NO ONE WOULD EVER DESCRIBE AMERICANS AS "AN INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE"

Sudhir Hazareesingh, How the French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People (New York: Basic Books, 2015) (All great nations think of themselves as exceptional. France's distinctiveness in this regard lies in its during belief in its own moral and intellectual prowess." Id. at 5. Also, Mark Lilla, "The Strangely Conservative French," New York Review of Books, 11/22/2015. "Culture is a cult object in France. It has been estimated that about half of the French population is reading a book at some point every day, around two thousand book prizes are given out every year, and three thousand cultural festivals are held, often in splendid settings. Large government subsidies are given to public radio stations like France Culture, as well as to independent bookstores and countless little magazines. Some years ago the the literary historian Marc Fumaroli, now a member of the Academie Francaise, published a blistering attack on this system, titled L'Etat culture (The Cultural State). He did so, though, not on the grounds that it was elitist or cost too much, but in the name of high culture, arguing that government largesse and cultural bureaucracy stifled genuine creativity and independence." "Anti-intellectual populism a l'Americaine has no traction here." Id. at 50.).