We just finished another "quarter" of civ. our professor this time was the most ridivulous person i think ive ever met. He is one of the leading experts on Montainge alive today (according to his wikipedia page) which I'd believe. When we got to Montaigne, he pulled out three or four huge books that he had written about him, one for which he had one the French Super Important Awesome Medal of Honor. Then one day he casually mentioned Jean-Paul Sartre. It was something like "when i used to meet with Jean-Paul Sartre, he told me-" except he was cut off by all of us going what?? apparently, in the 50s or 60s JP was his mentor and they would have coffee three times a week. wtf? Then, he started explaining to us (again) the difference between France and America. Today his focus was on the rights of citizens. Basicfally, France throws away personal rights if its for the good of the commonwealth whereas the US is legally bound by the constitution to uphold personal privacy and property rights (ex: search warrants arent ever necessary in France). I didnt explain to him that some of this was due to a lot of long standing abuse of power by police in America. He then started talking about how, in France, rioters never get arrested because they are in a group. They aren't acting as an individual, so the individual can't get in trouble. Someone brought up the fact that there is an astounding amount of police brutality in France to which he responded "oui, zat is true, but you just have to beat them up when no one is looking." apparently, our professor was also the leading expert in Paris on molotov cocktails in his day. His son got arrested in the US for jumping and dancing on top of a police car during a riot, to which his parents responded "of course!"