Paul from Paris

The papal address (also in English) was a scholarly work tailored for the audience and the venue. It touched on monasticism and Biblical interpretation, and had as its theme "the origins of Western theology and the roots of European culture." It's not light reading but comes as a welcome change from most contemporary work on Europe, which so often takes extreme measures to push religion to the back stage, if not offstage.

The Collège des Bernardins, located on the Left Bank (downhill from the Sorbonne, near the Collège de France and the Institut du Monde Arabe), was established in 1245 for theological study. It filled this role for centuries. At the French revolution, the building was nationalized. It served briefly as a jail, and most recently was a fire house. It has just been restored (beautifully!) and reopened as a Catholic higher education and conference center.

This exercise is required of Paris firefighters. It's hard (and captured on video here, certainly with a group of firefighter-gymnasts). Trainee firefighters can earn extra credit points depending on how they execute the exercise. But all firefighters on active duty have to be able to execute the maneuver. The thinking seems to be that all firefighters should be able to climb onto (and down from) a roof or ledge.

Of course, more than competence is on display here. The Paris firefighters are an elite outfit, and the planche is one way firefighters signal excellence. Apart from its simplicity, the planche exercise is beautiful because:

• it's a badge of membership in a tough, elite group, required of both new recruits and active firefighters; and
• the exercise is done before a group, and in view of the group, which is bound to favor group cohesion. 

In a perfect world, continuing legal education (to take just one example) would be more like the planche exercise. 

Four take-away points:

1. Men and women answer personality tests differently.
2. The differences exhibit variation across cultures. In other words, men and women answer personality tests differently, but these differences vary by culture; the differences aren't uniform. 
3. The magnitude of the differences is smaller in traditional, agricultural cultures than in modern, post-industrial cultures. In other words, men and women answer personality tests more in the same way in agricultural societies, but more differently in post-industrial societies.
4. We can posit a change over time: as societies urbanize, men and women answer personality tests in increasing different ways.  

There has been considerable research in this area (Tierney offers some references), most recently an article (highlighted by Tierney) in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by David P. Schmidt, Anu Realo, Jüri Allik, and Martin Voracek. What struck me most in this scholarly article was the researchers' use of the Big Five Inventory, which measures personality traits such as "agreeableness" or "extraversion", not more popular notions like "caring" or "competitiveness".

I confess that much of the article went over my head, but I'm uncomfortable with Tierney's reference to a gender "gap". I'm also puzzled whether differences in personality tests answers really correspond to differences in personality. In other words, I'm not sure just what this research measures and compares, and how much can be read –especially by the lay reader– into the results.

I'm also a proud subscriber to Paris's innovative (for its scope and scale) bike rental system, Vélib. The system frees the cyclist of the burden of finding a storage place for his bike, and from having to repair break-owns. I've written about Vélib in an earlier post (in French).

There's been a lot of ink spilled on bicycles and safety. In the Vélib system's first year, three cyclists suffered fatal accidents. Many comments, including from the police, assumed that the cyclists were riding dangerously, putting their freedom before the rules of the road. Yet the cyclists weren't delivering messages or takeout, riding at high speed; they were middle-aged women, seemingly riding normally, struck by trucks or buses.

A short piece in Le Parisien (in French) discussed improvements set to mark Vélib's first birthday. Sandwiched between some repair and durability points, the article mentioned that the cycles would include specific warning stickers, pointing out the danger of riding in the blind spot of truck drivers.

This is an encouraging development, but I'm hoping for a fuller, open discussion of bicycle safety in Paris. It's important to note that, where fatalities have been suffered, the victim may not have been driving unsafely. And it's tragic that the drivers involved may have literally been unable to see cyclists in their vehicle's blind spot.

This week, I was reminded of the unwritten rule –there shall be music everywhere and always in the USA– while watching the US Open on television.

At the US Open, pop music punctuates the play.

This is in keeping with most sporting events in the US –I've ran marathons where there was music at the start and finish lines, and bands along the route– but contrasts sharply with tennis events elsewhere. At the French Open or Wilmbledon, spectators maintain a churchlike silence. Spectators may chat quietly with the neighbors, but the organizers insist upon quiet. Music is unthinkable.