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Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

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Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#261

Post by gbrindisi »

pb7 wrote: post #192
hanniabu wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed this is being downvoted. Do people really think that racism only exists in America?

Yes, many Europeans think that because they don’t talk about it and refuse to collect statistics to show it that racism doesn’t exist within their borders. Europe is just as, if not more, racist than the US. Just ask them what they think of the Roma people.

Racism is everywhere, what I think eludes americans is that in Europe identities are way more tied to nationality rather than ethnicity.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#262

Post by seydor »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #248
seydor wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how are those issues not European? because they are not contested in europe, only in the US > privacy is a much greater It's nowhere near as important as housing or employment i think. Strict privacy was mainly championed by German Greens, not a pan-european issue

> because they are not contested in europe, only in the US every single one of those issues gets discussed in Europe. The US does not have a monopoly on social issues, I fear you are just showing the limits of your perspective.

i dont think anyone seriously debates whether abortion should be outlawed in western europe. It's just not a political topic in almost all of europe. Some very conservative parties use the US hype to rally their own supporters but it's just not working as an issue, abortion is to a very large degree culturally acceptable.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#263

Post by stavros »

throw_a_grenade wrote: post #252
Quarrelsome wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its necessarily about the culture itself here, its merely a cheap populist tactic to rabble-rouse among a nation that has a rich history and struggles to handle the fact that its present isn't at that zenith. France do a lot of this sort of thing too. I would argue that belittling cultural preservation demonstrates deep Anglo-centric bias. While its fine for lulz, I worry that you're being sincere. Try…

> Try asking _anyone_ who doesn't have English as their first language in a serious context how they feel about their language and you'll struggle to find someone without a genuine fondness for it. Well. My first language is Polish, and there are some of us who call it "superpowers". If you go to a conference, you can be quite sure no-one understands you apart from your friend who you are talking to, and possibly tha…

Greek here, nobody understands us, period. It isn't anywhere close to anything else.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#264

Post by vkou »

ghusto wrote: post #95

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…

> On the one hand: If your culture needs a preservation movement, it's not a culture, but a relic.

Just because some aspect of the commons would be lost to the pressures of market economics doesn't mean it's not worth preserving. If left to the tyranny of markets, we'd cut down every tree, dam every stream, catch every fish in the ocean, and the only culture you'd have would be drip-fed to you for $120/month by a television syndicate.

Also, even Americans aren't interested in leaving their culture up to the markets. Remember all the hoopalah about Disney and the NBA kowtowing to China, and how incensed people were that their culture was being changed by foreign sensibilities? The rest of the world gets to wear this shoe, a lot.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#265

Post by foldr »

nivenkos wrote: post #75
adventured wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live in Sweden, but I think Europe is much less race-oriented (although classism is still a massive issue). Like in the UK the Prime Minister, Home Secretary, and Scottish First Minister are all from immigrant family backgrounds. As for the refugees, it's not so much racism as just a very difficult situation - a nation can't accept literally millions of young men with no language skills or qualifications and expect…

>Like in the UK the Prime Minister, Home Secretary, and Scottish First Minister are all from immigrant family backgrounds.

The UK is also closer to having an open conversation around race than many other European countries, and tends to be more directly influenced by US political movements.

As the sibling comment says, it is extraordinary how many Europeans seem to think that racism is a problem that exists only in the USA. Gary Younge wrote an excellent article touching on this topic in the Guardian recently. Key point:

>This ability to unsee what is before our eyes is not confined to the past. The latter-day version of this selective myopia is the repeated insistence that Britain must not “import American race politics” – as if racism is an artisanal product of the US, like French champagne or Italian parmigiano reggiano. When protests erupted on the streets of British cities in 2020 under the banner of Black Lives Matter, many commentators smugly declared that this was an imitation of American fashions – even as the statue of a very English slave trader, Edward Colston, was dumped into Bristol’s harbour.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/29/...

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#266

Post by orbital-decay »

unmole wrote: post #50
_vbnz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't understand this sentiment. People in various countries often protest against or in support for politics in other countries they have no relationship to. Practically anything of note that happens in the world causes public campaigns somewhere else, this is neither new nor exclusive to US politics.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#267

Post by foldr »

gbrindisi wrote: post #255
chimeracoder wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in Sweden, but I think Europe is much less race-oriented (although classism is still a massive issue). Europe is not less racist than the US. However, Europeans are much less used to reflecting on and taking about racism in their own countries than Americans are. That reluctance to talk about race is exacerbated by the fact that, in many European counties (Sweden being one of them), it is either difficult or…

While this might be true to some extent, a huge difference between the US and Europe is that in the EU the concept of identity revolves more around nationality than ethnicity/race.

It's 'nationality' under an implicitly racialized understanding. If you are not white, having a German passport will not be enough for many Germans to consider you fully German.

That's not to deny that American racial categories are either inapplicable or less central to personal identity in most European countries; but let's also not pretend that the roughly equivalent concept is some kind of bloodless bureaucratic idea of 'nationality'.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#268

Post by hackerlight »

unpopularopp wrote: post #18

Good. Americans are usually not aware of the extent of american cultural imperialism which is basically everywhere, not just in Europe but you can see it very strong here I'm not saying it's bad or good. But I wish we have less Hollywood, less Netflix, less american music, less american videogames, less imported american culture topics etc when actual local music, movies, books, games exist.

> Good. Americans are usually not aware of the extent of american cultural imperialism

Cultural exports and cultural homogenisation isn't imperialism. There is nothing in common between this, and when a country actually colonised another country and forced it to adopt its language (or indirectly forced it via neocolonial measures). One is voluntary adoption, the other is colonisation. So stop using concept creep in order to push a rhetorical point.

What we're seeing is largely the natural outcome of having a superpower economy, having communications technology, flight technology, free trade, etc. All this openness and integration coalesce to cause smaller countries to want to voluntarily adopt the status symbols, norms and entertainment of bigger countries that are culturally adjacent to them already.

Your argument structure is basically "this thing is really bad because I'm going to label it as really bad via concept creep, therefore it's good when far-right authoritarian measure X is implemented, even though X won't work at stopping really bad thing and much more extreme measures will be needed".

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#269

Post by Bayart »

seydor wrote: post #109
ghusto wrote: post #95

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…

[flagged]

It sounds like you don't have first hand experience living a European life (and I don't mean just living in Europe, it's all too easy to get sucked into a bubble).

While homogenization is at work, the cultural divide is blatant to the point of being highly visible here.

Having a foot in both worlds, I don't see it. If anything national cultures are giving way to European culture (which does have some inherited traits from the US) more than anything else.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#270

Post by throwawayiionqz »

seydor wrote: post #262
Quarrelsome wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because they are not contested in europe, only in the US every single one of those issues gets discussed in Europe. The US does not have a monopoly on social issues, I fear you are just showing the limits of your perspective.

i dont think anyone seriously debates whether abortion should be outlawed in western europe. It's just not a political topic in almost all of europe. Some very conservative parties use the US hype to rally their own supporters but it's just not working as an issue, abortion is to a very large degree culturally acceptable.

Abortion in Poland is legal only in cases when the pregnancy is a result of a criminal act or when the woman's life or health is in danger.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Poland#Legal_sta...

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