112 Gripes About the French • Hacker News Board

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#201

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #151

coldtea wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like a true American who only heard about those places from TV shows, movies, and mass media "coverage"... "media and education brainwashing" LOL

I think you both need to read the book this submission is based on and try to apply some of its lessons in this thread.

Beyond common ground and "we're all human" triteness, there are also deep cultural faults...

The book is right in addressing the ones it does.

But not every aspect of a culture is valid.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#202

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

hallway_monitor wrote: post #106

coldtea wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a statistical observation. The people who phrase it the way the parent did, usually tend to be on a specific side. (The other side has its tell-signs as well).

If you are liberal you believe conservatives are greedy, amoral and probably evil. If you are conservative you believe liberals are stupid and probably brainwashed. This is America.

And if you're neither, you can see through both charades.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#203

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

SiempreViernes wrote: post #153

coldtea wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguably they only paid such a high price due to their industrial underdevelopment which was partly due to their economic and political system. Very arguably, as it's actually the opposite: the socialism forced mass force industrialization, and prepared USSR better for WWII than Russia ever had any chance of being.

Well, technically the Tsardom is also a economic and political system.

Yes, it just wasn't a very effective one in comparison... In fact it was dying for decades before 1905 and finally 1917 put it out of its misery...

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#204

Post by thatguy0900 » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #64

thatguy0900 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? but trigger was started and used by that side themselves.

I’d advise reading the book “112 Gripes about the French” and then applying that same empathy to the people you dislike in our modern era.

Where did you get I disliked anybody? Parent used "sides" before I did, and it's seems absurd to say the right started trigger to mock the left

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#205

Post by DonaldFisk » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:13 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…

> This one could apply to our relationship with China maybe?

When the relationship was different from today's, during WW2, the US Army published a Pocket Guide to China:

https://archive.org/details/PocketGuideToChina1943-nsia/mode...

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#206

Post by smcl » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #201

smcl wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you both need to read the book this submission is based on and try to apply some of its lessons in this thread.

Beyond common ground and "we're all human" triteness, there are also deep cultural faults... The book is right in addressing the ones it does. But not every aspect of a culture is valid.

I was trying to say: stop doing this US/EU stereotype insult exchange stuff. It's boring and it's been done to death on basically every platform where people have been able to (pseudo)anonymously communicate.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#207

Post by remram » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #200

Jkol wrote: post #152

The opening paragraphs are lovely and absolutely not what I'd expected based on the name. This is the America we want to live in. "We insist upon the right to express our own opinions. But we also believe in the right of others to express their opinions. For the right to speak involves the duty to listen...We know that the truth can only be found through open and honest discussion, and that the common good is served…

xkcd doesn't agree with the "duty to listen". https://xkcd.com/1357/

I don't see those things as incompatible at all.

"giving the other side a fair chance to make its point" (from very next sentence) doesn't mean they can't blow that chance by being obnoxious, unfair, offensive, or plain wrong. I don't think the OP argues that this "duty to listen" extends forever, that you have to keep listening after you have determined that "the other side" is being an asshole.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#208

Post by NikolaeVarius » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #200

Jkol wrote: post #152

The opening paragraphs are lovely and absolutely not what I'd expected based on the name. This is the America we want to live in. "We insist upon the right to express our own opinions. But we also believe in the right of others to express their opinions. For the right to speak involves the duty to listen...We know that the truth can only be found through open and honest discussion, and that the common good is served…

xkcd doesn't agree with the "duty to listen". https://xkcd.com/1357/

xkcd isn't exactly an arbiter of truth

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#209

Post by eplanit » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

techrat wrote: post #194

eplanit wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And true in Europe today. Ever been on a train in Germany in the summertime?

Ever been on the L in Chicago in a car without working air conditioning? Spoiler: Everybody stinks.

Wrong. Try Japan. They're clean, polite, and courteous. Crowded trains in August (like all year) are surprisingly absent of body odor (and litter, and noisy people, ...).

Different folks are indeed different in some ways.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#210

Post by rvense » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

eplanit wrote: post #99

Jasper_ wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's considered "a different race" has changed over the years and the classifications we have today is mostly along social and political boundaries. Before WWII, Polish natives were often seen as of a different race, today we would consider them Caucasian. Note how the remaining big race classifications recognized by the US Census are divided up mostly based around areas with which we still have some political tens…

I think you're conflating race with ethnicity and nationality, which makes all three concepts meaningless.

The connotations of the term race has changed. It was definitely common in the fairly recent past (WWI) for English people to speak of Germans as a different race, indeed using the term more like we would use ethnicity today. See also the English division of India into martial and non-martial "races".

You are implying a use of the term which is more influenced by biology and some vague, folksy notion of genetic/darwinian relation, often focused on skin color etc. I understand your distinction. but it is, almost by definition, more modern.