Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

112 Gripes About the French

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 365 posts

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#351

Post by rayiner »

esrauch wrote: post #350
rayiner wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was that? 30 years ago? Try having a conversation today with a progressive about virtually any issue where American conservatives may agree with people in Asia or Africa (or even a big chunk of moderate Democrats). I noticed this particularly acutely in how progressives have rallied around Muslims but you can’t actually talk about a bunch of stuff my Bangladeshi mom and aunts believe. Same sex marriage is one ex…

I really think your specific political leanings are deeply clouding your view of things. People on the side X have conversations with other people on the same side about all topics and discuss the finer points. That is true for both sides. People on side X can't have any conversation with people on side Y about any of the topics because both sides just instantly devolve into tribalism and accusing the other side of b…

My politics are middle of the road by normal people standards. Among people in my bubble (college-educated urban liberals), it’s very difficult to discuss completely normie takes like “we should control immigration to limit cultural change.” (This is a position that’s not only pretty widely held in America, but would be axiomatic in Bangladesh where I’m from and most other countries as well. As far as I can tell, many American liberals think race and culture are the same thing. I’m not sure.)

Talking with college-educated conservatives and expressing similarly normie liberal takes, like “we should let gay people get married” is by contrast not hard at all.

I would have to go out of my way to find some evangelicals in the Deep South who won’t even discuss the idea and dismiss it as “blasphemy” or some such. But that’s really my point. Urban liberals have embraced a worldview (especially on social issues) that’s as ideologically fervent as what I remember about evangelical Christians during the Bush era.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#352

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #351
esrauch wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think your specific political leanings are deeply clouding your view of things. People on the side X have conversations with other people on the same side about all topics and discuss the finer points. That is true for both sides. People on side X can't have any conversation with people on side Y about any of the topics because both sides just instantly devolve into tribalism and accusing the other side of b…

My politics are middle of the road by normal people standards. Among people in my bubble (college-educated urban liberals), it’s very difficult to discuss completely normie takes like “we should control immigration to limit cultural change.” (This is a position that’s not only pretty widely held in America, but would be axiomatic in Bangladesh where I’m from and most other countries as well. As far as I can tell, man…

> Among people in my bubble (college-educated urban liberals), it’s very difficult to discuss completely normie takes like “we should control immigration to limit cultural change.”

Weird, in my bubble (mostly college-educated, mostly urban-to-suburban, mostly liberal-to-progressive, though there are many exceptions on every axis), that wouldn’t even be a controversial statement (once you got into mechanisms of limitation and more specific cultural concerns such as what kind of drift you wanted to avoid, there would be debate, though, both over principles and pragmatics.)

> As far as I can tell, many American liberals think race and culture are the same thing

They aren’t the same thing, though they are (contrart to racist models) very closely related.

> I would have to go out of my way to find some evangelicals in the Deep South who won’t even discuss the idea and dismiss it as “blasphemy” or some such.

Huh, I can find plenty of college educated, urban California religious conservatives (not necessarily evangelicals) who see it that way without much effort. (Like, zero effort when I go to church.)

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#353

Post by leokennis »

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.…

Imagine the first one being written today:

*We came to Europe twice in twenty-fee years to save the French*

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. (...) In this war, France fell in June of 1940, We didn't invade Europe until June of 1944. We didn't even think of "saving the French" through military action until after Pearl Harbor -- after the Germans declared war on us.

This would not even pass the lowest paid PR lackey at the DoD in 2021.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#354

Post by thehappypm »

afarrell wrote: post #141
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.

As a mixed race person married to a Jew, I think it would be tremendously healthy for a well-informed person to write one of each —- but within a specific national and time-bounded context.

Yes, I agree. Modern writers have no such freedoms to do this type of writing. Imagine the backlash of just page after page of "The blacks are X" or "the Jews are Z". Even writing down the criticisms to be debunked would send the Twitterverse into a meltdown.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#355

Post by thehappypm »

QuesnayJr wrote: post #73
QuesnayJr wrote: post #6

I've never heard of this. I'm reading the original right now -- it's amazing.

This website has serious problems with its voting culture. The serial downvoters should be banned from the site, but they never will be, because dang doesn't see the problem. You can't take disagree, and you can't agree. Whatever, I'm out. Life's too short.

You're being downvoted for a really simple reason: HN doesn't like comments that boil down to "This." or "100%.". You need to add some value. It sucks that this even applies to "I'm excited, this is great!" but what can you do.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#356

Post by esrauch »

rayiner wrote: post #351
esrauch wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think your specific political leanings are deeply clouding your view of things. People on the side X have conversations with other people on the same side about all topics and discuss the finer points. That is true for both sides. People on side X can't have any conversation with people on side Y about any of the topics because both sides just instantly devolve into tribalism and accusing the other side of b…

My politics are middle of the road by normal people standards. Among people in my bubble (college-educated urban liberals), it’s very difficult to discuss completely normie takes like “we should control immigration to limit cultural change.” (This is a position that’s not only pretty widely held in America, but would be axiomatic in Bangladesh where I’m from and most other countries as well. As far as I can tell, man…

Your "bubble" is either extremists or jerks or your perception is warped. I've literally never met a person who doesn't think we should control immigration. The culture war is being fought on small edge cases like DACA, not "open borders".

I've met people who definitely would believe someone saying "we need to protect American culture" was thinly veiled code for "we need to protect white culture, and not just from immigrants". And I've met people who do mean that and are racist/antisemitic and not in the "deep south". And I've also met people who said the same words but without the racist underlying beliefs, so it's not really so simple.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#357

Post by rayiner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #352
rayiner wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My politics are middle of the road by normal people standards. Among people in my bubble (college-educated urban liberals), it’s very difficult to discuss completely normie takes like “we should control immigration to limit cultural change.” (This is a position that’s not only pretty widely held in America, but would be axiomatic in Bangladesh where I’m from and most other countries as well. As far as I can tell, man…

> Among people in my bubble (college-educated urban liberals), it’s very difficult to discuss completely normie takes like “we should control immigration to limit cultural change.” Weird, in my bubble (mostly college-educated, mostly urban-to-suburban, mostly liberal-to-progressive, though there are many exceptions on every axis), that wouldn’t even be a controversial statement (once you got into mechanisms of limita…

> They aren’t the same thing, though they are (contrart to racist models) very closely related

They’re often correlated, but one doesn’t arise out of the other. Us Bangladeshis have a strong tendency to blame our culture for what ails our country (our tendency to corruption, etc.) If an American said “I wouldn’t want mass immigration from Bangladesh to the US because of the prospect of cultural change” I’d probably be inclined to agree. My family left the country to get away from that culture. In Bangladesh it wouldn’t be a controversial statement to say that there are aspects of Chinese culture or whatever that we don’t like.

So when I see Trump attacked as “racist” I find it bizarre. His criticisms are plainly directed at culture, not race. For example his comment about “shit hole countries.” That’s a boorish phrasing of the situation, but it’s clearly an attack on culture, not race. If you asked a Bangladeshi on the street whether they’d rather have immigrants from they’d say something similar. The state of a country is a reflection of the culture of its people. It has nothing to do with race.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#358

Post by pseudalopex »

_Nat_ wrote: post #346
pseudalopex wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attributed no intent.

It's hard to guess what point you're trying to make. My best guess might be that you're trying to represent a belief that words have context-free meaning, and then you're very short in your own communication in part due to that same belief. However I disagree with jumping to conclusions about stuff. For example, while I might try to guess that you're arguing that words ought to be held as context-free, such an argume…

Calling something inappropriate implies nothing about intent. It's what people say to children who don't know better for example. And explaining why it's inappropriate doesn't either. My communication was long enough to identify your false implication.

While I might try to guess that you're arguing that readers' contexts ought to be held as irrelevant, such an argument would seem quite naive, such that I'd prefer not attribute it to another on the basis of speculation alone.

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#359

Post by [deleted] »

pseudalopex wrote: post #358
_Nat_ wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to guess what point you're trying to make. My best guess might be that you're trying to represent a belief that words have context-free meaning, and then you're very short in your own communication in part due to that same belief. However I disagree with jumping to conclusions about stuff. For example, while I might try to guess that you're arguing that words ought to be held as context-free, such an argume…

Calling something inappropriate implies nothing about intent. It's what people say to children who don't know better for example. And explaining why it's inappropriate doesn't either. My communication was long enough to identify your false implication. While I might try to guess that you're arguing that readers' contexts ought to be held as irrelevant, such an argument would seem quite naive, such that I'd prefer not…

[deleted]

Re: 112 Gripes About the French

#360

Post by daddylongstroke »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #349
daddylongstroke wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To this day I don't bathe or shower everyday (maybe once a week, or two weeks?). I can't understand this American obsession with running away from your own real self. Why all this intollerance of being and smelling like a human being?

This isn't rocket science. Bad odors are offensive. If you stepped in dog shit, you'd (hopefully) clean you shoe and wouldn't get on a soap box about "running away from the true natural smells of nature" or some other nonsense.

Meh! It's just shit homie! I'm surrounded by it all day every day (no I don't clean shit off my shoes either). "Bad" odors are entirely subjective. Soap box? Last I checked this is an internet forum for seemingly highly sensitive people.
Post reply on HN