Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a French dude, I've always dreamt of a more unified European culture. As in producing movies, TV shows with European money, catering to a European audience. England already produces some more-than-decent TV shows as it is. We should also make English the official language, that would help us all move forward.
> We should also make English the official language, that would help us all move forward. We should better create an entirely new artificial official language so that nobody feels discriminated.
Stop Generalizing About Europe
221–230 of 369 posts
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
...no takers? Here's a hint: it's largest city ranks 5th world-wide in number of billionaires residing there.
Turkey/Istanbul maybe?
Yup! Turkey has placed high in the world-wide rankings for growth throughout the '00s, despite the financial crises happening on its doorstep. It's interesting, because when EU negotiations began, the attitude was very much "poor little Turkey is looking to the rest of Europe for help" and the EU was playing the part of reluctant partner. Today, most Turks are against EU membership, but the EU has been making more and more efforts to prevent negotiations from breaking off. (I wouldn't say that the EU wants Turkey to join...and even if they did I don't think it would be possible for most EU members to admit to wanting Turkey to join.)
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things. How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart are Romania and Bulgaria? Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level), the same currency and the same "american" culture. Neither of these is true for BG and RO. And we are neighbours, mind that. As an added "benefit", we have…
Your ignorance of the respective areas is showing. It's hard to talk about a common culture between California and Louisiana when neither California nor Louisiana has a common internal culture. In Louisiana, spend some time in Houma, and then some time in Shreveport. Louisiana has a Cajun-dominated region and a region that's very much part of the Old South, and they're not much alike. In California, spend some time i…
> I'll gladly agree that Europe is gloriously diverse, but you really should stop underestimating American cultural diversity.
Same differences exist in Europe in particular countries. Mountainers in Poland have different culture from Silesians, or Kashubi. Kashubi have different language, too. And Poland is one of the least diverse countries in Europe thanks to Stalin forced expulsions.
Switzerland has smaller population than New York City, and still have 3 official languages (or 4, depending on how you count). And there are countries in western Europe that have serious separatist movements. More serious than Texas.
People all over the world watch Hollywood movies, so we know at least something about cultural diversity of USA. People in USA don't know anything about smaller countries in Europe, so they assume it's all the same. Availability heuristic.
I think that it makes it more probable for people in USA to underestimate Europe diversity than the other way around.
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a French dude, I've always dreamt of a more unified European culture. As in producing movies, TV shows with European money, catering to a European audience. England already produces some more-than-decent TV shows as it is. We should also make English the official language, that would help us all move forward.
> We should also make English the official language, that would help us all move forward. We should better create an entirely new artificial official language so that nobody feels discriminated.
Nah. English is an easy language, taught in a vast majority of high schools in Europe, the Northerners already all speak it perfectly, it has Latin roots and Germanic roots, it's fairly neutral, used by the US and Canada and is so far the de facto language of business. We should invest in English.
I've wanted English to be a mandatory second language after your native one in all of Europe for a while.
Also creating languages never works, see Esperanto and all those ridiculous lab-synthetized languages that pretend to solve all the problems and all end up showing the very same bias it was trying to avoid in the first place (Esperanto for example is WAY easier for a romance-family speaker than for say a dude from Poland).
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am extrapolating from myself. Ask a kid to "Draw Africa" and you will get a wildly different picture than if you ask the kid to "Draw Egypt". Clearly the child is not generalizing all of Africa; the child does not include Egypt in the internalized perception of what Africa "is" even though they know full well that Egypt is in Africa. This isn't some sort of strange emergent phenomenon, it is nothing more than the r…
I don't doubt that people walk around with conflicting, internalized geographies in their heads, I'm just pointing out that it's disingenuous to frame your own biases as something "most Americans" think when you don't have the data to back up such a statement. It's a very specific extrapolation to make.
I am stating two things:
1) Americans generalize.
Defense: Everybody does, it should be no suprise that Americans are no exception. You really want data on this?
2) Americans, for the most part, do not think that all of Africa is "Africa-y", nor that all of Asia is "Asia-y", nor that all of Europe is "Europey".
Defense: Suggestions otherwise are absurd. If you disagree, you provide the data.
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct regarding the reasons and wrong regarding the current situation. You will be much more spot-on if you divide between the "former USSR" and "rest of Europe". Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture. They used to be the same country... much alike the USA. "The rest of Europe" is now mostly part of (or willing to join) the European organizations like (but…
The majority of Eastern European countries were not part of the USSR. They were USSR's allies in the Warsaw Pact - in the same way that the Western European countries were USA's allies in NATO - but they were independent nations. I'm talking about countries such as Poland, The Czech Republic + Slovakia (Czechoslovakia), Hungary, the countries that were formerly Yugoslavia, etc. > Former USSR countries are mostly unif…
Nitpicking: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other satelittes of USSR weren't really independent. Certainly not in same way that UK or France were allies of USA. Maybe Yugoslavia was independent, but others for sure not.
Moscow made all the decisions, elections were rigged, there were uprisings, etc, etc. I know you probably know that, but just in case.
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Romania, so I can tell what we consider West: Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium. If one goes to one of these countries, one feels like going west. Otherwise, it's less and less. So when Americans speak about Europe, it's safe to assume that they might refer to these countries. Rock bands will always have a hard time to tell Bucharest…
As someone from the UK, I see your list as mostly similar to mine, except I'd put Austria in the Central Europe camp. I'd also put Switzerland and Italy as Central Europe in location but Western Europe in culture. There's definitely parts of Germany I'd class as western in location but eastern in culture.
Looking at his list, it seems that he is merely dividing Europe into West and East, no Centre. What's Northern Europe? What's Southern Europe?
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I could make an almost identical argument about the usage of terms like "Americans". I hear you and partly agree, but the comparison is a stretch. In USA, how many hours by car do you need to find a local that doesn't speak your language? The very same ad can easily be broadcast US-wide. Never do that in Europe (not that anyone has ever tried). Trying to impose a law on all EU countries alone is usually unsuccessfu…
"In USA, how many hours by car do you need to find a local that doesn't speak your language?" Zero. The janitors and the landscapers of the company don't speak much English. The baker at the ethnic grocery down the street doesn't speak English, but his daughter does.
That's actually my point.
A lot of Europeans would answer, "I'd have to take the train (or the plane)," because they would think about the nearest country, not the nearest janitor.
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#229This post feels awfully pedantic. While it may not be clear to non-Americans, when Americans talk about "Europe", they're generally talking about Western Europe, not Eastern, and are excluding the UK too. They almost certainly aren't including Russia. (Just like when Americans talk about Asia, they aren't usually thinking of India.) Of course, that's geographically inaccurate -- but it's what we usually mean. The Eur…
When Americans talk about Europe, they talk about Europe, this is the problem. Someone who knows Europe geographically and politically often means with "Western Europe" the European countries with a strong economy. (Why would you exclude UK?) Others might use this term to refer to all countries west of Poland. What I am saying is: even the term "Western Europe" is really unprecise. And even if you only talk about Wes…
not arguing, but your post made me think.
When europeans talk about americans, do they mean north, south, both, or USA citizens ?
Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is different in the details. But in the general sense, this is true in other countries. For example, in the UK, "Asian" means "Indian" and what Americans would call "Asians" are just referred to by their nationality. This is because in the UK, Indians are the largest nationality from Asia. But in the US, where East Asians are more common, they got the blanket term "Asian".
To be fair that's true for my country, Kenya, as well. Asian here refers to subcontinentals. The Chinese are just that, the Chinese.
Makes sense, the usage is probably common in the language of countries with recent colonial ties to the UK.