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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

#361
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…

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…

The phrase lingua Franca is a great example of why English is the most international language in the world. It’s because of its ability to absorb from different languages.

That phrase is as English as the word tomato today.

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

#362
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…

> I don't mean music and films, but rather the way of thinking about the world. For example?

[flagged]

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

#363
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather the way of thinking about the world. As an American who has lived in the US my whole life, it can be tough to see outside the box, so to speak. What parts of the US worldview are being exported? How does it differ with traditional attitudes?

A few examples: Your far-right political movements, especially religious movements, are actively trying to export themselves to Europe, with varying success depending on the specific trend. A large part of corporate culture, as people in EU management still long for an idealized version of what exists in the US. Outside of a few pockets, EU entertainment has more or less completely been wiped out now, so any culture…

>Your far-right political movements, especially religious movements, are actively trying to export themselves to Europe, with varying success depending on the specific trend.

Please explain, in detail, what part of Golden Dawn was actively exported from the US.

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

#364
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 would argue that the US (and perhaps some other English-speaking countries) need more cultural diversity imported from other parts of the world. Many Americans are unaware because they have not traveled outside of the US nor have they studied other l…

That might not help that much. The US is already one of the most popular destination for immigration. Immigrants either assimilate into the wider culture or stay restricted to their enclaves, either social or location-based ones. I can't recall any event in history where immigrants have been able to significantly change the culture of the destination country unless they began to assert political dominance as well.

The assimilation goes both ways. American culture is heavily influenced by our immigrants. Looking at food, we Americanize practically any culture’s food, which may just mean changing the seasonings a bit (like making it less hot-spicy), swapping ingredients (Americanized Asian food in the US doesn’t commonly include organ meat), or branching out in tons of directions like we’ve done with pizza.

Irish, German, and Jewish immigrants have shaped a lot of our urban culture. Before Irish and German immigration exploded, the US was a whisky country, then it switched to beer. Germans introduced social institutions like kindergarten and fraternal societies that included the working classes (which eventually evolved into things like the American Legion) and of course workers’ unions. The three cultures greatly changed the religious makeup of the US from one dominated by British Protestantism to a pluralistic mix of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. The US is the primary home of the world’s Jewish people (we have more Jewish people than Israel and the rest of the world combined, if you include mixed/secular Jews), and Jewish immigrants kickstarted the US’ involvement in industries like international banking and some kinds of manufacturing. Plus Jewish people have been hugely important in making US tertiary education and research some of the best in the world. Before these three groups immigrated, the US was agrarian and pretty homogenous, and these groups pushed the US towards cultural pluralism and assimilation.

In the modern day, Asian and Hispanic immigration are mixing things up too. I don’t have statistics but anecdotally I think Asian women are much more likely than other women to pursue careers in STEM, which has done a lot to make formerly male dominated jobs more gender inclusive. Spanish is basically a de facto co-official language in many areas. Americans outside these cultures are beginning to adopt multigenerational living (also because of cost of living) which is likely influenced by both of these. In almost all Asian countries, savings habits are very different than the default in the US, and I think you can see the effects of this in US areas with high numbers of Asian immigrants in things like property prices or a focus on value (like stores with lower margins and less marketing).

Basically none of these groups have been large enough to subsume American culture, but they’ve all contributed pieces on top of the base of Anglo Protestantism and culturally/actually genocided West Africans. And the sheer number of disparate immigrant groups have made the US the pluralistic society it is today, which is likely a big factor into why American culture easily exports to the rest of the world.

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

#365
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…

> I don't mean music and films, but rather the way of thinking about the world.

I’m not sure I know what you mean. Can you elaborate on this world view that you say American culture is exporting?

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

#366

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…

The phrase lingua Franca is a great example of why English is the most international language in the world. It’s because of its ability to absorb from different languages. That phrase is as English as the word tomato today.

The phrase lingua Franca shows why languages become dominant, because they’re the one spoken by the most powerful group of people. It’s not because English is uniquely good at absorbing from different languages. Japanese uses a ton of foreign loanwords for things. So does Hindu.

Lingua Franca is a phrase in the most dominant language 2000 years ago, about the most dominante language 1000 years ago, used in the dominant language now. All of those languages used tons of loanwords as well. Someday Mandarin or Hindu may become the most dominant and they will use loanwords, and phrases from those languages will slip into English speech.

But those changes won’t be because English in unique in some way, it will be because that’s how languages work.

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

#367
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…

The music and films are a big part of what conveys the American way of thinking about the world surely? I'll only genuinely start worrying about the Americanisation of world if the US somehow starts successfully exporting its insane attitudes towards guns, women's bodies and universal healthcare. Oh, and imperial units...

It's hard for me to imagine guns or imperial units catching on any time soon (to be fair, we didn't invent imperial units!), but I would not be too surprised if some European nations start slowly privatizing bits of their healthcare systems. The profit motive is sneaky and creeps in slowly. Usually it starts by capturing the hearts and minds of those in power.

And regarding attitudes toward women's bodies, one only needs to visit any beach in southern Spain and count up the topless women to notice those values are already Americanizing.

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

#368
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

From what vantage point are you speaking? I’ve been online for 17 years and so I’ve been very aware of the trend of “wokeism” and other things like that. I also live in the country known as Europe. Yet in “real life” I have never, ever encountered a woke, virtue-signalling stereotype. The closest I came was some other guy’s experience that he relayed to me. And that goes for other American (or not) things that also a…

You forgot gun violance. The statistics for that are insane compared to any other country

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

#369
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'd vehemently disagree. There's a clear cultural divide between the average of the US and the average of Europe on many topics, albeit much of that is a cause of the large quantity of remaining traditionalists in the US skewing the American average. For example there's clear differences on secularism, gun-rights, access to abortion, universal healthcare, labour laws, privacy and regulation. > The silent death of eur…

> For example; if the EU is so "dead" then why do US manufacturers respect its regulations?

I don't want to take a side on this one, but is your argument here really that US capitalists have high philosophical standards on what market they'll enter?

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

#370

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.

In South America, thanks to Netflix we have far more European content than before. Still less than from US but at least it's there to chose.

What kind of shows do you get/ have watched down there because i know some shows are very regional in terms of licensing
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