In a recent interview to “The Paris Review” (Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 206, Michel Houellebecq ), Michael Houellebecq said about Belgium that it is “a country that doesn’t work at all. And nobody understands why, from a psychological standpoint, because Belgians themselves seem sympathetic and make it all work. And yet it doesn’t. The country is going to disappear. So we have to believe that there are powerful sociological forces at work that cannot be explained in terms of individual psychology”.
I love Houellebecq and I love Belgium…Hence the conundrum. Is it really disappearing? J Thoughts, views, opinions, latest updates from the field?
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I don't think he meant it literally. His thinking is more of a literary provocateur than a historian. He does not really explain his argument. Also, strikingly, he claims earlier in the interview that individual does not have an influence on historical process. Wow. I would definitely question that. Bifurcation theory by Prigozhin, for instance, would be a nice point for discussion.
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