in 1919, it kept its German laws and did not adopt the principle of secularism. And even today, it is not a secular region like the rest of France: the government of Alsace pays the salaries of its ministers of worship. The situation in Alsace is a subject of debate and controversy now, because it is in direct contradiction to the concept of secularism and the law of 1905. 

Even in the rest of France, the law of 1905 is frequently challenged, in particular on its compatibility with Islam, the second-most practiced religion in France. The law prohibits any demonstration of religious affiliation in public schools, including wearing a cross necklace or a hijab. It has been criticized for unfairly targeting members of the Muslim community, as their religious practice of wearing a hijab is much more evident than those of Christians, whose religious symbols do not stand out as readily. Though the law has been amended several times since its inception, the original principles of its second article have not been changed. Secularism is a deep-seated concept in French history, and any monumental changes to the law, if they ever occur, will spur controversy and uprising among its devout supporters. 

The Poison Apple

Ding.

You resist the urge to check your phone, but your train of thought is already broken.

Ding.

You hear it again, exactly two minutes later. Before you can stop yourself, the phone is suddenly in your hand, flooding your brain with new information and trivializing your previous activity.

On an iPhone, a notification is signaled when it comes in, and again two minutes later in case you managed to resist the compulsion to check the first time. Unfortunately, most people cannot fight the need to check. As soon as they hear the notification, their heart rates spike, anxiety levels peak, excitement increases, and their eyes dart automatically to their phones.

This modern phenomenon, the “push notification,” brought a number of advantages. You never have to worry about missing out; if someone sends a message, you’ll know right away. App developers and companies have also used push notifications to increase revenue by boosting user engagement. But every new technology comes with downsides, and notifications are no different. First and foremost, people's obsession with checking and clearing notifications hurts their productivity. If a notification sounds, many mindlessly abandon their previous activity to see what they’ve been sent. Unfortunately, when people succumb to the perpetual temptation to look at their phones, it takes roughly 23 minutes to refocus, according to a study from the University of California-Irvine.

Even when people can defy this urge, working with a phone in sight still hampers productivity. This is because part of the brain constantly, subconsciously, struggles to ignore the phone. Even if we’re not deliberately looking at something, our brains perceive all available visual information. They are constantly tempted by the phone at the edge of our desks. Thus, full brain power can never be completely devoted to the task at hand.

Furthermore, studies have shown that constantly receiving notifications rewires people’s minds, and bodies. Hearing your phone ring spurs physiological arousal, sweating, and an emotional response, which then releases stress hormones; these effects are synonymous with those of more serious anxiety-inducing situations. The long term ramifications of being in a near-constant state of anticipation remain unclear, but psychologists predict everything from mental health issues (duh) to physical ailments.

Neil Postman’s presentation “Five Things We Need To Know About Technological Change” discusses how the “advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population.” In our society it is adolescents and young adults, having grown up surrounded by high technology, who feel most heavily both its advantages and its disadvantages. But those effects, I’d say, are on balance profoundly negative.

Take reduced productivity, for example. That may not sound too bad at first, but consider this: the majority of the “breakthrough,” life-changing technological advancements were created before the invention of smartphones. In fact, most people in the workforce today did not face the same pervasive distractions while growing up. Today’s generation of young people has, sadly, become accustomed to living with constant interruptions.

What does this mean for society?

Reduced productivity translates into lost hours at school and work, leading to lower work quality and less creation of new ideas: fewer breakthrough inventions, fewer cures for diseases—less of all the advancements that modern society has come to expect.

This is not to say that our generation will invent nothing useful, solve no world problems, or do nothing good for society. The point is that many of us might not overcome the challenges such ubiquitous distractions present. Does this mean people will have to work harder in order to make up for that? Yes. Are there people who will? Of course. But the vast majority of adolescents fall short of the grit required to overcome their short attention spans and easily distractible natures. They’ve already bitten into the poison apple, and it may be too late to siphon out the toxins.

Later, Postman poses a crucial question: “What type of person will be favored” by the new technology? The answer points to the goals of the software developers: the ideal person is someone whose mind can be shifted effortlessly from one trivial notification to the next, which maximizes device usage and capitalizes on the highly addictive nature of most apps. The favored people are today’s adolescents, our lives inundated by technology, yet at the mercy of the excessively wealthy in Silicon Valley.

Our generation did not ask to be blindly thrust, like lab rats, into a potentially life-altering situation. It’s not our fault that we were born during such a revolutionary experiment. Even though the long-term effects of extended cell phone usage remain unclear, they still occupy almost every part of our unduly digital lives. The future of society itself is at stake. Our brains, our bodies, and our achievements must overcome the challenges of the relentless smartph—

Ding.

The Revolution of Emmanuel Macron and the Polarization of America

Emmanuel Macron, the 25th president of France, is as much a controversial figure as he is a revolutionary one. Last June, his approval rating was only 40 percent (still better than his all-time low, 23 percent at the end of 2018). Even Donald Trump’s approval ratings haven’t fallen quite that low. So then, what’s different about Macron?

First of all, upon entering the presidential race in 2016, he formed his own political party, “La Republique En Marche” (which loosely translates to “The Republic Forward” or “Onward”). This relatively centrist movement has grown to be France’s single most popular party, an impressive feat in its own right. 

It’s important to note that in France, political parties are much more loosely defined and free-form than the typical Democrats and Republicans in America. It’s therefore relatively common for an individual politician to form their own political party and actually have a chance of winning the presidency with it. This has been the case only relatively recently, because the French left/right divide has historically been even more polarized than America’s. But fortunately for Macron, that divide has gradually been fading since the 1990s, and this is one factor that made France ripe for his victory in 2017. Despite those developments, Macron is controversial because his party holds a more centrist ideology than any party that has previously won the French presidency. 

In addition, Macron has no formal training in politics or government. He started off as an investment banker, and began his career as a public servant when he became Minister of the Economy. Coming from a non-traditional background that isn’t rooted in politics does have its advantages—Macron carried with him a bit of intrigue and freshness that most of his more bureaucratic competitors lacked, which made him more interesting to voters. In France, as in America where some people were enthralled by Trump’s outsider status, there was likely the hope that a politician from a non-political background would end up being less corrupt than the normal, factory-made ones (although this is rarely the case). And while the French and American governments are quite different, both countries have recently chosen a president with a uniquely non-political background. However, both of these presidents have proven to be highly controversial. 

Interestingly, both Macron and Trump scraped by with a slim victory over their opponents (some don’t even count Trump’s, since he lost the popular vote in 2016). In France, there are two rounds of voting for president. The first is similar to our primaries, although it’s more common for candidates to be affiliated with new, little-known political parties. The second round is between the two (in some cases, three) candidates who did best in the first round. And since France does not have a strict two-party system, it’s also possible that the final two or three candidates could be from the same side of the political spectrum. 

Macron survived the first round with 24 percent, along with Marine Le Pen (21 percent), a far-right candidate of the National Front party. The second round ended, obviously, with a victory for Macron (66 percent to 34 percent), but many French political pundits claim that he did not truly win. One of his competitors from the first round, François Fillon, put it best: “there was no other choice but to vote against the far-right” (Le Pen), citing this as the real reason for Macron’s victory. In the first round of voting, his margin was small: he beat Le Pen by just 3 percent and Fillon by 4 percent. Of course, not everyone who voted for Macron would agree with all of his policies, but it’s hard to sink to an approval rating of 23 percent, as he did two years ago. 

Interestingly, 23 percent is about equal to his support in the first round, which suggests that the additional 42 percent who chose Macron in the second round did not truly support him (or no longer did by late 2018): only those who were Macron loyalists from the start remained unwavering supporters. Therefore, his controversial position as the most centrist French president is caused mainly by the fact that he lacks much authentic support from either side. Although his administration experiences an ebb-and-flow of support, his achievement of dissolving traditional left/right boundaries still stands, contributing greatly to the ongoing decline in French political polarization. 

So, does this tell us anything about the polarization in America? Would a centrist candidate akin to Macron be the key to begin bridging the gap between Democrats and Republicans? As the American political process exists today, a centrist candidate not affiliated with either side wouldn’t stand a fighting chance. A center-leaning Democrat or Republican may be able to sway some voters from the other side, but not enough to inspire the type of revolution that we need. Even if the American political process made it easy for a centrist candidate to be elected, unifying previous supporters of the extremes behind a candidate of compromises would be impossible, given the extreme polarization of discourse in this country. But this raises a question on its own: is French society really unified behind Macron, or is his supposed “base” just a facade of centrists and mostly right-hating leftists? If this is true, then America doesn’t need a centrist candidate: America needs to lead itself towards a revolution of understanding, acceptance, and discourse. Only then will the majority of our country unite behind a single president.