buses and trains

When Jerry Brown ran for the presidency one of his favorite lines was “I’m not conservative, I’m just cheap.” In a parallel way I could say “I’m not making a fetish of my carbon footprint, I’m just cheap,” (thrifty, economical, living within my means—there are better ways of saying it.) The result, though, is similar: when my wife and I travel, we leave behind a light carbon footprint. No private automobile for us. It’s all about trains and buses.

Fortunately, the Vaucluse recently inaugurated a program to encourage bus riding. Their form of encouragement, lower fares, spoke directly to those of us who are (select one: cheap, frugal, thrifty, parsimonious, living within our means). As a result, we can ride from here to Carpentras about 15 kilometers away, for 1 Euro 70, (85 centimes apiece). A longer ride from Carpentras to Avignon costs only 2 Euros apiece. From Avignon we can catch a train to anywhere in France or Europe. Since I have now reached the age of 60, I am automatically qualified for a discount.

What are the drawbacks? The biggest one is adjusting to pre-set timetables. Sometimes that does not pose much of a problem. Buses between Avignon and Carpentras run every half hour. In our village, however, the schedules are set for middle and high school transportation. That means buses leave early in the morning, 7:00 and 8:00. There is also a bus that leaves at 1:00 p.m. Coming back in the evening, buses leave Carpentras at 4:10, 5:10, and 6:10. Travelling by train thus requires planning that allows for the ride to Carpentras, transfer to an Avignon bus, and then to a train.

As far as advantages, there are some beyond the economic and ecological ones. We have no worries about getting lost, finding parking places, deciphering strange road signs, or dealing with French drivers. During the trip we can read, relax and meet some interesting people. Sometimes, of course, “interesting” is good and sometimes, well, just “interesting.”

Our local bus ride has made us appreciate the general politeness of French schoolchildren. Imagine being on a bus full of middle schoolers. The first impression that comes to mind is probably “loud.” Here the bus is quiet. The schoolchildren generally greet the driver as they board and thank her as they leave. The driver knows them well, having ferried them back and forth for many years.

On a recent train ride from Montpellier, one individual shared our compartment between Montpellier and Nimes. He was pleasant and a helpful guide, pointing out to us, Vergeze, the town where Perrier bottles its water. Normally, we would have assumed a mountainous source, but this sparkling water comes from near the Mediterranean.

At a different point on the “interesting” scale is a recent conversation I had with a benchmate as we were each waiting for a different bus. This was a friendly, talkative young man. He had come into town he said on “business,” actually using the English word. When I asked him what the employment was, he admitted it was a different line of work and made the sign for smoking dope. Apparently he is a lower level marijuana and hashish vendor. “Vendor” may be a bit of a fancy word here. “Dealer” is the more correct one. “Business” was good he said, plenty of demand. Also, unlike other “vendors” he offers a first rate product, not one adulterated with fillers to add a few grams and increase profit margins.

Sometimes a train ride can also be nostalgic. The cars on our last ride were of the older sort with eight person compartments, not the two-row seating, the bus and airplane look, that now dominates train design. I had thought that France had sold most of these cars to Eastern European countries, but apparently some are still operational. It reminded both of us of being students in the late 60s when these sorts of cars were the rule. Imaginatively, the nostalgia can even send us back to scenes from Hitchcock movies, at a time when carbon footprints were not yet a recognized problem.

All roads lead...

“All roads lead to Rome.” Indeed, for the Roman empire everything emanated from a specific center. The city even contained a pillar, the milliarium aureum or golden milestone, whose base is still visible today. It marked the absolute center from which all distances were measured. Other nations subsequently copied the practice. Here in France, “kilometer zero” can be found in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. Having a clear center is reassuring. It imposes unity while identifying the single locus of power and influence.

Here in the village, we have no comparable distance marker. What we do have is a church perched atop a hill. The street on which we live stretches horizontally alongside the hill. At regular intervals, perpendicular alleyways branch off. Where do they all go? Instead of “all roads lead to Rome,” it’s “all paths lead to the church.” The village had its own fixed center, a sort of mother hen, with the residences, like little chicks, clustered down the slope in front of it.


Seeking a single source to which everything can be traced, a single center around which everything revolves, marks a typical human tendency. Rome took its imperial ambitions for granted. It had a civilization to spread, roads to build, aqueducts to construct, markets to fill. It was all a grand periphery emanating from a great center. King Louis XIV embodies the cruelty associated with a focus on unity. He revoked the Edict of Nantes which had granted freedom of religion to protestants. His absolutist tendencies preferred practices consistent with the traditional slogan, “one law, one faith, one king.” (It rhymes better in French: une foi, une loi, un roi.)

The longing for a single foundation runs deep. Herodotus reported how a Pharaoh had children raised by deaf-mutes. His hope was that, unfettered by hearing any current language, the children would spontaneously speak the foundational, original language of humankind. When one of the children uttered something that sounded like Phrygian, the pharaoh pronounced it the one original tongue. The tower of Babel story also suggests the assumption of one and only one foundational language for humans. The imposition of multiple languages is there treated as retribution for human overreach. Unity as the original condition, plurality as punishment.

Philosophically, the great thinker Plotinus, living during the Roman Imperium, developed a schema which set a deep pattern in Western thought. Everything, he claimed, derived from an initial One. Ultimately our task, divided and separate as we were, was to rejoin the One that was the source of all. Descartes, in the 17th century, sought to base knowledge securely on one great irrefutable foundation. Everything flawed was to be eliminated until the single, solid source was discovered. Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” served as his milliarium aureum. The empire of knowledge would have its fixed beginning there.

Such a program might have had a good intention, but lots was loaded into the “everything flawed must be eliminated” dimension. When this got carried over into politics, ethnic and religious bloodletting was the result. Louis XIV, mentioned above, offers one good example. Prior to him, Ferdinand and Isabella’s Inquisition had already set a familiar human pattern. It aimed quite simply to eliminate all of those tainted by difference, in this case heretics, especially recent Jewish converts to Christianity suspected of insincerity in their new religion. In 1492, the year they funded Columbus, the monarchs completed their project ordering the expulsion of all Jews from Spain. The twentieth century, sadly, not only failed to reverse this tendency, but brought it to new heights of cruel efficiency.

Philosophically, the 20th century had begun, in American Pragmatism at least, with a challenge to the fetish with oneness. A founding member of American Pragmatism, William James, entitled his defense of religious sensibility The Varieties of Religious Experience. Another of his works was called, A Pluralistic Universe.

The fascination with a single, unitary source at the root of everything was self-serving, a construction of pure fantasy, and a recipe for totalitarianism. Experience, history, anthropology, archaeology and the physical sciences all point to complexes deriving from other complexes. However far we go, there is always diversity. The trick, aimed at in a democratic republic, is harmonizing and living with plural tendencies. Varieties and pluralism, to use James’s terms, should not be considered corruptions to be eliminated. Harmony, not unity should be the watchword for the 21st century. The “All roads lead to Rome” attitude dominated for several millenia. It was a good run, but it may be that the century following the bloody 20th offers as good a time as any to rethink our philosophical assumptions.

Virtue Ethics and Smelly Feet

Smelly feet and virtues may seem to have little in common. A recent story out of Holland, though, indicates how they can be connected, at least for those of us who are philosophically inclined.

We don’t make virtues that central anymore. For an American founding father like Benjamin Franklin, they were crucial. It was important to cultivate the proper habits for living a life in the service of good. Dispositions to act in patterned and appropriate ways, habitual practices that are not haphazard, but cultivated so as to become second nature, these were the virtues. One of the virtues listed by Franklin intersects with the story from Holland. The story involves a student. This particular individual was the target of complaint after complaint. Finally, the university decreed he be banished from lecture halls and the library. Why? Smelly feet. Yes, apparently the individual, a philosophy student sadly enough, made his presence felt by an immediate assault on the noses of his compatriots.

Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes once famously declared “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” What happens when odiferous feet replace swinging fists? Is it now a case of “your right to the foot hygiene of your choice ends at my nose”? Students and administrators at Rotterdam University thought so. The banished individual thought otherwise. He went to court and the Dutch judge, rejecting the fist to face/foot to nose analogy, ruled against the university. Probably basing his position on a notion of absolute rights rather than the virtue of practical wisdom, (prudence is its traditional name) the judge said that “professors and other students will just have to hold their noses and bear it."

The Dutch have a long tradition for upholding the virtue of tolerance. They also are a country of people known for cleanliness (the virtue high on Franklin’s list), and concern for others, the one sorely lacking in the smelly footed one. It is because virtues can often clash with each other that sensible judgment, prudence, needs to be invoked. At least, that is what the father of virtue ethics, Aristotle, taught long ago. He also pointed out that some kind of moderation is a trait that accompanies most virtues. Tolerance, for example, tries to strike the balance between completely open relativism on one end, and a narrow absolutistic imposition of a single strict mode of life on the other. Looking for some kind of legalistic wiggle room, the university now says that its moderate position will be to levy fines against those whose malodorous state wafts into neighboring noses.
The model individual, for Aristotle, was not the iron-clad logician who applied general rules ruthlessly and without exception. Justice and prudence, in the 15th century allegorical painting by Pietro Perugino share top billing, as if to emphasize how they have to balance off one another. Telling thugs that, yes indeed, the innocent young woman they seek is in a back room, may be the height of honesty. It is also an evil act. Rather than rigid machine-like application of universal dictates, prudential judgments seek the optimal realization of goods in particular circumstances. If they never give the absolute certitude that many humans long for, they do keep one dimension central, personal responsibility.

Of course, humans like to skirt responsibility. They would rather claim to be simply acting in accordance with rules, following orders, or applying universal maxims to a concrete situation. Aristotelian prudence will have none of this. Rules and general principles are crucial in the practical exercise of virtue. They provide social guidance which, most of the time, works well. But, concretely, a conflict of goods, extenuating circumstances, the simple need for good sense, intervene. Then, prudence must be brought into play. Responsibility must be assumed. Judges, unlike Holmes who left wiggle room, may be constrained by a strict legalism. Universities, like the rest of us, are thankfully not.

spectators and sports

In July the Tour de France will bring hundreds of thousands of cycling fans to this area. Local merchants will be happy, the sponsors will be delighted, politicians, if all the planning has gone well, will congratulate themselves, and philosophers, well, they will do what philosophers always do, wonder “why?” What is it that makes people travel thousands of miles to see a sporting event?

In one way the answer is simple: we are drawn to situations where individuals challenge limits. Gravity is a force that weighs us down: gymnasts defy it. Science says it should not really be possible for a batter to hit a baseball: Ted Williams managed to do it 40% of the time. Who could possibly race downfield, turn at the last moment, reach up and catch a ball knowing, with absolute certainty, that a major pummeling will immediately ensue: it happens every Sunday in the NFL. Beholding in wonder as our cousins from the human family stretch limits gives us a glimpse of the greatness to which humanity can aspire.

But that explanation is not enough. It would have worked for the Greek Olympic games or for games in various Roman arenas like the one in nearby Nimes pictured below. Today, though, we have television. If what counts is getting the best view, then television is the way to go.

Why then do we keep up the expense and the effort to attend sporting events in person? In part it is because presence “in person” means something. We are embodied creatures and physical presence is just something that is significant for us. Tangibility is not negligible, even if spectatorial precision is sacrificed. The model, haptic, activity is the human hug, an expressive gesture for which there is no substitute in times of joy, triumph, sorrow, or celebration.

Beyond the physical aspect, there is also what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls the “festive” side of human life. We are social creatures. Sharing in important events is something we long for. The festive dimension emerges at birthday parties, weddings, Fourth of July picnics, Mardi Gras, and sporting events. I was once in Lexington Kentucky the day of a UK/LSU basketball game. “Festive” was definitely the word. Thousands of fans dressed in team colors; plenty of food and libations outside Rupp arena. All in all, an opportunity for currents of enthusiasm to move electricity- like through the crowds.

Finally, there is another crucial dimension. The presence of an audience is not incidental to a sporting event. It is an essential component. A sporting event without an audience is like a play without an audience. Without the audience, the episode is incomplete and thus something other than a full-fledged sporting event. The word “spectator” is somewhat misleading here. “Spectator,” as mere onlooker, offers a good description of the TV viewer. It is a mistake to label, as we do, attendees at either the theatre or the stadium, as “spectators.” It was not always so. Historically, for the theater and Western culture in general, the moment of transition from audience to spectator can be dated to the stage design which made prominent the proscenium arch. BP, “before proscenium,” the stage actually jutted out into the audience. Not being sharply separated from the actors, the audience members known as “gentlemen in the pit” had a particularly strong reputation for their, let’s call it “dynamism.” Now AP, “after proscenium,” after the picture frame approach to theatre, audiences tend to be passive spectators.

In sports, the active, energetic, enthusiastic fan is still the rule. A sporting contest without an audience may be an occurrence or a happening, but it is not yet a sporting event in the fullest sense. The audience is necessary, not optional. To call the participant-fans “spectators” thus diminishes their significance. A sporting fan both is moved by and is a mover of the action. Together, fans and athletes make the event what it is. That way, in-person attendees become more participants than spectators. Without them there is no real event. No wonder they displace themselves willingly.

Tour de France and local life

The Tour is coming! The Tour is coming! Ever since last fall when it was announced that the Tour de France would be returning to this area, local officials and business owners have been preparing for an onslaught of visitors. According to some estimates the department of Vaucluse (English link) could see an influx of 500,000 people, just about doubling its population. Local business owners have been told to stay open extra hours to handle the hungry, thirsty throngs. Politicians have been figuring out the nitty gritty of dealing with so many people: how to get enough portable toilets in place; when to block, divert traffic; how to make sure the path is clear; where to put all the cars, trucks, buses that will accompany race fans. In our village a pre-Tour (see below) will, gasp, be coming through right on market day. The riders will be filling the main, market, street. What to do? No thought at all of cancelling even for just that one special day. Plans have instead been made for a one-time relocation. All this planning is being done willingly, though. These are tough economic times and the Tour’s fans bring with them euros to spend, euros the local promoters of tourism will be pleased to receive.

For this region the Tour brings three special treats. One is the return of Lance Armstrong. The other is hosting the last leg before the next day’s ride into Paris. This means the local stage could determine the winner. And then, there is Ventoux, Mt. Ventoux that is, 6000 feet of challenge in the summer sun made even worse if the Mistral is blowing. It’s an effort that Armstrong labelled, “the hardest climb on the Tour, bar none.”

Mt. Ventoux is well known to riders everywhere. Last Fall, in an Albany New York wine store a sales representative was offering samples, including a Côtes de Ventoux. When I told him I would be living in the area for a semester, the first thing he mentioned was cycling. Ventoux, the “giant of Provence,” has even exacted its own human sacrifice. In 1967 British rider Tom Simpson died while climbing Ventoux, a victim of heat, exhaustion, dehydration and amphetamines. Mourners at Simpson’s funeral included the great Belgian rider Eddy Merckx who, one year, after winning the Ventoux stage, had to recuperate at a medical station before he could take his place his place on the podium.

This year, not only will the riders on the Tour itself take on Ventoux, but, five days earlier another ride will take place. This one is called L’étape du Tour Mondovélo. It’s an opportunity for amateurs to take on the challenge. Some 9500 enthusiasts are expected to ride on July 20. Organizers are hoping for better luck than the last time l’étape Mondovélo took on Ventoux. In July 2000 the event had to be halted because of near freezing temperatures and hail as riders approached the summit.

For our village, pathway to Ventoux, the biggest pre-race change has been newly paved streets everywhere. On July 20 the main one will be set aside for the étape. A few blocks away, at the relocated outdoor market, others will be buying their weekly store of vegetables and cheeses. Some of them, no doubt, will look forward to the post-Tour peace and quiet that drew them here in the first place.

Cycling

It was not the Tour de France, but it brought excitement to the village. The “it” was 3 jours de Vaucluse, a professional bicycle race. As a special treat, we were the final destination for stage one. Not only did that mean we could see the finish and the award ceremony, but, because of the way the course was designed, we got to see the racers twice. That’s a good thing because they sort of go by in a blur. In 1992 at the Albertville Olympics, the only tickets we could get were for the biathlon. Spectator-friendly, biathlon is not: stand in snow with the temperature below freezing and , every now and then, a skier with a rifle strapped to his/her back goes by. Cycling is not quite as bad, but, let’s face it, these guys are all about speed. So, it was good that we got to see them skirt the village once, then, 40 or so minutes later, could see them again as they headed for the finish line.

Having picked a good spot to see the racers, we had to wait through various preliminaries. Police officers and race marshals are posted at various intersections. Car after car with official markings go by. They come in no apparent order and interspersed with lots of regular traffic. Then come a slew of motorcycles: more marshals, police officers, press. Once again, they blend with regular passenger cars. One of these, probably wondering what was going on, moved forward at a snail’s pace, sort of taking it all in. This caused great panic for one of the marshals who ran out into the street motioning frantically for an increase of speed to move this car and the string behind it, out of the way. Finally came two motorcycles, blue lights flashing, followed by the first two racers. They were followed, not by other cyclists, but, this was surprising for a novice cycling watcher, by a bunch of official team cars loaded with bicycles on their roof racks. Only then, about a minute and a half later, came the peloton, the pack of other racers.

Because of their speed, it’s hard to get a good picture of the leaders. Stage one of our race was 164.7 km (about 102 miles) long. The winner finished in 4 hours, 18 minutes, and 7 seconds. His average speed was thus about 39 km (24 miles) an hour. This includes time in the more mountainous stretches (one of which, la col des abeilles, reached an altitude of 996 meters, 3,268 ft.). What this means was that he was speeding by us at well more than the average.

Of the 144 racers in the event, the most well-known was Nicolas Vogondy, the 2008 French champion. The first-second place combination for our stage went to two young riders, Maxime Bouet and David Lelay. At the awards ceremony, the various jerseys given out for different accomplishments turned out to be somewhat monotonous. This being stage one, the overall leader and the day’s fastest racer, were, of necessity, the same person. Maxime Bouet also turned out to have been the best climber, and the best young rider. The sprint jersey, breaking the monotony, went to his teammate and friend Lelay.

Official political representatives were on the podium to greet the riders. Our village’s mayor showed up in a workshirt and blue jeans. It looked as if he had been puttering around in his garden when someone called, reminding him of his duty. That’s how it seemed to a foreigner, at least. Probably, for the locals, he was simply a man of the people. The end of the awards ceremony brought one great relief, the silencing of an announcer who had been jabbering away nonstop, and annoyingly, for a good two hours.

Now that we have witnessed our first race, our interest will be heightened as we watch the Tour de France in July. It will be on television, alas, since we will be back in the U.S. The locals,

however, are in for a major treat; the Tour itself will be coming through the village on July 25. The riders, on the other hand, are in for one tough, heavy on the climbing, day, ending at 1912 meters, over 6,000 feet.

Walking

Philosophers love to walk. Aristotle’s school was actually named the “walking” place. Well, being philosophers, they liked the esoteric “peripatetic,” but it comes to the same thing. Nietzsche apparently could easily pound the pavement for 2-4 hours each day. Rousseau even wrote a book “Reveries of a Solitary Walker.” Most famous of all philosopher-walkers was Immanuel Kant. The punctuality of his walks around Koenigsberg was such that people would set their watches by his arrival at certain intersections.

Continuing in this tradition, each morning I head off for a day-initiating constitutional. What the more famous philosophers did during their walks is unknown to me. Being new to the village, I mostly try to notice things. This being a village in France, one bustling early-morning place is the local bakery, or, more accurately bakeries. No Provençal village worth its salt would shortchange its residents on bakeries. Mine does not disappoint. There are four of them, not bad for a place with 2700 inhabitants.

What also caught my eye right away, was the prominence of another kind of food provider: pizza places. They almost equal the number of bakeries. Still, what is it with pizza places in the village? Pizza does not feature prominently in traditional Provence cuisine. Postcards have yet to replace the beret clad man carrying baguettes, with a bermuda shorts clad individual clutching a cardboard take-out box. What is going on here?

Part of the answer may be that France is changing. People like quick and easy food. Pizza, let’s face it, fits this bill. My village is also a summer resort area. Within walking distance, there are five camping areas, one vacation village, and one vacation nudist colony. I suspect that when those areas are filled, the people who populate them, not having easy access to refrigerators or stoves, and tired of barbecue, prefer the quick phone call ordering pizzas to go.

Even the nudists, or “naturists,” as is their preferred label, need to eat. Clothing may be considered artificial rather than natural, but eating is undeniably necessary and so, natural. But, wait, here the philosophical ruminations associating with walking awaken. What exactly is “natural?” If clothing is not natural, then what about cooking? After all, eating, in a strict sense, does not require, heated, prepared foods.

We have to be careful here of a too restrictive use of “natural.” Humans, after all, are communal and mimetic. Culture and cultural practices are fully continuous with, not automatically opposed, to our nature. Recent anthropological evidence suggests that, biologically, cooking food is crucial for maximizing nutritional intake while minimizing expenditure of energy. Cooking may, in fact, be the answer to that perennial philosophical question: what defines human beings?
The longest surviving answer was the simple: man is a rational animal. We had rationality, other animals did not. In the hands of rather narrow, rather cerebral, eggheads, “rational” was understood in an eliminationist (philosophers like big words) way. To be “rational” one had to exclude emotions. To be rational, one had to be detached and disinterested, “objective” as that word came to be understood. For 19th century economic theory “rational” involved eliminating concern for others. “Rational choice” signified objective calculation to maximize one’s own interests. As all of this suggests, “rational” eliminated many of the dimensions of life we tend to cherish. It turns out to be not that flattering as a distinguishing trait. It doesn’t seem to be all that “natural” either, more an affected stance based on some ideological assumptions.

Now that anthropologists are showing the way maybe philosophers can offer a new definition: humans are the animals who cook. Cooking as that which proudly marks us off? Why not? Here is an area where we can unabashedly celebrate our uniqueness. Animals eat, we cook. Unlike "rational" which is eliminationist, cooking is inclusionist. It requires intelligence, care, the invention and use of tools, and the handing down of tradition. Meal taking is typically social, and often celebratory. Our Linnaean classification calls us homo sapiens. The sapiens, which means wisdom, is derived from a Latin verb sapere, to “taste or to savor.” It thus seems that dropping “rational animal” in favor of “cooking animal” is a return to basics, not a radically novel move. Maybe that’s why a small village should welcome various purveyors of food, even pizza places.