My greatest fears

Mes plus grandes craintes

  abandonment and rejection.
  being alone, being uninterested
  being buried alive and having a fake gun be replaced with a real one in a theatre
  being impaled and being poor for a long time
  death, meaninglessness
  death, poverty, the loss of loved ones, making bad decisions
  debilitating illness, terror atacks
  failing and falling in public
  falling, rejection, security, failure
  future.
  life without love, death, spiders
  losing my parents or family, drowning, being unhappy
  losing those that i love most
  not being successful in the workplace
  not being successful, not finding love
  of being dependent on others and not knowing myself.
  snakes and lonliness
  that I will grow up to be someone very mediocre after all my hard work, and that I will not have a happy marriage.
  that I will not be able to accomplish all of my goals and still remember who I am and what I wanted to give back to the community.
  that I will not know what to do with my life, that I will be alone

de mourir étouffer
de ne pas me plaire dans mon travail
de perdre un de mes proches, de ne pas trouver de travail
la destruction e l'environnement par l'homme (déréglement climatique, pollution, ...), l'impact à long terme des technologies (ondes hertziennes radio GSM etc, magnétisme électronique...), conflits, guerres idéologiques ou non, la corruption dans les démocraties
la haine, l'éventuelle mauvaise santé de mes proches et amis, et qu'ils soient un jour malheureux
la mort, la maladie, la solitude
la mort, la maladie, la solitude, l'ennui
le chômage, le F.N.
le vide
les guerres dans le monde
mon futur emploi, ma vie amoureuse
pas connu pour ma part

Discussion

Hello everyone,
One thing that struck me about our responses on this subject was that the students of
INT included worldwide phenomena like "la destruction de l'environnement par
l'homme," "conflits, guerres idéologiques ou non, la corruption dans les démocraties,"
et "les guerres dans le monde." However, we Brown students mentioned only personal
fears, personal failure, or personal crisis with the exception maybe of "terror attacks."
Could this be because of a difference in the implicit meaning of "fears" vs. that
of "craintes?" Or can the difference be explained by differences in ideology? I am
tempted to guess that maybe "craintes" could be associated with words like "worries" in
english, but I don't know. If the phrase had been "my greatest worries," I could see
myself maybe responding with global issues, but I honestly still think I would have
thought of personal worries, like whether I am going to fail a midterm exam. Thus, I
think that the difference probably lies in our thinking patterns. This reminds me of the
word association responses to "individualism." The fact that none of us think of global
issues when we are asked for our greatest fears could be taken as supporting the idea
that Americans, or maybe just Brown students, are particularly invested in personal
success and the success of the individual - every person for him/herself. The proposed
French respect for a more collective ideology and aversion to selfish and egotistical
individualism, as demonstrated by the INT students' responses, also seems to be
supported by their inclusion of global issues along with their fears of personal failure or
loss. What does everyone else think?
ME

Posted byAR) on Thursday, October 21, 2004 4:17am
Je ne pense pas que les réponses soi aussi différentes que ça. On peu voire que dans les
réponse Française, il y’a pas mal de personne qui on peur de la mort ou la perte de leurs
proches. Pas mal de personne ont peur de rater leur vie sentimentale ou leur vie
professionnels.
Dans l’ensemble je pense que nous avons les mêmes craintes.

 

I agree with Anas. I think for the most part we have the same fears of death, being
alone, and becoming sick. I think at some basic level we are all afraid of suffering
whether for ourselves or through the ones we love. Even those students who spoke of
war and the environment could have been thinking about the suffering of future
generations (who we will care about through our children). I believe that in the face of
common enemies such as death, war, lonliness, and suffering national differences
become less important and we can see those characteristics that make us human as
opposed to French or American.

Je crois que le mot crainte et le mot peur ne renvoient pas exactement à
la même chose pour un Français. La différence est minime mais une peur
est plus intime, personnelle, moins rationnelle. C'est surement pour
cela que nos réponses sont plus générales et moins individualistes.

One thing I noticed was that there were several times that the Brown students responded
to this with "failure" or a different wording of this concept (being mediocre, not
accomplishing goals, not being successful) but that this idea was lacking in the INT
students' responses. Do you think this would have been different if the prompt had
been "mes plus grandes peurs" since that has more personal implications? Do you
consider "l'insucces" to be one of your fears, or a legitimate one, or a common
one? "L'insucces" was the closest word I could find to a translation of the English
word "Failure." Is there a better one?

Also, what does the abbreviation "F.N." stand for?

F.N est le front national ,c'est un parti politique francais d'extrême droite.Ils ont à leur
tête Jean marie le pen personnage politique connu pour ses actes et âroles racistes.Bien
que ca soit la honte de la politique francaise,ils ont réussi à faire un score de 20% aux
dernières élections présidentielles et sont passés au deuxième tour.

Hi LZ>

I'm just wondering about the general reaction to the 2002
Presidential Elections in France. Phuc said above under "Bon
citoyen" that the 2002 elections will and have made people in
France aware that each vote does count. Do you feel the same
way? Is one of your greatest fears to have an extreme party be
elected in France because a lot of citizens decide not to vote?

I also noticed that a few Brown students responded with animals or
objects they are afraid of like snakes and spiders. There were no
INT students that stated any type of animal or object (except of the
one INT student that talked about the destruction of the
environment and the long term impact of technology). INT
students, are any of you scared of or fear certain animals or objects?

In general though, I do agree with Anas in the sense that a lot of our
greatest fears are the same. It seems like death, being alone,
sicknesses, and the loss of loved ones are the overriding things in
which both Brown students and INT students are fearful.

Christie, it seems to me that the INT students are also scared of
failure, specificially, in the workplace just like us. Failure in the sense,
however, that they won't find a job or that they won't like their job.
They had comments like, "de ne pas me plaire dans mon travail, de
ne pas trouver de travail, le chomage, mon futur emploi," etc. Our
class' responses were more geared towards "failling, falling in public,
not being successful in the workplace," etc. It seems like the INT
students are more worried about their happiness and finding a job
while the Brown students are more fearful of failure in the
workplace. Brown and INT students, why do you think there is this
slight difference? Do you think it has to do with how work and jobs
are viewed in both cultures? INT students, do you think it is more
important to have a job you love and not make a ton of money or
to have a job that is boring and one you hate, but one in which you
make a lot of money? Brown students, what do you think?

Thanks!

~OP

Hi M,
C'est sûr que fear= peur et worry=crainte donc forcément on n'a pas répondu à la
même question il me semble...
Par exemple j'ai probablement répondu "la destruction de l'environnement par
l'homme," "conflits, guerres idéologiques ou non, la corruption dans les démocraties,".
Alors que mes plus grandes peurs : le vide, perdre la mémoire, les arraignées, attraper
le sida, la foule,...
Cependant je crois qu'il est certain que les Français ont une culture qui les pousse à
s'intéresser à un peu tout, donc à se soucier de tout... par exemple, j'ai lu un article il y
a de cela quelques années qui montraient qu'alors que les Américains aimaient avoir des
informations locales ou régionales à la télévision les Français plaçaient en tête les
informations internationales. Je ne sais pas si on peut dire pour autant que les Français
sont moins individualistes que les Américains, ils sont peut-être tout simplement plus
curieux et ont un horizon plus large ? Qu'en pensez-vous ?