French President Francois Hollande visits the U.S. (Creative Commons)
It’s Valentine’s Day so I was thinking about how
relationships endure and how they don’t.
Given that François Hollande has just finished his official visit to the
USA, I was brooding about the Franco-American relationship, its status today,
and its long history – a history that was referred to by both Hollande and
Barack Obama in their various speeches over the past few days. I scouted round
with Google and found some insightful research. It was on the website of the Gottman Institute whose program is
dedicated to understanding relationships by using top-notch research on
marriage and “down-to-earth therapy” to help couples. In an article in Psychology
Today (March 1, 1994) entitled “What Makes Marriage Work,” John Gottman,
co-founder of the Institute, finds that couples resolve their conflicts in
different ways:
- Validating.
Couples compromise often and calmly work out their problems to mutual
satisfaction as they arise.
- Volatile.
Conflict erupts often, resulting in passionate disputes.
- Conflict-avoiding.
Couples agree to disagree, rarely confronting their differences head-on.
Gottman
points out that in years gone by psychologists probably would have thought that
conflict-avoiding and volatile relationships would be destructive. However, his
findings indicate that these three styles can be equally solid and predict a
bright future for a relationship.
Over the past few days, there have been a variety of
articles and reports documenting the French President’s visit. I have picked out these three from the
New York Times and from NPR/PRI. Three
articles related to François Hollande’s visit give us three different points of
articulation of the relationship.
In the article on the sanctions in Iran and French businesses seeking
economic opportunities there, we go to International relations and we see a
somewhat volatile side of the relationship as Obama warns that “we will come
down [ ... ] like a ton of bricks” on anybody violating the sanctions.
On a more familial note, in the world of state dinners and
who sits where at the table, the relationship seems to be more validating as
the Obamas and their staff work out where to put Mr Hollande, who has not
leading lady with him.
Finally, we turn to economics and business as François
Hollande makes his visit to Silicon Valley and here the relationship seems to
resolve some of its differences by avoiding head-to-head conflict.
Taken together, the articles offer us an evolving and revolving
viewpoint on the healthiness of France and the USA’s relationship.
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