Complain Like the French To Boost Health Or Spiral Into the Negative? 81
"In France, a complaint is an appropriate and frequent conversation starter -- but the appropriateness of when, to whom and about what to complain is a delicate art," writes Emily Monaco via the BBC. Slashdot reader omfglearntoplay shares excerpts from the report: Many a conversation in France begins with a sigh and a lament. The French attitude towards complaining is uncomfortable for many Anglophones, many of whom argue that negativity breeds negativity. But according to some experts, the French attitude may in fact be better for your health. A 2013 study in Biological Psychiatry found that attempts to regulate negative emotions could be linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, while 2011 study from the University of Texas at Austin found that bottling up negative emotions can make people more aggressive. This isn't to say that complaining is always positive. Complaining too often can get you caught in a spiral, actually rewiring your brain to always focus on the negative. But French raleurs may well avoid this unfortunate side effect, in part because they rarely complain about their own lives but rather about external issues.
Lol wut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the real world --
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Stop moaning and look on the bright side, you negative complainer!
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Just like our cousins from France, us French people from Montreal never complain about our lives but we sure like to complain about creimer and that keeps us quite healthy and prevents us from spiraling into the negative because we find ourselves lucky compared to him.
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There are French people in Montreal? I used to live there and I don't remember meeting any.
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What fancy, over-educated academic came up with this?
I know this is Slashdot but this can be answered if you RTFSFSTTE (Read The F-ing Summary's First Sentence To The End) ;-)
Re:Lol wut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds about right to me. Swearing has been shown to increase tolerance for pain, for example.
The alternative is the English way (according to Pink Floyd, with whom I agree): hanging on in quiet desperation because we are too embarrassed to complain.
Reminds me of that line from Frasier: "What is the one thing better than an exquisite meal? An exquisite meal with one tiny flaw we can pick at all night."
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Back in the real world where people get hostile towards academic research, because their Ego's demand that they have to be right!
Like a lot of things in life there really needs to be a balance to be healthy. You need sleep and exercise, if you sleep too much it is unhealthy, if you exercise too much it is unhealthy too. We eat foods where if you eat the right amount you get a positive benefits, if you eat too much of a particular type you will often get ill.
Alcohol, Coffee, Sugar, Carbs, Fats, Salt... When
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Victim is too strong of a word, especially if they are justified complaints.
If I complain to the waiter that my food wasn't good. I wouldn't call the waiter a victim, they and I know that they didn't make the food they just delivered it. However, it is their job to return the food and get me something better. The Chef who cooked the food who is responsible, and may take offence that I didn't like it, may feel like they are a victim, but if they are emotionally healthy they will let it slide off because t
Re: Lol wut? (Score:2)
So the Karens of the world are going to outlive us all. Grrreeeaaat
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What fancy, over-educated academic came up with this?
Back in the real world --
What simple, uneducated fool can't read TFS?
Oh, you're still here?
I protest (Score:2)
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Indeed, this is complete crap! The French have absolutely no monopoly in this behavior! It is very probably they may not even be doing it best!
Re: I protest (Score:2)
I give them a few weeks before they surrender.
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Part of the Russification program was to export their national gloomy outlook on life to their neighbors.
posting to fix fat finger mod (Score:2)
Oops. :-(
Anglophone complaints (Score:5, Insightful)
Which Anglophones are these who argue against complaining? The English are always complaining, although never to the person who might be able to do something about the problem. In fact, the anthropological study "Watching the English" (Kate Fox; ISBN 978-0-340-81886-2) has 13 lines of index for "moans, moaning", including references to ritual moaning. US Americans, OTOH, appear to complain frequently and vociferously to the people who can do something about the problem. Are there English-speaking cultures which aren't similar to either?
Re:Anglophone complaints (Score:4, Insightful)
In an international complainathon the British would beat the French hands down. In the US the culture is more to claim everything is fantastic until they go on a rampage and shoot up a highway restaurant. It's different.
I may be simplifying a bit.
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But that's taunting innit.
Here's a sample of the artform of whingeing, griping and moaning which is unlikely to cross the waters:
Operation Less Pricks [youtube.com]. For those less fluent in English the lyrics [halfmanhalfbiscuit.uk]. But any of their songs will do.
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Watch some REXULTI ads sometime. They explicitly, openly, and unapologetically say that you should take their drug so people won't find you negative and exclude you from their lives.
Won't work (Score:2)
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We also complain about the French.
For the weather? I think it's the British, not us.
Their is nothng quite like... (Score:2)
a gallic shrug to end a conversation.
French pickup line: (Score:4, Funny)
"Life is shit eh" *sucks on cigarette*
I don't see how (Score:5, Funny)
To make it like the french we would have to:
Have the 35 hour week and 30 days of paid vacations, 11 holidays, unlimited sick leave days, paid leave for maternity, 2 days if you are moving, 5 additional days if you're getting married 1-2 days for every family member dying and complain about that, an hour a workday for pauses and lunch, too damn short naturally, go to lunch early, complain to the waiter, come back late, complain to the colleagues, chat 3-4 hours instead of working and go home early because it will rain soon, go on strike because it's that time of the year.
Re:I don't see how (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they got all that stuff because they complained about it.
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Maybe they got all that stuff because they complained about it.
Indeed that's how it happened !
Re:I don't see how (Score:4, Insightful)
To make it like the french we would have to:
Have the 35 hour week and 30 days of paid vacations, 11 holidays, unlimited sick leave days, paid leave for maternity, 2 days if you are moving, 5 additional days if you're getting married 1-2 days for every family member dying and complain about that, an hour a workday for pauses and lunch, too damn short naturally, go to lunch early, complain to the waiter, come back late, complain to the colleagues, chat 3-4 hours instead of working and go home early because it will rain soon, go on strike because it's that time of the year.
The best bit is their productivity isn't that much different to the US. Apparently longer hours and limited sick days just means you spend more time faffing around rather than doing actual work.
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The best bit is their productivity isn't that much different to the US. Apparently longer hours and limited sick days just means you spend more time faffing around rather than doing actual work.
Productivity is measured [investopedia.com] in GDP per hours worked:
Productivity, in economics, measures output per unit of input, such as labor, capital or any other resource – and is typically calculated for the economy as a whole, as a ratio of gross domestic product (GDP) to hours worked.
So the French are doing less per hour and [forbes.com] working fewer hours. All that extra time off is not making them more productive.
Re:I don't see how (Score:4, Informative)
Still, that chart you link shows a definite trend of fewer hours worked correlating with greater productivity. France sits right on that trendline.
If you take out the outliers Ireland and the United States, which have good productivity despite working a lot of hours, you get an even stronger correlation, and France still sits right on the trendline.
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Sure, maybe you can generate a trend line, but all that means is that high economic productivity does not require increased labor hours, not that reduced labor hours increases productivity. A more likely interpretation is that if your country is strong in energy exports or financial services, you can achieve a high GDP per capita.
Take Norway, for example. Norway is very strong in oil exports and so the GDP per capita is ~2x Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Likewise, Switzerland has one of the strongest financi
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So productivity is lower. How about health and well being of the workforce, is that greater?
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"So productivity is lower. How about health and well being of the workforce, is that greater?"
Did you get the parts about working only 35 hours a week, 30 days paid vacation and personal paid vacation days for everything that happens in your life, good or bad?
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The lockdown has shown just how inefficient normal office life was. Working from home today, I spent a couple of hours updating my colleagues who had been on holiday, and less than an hour dealing with progress on a current project. No hours spent commuting. No pointless meetings. I had time for a couple of glasses of cider and an afternoon nap, and did a bit of cooking. And I still got all my work done.
Regarding the moaning about stuff, this is interesting from a philosophical point of view. This relates t
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Don't forget the constant riots and violence, and a lifestyle so shit that thousands of people risk their lives to leave France and reach England.
French culture good for your health (Score:3)
It's true! Pus, we are often on strike, which is useful to relax, and we love demonstrations, which makes us do a bit of sport (but not too much thanks to the strikes).
I'm waiting for the article about the anti-cancer properties of red wine, baguette and stinky cheese.
Next, how German culture of always following the rules is good for your mental stability...
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A coin toss is the best way of predicting whether next week's newspapers will say that red wine causes or prevents cancer.
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Strikes, with their panoply of banners and chants, are a colorful accent to the French spring and fall. JUst be careful of the ones that hit the transportation sector.
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I'm waiting for the article about the anti-cancer properties of red wine, baguette and stinky cheese.
I don't know about the anti cancer benefits. But it certainly helps with the social distancing.
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Well, the Brits have you beat with Stinking Bishop cheese ("what diocese?"). But it's probably not secular enough for France.
Reminds me of an episode of Ramy (Score:2)
For any of you lucky enough to have stumbled on Hulu's amazing Ramy, there's an episode dedicated to the eponymous character's mom's Uber gig, where she gets a French (or Canadian?) passenger who starts conversation exactly like this. And the flow of that conversation is amazing, even if all the flirting ends up being misunderstood by the mum.
The french still have the revolution in them. (Score:5, Interesting)
What USians tend to forget when looking at something like this is that the french still have the revolution in them. Whenever their government gets pissy with the people, the people gather up and raise hell, epic style.
And - this is the important part - they basically all agreed on who's to blame. Not like in the US, where the system manages to pitch people against each other and have those responsible run free with their cash and privileges. In France there is still some memory of the times when the guillotines where brought out and quite a few rich and powerful people where made a head shorter. That's why France has some pretty neat privileges for it's regular people, somewhat resembling Germany in that respect.
Hence French will always do somewhat fine, no matter if they happen to be complaining or not. Pretty much like in Germany, where we have "Jammern auf hohem Niveau" which roughly translates to "Bickering at a high level".
My 2 eurocents.
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The Yellow Vests are populists, just like Trump.
But you say 'populist' like it's a bad thing. It's the will of the people. The basis of a democracy. The 99%. Hillary won the popular vote.
The media rightfully refused to give them any air
Then the media is serving the elite, not not majority.
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Untrue. Look at the history of populism. While it may seem to have the same root word as popularity, it's quite different. It was originally coined to describe members of the People's Party in the US, but it exists in many places. A commonality is that they claim to represent the will of the people, even if they have a minority political viewpoint. Populism can be good or bad, and it exists on both the left and the right. But it definitely takes a fast negative downturn if it tries to divide a nation
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A commonality is that they claim to represent the will of the people, even if they have a minority political viewpoint.
Then it should be no problem discrediting the claim. If some group claims to represent the majority, put the issue up to a vote. If you need to silence someone, it just shows that you fear their legitimacy. On the other hand, if one needs to turn the term into a derogatory one, it demonstrates their disdain for the democratic process.
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unless goosestepping overlords come, then they roll over, then they wave the real french flag, white stars on a white canton, on a white field, the proud banner of the cheese eating surrender monkeys.
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The way Americans are taught history is fascinating.
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it's what happened, deal with it.
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You completely forgot about the Provisional Government complaining about having to eat English cheese, and the French resistance complaining about how hard it is to get good dynamite to blow up the Nazis.
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unless goosestepping overlords come, then they roll over
That surrender-monkey 3900miles away is just weak for surrendering to the Nazis, he says from the comfort of being 4000 miles away.
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Last I checked 73,000 U.S. people got on planes and went over there, just to kick the not-surrendering party off.
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LOL, yeah I suppose in American history they tell you that America are the reason the war was won.
Anyway what has going overseas got to do with being invaded. You'd have more of a point if 73000 Nazis came to the USA. Quite easy to criticise someone for surrendering when you're not having the ever-living shit bombed out of you.
You have such a sheltered world view.
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eh, I was taught the Russians did the major thing in finally bringing down Third Reich, don't put words in my mouth or my teachers of long ago.
The Nazis attacked ships and made attacks on U.S. soil, as did Japan. infiltration and preparation for sabotage and terrorism were made before the U.S. entered the war. Maybe your history classes left that out.
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I think that's rather unlikely. A few hundred, maybe a couple of thousand tops.
The rest went by sea.
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I think Leon Trotsky believed in continuous revolution. You do not overthrow the evil overlords just once; you have to keep at at it, because the blighters keep on coming back. Trotsky was a major critic of Stalin: we got rid of one lot of despotic overlords, now we have an even worse despot. George Orwell deals with this in Animal Farm.
Culture clash (Score:3)
This is a complete culture clash. This doesn't mean that if Americans started complaining about stuff in the ways described in the paper that they'll have lower stress-related illnesses. It also doesn't mean that if an American is suffering from socially induced stress-related illnesses that they'll somehow get better if they move to France & learn French, i.e. learn to be an American in French. American & French culture have little to do with each other in terms of society & values. Americans just don't get the French & vice versa.
Another thing is that the French typically dedicate more time in their day to socialise with friends & family. That means they're typically closer to each other, more familiar, know & understand each other better, & are more socially adept, e.g. they can deal with misunderstandings more easily & make more elaborate jokes with each other.
So, it turns out that French society & their way of life is healthier than American. Whoda thunk it?
Keep chasing that elusive happiness from accumulating material wealth at the expense of society & friendship. The rest of us will keep our balanced, socially oriented ways of living.
You cant argue with this kind of logic ... (Score:5, Funny)
The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
Conclusion:
Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is what kills you.
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You made my day, thanks !!!
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English speaking people work too hard and eat rubbish food. These two points are correlated. Working long hours and spending hours commuting does not appear to be productive. The UK has a terrible productivity index. We work hard for no good reason, get a disease because we are knackered, and then we die. A wonderful life.