211–220 of 605 posts
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Maybe racism isn't just a US thing
I'm amazed this is being downvoted. Do people really think that racism only exists in America?
Please, don't think Italians are like that. It's just this stupid government. For instance in Italian, unlike Spanish, French, ..., there are no italianized words for all the computer science words, we just use English. In general there is not a big sentiment of culture self-defence. But this government is trying to do things that will appeal the dumb people voting for it.
I would think that limiting immigration rather than the use of English would have a far greater impact on what they're trying to achieve. Not making a qualitative statement about whether that's a morally or economically right or wrong thing to do.
April fool?
Nah, propaganda. Write a stupid bill, do nothing to make it progress in Parliament, you nevertheless gain airtime and visibility for yourself and your party. By the time of the next election everyone will have forgotten.
I think we (Americans and Europeans alike) wholly underestimate how Americanised European culture is becoming. This is an observation rather than a criticism as I don't know whether this is 'good' or 'bad' but it is noticeable phenomena manifest through language, and probably an unintended consequence of the dependency of Europe on US communication technology, leading to the import of US communication styles, politic…
It has always seemed like a losing battle to me. Basque people might speak more Basque, but they still see Netflix, listen to international bands via Spotify and immerse themselves in international trends via Instagram and Tiktok.
My conclusion is that the government does this because language is the one part of culture the government can legislate around.
Please, don't think Italians are like that. It's just this stupid government. For instance in Italian, unlike Spanish, French, ..., there are no italianized words for all the computer science words, we just use English. In general there is not a big sentiment of culture self-defence. But this government is trying to do things that will appeal the dumb people voting for it.
There's a bit of a contradiction in your comment. You say Italians aren't like that, but Italians voted the "stupid government" into power and the government is doing these things to appeal to those Italians.
Whether the UK is part of the EU or not is irrelevant to using english as a mean of communication between europeans. I remember a study from the French ministry of education which estimated for each language, what was the percentage of the EU population, to which it is not a native language, that studied it as a foreign language either in high school or university. German and italian are in the 15-20% range, french a…
Note that this is British English as much or perhaps more than US English - many Europeans have studied or worked in the UK, and their native English speaking contacts are likely to be British.
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France also is the cradle of liberal economic ideas, its culture did not start in 1968. And let's face it, the protesters demand are not realistic, they are about kicking the can down the road a bit more before it explodes
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Yeah, it was shocking here in Stockholm when there were BLM protests in 2020. It's like people are more involved in US politics than their national politics.
Racism is at least as prevalent - and far more out-in-the-open - in Europe than in the US. There should be BLM or equivalent protests all over Europe, frankly. It's shocking how openly racist Europeans are (whether eg Italians about Africans, Germans about anyone, or Europeans routinely about gypsies). Ever gone on Reddit and looked at what Swedes say about refugees and immigrants (post ~2014 or so; in 2015 they were…
Sad part is that we as Europeans worked/working really really hard to make it impossible for them to find a place in our communities/societies. And before that we did similar things with Jews. There is one word that explains it all "pogrom". How such short word can contain so much...
On the one hand: If your culture needs a preservation movement, it's not a culture, but a relic. Culture is defined by people, not some sacred thing that needs to be preserved. How much of the Italian cuisine they're trying to protect would exist if they had the same attitude in the 1500s, when the tomato was introduced to Italy? On the other hand: I think countries should resist global cultural homogenisation. No of…
> How much of the Italian cuisine they're trying to protect would exist if they had the same attitude in the 1500s, when the tomato was introduced to Italy? Nitpick, but there was no such thing as "Italy" in the 1500s. There were several kingdoms and city states at war against one another. Modern Italy is a 19th century invention.
https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/italian-americans-and-th...