ABSTRACT
The New Yorker recently published a debunking piece on the Parisian cultural scene. The reporter characterized contemporary French thinkers as exhibitionistic, faddish, and lacking humor. Just as ideas have lost all integrity in Paris, so, too, has the Parisian intellectual evolved into a superficial virtuoso. Thinkers construct theories about "reality" while keeping an eye on marketplace fluctuations. The popularizers in the media and the press package and diffuse the product. The French intellectual cultivates his image as glamorous, learned, theoretically dazzling, quotable, one with an instant opinion on any subject. The more outrageous the posturings, the more the public adores him. His sex appeal and his performing abilities make him equivalent in America to popular culture heroes such as the entertainer, the rock star, and the quarterback.
