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Stop Generalizing About Europe

jonasbentzen.com

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Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#311

Post by mkr-hn »

brightsize wrote: post #282

I think there's a lot of truth to this essay. As am American, I've certainly been guilty of these kinds of generalizations. To Americans (colloquially meaning U.S. citizens here), I think the phenomenon can be attributed mainly to two causes. The first is that Americans don't travel much, only a small minority hold passports. And who can travel with a meagre two contiguous weeks of holiday per year, and with real inc…

This is a byproduct of the world being so far away for so long. The distance had an impact in both directions. I ran into people from other countries making ridiculous generalizations about the US when I first stepped on to the Internet in the '90s.

Now I know hundreds of people from other countries, and there's very little generalizing going on in either direction. But this is mostly people in their 20s and 30s, not people who grew up without a direct link to the world.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#312

Post by justincormack »

PoliticsJunkie wrote: post #244
justincormack wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed the UK had a couple of Hanseatic ports, in London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelyard and King's Lynn. I don't understand people who think a trading nation can survive outside a free trade area either.

UK is outside of tree trade agreements with the Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, etc.) because of its free trade agreement (i.e. EU) with collapsing eurozone. That's not good business for them.

Well the CETA (Canada EU trade agreement) with zero tariffs and improved labour mobility is close to being settled by the sound of it. It is not clear if the UK would ever manage to negotiate to join NAFTA.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#313

Post by _pferreir_ »

PoliticsJunkie wrote: post #307
_pferreir_ wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion surprises me. Everyone else in the EU is pretty much convinced that the UK is just trying to eat the cake and have it. IIRC, the UK has opted out of Schengen and the Euro. That would look OK to me were we not talking of two core EU projects that were supposed to be game changers. Coming from a country that is currently under an European assistance program, I am not myself very fond of the "Chancellor", b…

EU is a failing Project that has chosen to ignore democratic procedures and no-votes for decades. It doesn't work, it never did and it never will. It's basic economics that you can't have the same central bank for two countries like Germany and Greece, isn't it? But not when integration unelected fanatics like ex-marxist Barroso come into play. They don't care about nuances like democratic NOs or economic commonse se…

Your speech is starting to sound too stereotypical and plain xenophobic to be taken seriously, but I'll give it a try.

Countries that "import unemployed people" do so for their own good. Or do you know a lot of Brits currently willing to do housecleaning work or have a factory job? Switzerland is a good example of that. ~30% foreign workers, most of them doing the jobs that Swiss people themselves would rather not do. It's very easy to blame people from other countries for you own problems, but they're paying their taxes too, just like anyone else.

Plus, Germany exports a lot to other EU countries. It's not like they're in the EU for the sole noble purpose of European prosperity.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#314

Post by JPKab »

crazygringo wrote: post #34

This 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…

"All of this wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that I see these kinds of generalizations all the time. It's not uncommon for Americans who've briefly visited one or two countries in Europe to say, "In Europe they..." or "Europeans are...". This makes me cringe every time, because it is the equivalent of a European person visiting a city in Mexico and going, "In North America they..." or "North Americans are..." solely based on their experiences in that Mexican city."

A better analogy is the way Europeans come to America, visit New York City and L.A., and think they know everything about the nation as a whole, as if the U.S. is a homogenous culture, rather than a conglomerate of roughly 10 or 11 different cultures. The worst part is that the majority of Europeans (yep, I'm generalizing) I encounter seem to think that the massively exported American pop culture is representative of U.S. culture, when it is absolutely not. I grew up in rural Appalachia (West Virginia, western Virginia) and the culture for both business and informal activities is vastly different than that of the Deep South, West Coast, Mid Atlantic, etc.

See this book: http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cult...

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#315

Post by [deleted] »

pointernil wrote: post #281
lispm wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does not want anything more than create new successful start-ups. We are just not focused on 'Internet start-ups'. There is a huge infrastructure in Germany to support it. > negative sentiment towards 'entrepreneurship' as it is connected with "making money fast" on the internet and/or "just" doing things to make money. In Germany? I have never heard that. It is just that we don't focus on 'Internet startups'…

Are you sure you really mean start-ups as in: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html (in short: companies bound to grow really fast and bound to generate extraordinary profits fast)

[deleted]

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#316

Post by stdbrouw »

pointernil wrote: post #281
lispm wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does not want anything more than create new successful start-ups. We are just not focused on 'Internet start-ups'. There is a huge infrastructure in Germany to support it. > negative sentiment towards 'entrepreneurship' as it is connected with "making money fast" on the internet and/or "just" doing things to make money. In Germany? I have never heard that. It is just that we don't focus on 'Internet startups'…

Are you sure you really mean start-ups as in: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html (in short: companies bound to grow really fast and bound to generate extraordinary profits fast)

Look, we all get that you can't call every new company a startup, but Paul Graham does not have the ultimate authority to decide on the definition of the word "startup" either.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#317

Post by eaurouge »

pointernil wrote: post #281
lispm wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does not want anything more than create new successful start-ups. We are just not focused on 'Internet start-ups'. There is a huge infrastructure in Germany to support it. > negative sentiment towards 'entrepreneurship' as it is connected with "making money fast" on the internet and/or "just" doing things to make money. In Germany? I have never heard that. It is just that we don't focus on 'Internet startups'…

Are you sure you really mean start-ups as in: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html (in short: companies bound to grow really fast and bound to generate extraordinary profits fast)

Why, do you think startups are valued and created only in the US? Where do you think German multi-nationals come from? Slow-growth companies?

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#318

Post by Typhon »

JPKab wrote: post #314
crazygringo wrote: post #34

This 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…

"All of this wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that I see these kinds of generalizations all the time. It's not uncommon for Americans who've briefly visited one or two countries in Europe to say, "In Europe they..." or "Europeans are...". This makes me cringe every time, because it is the equivalent of a European person visiting a city in Mexico and going, "In North America they..." or "North Ame…

as if the U.S. is a homogenous culture

Compared to Europe, it certainly is.

From a merely linguistic viewpoint, in North America there's English and Spanish (Ok, and native american languages, but they're really not much spoken). In Western and Northern Europe, there's French, Italian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish.

The thing is, identity is a matter of contrast.

See this : http://squid314.livejournal.com/306048.html

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#319

Post by alexchamberlain »

arethuza wrote: post #304
alexchamberlain wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've also got the Channel Islands, and the Isles of Mann and Wight to contend with. Then there's the fact that one is a political union and one a union under the monarch... something like that anyway.

I was unaware that the Isle of Wight had any unusual political status....

You are indeed correct; it's just a county of England.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#320

Post by jarek-foksa »

wolfgke wrote: post #218
VeejayRampay wrote: post #153

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.

If I were to design a new international language I would take the vocabulary and grammar from Basic English [1] and modernize the writting system to be fully phonetic.

Still, I'm afraid that such Newspeak-like language could be implemented only in some totalitarian dictatorship, so I hope that it won't happen any time soon...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English

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