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Can European café culture cure America?
UnHerd ^ | July 2024 | Chris Arnade

Posted on 08/13/2025 2:09:22 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

Americans are not a healthy bunch, neither physically nor mentally. And we we getting sicker. We have an unnaturally high level of mental illness…We are addicted to medicines…We are killing ourselves in record numbers.

Yet Americans often miss the strength of Europe because they rarely stray beyond its touristy city centres. Big city Europe is in the process of being smoothed into a generic, boring singular entity. This soulless Americanisation has accelerated dramatically over the last few decades, driven by globalisation, tourism and secular capitalism. The result is McEurope — a chain of big cities where chunks of each are the same.

….Of all the smallish towns I have stayed in along France’s Rhône Valley, Tournon-sur-Rhône is my least favourite. It’s a loud town with an old expressway, Route Nationale 86, running through it.

Yet even in Tournon, on a boring Wednesday afternoon, there was an active social scene, a communal sense of needing to be, if not directly with other people, then at least near them. At one local café, friends, colleagues, couples, families came and went. Those who arrived alone, mostly older regulars, came to sit, watch the world and chat with waiters and fellow patrons.

… This cafe culture, which I saw every day in every community along the Rhône Valley, is just one example of France’s healthy sense of communalism. The socialising here isn’t “networking” — but rather to become part of a collective, with a shared understanding of who you are (in this case, French) and why it’s good to be that. This sense of self so ingrained, it’s not explicitly recognised.

That feeling of knowing who you are, of recognising that you’re a valuable part of something bigger and better than yourself, is far less common in the United States…

(Excerpt) Read more at unherd.com ...


TOPICS: Food; Society
KEYWORDS: cafe; coffee; culture; europe; france
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To: GingisK

Right.

Because past history = inevitable future.

Absurd.


21 posted on 08/13/2025 2:44:59 PM PDT by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Prepare to survive.)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

LMAO...during the covid lockdowns here in LA, Restaurants had outdoor seating. Dindu’s were robbing people left and right.


22 posted on 08/13/2025 2:45:14 PM PDT by jpp113
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Can you point out a difference between our society any any that preceded us? We are definitely becoming very perverse and incompetency and graft abound. I see nothing on this site except deep mistrust of the government and its officers. Large blocks of citizens live on the public dole. All of this occurs in the last two stages of collapse.


23 posted on 08/13/2025 2:46:18 PM PDT by GingisK
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Deport this un- American moron


24 posted on 08/13/2025 2:47:04 PM PDT by cowboyusa (YESHUA IS KING OF AMERICA, AND HE WILL HAVE NO GODS BEFORE HIM!)
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To: GingisK

If everything is hopeless, why do you insist on remaining alive?


25 posted on 08/13/2025 2:47:28 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats are the Party of racism, anger, hate and violence.)
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe

Just look! Everything people complain about on this site are both symptoms and cause of collapse. Please read “The Palladium Letter” I linked above.


26 posted on 08/13/2025 2:48:02 PM PDT by GingisK
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To: Seruzawa

Well said.


27 posted on 08/13/2025 2:48:04 PM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: T.B. Yoits

Wow! We finaly agree on something
Europeans are lazy gridting leaches.


28 posted on 08/13/2025 2:48:59 PM PDT by cowboyusa (YESHUA IS KING OF AMERICA, AND HE WILL HAVE NO GODS BEFORE HIM!)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
The socialising here isn’t “networking” — but rather to become part of a collective, with a shared understanding of who you are (in this case, French) and why it’s good to be that.

It's "good" to have your head up your ass, sit back in a stupid cafe, while Muslims take over your nation?

29 posted on 08/13/2025 2:55:42 PM PDT by montag813
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Can European café culture cure Europe?


30 posted on 08/13/2025 3:01:26 PM PDT by Salman (It's not a slippery slope if it was part of the program all along.)
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To: doorgunner69

“soulless Americanisation“

Neither the Americans nor the Israelis Europeans love to complain about are the source of their problems.

It’s letting in “cultural enrichers” from the Middle East that is the problem.


31 posted on 08/13/2025 3:09:14 PM PDT by packagingguy
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To: GingisK

We had the same situation in the late 1800s in places like New York.


32 posted on 08/13/2025 3:10:05 PM PDT by kaktuskid
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
I am not hopeless. The drive behind what I say is to warn of the consequences of taking no action. The idea is to increase the tempo of corrective behavior. Trump will not be our President past this term, so The People need to frantically assure follow-on.

Besides, rebuilding civilization might be fun. ;-D

33 posted on 08/13/2025 3:11:38 PM PDT by GingisK
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To: GingisK

I am well aware of the collapse of civilizations. I personally would like to do everything possible to thwart the collapse of ours. But that’s just me.


34 posted on 08/13/2025 3:15:09 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats are the Party of racism, anger, hate and violence.)
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To: kaktuskid

I’m not the only one suggesting collapse. There are numerous “how brow” people studying this angle. Go read the material to which I provided links, and then reconcile what you read to ongoing events and attitudes. We can probably postpone collapse, but only if we identify and reverse the causes.


35 posted on 08/13/2025 3:17:36 PM PDT by GingisK
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
I personally would like to do everything possible to thwart the collapse of ours. But that’s just me.

Naw, it is at the very least you and me. I do believe people need to come to grips with the seriousness of our problems.

36 posted on 08/13/2025 3:19:33 PM PDT by GingisK
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Muslims running around with knives and machetes adds bold excitement to European cafes. All the little Trotskyites sipping absinthe can stroke heir beards in wonderment as their mates are gutted like cod.


37 posted on 08/13/2025 3:21:57 PM PDT by sergeantdave (AI training involves stealing content from creators and not paying them a penny)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Becoming more European is not going to improve our mental health.


38 posted on 08/13/2025 3:33:54 PM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

I wonder if France’s new jihadi masters will allow them to keep their cafe culture....


39 posted on 08/13/2025 3:43:19 PM PDT by Bigg Red ( Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.)
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To: 9YearLurker

I spend a lot of time in Europe for my job. I like visiting, but I have ZERO desire to live there. Give me my farmhouse in the country where I can shoot my rifles off of my porch and not have some bureaucrat controlling my every move.


40 posted on 08/13/2025 3:56:51 PM PDT by GaryCrow
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