| 31. "The French are insincere; it is an inborn trait with them." There are no "inborn traits" which account for the social characteristics or customs of a people. The entire body of scientific anthropology proves this. A French child, of French descent, will react like an American if that child is raised in an American home in an American town. The same goes for a child of any other nationality, color or creed. To talk about "inborn traits" is talk just as the Nazis did when they talked about "good" or "bad" blood. It just does not jibe with fact or science. To say that the French are insincere is no more sensible than to say that Bostonians have an "inborn trait" for baked beans, or that Brooklynites have an "inborn trait" for throwing pop bottles at the umpire. Are the French "insincere" ? The way to answer this intelligently is to define insincerity, analyze the number of Frenchmen who show these characteristics, compare this number to the number of Frenchmen who do not show these characteristics; get the relative proportions between the two groups, then compare the proportions to a similar analysis of the "insincerity" of other nations, including the Papuans. |
