221–230 of 605 posts
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.
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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.
There was a protest march in Mumbai against gun violence in the US. That was the only time I ever wanted to punch someone for expressing a political opinion in person.
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Similarly, there is no average American culture, as inter-state differences in attitude are large. America is as polarized as it's ever been, which is another way of saying the same thing.
american culture is almost homogeneous. ask a european visitor
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Meta-point: Does the pendulum really ever settle in the middle with anything society?
populism will always seek to implement inexpensive grandstanding like this, because its cheap and requires zero-competence and in return for spending zero effort and money you get to virtue signal to electors that are nationalists. I wouldn't class this as anywhere on the pendulum as its not an economic policy and social issues are a bit of a fudge into the classical left/right spectrum.
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…
The only way to achieve this is with illiberal, authoritarian measures -- I.E. a centralized government forcing people to think and behave in a certain way. And not because such thoughts or behavior is harmful in any way, it's only because it's aesthetically displeasing. Not good.
Also, not all cultural homogenisation is created equal. It's good that all cultures have evolved to say that murder is a bad thing. That was cultural homogenisation, and it was good.
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.
I'm going to sweat next time I go to Italy. I suppose that asking pineapple on a pizza will be the equivalent of a lifetime sentence.
There followed a highly entertaining (if you like that sort of thing) debate in the UK House of Commons as to whether to retaliate by banning French words[1][2]. The difference being, they were only joking while the French were deadly serious.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH0wvkZmGKQ&t=70
[2] https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1994-07-05/debates/8a1...
When your country is on HN for all the wrong reasons (facepalm)
It's a pointless exercise to try to preserve the status-quo, and it could be counter productive and isolationist. The language will change anyway.
Also, when do you freeze the language? Which words are you nostalgic about? The ones that were in common use when the legislators were young? Their grandparents? Current usage?