Why am I here? I fight. I fight against vulgarity, against authoritarianism. I fight for elegance of heart and mind, for democracy, for an enlightened world.
You’ll think it’s a bit ambitious, it’s a bit pretentious, and you’ll probably be right. But hey, I was brought up by a liberal mother who kept telling me that facing a jerk doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk too. “Stay above the crowd” was the ultimate mantra.
You may find that link between elegance and democracy quite questionable. I never did. In my over-educated and neurodivergent brain, the connections were quickly made: elegance of heart and mind and democracy tend only towards one and only idea: transcendence through education.
Education.
No State apparatus has an interest in seeing its people educated. There is no conspiracy behind this sentence (I remind you that I am primarily specialized in administrative law, constitutional law and administrative business law). A plot requests veeeeery smart people. The point is that veeeeery smart people are extremely rare, even in high spheres. The prevailing state immobility means that political leaders have no interest in bridging the gap that separates them from their constituents. Rich people become mechanically richer and being poor is mechanically very expensive – welcome to modern life. Two worlds coexist, have always coexisted, will unfortunately probably coexist for a long time to come and the story stops there, there is not even any need to brandish obscure conspiratorial concepts.
Education.
If I evoke castles, historic places or museums, it is because History does not necessarily repeat itself but let’s admit that it often stutters. There are always lessons to be learned, beyond the purely plastic beauty of the places I visit and report on here.
I force myself not to react on breaking news, because hindsight, research and reflection seem necessary to me before writing down texts that will remain forever on the Internet.
If I inflict many publications on classic movies on you, it is because I force myself to watch them again in order to check if they still resonate today and if they pass the test of time.
If I avoid talking about current films or series, it’s because an internationalized Netflix culture scares me a lot. This platform (which I nevertheless use extensively) disturbs me greatly because I realize that – from Paris to New York – we all watch the same thing. It may be great when it comes to pure fictions but it becomes disturbing when it comes to documentaries or fictions based on reality. Netflix unwittingly participates in a normalization of opinions and the sources on which these opinions are based, by necessarily romanticizing the facts for a population of spectators who will not necessarily do their research on the real subject.
Why am I here? I fight.
I fight for myself, because this website is my breath of fresh air in an ultra-standardized professional environment. It is a way of doing research, educating myself, writing you the right things – hopefully.
I fight for my children, because I don’t know what world they are thrown into and I work daily on the quality of my interactions with them, whether they are 8, 12 or 22 years old. By educating myself, I transmit to them, I tell them, I educate them. And they educate me too.
I fight for us, because I always nourish the ridiculous hope that if a text – a single one – written by my hand can enlighten a person – a single one – on any field, all this digital initiative will have served some purpose.
I’m exhausted.
We have just gone through a pandemic, we are on the verge of a global conflict and I am no longer sure of the relevance of what I am proposing to you here.
We’ll see later.
I’m exhausted.
But it seems to me crucial, in such complex circumstances, to search for transcendence and education.
So let’s carry on.
April 30, 2022
Tara Jarmon jacket – Dior belt – Armani trousers – Chloé handbag – Tabitha Simmons flat shoes – Chanel sunglasses
