"Anyone who has lived in France during the last twenty years or so should have some story to tell about their encounter with this growing number of disaffected and socio-pathic young adults of mostly North African birth or parentage," writes corbusier of Architecture and Morality [via Laura Lee Donoho of The Wide Awake Cafe] re his own mostly idyllic student days in a provincial town two miles west of Paris:
Angers’ demographic structure is no different than any other French city -- high-priced real estate in the historic core inhabited by native white Frenchmen, and state-controlled socialist housing blocks inhabited by mostly North African . . . at the city’s outskirts.
His story of a bully elbowing his way to the front of a line as his buddies watched exemplifies those "alternative codes of honor" -- such as the unorthodox bonding rituals of, for example, Hell's Angels and British soccer fans, not to mention the deadly rituals of adolescent jihadi recruits-- described by Peter F. Rowbotham that we are forever invoking to explain disagreeable human behavior. Corbu writes:
There was a queue of customers outside, each making an order for the worker to get in the store’s aisles. This was obviously a long-winded process. Still, the practice of patiently queuing is a sign of a stable civilization, and it was evident that there were those who were so uncivil so as to opt out of civilization itself. While waiting behind several people, this young North African who had arrived after us decided to walk at the very front of the line and start ordering at the booth window. The worker was still writing down the order of the young woman at the front of the line. This man was also shoving the young lady aside was forcing the sliding window open to talk to the worker. My friends stepped up and reminded the man to take his place in line like everyone else. They even offered him to cut in front of them. The young man behaved as if he was being somehow violated and as expected began to react with aggression. A few lines were exchanged before the man was threatening to fight my friends, with the help of a few guys from his posse who were waiting nearby. Some pushing and shoving commenced, yelling took place, and fortunately throwing punches was diffused just in time when it was decided to give the North African priority in the line. What was scary about this encounter was the one friend who was at the most risk was 5’-5” and actually pretty gentle natured. After that close call, he was telling everyone that his view had changed from being tolerant and understanding of the plight of young North African hoodlums to regarding all of them with suspicion and disgust.
Being mugged by reality will do that to a person. A practicing architect, blogger corbu has some interesting things to say about the role of his namesake, Corbusier's housing prototypes -- inhuman in scale and with "utter lack of privacy" -- in facilitating criminality. Citing Theodore Dalrymple's "scapegoating" of Corbusier's urban planning ideas, he offers a bit of insider's info about those few Corbusian prototypes that were actually realized:
[The prototypes] now turned into fashionable condominiums and the actual experiences of those who grew up in these blocks were quite favorable, due to the unique amenities Le Corbusier provided that most housing blocks leave out.
Corbu was right: "God is in the details" (attributed).
Blogging note: An interesting finding in studying Architecture and Morality's Site-Meter stats: An InstaLanche-like spike for last Sunday, the day he published the above-described post, but no link from InstaPundit. Studying the entrails, we found the blogging architect had been linked by No Pasaran, a new powerhouse group blog of mostly folks on the scene determined to get "behind the façades in France" and tell the world:
What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions.
This looks like one to watch.
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