Philosophical Rogues and Antiheroes of the Intellectual. Antonie France

Through optimism, there is a more powerful cue for the creative mind, but it comes with a fine balanced curse, is to set oneself between the high and and lows of life and draw inspiration of what pain and suffering entails, it all of its manifestations is to embrace the pessimistic.  Such were the early poets and writers of the late 1800s and early 1900s of Europe, who, after many years of inter-country conflict, the major powers of Europe and their attempts Empire building from Asia, Africa and through to Middle East.  It was the the elation of the technological rise and its promise of improving living standards at the turn of the century that heralded to what may saw and hoped as a new era of the lower classes and their inclusion into the broader society.  As the model of early Utopianism and Socialist thought which started in France and England in the late 1800s, embracing the belief of an equality based society, would lead to a more peaceful world.  The new optimism spread throughout Europe and so did its resonance in the literary world of books and poetry, as the advancement in printing continued, it was a time that was expressed as a fortunate period in history, yet, the curse of pessimism would always be eminent.  And at the turn of the early 1900s the people began to have a voice, in its hope of protest, after being ruled by the monarchies of Europe and their collected power infused with the Church begins to crumble, thus is the start of Bolshevik Communist ideology born out of Russia in 1907.  The working class finally demand rights, to which they had always been denied.  It is at that same point in history of social change, that France, in 1905, began its separation of Church and State, celebrating the value system of what they deemed a socialist society, that actually began with the French Revolution in 1789, had now galvanized itself as a political force throughout most of Europe. Western society was changing and so was its technological direction, but, there was a darker side to this industrial based revolution with its new mechanized production - the widespread militarization as a new arms begins towards a looming World War.

Antoine France was a writer and poet from Paris, growing up in the shadow of the French Revolution, he studied the humanistic writings of that time period, which described the very real plight and struggle of the peasants and the lowly workers of the streets of Paris.  As a young man his interest in reading and writing grew and fortunate for France, his father ran a book store, so it manifested in him a viewpoint at a young age that there has to be a tangible human existence beyond the Christian institutions and their projection of fear, which as we know with history, was an integral part of the Church maintaining control over the poor. Yet, for France, he witnessed the hypocrisy and failings of the religious order and it is in time of political and social upheaval that is the late 1800s and early 1900s, Europe starts to look at other theories, concepts. And literature served as the best way to describe the variants of human existence and its interaction with the natural world. So, a new found skepticism unfolds, both politically and philosophically. One could say that this was also the start of the sciences, physics and the rational combining to assist a new Europe. A foundation, that holds a promise of a better world. But for France, he connects to this new and exciting time in Europe and he starts to write in a very unique pose; a satirical and comical structure of his observations. There is this rational way that France viewed aspects of class division, political control and discord and its continued injustice. Dissecting these viewpoints into a comical, while at the same time, serious projection of life in the 1900s. So, one must say that France was not only a accomplished intellectual writer, he also wrote with a cynicism – and with his later writings there can been seen an almost joyful pessimism of life.  But it is France's expression in developing a landscape, an intellectual stylization of witnessing the temperament of hope that was also laced with the pessimistic, which shines his own self awareness and insight. Cleverly layering, in a balanced way, his style of creating worlds that very much reflect what he witnessed in Paris and Europe before his death in 1929. 

"For a man’s life would become intolerable, if he knew what was going to happen to him. He would be made aware of future evils, and would suffer their agonies in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessings since he would know how they would end. Ignorance is the necessary condition of human happiness, and it has to be admitted that on the whole mankind observes that condition well. We are almost entirely ignorant of ourselves; absolutely of others.  In ignorance, we find our bliss; in illusions, our happiness.” 

Antoine France, The Gods Will Have Blood."