French Philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy on McCain, Obama and the Left

... and the sexual differences between us and them (the French, not the politicians)

Comments (0) By Brendan Bernhard Wednesday, Oct 8 2008

...continued from page 1

If Bush says, at midday, that it’s daytime, I’m not going to force myself to claim that it’s the middle of the night! As to the war in Iraq, it’s very simple. It’s always a good thing that a dictator should be put out of business, and there is no society in the world that ought to be off-limits to human rights and democracy. The idea of accompanying Iraq along this road to democracy, the notion of a “duty to intervene,” applied to Iraq, obviously had nothing wrong with it. The problem is the way in which one acted. An idiotic strategy, the lack of an alliance on the ground to provide cover, and then, above all, the ideological error which is engraved in the genetic code of the neocons: To construct a democracy, you need diplomacy, the state — a very strong intervention by the state — but these men who, in their domestic politics, profess not to believe either in the state or in politics, can’t then claim to believe in them abroad.

Conditions in Iraq look a lot better now than a year ago. Is there a single good word you can say for President Bush?

Alexis Duclos

Bernard-Henri Lévy

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Yes, of course. He’s not autistic. He’s listened to the criticisms. And he has, finally, at the end of two long years, decided to dedicate himself to the kind of nation-building I mentioned earlier.

As well as the travels across the country you undertook for your last book, American Vertigo, you have spent a lot of time in New York and elsewhere in America. If you had to choose a single characteristic that differentiates the Americans and the French, what would it be?

Movement. Which is to say, the sense of space and also of time.

In a brilliant passage, you describe how French or European ideas about America can be highly contradictory, even nonsensical. The idea that we are still a “Puritan” society is one of them. I suspect you agree with this, however, and would be interested to hear why. Or to put it another way, what is the difference between French and American approaches to sexuality?

In effect, Puritanism! Although it seems to me there is a difference here between men and women. Among the former, I see Puritanical strains that are not fading. But I have the feeling that American women are much less Puritanical than they’re reputed to be. Or, more exactly, that Puritanism is often just an element in their arsenal of seduction. It’s an opinion.

Has Sarkozy said anything to you about your book since its publication earlier this year in France?

No.

LEFT IN DARK TIMES: A STAND AGAINST THE NEW BARBARISM | By BERNARD-HENRI LEVY | Random House | 256 pages | $25 hardcover