112 Gripes About the French • Hacker News Board

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#131

Post by 11thEarlOfMar » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #44

baby wrote: post #10

This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came t…

> I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different I also wish we had such a book currently on how progressive and conservatives are different

I'll use myself as an example:

- Voters should show proof of citizenship when voting.

- The US needs to take a serious look at implementing Universal Basic Income, and not just because of the automation of jobs.

- Abortion should be legal up to the earliest that a fetus has survived out of the womb, roughly 3 months.

- We should celebrate diversity, and, we should be able to talk about what makes us different. Without risking censure.

- We should have a clear, straightforward and streamlined path to citienship for anyone who wants to become an American.

- Mass media has done a masterful job of brainwashing Americans for the purpose of polarizing us, which drives outrage, clicks and ad revenue.

What label do you apply to me? How about none? People's beliefs are on a spectrum, they aren't binary. But we should each understand the 'first principles' of why we believe what we believe, and dig deeper than a news article. Once you view people in this way, you actually have to get to know them before you can decide whether their beliefs align with yours.

Labeling people and judging them based on a superficial observation is the opposite of inclusion. I was taught that in grade school 50 years ago.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#132

Post by marbletiles » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #23

ThePadawan wrote: post #9

> (...) tensions began to rise between the French and the U.S. military personnel stationed in the country, with the former seeing the latter as arrogant and wanting to flaunt their wealth, and the latter seeing the former as proud and resentful. Well. I mean... Joking aside, the text is amazingly blunt and honest, in a rather refreshing way. "The French don't bathe." The French don't bathe often enough. They can't.…

> the text is amazingly blunt and honest It would likely have been written to be comprehensible to people with a fairly low reading level.

Which makes it all the more impressive that it's quoting Tacitus and such like. There's an important distinction between reading level and intelligence, and I think we conflate the two in modern writing. Simple language doesn't need to be simplistic.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#133

Post by jhugo » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #39

As a french, it reminds me very much of the FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency manual: a pragmatic and clear book that tries to make approachable what seems an impossible topic to handle. That's really a side of the american culture I'd like we promote more. Also a proof militaries are not devoid of humanism.

In case anyone is interested in a link: https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf

It's indeed an interesting read.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#134

Post by _Nat_ » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #103

baby wrote: post #10

This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came t…

> It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). How about this: Some Frenchmen have certainly gypped some Americans . We remember the times we were gypped . We forget the number of times we were not. How many times were you treated fairly, honesty°' ? Were you never "gypped" back home -in towns near army camps ? (See ques…

Are you suggesting that the term "gypped" may've been racist? Presumably because its etymology may be a reference to a stereotypical behavior attributed to gypsies, which some might regard as a racial-slur for [Romani people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people)?

That passage doesn't give me that vibe -- it seems to be trying to suggest that the relevant behavior, "gypping", isn't culturally unique, but rather could be found back in the United States, too.

Concerns about terminology etymologically-based on cultural stereotypes aside, it doesn't read like the author was expressing a racist perspective, but rather trying to speak to such preexisting-perspectives as to dispel them.

Would probably want to do some checking on this first, though I'd suspect that "gypsy" wasn't widely regarded as offensive back then, either, much like "Negro" literally just meant "Black". Seems like sometimes terms are retro-historically recast as racial-slurs, apparently in an attempt to create a gap between historical-texts which use such terms and later-texts which don't. Kinda like depreciating an API in favor of a clone as a mode of depreciating the corresponding ecosystem.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#135

Post by gambiting » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

eplanit wrote: post #53

rsynnott wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the text is amazingly blunt and honest It would likely have been written to be comprehensible to people with a fairly low reading level.

People weren't as fragile and sensitive then. It was better in that way.

Except that it's actual nonsense. Not long after WW2 the congress tried to ban comic books for spoiling the youth,just couple decades later people were holding public protests against the Simpsons, and the first TV show to mention the word "period" was met with similar level of protests as if that's something dirty and unspeakable.

No, it's the exact opposite - "back then" people were far more fragile and sensitive and doing or saying the wrong kind of thing could have serious consequences on your life.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#136

Post by 11thEarlOfMar » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #10

This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came t…

Right off the bat:

"The right to speak involves the duty to listen."

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#137

Post by himinlomax » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #10

This whole thing is amazing. It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different, but not so different than us. > We didn't come to Europe to save the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came t…

The statue itself was paid by the French, the US funds were for the pedestaland earthworks.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#138

Post by kevinmchugh » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

rualca wrote: post #91

cafard wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah. The first encounters between the French and the US in WW II were hostile: The US landings in Morocco against French resistance.

> Hah. The first encounters between the French and the US in WW II were hostile: The US landings in Morocco against French resistance. I feel this statement grossly misrepresents history. French north Africa was controlled by Vichy France, which was Nazi Germany's puppet regime and did not represented french sentiment or opinion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch

Thanks. My initial read of the other comment was that the US was fighting the French Resistance, when it was the opposite.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#139

Post by afarrell » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

rgoulter wrote: post #38

Does anyone know whether this had any impact on relations? My experience with seeing discussions online doesn't give me much confidence in the persuasive ability of "here are logical reasons why what you're feeling is wrong".

Online discussions are a lot more scatterbrained than sitting down to read a book. People are more willing to take a second & more logical look before responding when they cannot tweet back.

Also, this has a lot of reasons why the reader is right to feel a certain way.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#140

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #97

julienfr112 wrote: post #90

I kind of wonder why it's always acceptable to have general critics about the Frenchs, but take exactly the same discours and replace it replace it with Jews or Blacks, and sundenly, it becomes completely racist and unacceptable.

You can't compare a nationality to an ethnicity/religion and a race, respectively.

Why?