In what country other than Canada could you have two successive heads of state, – Adrienne Clarkson and Michaelle Jean – two immigrant women representing two visible minorities – whose respective husbands’ unorthodox views never got them into trouble?
Unthinkable in the United States, the husband of Michaelle Jean, the film-maker Jean-Daniel Lafond, was said to be close to the political party of Quebec separatists who wished to leave the state of which his wife was the head. The other husband, John Ralston Saul, Canada’s most provocative public intellectual, was the author of two daring books. In Voltaire’s Bastards (1993), subtitled “The Dictatorship of Reason in the West,” he traced most of the things wrong in our world – mainly heartless technocratic bureaucracy – to the ideas coming out of the 18th century French Enlightenment. In The Unconscious Civilization, the 1995 Massey Lectures, he added undemocratic, technocratic, bureaucratic corporatism to history’s other totalitarianisms. It was a powerful and eloquent assault on the system in power today – government by experts.
No doubt John Ralston Saul is appalled, as well as wryly amused, perhaps, by the take-over in Greece and Italy of non-elected experts who are now attempting to push through the austerity programs devised by others to save the euro. He must have winced when, on November 3, the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, called for the ultra-democratic device – a referendum – to decide whether to accept the austerity program that others wished to impose as a condition of a possibly life-saving rescue plan. Others, horrified, quickly pressured him to reverse himself and leave office, to make room for a technocratic expert. A little later, events in Italy took a similar course.
If John Ralston Saul asked his friends – or maybe his wife? – how to explain all this, they might have told him to calm down, to stop wringing his hands: Max Weber, the father of sociology who died in 1920, had the answer.
The pattern reflects precisely the post-charismatic Zeitgeist, Max Weber would have said. Flamboyant, opinionated leaders are out; predictable men and women of the centre, preferably experts, are in.
The turbulence of recent years has terminated the era of charismatic leaders. The new prime minister of Greece is Lucas Papademos, a professor of economics and former Governor of the Bank of Greece, as well as vice-president of the European Central Bank. The new prime minister of Italy is Mario Monti, also a professor of economics who has spent ten years at the top of the bureaucracy in Brussels. Both men are “as predictable as traffic lights” according to the newspaper Die Zeit.
If the Socialists win next year’s presidential election in France, the party will be led by the amiable middle-of-the-road François Hollande, whose private life, though colourful, is considerably more conventional than that of his predecessor, the – what is the right word? – dashing Dominique Strauss Kahn.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
I think the word you were grasping for is “rapist”, that kind of “charisma” we can do without.
The poet Lamartine said “La France s’ennuie” re: the rule of the bureaucrats. That era was followed by the Revolutions of 1848. 150 cities exploded as people demanded more democracy and less poverty. The result was a conservative crackdown that lasted for 23 years until the Paris Commune and the beginnings of communism. After 1848, some small gestures to some property owners granted the right to vote. Small potatoes. Are we there yet? My sense is that something more dramatic is about to happen. Possibly caused by enormous changes in the Middle East? In Europe? In America? We look for signs everywhere. D’Annunzio: “The old world is dying. A new world struggles to be born. In between, some curious deformations occur…”
I share your views totally. Surely the Occupy Movement is significant. Even in Russia, we are told, the people are restless.
The bureaucrats who bored Lamartine did not have to deal with as complicated a world as the world of the new Greek and Italian prime ministers. If the experts who govern the Euro-world today have any success – not impossible – it may be due NOT only to their expertise, which may help, but also to the fact that they belong to a gentlemen’s club and genlemen often, though not always, help each other.
And as they say on Wall Street, “gentlemen prefer bonds…”
And exactly where does America fit in this? Will Ron Paul be the Republican nominee for President?
Mike Sky
The only truly electable GOP candidate, Mike, is Huntsman. And that makes him practically unelectable in the primaries. Gingrich continues to appeal as the non-Romney, but his lavish lifestyle and dubious lobbying make him increasingly suspect. He would be more than a match for Obama in a debate. Romney is the most likely nominee right now and could defeat Obama if the economy continues to stall and Iran gets the bomb.
I have nothing witty to add, except that Papandreou’s announcement was the Monday evening. The officials flying into Cannes to start the final negotiations for the summit learned the news only when their planes landed. That was October 31 — trick or treat!
And the other thing I’d add is that I saw a TV news report that Sarkozy’s popularity at the moment is quite high, because the French are pleased with the way he tackled the crisis head on and because he got brownie points for his meeting with Obama at the G20 summit as well as for his blossoming friendship with Angela, and also, of course, because the left is split and — to counter your point — lacks a charismatic leader!
I do not believe that Romney will be nominated. Who likes him ? I like only Huntsman among the Republicans, but that is only me. I like Gingrich a little more today, because of his views on immigration.