[HN Gopher] Italian government seeks to penalize the use of Engl...
___________________________________________________________________
Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
Author : rntn
Score : 118 points
Date : 2023-04-02 17:19 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| 19throw wrote:
| The story here is 100% about government overreach and 0% about
| cultural preservation. The government doesn't need to be involved
| it is... At all.
| WinstonSmith84 wrote:
| > saying "bru-shetta" instead of "bru-sketta" could be a
| punishable offense
|
| 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.
| [deleted]
| llimos wrote:
| In 1994 France passed a law banning the use of English words in
| official documents.
|
| 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...
| samus wrote:
| It's maybe not even possible to expel all the loanwords from
| Norman and more recent French, as well as Latin, from the
| language. But things like Anglish[0] exist.
|
| [0]: https://anglish.org/wiki/Anglish
| lultimouomo wrote:
| The current Italian government has introduced the "ministry of
| industry and made in Italy". That's what's it called, _made in
| Italy_ , in English in the official name. I guess they're going
| to fine themselves.
| diego_moita wrote:
| Mamma mia! Questo e oro puro!
|
| I suggest they also forbid every cultural aspect of the Italian
| culture that came from America/England: Italian Rock & Pop,
| Spaghetti Western, Il Calcio (invented by the British),...
|
| And, btw, the food historian Alberto Grandi has been claiming
| that even pasta Carbonara is an American born dish...
| samwillis wrote:
| Your not kidding:
|
| https://www.mise.gov.it/it/
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| "Fatto in Italia" would be just as good, but might not be as
| widely understood by non-Italian speakers.
| arlort wrote:
| No it wouldn't, everyone uses "made in Italy" colloquially in
| Italian
| pmoleri wrote:
| Who cares? This is a form of protectionism aimed to national
| consumers.
| pmontra wrote:
| It would feel weird to Italians too. Made in Italy is a
| sentence that has a long history and is widely used. Fatto in
| Italia would be laughed at. Then, if it becomes a law, it
| will be fatto in Italia. I bet against it.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Also because over here "fatto" also means "stoned".
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| Giorgia Meloni being Giorgia Meloni ...
|
| When your country is on HN for all the wrong reasons (facepalm)
| kubb wrote:
| The fine amount seems oddly high, even for a law like this.
|
| I don't think Italian is in any danger of replacing it's
| vocabulary with English though - most speakers can't pronounce
| very common english sounds, like "h" in "hit".
| ddkto wrote:
| As a Quebecer, all I can say is, join the club! For everyone
| shocked by this, it is much less extensive and onerous than the
| Quebec languages laws.
|
| Very roughly speaking, similar rules apply to all companies
| operating in Quebec with 25 or more employees, not just public
| officials.
| juancn wrote:
| Languages evolve, they're living things. Isolation creates new
| languages, that why Europe has a gazillion of them, people of
| different valleys developed different languages, on the other
| hand communication mixes them and blends them, for example after
| wars and invasions, immigration waves, tourism, or even
| introduction of technology such as TV or the internet.
|
| 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?
| 13415 wrote:
| Back to Latin for everyone in Italy, I say. Anyone who refuses
| to write public documents in Latin in the style of Ovid (43
| B.C.- 17 A.D.) will pay a hefty fine.
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| Italy really knows how to focus on what's really important to
| address challenges like high unemployment and weak economy.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Many parallels with what's happening on the other side of the
| pond. Universally applicable tactics.
| [deleted]
| tacone wrote:
| Italians lose wars as if they were football matches, and
| football matches as if they were wars - Winston Churchill
| barrysteve wrote:
| Probably never said it [0]. Those kinds of quotes are
| unlikely to be understood in today's cultural lense, because
| people don't see the world in national identities and the
| meaning those identities carried, like they used to
| 1800-1940.
|
| [0] https://richardlangworth.com/quotes-churchill-never-
| said-2
| borroka wrote:
| Like many of the things that were said ironically in the
| past, this one has aged badly. Yes, Italians could be very
| passionate about the results of football matches.
|
| However, Churchill did not have to see how the English
| interpreted soccer matches in the 1970s and 1980s. Hooligans,
| for those too young, interpreted football games as wars. But
| not in the sense of passion for the sport, as they were
| killing fans of other teams in ways similar to wars.
|
| Fortunately, things change over time.
|
| It is also interesting how some ethnic groups or nations can
| be the object of ridicule without anyone protesting (all of
| Southern Europe, for example), while for other ethnic groups
| or nations there would be protests all over the world at the
| slightest hint of an attempt to ridicule them.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Imagine citing a genocidal maniac
| jjgreen wrote:
| _Churchill suggested that chemical weapons should be used
| "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment." He added "I
| am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against
| uncivilized tribes to spread a lively terror" in Iraq._
|
| https://english.alarabiya.net/special-reports/winston-
| church...
| borroka wrote:
| It is a very poor argument and ignores the fact that the lives
| of people, institutions and countries are not just about (the
| very important) jobs and economics.
|
| I, who have lived in the United States for decades, cringe when
| English words are used instead of those of my native language
| to give a sense of respectability to those words.
|
| A global culture and a world homogenized in ways of living is a
| much less interesting world.
| version_five wrote:
| Culture can still thrive without being nationalist or
| traditionalist or whatever you call it.
|
| What would people think if there was an american movement to
| stop using foreign loan words in English because they're
| diluting our culture?
|
| I live in Quebec, Canada, where there is extreme policing of
| the French language, including various unconstitutional
| legislation to "preserve" French (the Canadian constitution
| has an override clause). It's a purely populist measure that
| does nothing for culture. I find it ironic but typical how
| much Quebec focuses on superficial cultural aspects
| (language) while hardly engaging at all with real questions
| of celebrating heritage - and other than the language, the
| culture is way closer to english canada than anything
| European.
|
| Anyway, these language things are shallow populist measures
| to whip up a base, they're not about serious stewardship of
| cultural identity.
| rcme wrote:
| And yet Qubec is one of the most culturally distinct places
| in the U.S. and Canada combined. Surely cultural
| preservation laws are part of that.
| version_five wrote:
| Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
| dghughes wrote:
| We have many French cultures in Canada besides Quebecois.
| There are Acadian people in The Maritimes they are not
| Quebecois many forced to flee to Louisiana and are called
| Cajuns. Non-Quebecois French people in Ontario and the
| prairies, plus Metis (French+First Nations) on the
| prairies too.
|
| Other distinct cultures in Canada would be Newfoundland a
| separate nation for years. Plus all the First Nations
| across Canada and Inuit in the northern territories and
| Labrador goes without saying.
|
| You could even add the 500,000 Ukrainians on the prairies
| a culture going back probably 150 years.
|
| Chinese culture too first starting in the province of BC
| since probably 1800 older than my own Irish culture the
| majority who only came here in the mid 1800s to 1870s.
| rcme wrote:
| And none of those cultures have cultures nearly as strong
| as the Quebecois, which is basically a global cultural
| brand at this point.
| detaro wrote:
| "global cultural brand" is a terrible way of measuring
| "strength" of a culture. (I'd hope for the people of
| Quebec that there is more to their culture than the
| brand, which is approximately "the weird Canadians that
| try to out-french the French")
| rcme wrote:
| There have been many North American cultures imported
| from Europe. In the US and Canada, they all tend to die
| out after a certain amount of time. E.g. the Spanish had
| a colony in Florida. The Dutch had a claims to the Hudson
| valley in NY/NJ. Lots of Scandinavian settled the
| frontier. Italians in the NYC area. The list goes on.
|
| Quebec is one of the oldest cultures in the former
| British NA colonies. Say whatever you want about the
| Quebecois, they know how ti preserve their culture.
| hnuser847 wrote:
| > What would people think if there was an american movement
| to stop using foreign loan words in English because they're
| diluting our culture?
|
| The difference is that English is THE dominant global
| language, pushed by two global empires (first the British
| empire and now the American empire). It does not need
| protection, as it essentially like an invasive species at
| this point. It's reasonable for counties to want to protect
| their native language(s). We're already rapidly trending
| towards a global, American-flavored monoculture. Why make
| it worse?
| borroka wrote:
| According to this comment, we should (just) accept that
| English, in a generation or two, will become some sort of
| world language with no interest in the preservation of
| other languages and cultures associated with those
| cultures.
|
| This is a bit provocative, but while we are there, we could
| also tear down the Colosseum, the Forum too since it is all
| rubbish, and build instead offices, or residential
| communities because who cares about those old buildings and
| "nationalists" and "traditionalists" or "whatever you want
| to call it".
|
| There is often this idea that if you do one thing, you
| cannot do another, like there is some trade-offs between
| the use of the local language on official documents and the
| management of museums. But most of the time, there are no
| trade-offs, and the two actions are independent.
|
| >> "What would people think if there was an american
| movement to stop using foreign loan words in English
| because they're diluting our culture?"
|
| I am generally in favor. I mean, better to hear "ham" than
| "proskiuto" anyway.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> better to hear "ham" than "proskiuto" anyway.
|
| Ham and prosciutto are very different foods.
|
| If words come from another language and mean different
| things, let those words exist as they are. If a new
| native word is created from the foreign word, that is
| okay. That is how languages grow and evolve.
|
| The law in question just says official documents and
| communications must be in Italian which makes perfect
| sense in Italy.
| dehrmann wrote:
| In college, I took an English/linguistics class called
| "History of the English Language." One big takeaway from it
| was that prescriptive languages never work, and pragmatism
| always wins over purity. You say you "cringe" when hearing
| English words in the context of your native language.
| English, too, is packed with loanwords. Espresso (I see you,
| Italian), taco, kimchi, sauna, schadenfreude, not to mention
| phrases lifted directly from other languages like "c'est la
| vie" or "et cetera."
|
| I don't disagree that a homogeneous world is less
| interesting, but in a world where you can travel between
| every major city in less than 24 hours, and communication is
| unified and instantaneous, this is the natural outcome, and
| government word policing is a losing fight.
| borroka wrote:
| I don't see any inevitability in the development of human
| culture (and technology), which is instead often perceived
| as such when looking backwards and not forward.
|
| History could have been taken a million different
| trajectories and we, looking back at its course, would
| always be tempted to say that what's going on today was,
| overall, inevitable. If not for a very harsh winter decades
| ago, maybe German would be the lingua franca of today's
| Europe: "it was inevitable", many would say, "it all
| started with Bismarck".
|
| And I don't see why the fact that we use the word
| "espresso" (or expresso :)) in the US should mean that, in
| the US, Italian, Greek, or French words should be used in
| official documents as liberally as English words are in
| other non-English speaking countries' official documents.
| Why should it be acceptable to use "governance" instead of
| the Italian words "governo" or "amministrazione"? Why
| "fiscal compact" instead of "patto di bilancio" where both
| combinations of words express the same concept but one in a
| foreign language and the other in the official language of
| the country?
|
| Using "espresso" and not another (equivalent) English word
| makes sense, because the Italian word also denotes the
| origin of the product. Using "hip hop" makes sense in non-
| English speaking countries, like "rock" for the music (but
| not the stone). "Schadenfreude", on the other hand, still
| sounds quite ridiculous when said by non-German speaking
| people, a bit like using "I went to the Ville Lumiere"
| instead of "I went to Paris, oh those croissants, mon
| dieu!". That language should not be regulated by any
| government, the ridiculousness of its use should just be
| common sense, which is unfortunately as scarce today as it
| was in the past. But a woman can dream.
|
| Which brings me to the another component: concepts
| expressed in English tend to appear, in non-English
| speaking countries, as more respectable, more serious.
| "That's how they do in the US, the wealthiest countries in
| the world!".
|
| But this is just smoke thrown into people's eyes.
| linhns wrote:
| Yes, and if you actually read the bill (I'm not Italian, just
| trying to translate it online), it just bans other languages
| in official documentation, which every country does. I'm
| surprised Italy has not done it until now.
| kuboble wrote:
| From the article i understood it goes deeper. It includes
| all official communication like job offers - not limited to
| public institutions. So you could be fined for having a
| position for "Product Manager" or "Test Engineer", etc.
| linhns wrote:
| If you advertise these positions in English, that's fine.
| But must be Italian in official contracts.
| mmarq wrote:
| No, its probably broader than that, but it's not written
| very clearly. And it doesn't matter because every year some
| new idiot emerges to propose laws like this, that are never
| approved and often not even discussed in Parliament.
| aniforprez wrote:
| I'm sure it is very important that the government make it a
| punishable offense to say "bru-shetta" instead of "brus-
| ketta" for the word bruschetta. This is the kind of important
| government regulation that makes for a productive use of
| parliament time and the votes of the people
| gordian-mind wrote:
| > This would mean that saying "bru-shetta" instead of "bru-
| sketta" could be a punishable offense.
|
| Maybe you missed the world "could" in this phrase.
| Actually, with a bit a critical thinking, you would realize
| this is a complete invention by the CNN author...
| borroka wrote:
| "This is the kind of important government regulation that
| makes for a productive use of parliament time and the votes
| of the people"
|
| What is a "productive" use of the votes of the people is up
| for debate. I am not ashamed to say that I am all for
| strong regulations that preserve the use and dignity of
| local customs and traditions (when those customs and
| traditions don't affect the life and freedom of others,
| cruelty etc.).
| gordian-mind wrote:
| Just because there are other problems that are more pressing or
| severe doesn't mean that the proposed solution to a particular
| problem is not worth pursuing.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I guess it depends on whether the amount of effort applied to
| solving the problems is proportional to the severity of the
| problems.
|
| On this side of the Atlantic, we have a catastrophic opioid
| epidemic, crumbling infrastructure, inflation and recession,
| failing national and state-level institutions, mass
| shootings, growing income inequality, race- and class-
| warfare, and out-of-control policing. But what are ~50% of
| our politicians currently focusing on? What genitals people
| have and what bathroom they should be allowed to go in.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Divide et impera. We've yet to develop antibodies to that
| as a species.
| truthsayer123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| meerita wrote:
| It's important to remember that just because the press may
| highlight certain topics more frequently, it doesn't
| necessarily mean that the government is not putting enough
| effort into other essential issues.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Yarbles!
| mkl95 wrote:
| Ironically, Italy's remote work visa has some of the most lax
| requirements in the world, and speaking Italian isn't one of
| them.
|
| > While the legislation encompasses all foreign languages, it is
| particularly geared at "Anglomania" or use of English words,
| which the draft states "demeans and mortifies" the Italian
| language, adding that it is even worse because the UK is no
| longer part of the EU.
|
| This is comically disrespectful towards Ireland.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I don't know Italian law, but it seems to set a very dangeorus
| precedent for freedom. What will they decide censor next? Are
| Italians now subject to the preferences of their government?
| imwithstoopid wrote:
| [flagged]
| KomoD wrote:
| Can anyone find any good sources on this?
| mmarq wrote:
| https://documenti.camera.it/leg19/pdl/pdf/leg.19.pdl.camera....
| KomoD wrote:
| Thanks a lot
| beaned wrote:
| 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.
| pb7 wrote:
| Don't worry, they're doing both.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Trying to prevent some sort of western style gentrification? How
| come japan doesn't have this problem?
| version_five wrote:
| I don't consider it a problem, language alone is an extremely
| superficial indicator of culture - see my other comment.
|
| But japan is a good example- maybe that's what you're driving
| at - because the language is full of english loan words. That's
| a big part of what the katakana characters are for - fitting
| predominantly English words into the japanese syllables.
|
| toire
|
| miteingu
|
| dansu
|
| patei
|
| huraidopoteto
|
| Etc. As you say, it doesn't impact the culture.
| malkia wrote:
| I worked on the Metal Gear Solid from PS1 to PC. This was
| back in 2000, and my first real gamedev job. Fresh from
| Bulgaria, haven't played any consoles, and just using a
| WordStar program I've exracted all japanese comments from the
| source code, "translated" them - well word by word I think
| with the WordStar (I don't recall the exact name) then put
| them back. Some things were just too funny...
|
| At the point where the game was supposed to handle CONTINUE,
| the comment was CONTINEKU. Another one was METARU GERU SORIDU
| (or GIRU, don't remember). and more than that... all in all
| though even with word-by-word translation I was able to get
| through (we were only 3 "interns" working on the project +
| our boss (lead)).
|
| Also learned how well "C" can be written :)
| [deleted]
| anthk wrote:
| Heh, I can see Italians buying this:
|
| https://www.amazon.es/Italiano-urgente-anglicismi-tradotti-i...
|
| Urgent Italian: 500 English loanwords translated into Italian
| under an Spanish model.
| hanniabu wrote:
| I love the world adopting English b/c it makes it easier for
| everyone to communicate with each other no matter where they're
| from. If we could achieve a global default language and adopt
| metric units everywhere I think that'd be a huge boost in
| communication and efficiency and a plus for the world.
| quitit wrote:
| "adding that it is even worse because the UK is no longer part of
| the EU."
|
| Ireland & Malta are so tired of being forgotten.
|
| (Yes these countries have other languages, so does the UK.)
| snickerbockers wrote:
| > The move to safeguard the Italian language joins an
|
| > existing bid by the government to protect the country's
|
| > cuisine.
|
| > It has introduced legislation to ban so-called synthetic
|
| > or cell-based cuisine due to the lack of scientific > studies
| on the effects of synthetic food, as well as "to
|
| > safeguard our nation's heritage and our agriculture based
|
| > on the Mediterranean diet," Meloni's Health Minister
|
| > Orazio Schillaci said in a press conference.
|
| I hope they plan to do something about the "tomatomania" that has
| gripped Italian cuisine in recent centuries. It must have been
| crushing for their cuisine be corrupted by an invasive new-world
| fruit.
| cm2187 wrote:
| 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 and spanish in
| the 30% area, english north of 90%.
|
| When you have 27 different EU nationals in a room, there is just
| one language they can practically speak among themselves. The EU
| will not go anywhere if its countries resist adopting english.
| neuronic wrote:
| Does anyone remember Esperanto?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
| kuboble wrote:
| My personal hope is that the EU would make a plan to adopt
| English as the only official language.
|
| Now that UK is gone it can't be seen as unfairly promoting one
| country.
|
| I think the example of Switzerland shows that there is no
| problem if spoken language is different from official language.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I don't care which language it is, but pick one as the
| official one. English makes sense economically. German cannot
| happen because the past. Spanish or German or French are all
| fine, but of course it cannot be agreed on. So English makes
| it easier as well for that reasons maybe.
| noncoml wrote:
| Pick Italian. Beautiful language, lots of common words with
| most languages and I don't think any non-EU countries use
| it. And if everything else fails, you start using your
| hands to communicate.
|
| Mid 40s here and wouldn't mind at all to start learning
| Italian if it was the common language of EU.
| Tade0 wrote:
| One issue is that it relies on phrases a lot - so much so
| that Google Translate has a hard time figuring out the
| intended meaning.
|
| Also, like everything in Italy, phrases used depend on
| the region.
| pb7 wrote:
| Why pick the language of one of the weakest EU members?
| madmask wrote:
| Not sure why we have this bad reputation in the Anglo
| world, but we are the third economy in Europe, and the
| second manufacturing power after Germany. Huge
| differences between north (closer to Germany) and south
| (closer to Spain). Huge private wealth despite indebted
| government. Wouldn't call this weak.
| tmtvl wrote:
| It has the best operas.
| pb7 wrote:
| And Poland has the best pierogis and I like pierogis more
| than operas. ;-)
| switch007 wrote:
| I think you're forgetting Ireland and Malta
| smcl wrote:
| I think more importantly they're forgetting about France
| who would probably "Frexit" before consenting to elevate
| English above French
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > think the example of Switzerland shows that there is no
| problem if spoken language is different from official
| language.
|
| Most Swiss speak at least two of their four official
| languages. It's actually an example of how having multiple
| official languages isn't expensive nor hard to achieve (and
| the country is on top of most human index charts).
|
| But the EU should make Latin it's official language.
| samus wrote:
| I can understands some of the merits of adopting Latin, but
| maybe forking English would be enough. The EU is already
| publishing guidelines about correct English usage[0].
| Dropping these and formalizing something else, as the
| Americans have done thanks to Noah Webster's efforts[1],
| would be enough to complete the split.
|
| Edit: since most English speakers in the EU speak it as a
| second language, it would be an opportunity to adopt a
| radical, pronunciation-based spelling system. It would
| massively simplify efforts to learn it, and if it works
| well enough, it could spread outside the EU as well. It
| would be ironic if the deliverance of English from its
| broken ortography would come from the EU.
|
| [0] https://eca.europa.eu/other%20publications/en_terminolo
| gy_pu...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster#Blue-
| backed_spell...
| turbonaut wrote:
| English remains an official language in the Republic of
| Ireland and Malta.
| jsnell wrote:
| How does Switzerland demonstrate that?
| kuboble wrote:
| In German speaking parts of Switzerland people speak Swiss
| German. The official and written language is high German.
|
| Although loosely related, they are two different languages.
| leonhard wrote:
| Hm I'm not sure this is a good example, it's really just
| a dialect. Any German speaker can usually understand most
| of it when concentrating a bit. And Wikipedia seems to
| agree. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_German
| samus wrote:
| The official written language is German, albeit a
| different standard than non-Swiss German. The difference
| is not that big, it's like between written American and
| British English. But I can assure you that most non-Swiss
| German speakers can't casually understand Swiss German
| dialects.
|
| Edit: these dialect are commonly used in court, public
| offices, and often on TV. They have a vastly stronger
| role in public life than in other German-speaking
| countries.
| angrais wrote:
| That's dialects though. The same could be said for most
| regions in the UK from people living in the UK or abroad,
| e.g., a Scouse understanding a Glaswegian. This is
| similar in Italia across regions.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| Indeed. Every good European should speak two languages - the
| language of their European country, and English.
|
| 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.
| samus wrote:
| Especially since the advent of Erasmus, a lot of Europeans
| have learned to use English when communicating with other
| second-language speakers though. And beyond Brexut and
| americanized media contributes to British English becoming
| less present and relevant with every passing year.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| Yes! I'm looking forward this great return of fascist idiocy,
| like when Mussolini forbid some foreign words and cocktail became
| "bevanda arlecchina", sandwich "tramezzino" and parquet
| "tassellato"...
|
| https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/italian-language-and-fasc...
| flandish wrote:
| Reminds me of the short lived meme in the early 2000's era,
| "freedom fries."
| tmtvl wrote:
| Go well with your hambu- I mean, Liberty Sandwich.
| diego_moita wrote:
| The Italians and the French are exactly like the Quebecois: they
| hate English but they just can't avoid it.
|
| For nationalists, English is one of those pests that just grows
| out of control. And the more they try to destroy it the more the
| young people flock to it.
| antirez wrote:
| 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.
| Veen wrote:
| 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.
| antirez wrote:
| The fact is that the government reached power mostly because
| votes not happy with the populists (five starts) and the
| failure of the left in recent years. Only a small percentage
| of the voters really care about the other right-shit of the
| government. However, premier Meloni, to satisfy their allies
| during the elections, promoted many Lega Padana party crazy
| people into minister roles... and that's the result.
| hackerlight wrote:
| It's the same story everywhere. Every population has a
| sizeable minority that's far-right, and these people value
| culture/nation/race, and do not value individuals/freedom.
| Sometimes they win an election, and then these kind of
| policies get passed that try to force the people around them
| to conform to their aesthetic preferences.
| Veen wrote:
| It's not only the far right that value tradition and
| culture. And it's not only the right that tries to force
| the people around them to conform to their ideas of how the
| world should be.
| swasheck wrote:
| it's not just the far right, but that is a hallmark of
| the far right. conservatives want to conserve the
| idealized snapshot of the present or a gilded past.
| [deleted]
| pmontra wrote:
| Thinking about a standard computer, accessories and concepts,
| there are no common Italian words for computer, mouse,
| touchpad, touchscreen, scanner, web, link, app, database, word
| processor, bit, byte and the defunct floppy disk. Everything
| else is commonly named in Italian. Keyboard, memory, disk (in
| general, but hard disk is in English), screen, pen drives,
| power unit, mother board (this is maybe 50-50), folders, icons,
| programs, processes, windows, buttons, sort, filter, search,
| rows, columns, cells, sheets.
| Bayart wrote:
| > there are no italianized words for all the computer science
| words, we just use English
|
| You're bragging about your language being poorer.
| adontz wrote:
| You really want to use farsound instead of telephone?
| angrais wrote:
| telefono is telephone though?
| krsdcbl wrote:
| am i on Reddit?
| nyagaga wrote:
| More of them who were against this presumed sentiment of
| culture self defence, as you claim that in general there is no
| such thing (i.e. the majority of Italians don't care about it),
| should have voted the side they truly wanted, or should have
| gone and cast their vote instead of abstaining. But you may
| equally assume that they expressed their opinion in doing what
| they did well knowing what the outcome would be.
|
| As far as preferring the use of local words - or made up words
| based on the current language - it's something you find in many
| other countries/languages other than the ones you mention. Or
| tell you more, some of their languages did not change for
| centuries thanks to or because of their prolific written
| tradition. Everything proves that English doesn't have to be
| present within every language.
|
| I agree they could have just made a silent transition without
| making a bill and imposing fines, but in the end the decision
| doesn't sound very controversial to me.
| anthk wrote:
| You can use ordenattore/computadora in no time.
| bvan wrote:
| Ma sti'cazzi. Nothing really ever gets enforced in Italy anyway.
| Italian culture will survive just fine.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Maybe make Italian better instead of just a Spanish knockoff then
| ;)
|
| Man, after the ChatGPT ban, looks like they're firing on all bad
| cylinders now!
| dorilama wrote:
| It will be funny to give consent to "biscotti" on every website
| XD
| nemo44x wrote:
| This is very good. Europeans need to be proud of their customs
| and traditions while also having an eye on the future. We have
| all been demoralized for years and taught to believe European
| history is evil and reduced to colonialism (as if Europe was the
| only colonialist of that time) and very little more.
|
| Europe is beautiful and its diversity in such a small area is
| beautiful. Be a bit chauvinist I say and conserve the things that
| define you. Don't be tricked into becoming globalist,
| homogenized, generic culture.
|
| Embrace beauty and your cultural aesthetic.
| Tycho wrote:
| I stood behind some German-speaking people at the hotel check-in
| recently (I think they were Swiss), and I noticed they would
| sprinkle English phases into their conversation in a sort of
| jovial way. "Up in the room." At breakfast I saw the same group,
| probably recovering from a night of partying, one said to the
| other on sight, "under the weather?"
| m4nu3l wrote:
| Languages evolve. Just like Italian words are used in English-
| speaking countries, English words or derivations of them become
| part of the spoken and written language in Italy. I think
| Government enforcing culture should be unconstitutional. The
| Government has to adapt to the culture. Government should work
| for the population and not vice versa. I find this Government
| idiotic.
| malkia wrote:
| Yes, precis... Prisencolinensinainciusoly
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> Prisencolinensinainciusoly
|
| For those who have not seen it:
|
| https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m_Nt8
| hmate9 wrote:
| Context: "Prisencolinensinainciusol" is a song by Italian
| singer Adriano Celentano, released in 1972. The song's lyrics
| are intentionally gibberish, meant to sound like American
| English to an Italian audience. The song is a commentary on
| the globalisation of language and culture, and the ways in
| which language can be manipulated and distorted for
| commercial purposes. It became a hit in Italy and later
| gained popularity worldwide, and has been seen as a precursor
| to modern forms of global pop culture.
| madmask wrote:
| It would be best to promote Italian rather than penalizing
| English but this sounds good. We are already losing all the local
| dialects, and English words are now everywhere. Talking/reading
| is starting to feel like esperanto.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| 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, political
| priorities and cultural values.
|
| France have always been conscious of this, no doubt as a result
| of their centuries old conflict with England, but it is
| interesting now to see Italian nationalists responding similarly.
| It's futile of course, as neither Italians, French nor any
| combination of European countries can or will make an internet
| independent of the US
| belugacat wrote:
| If you can read French, I highly recommend "Civilisation :
| comment nous sommes devenus americains" by Regis Debray. One of
| the most lucid analyses of the cultural situation we're in I've
| found.
| adventured wrote:
| Well you'd need a lot more than an Internet independent of the
| US. The same US cultural influence was prominent before the
| Internet became popular. You'd either need a new super popular
| language apart from the globally popular English, and or you'd
| need English to decline substantially (this would decimate the
| US cultural output/reach/influence).
|
| It's worth noting that a variation of language collapse may be
| occurring. The English speaking part of the US is imploding
| (aging demographics, fentynal, Covid, mediocre healthcare for
| the bottom 1/2, etc), the Spanish speaking part of the US is
| rapidly taking marketshare (immigration being the only thing
| keeping the US population afloat). You can expect some decline
| in US cultural power accordingly, as Spanish is less popular
| globally than English (and far less potent as an entertainment,
| media force).
|
| The EU will indeed end up more or less making their own
| Internet. That's happening gradually. Their own rules, laws,
| beliefs are increasingly governing their slice of cyberspace
| (and anything in tech broadly). That separation will only get
| wider. Over time, the laws governing the EU Internet end up
| making it quite distinct from the US Internet, from the Chinese
| Internet, from the Russian Internet, and so on (as different as
| the physical spaces are today, at least).
| hunglee2 wrote:
| very good point - I think EU bureaucracy may well create a
| version of the US internet which is at least a different
| flavour to that which the US citizens use have access to.
| Italy banning ChatGPT on GDPR grounds for example - surely
| there will be a (very bad) local replacement which Italians
| can then use. However rather than a different internet
| altogether, it might just be a washed out version of what the
| US uses
| nivenkos wrote:
| 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.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Many, including myself, consider the possibility that the BLM
| protests abroad were less than organic.
| valar_m wrote:
| Do protests ever actually happen organically? I guess I
| always just assumed people organized protests on purpose.
| How else would everyone know where to show up?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| I presume they mean organic as in "organized by a local
| person because they care about the political cause
| they're protesting about" vs. "organized by someone who
| is trying to stir shit on behalf of a foreign nation-
| state".
| hanniabu wrote:
| Maybe racism isn't just a US thing
| onethought wrote:
| But BLM is targeting a very specific type of racism, that
| is almost not applicable in Sweden.
|
| It would be like them protesting Asians being treated
| unfairly on University acceptance, another American form of
| racism, that is also not applicable to Sweden.
|
| Protesting your government on issues that don't exist and
| they therefore cannot address is odd, and unless I'm
| missing something, extremely stupid
| hanniabu wrote:
| I'm amazed this is being downvoted. Do people really think
| that racism only exists in America?
| luckylion wrote:
| People probably don't mix up BLM (which was a movement
| protesting police brutality against black Americans) with
| some vague claims for racism ("Europe is much more racist
| than America").
| pb7 wrote:
| 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.
| gbrindisi wrote:
| Racism is everywhere, what I think eludes americans is
| that in Europe identities are way more tied to
| nationality rather than ethnicity.
| pb7 wrote:
| It doesn't elude us. Anyone that looks outside of the
| country knows that but hate is hate. You don't choose the
| color of your skin any more than you choose where you are
| born.
| patmcc wrote:
| If you ever want to suddenly hear a _lot_ of racism, ask
| any European about the Romani. I 've literally heard many
| people, after stridently arguing against racism and
| discrimination, say "oh well gypsies are different, they
| actually are that bad".
| tim333 wrote:
| It's debatable if they are actually a race.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Some European countries are behind the states on
| accepting that racism exists there, yes. E.g. in Germany
| there's still a very common attitude of, "well, we're not
| racist _here_ " even as anyone with a non-German name and
| especially anyone not white struggles to rent an
| apartment. At this point in the US, acting like racism
| isn't a big deal or isn't common at all has become
| somewhat of a far-right position.
|
| Now, in some ways the impact of racism is lesser in
| Europe, because there's less police violence generally
| and typically a much stronger social safety net.
| unmole wrote:
| 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.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| 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.
| kiratp wrote:
| I think you are underestimating how many people in the
| upper middle class in Mumbai have some form of family here
| and are thus impacted by American gun violence.
|
| Indian and American societies are link way deeper than
| political relations show.
| whitemary wrote:
| Wow. I knew it was bad, but this angers me on a whole new
| level. FWIW, if working class Americans (the kind liberals
| hate) realized this was happening, I think you would have
| their sympathy. Unfortunately, however, they will probably
| never realize it.
| humanistbot wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Let me get this correct, because your comment is baffling
| to me. People often protest the actions of other countries,
| usually by protesting in their home country at the embassy
| of the other country that is doing something they want to
| protest. For example, people in countries around the world
| routinely protest against the Chinese government's
| treatment of Uyghurs by protesting in their country at the
| local Chinese embassy. Their goal is ostensibly to get the
| Chinese government to change their policies, or at least
| generate media coverage to raise awareness about the issue.
|
| I'm assuming this is the event you're referring to in
| Mumbai, and I'll use a source that holds as cynical of a
| view as you do in covering it:
| https://www.indiatoday.in/lifestyle/what-s-
| hot/story/mumbaik...
|
| The protesters assembled at the US Consulate in Mumbai to
| protest policies by the US government that are directly
| leading to innocent people in the US being murdered almost
| every day in mass shootings. In the same way that Chinese
| government treatment of Uyghurs is not an issue outside of
| China, US government policies around guns is not an issue
| outside of the US (even though it actually is, because the
| US is a major supplier of guns around the world). How is
| this any different than protesting at the Chinese embassy
| over internal Chinese government policy?
|
| I'll also say that if you felt an urge to use physical
| violence to respond to someone expressing a political
| opinion, then you need to get mental health treatment
| immediately.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They awarded Obama a Nobel before he ever had a chance to do
| anything. There is a whole magic negro thing going on with
| Europeans intent on demonstrating that they aren't bigots.
| Right until the point they have brown immigrants entering
| their own country.
| tpmx wrote:
| > They awarded Obama a Nobel before he ever had a chance to
| do anything.
|
| That one was the celebrity-hungry Norwegian Nobel
| Committee's fault. They award the peace prize.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Obama got a reception like he was the Pope on his first
| European trip. It spans more than just the Nobel
| committee.
| sobkas wrote:
| > Obama got a reception like he was the Pope on his first
| European trip. It spans more than just the Nobel
| committee.
|
| First not being Bush wrote a lot of checks he couldn't
| cash. People believed for some reason that he was
| leftist, and later discovered how much to the right,
| American "left" is. And American media also distorted a
| bit what was actually happening. Neither democratic nor
| republican media would show their beloved leaders(you can
| guess which media support which president) in bad light.
| arlort wrote:
| That's got more to do with Bush than anything else
| [deleted]
| beaned wrote:
| I dunno, have you been to any of the major western European
| cities in the last 15 years? They're pretty brown now. At
| least these cities seem to greatly favor immigration.
| gbrindisi wrote:
| Sweden is such a weird experience.
|
| On one hand there seems to be a strong sentiment of what
| swedish culture is and is not, on the other there is also an
| unusual higher permeability to american culture compared to
| other EU countries.
| adventured wrote:
| 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
| burning refugee camps)? The racist, anti-non-Swede,
| nationalism type is only going to get a lot worse there. The
| integration of refugees into Swedish society has been a
| complete failure, which you can see in the crime and
| employment outcomes. If it were the US, the blame would be
| squarely placed on racist behavior / dominant culture
| preventing the refugees from thriving.
| nivenkos wrote:
| 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 things to work out well.
|
| The real question is why Europe has to deal with it when it
| was the USA which started the wars.
| foldr wrote:
| >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/...
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > 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 impossible to legally
| collect meaningful data about race, making it impossible
| to actually report on objective racial disparities and
| issues.
|
| > The real question is why Europe has to deal with it
| when it was the USA which started the wars.
|
| I see Europeans express sentiments like this quite often,
| and it's quite amusing. Racism isn't something foreign to
| Europe - Europe is literally the birthplace of white
| supremacist ideology, and racism has been ingrained in
| European society for centuries. It's quite ludicrous to
| pretend that it somehow evaporated overnight without
| cause, and even more absurd to make that assertion when
| there's copious evidence of direct and overt racism in
| across Europe literally every day.
| gbrindisi wrote:
| 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.
| foldr wrote:
| 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'.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > but let's also not pretend that the roughly equivalent
| concept is some kind of bloodless bureaucratic idea of
| 'nationality'.
|
| An apt choice of words, given that almost all European
| countries practice _jus sanguinis_ - literally "right of
| the blood". In contrast to how citizenship works in most
| of North and South America, people who are born in
| European countries do not automatically get citizenship
| (nationality) of the country of birth. Instead,
| citizenship is inherited.
|
| This system became popular in many European countries in
| part because it provided a way to avoid automatically
| granting citizenship to immigrants from the now-former
| colonies, instead creating an extra barrier.
| sobkas wrote:
| > Europeans routinely about gypsies).
|
| 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...
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > 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).
|
| You're, unsurprisingly, getting downvoted for this comment,
| but you are entirely correct. Racism is actually far more
| overt in Europe than it is in the US - the difference is
| that it's so widely accepted that people literally do not
| recognize it as racism even when it's plain as day.
|
| Perhaps the most obvious example of this is Zwarte Piete,
| the annual Dutch blackface tradition, which as of 2011 was
| supported by 93% of Dutch people. 2020, unsurprisingly,
| marked the first year when "only" 47% people (less than a
| majority) supported the practice, but even then it's an
| incredible contradiction between collective self-perception
| and actual practice.
|
| Ahistorical excuses for it vary ("it's not racist",
| "Blackface is an American thing; we don't have that in the
| Netherlands", or my personal favorite "it's not blackface,
| because it's just soot"). All are incorrect: blackface is
| always racist, and blackface/minstrelry as a form of
| entertainment was actually popular in Europe _longer_ than
| it was in the US, and portraying Black people as "dirty"
| from soot is a common minstrel trope.
|
| If you want an interesting trip, dig up some Dutch news
| reports from 2019 when Trudeau and Northam were caught in
| their blackface scandals. Dutch-language international
| media actually had a hard time covering it, because the
| average Dutch person at the time literally could not
| understand why it was even an issue in the first place.
| They had to dedicate extra time/space to very elaborate
| explanations of why blackface is considered offensive,
| whereas most American media could just report it as-is,
| leaving any explanation for the final filler paragraphs (if
| at all).
| localplume wrote:
| [dead]
| malkia wrote:
| Everytime I hear someone from my dear Bulgaria claiming
| pure aryan race, and I roll my eyes. Of all the countries
| in Europe we must be one of the most mixed (lol, for good
| reasons) - as we are one of the connection points between
| Europe & Asia... but no ... pure Bulgarian race.... WAT?!
| (Actually our (10%) predecessors came somewhere from
| Bactria in Afghanistan... so really...)
| dominojab wrote:
| [dead]
| forinti wrote:
| I had to get books on MLK and Rosa Parks for my kid's school.
|
| Why?? This drives me crazy. They are not part of my country's
| history and we have plenty of local heroes.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Why restrict your kid's knowledge? I know about plenty of
| people in plenty of countries.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| yes indeed. Probably everyone in Stockholm knows 'George
| Floyd' but would be entirely unaware of the names of locals
| who have suffered police brutality right there at home
| SilasX wrote:
| But, I mean, aren't Swedish police much better at
| respecting the rights of suspects and thus already better
| at avoiding George Floyd-type situations?
| dehrmann wrote:
| Weird; you'd think the protesters would have been more
| concerned with the rise of SD than police practices in
| another country. Not only that, everything I've heard about
| Swedish police is they're generally chill compared to US
| police.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| But "Italian nationalists" aren't a thing.
|
| There have been Italian language wars in border regions but
| they fizzle once non-locals get involved.
|
| For example, South Tyrol has a large German speaking
| population. The Italian government has historically encouraged
| adoption of Italian.
|
| But South Tyrol has (had?) a large Sicilian population that
| supported the local German speakers.
| mmarq wrote:
| > For example, South Tyrol has a large German speaking
| population. The Italian government has historically
| encouraged adoption of Italian.
|
| They stopped doing that decades ago, before I was born. The
| language of the German minority is protected and their
| representation in Parliament is guaranteed by the
| constitution. The Autonomous Province of Bolzano has a high
| level of self-government and a special fiscal regime.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| Very interesting observation!
|
| I think it's great if local languages and identifies can
| continue to thrive, but I don't think it can be said that
| Italian nationalism isn't a thing though - it has explicitly
| been a thing as the suppression of regional dialects and the
| 'making of Italians' was a stated objective of Italian
| nationalists immediately after the unification of Italy.
|
| btw this does not make Italy exceptional in any way, the way
| modern 'nation states' were built followed exactly this
| pattern - suppression of regional languages - 'cultural
| genocide' - and the creation a new national identity to
| replace them
| pyuser583 wrote:
| The "making of Italians" has usually meant imposing
| northern Italian norms and language upon Southerners.
|
| It's always been touch and go.
|
| Garbaldi and Mussolini placed a strong emphasis on
| "nationalism," but other leaders were more focused on a
| building coalitions.
|
| Can you give me the names of some Italian nationalist
| parties?
|
| I was told by my Sicilian family the only reason Sicily is
| a part of Italy is Garibaldis ship was blown off course
| during a storm.
|
| No idea if that's true.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| yes absolutely, 'Italian' is Florentine right?
|
| Same with modern French, which is basically Parisian,
| modern Spanish essentially Castillian. There is never an
| neutral language, it is linguistic supremacism one over
| the other. I absolutely respect Sicilians (and other
| regional groups) for resisting 'Florentine cultural
| imperialism'
| samus wrote:
| It's considerably different in Italy since Florence never
| had any sort of political dominance over Italy. Even
| though it was very briefly formidable during the
| Renaissance, its influence has otherwise been mostly
| cultural only. Because of this, authors and scientists
| settled on a Koine based on Florentine during the
| Renaissance. Until the 19th century, it was barely
| spoken, even in Tuscany.
| angrais wrote:
| I'm not sure that's quite correct given the banking
| sector (Medici) originates in Florence (Tuscany
| generally) who had considered political power over the
| pope (Rome), and hence across the kingdoms/country.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| very interesting. So perhaps Florentine _was_ an example
| of a 'neutral' (or at least acceptable compromise)
| language to be used as the national language.
| flopriore wrote:
| Kinda yes, in addition it was the language in which 3 of
| the most important Italian poets (Dante, Petrarca and
| Boccaccio) wrote. To be honest, even if Florentine became
| the official Italian language soon after Italy was
| unified in 1861, it wasn't until 1960s that Italians
| started to speak it everyday thanks to radio and TV. In
| addition, I would argue that the use of dialects is still
| a thing here (and these dialects not only are very
| different languages from Florentine, but they drastically
| differ within a range of 10 km from one town to another)
| elnatro wrote:
| Modern Spanish is not Castillian. The Spanish Royal
| Academy recognizes and acknowledges all varieties and
| dialects of Spanish. Castillian is only one of them.
| Bayart wrote:
| > Same with modern French, which is basically Parisian
|
| French was normalized as a written language around the
| great feudal courts of Northern France, at the time Paris
| wasn't particularly influential culturally. Parisian
| French was itself quite distinct from "government French"
| until recently.
| mmarq wrote:
| > The "making of Italians" has usually meant imposing
| northern Italian norms and language upon Southerners.
|
| Italian is not a northern but rather a central Italian
| language.
|
| > Can you give me the names of some Italian nationalist
| parties?
|
| Movimento Sociale Italiano, was a nationalist neofascist
| party that became Fratelli d'Italia, the current
| governing party. FdI gets more votes in the south than in
| the north. Lega is a weird beast, sometimes anti-southern
| now nationalist and anti-immigration.
|
| > I was told by my Sicilian family the only reason Sicily
| is a part of Italy is Garibaldis ship was blown off
| course during a storm.
|
| Was Garibaldi trying to annex Algeria and went off
| course? Your Sicilian family is not well versed in
| Italian history.
| Levitz wrote:
| I live in the Basque Country, where there is considerable
| effort put by the government to preserve Basque language and
| culture.
|
| 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.
| tossaway0 wrote:
| I'm Basque but have lived outside the Basque Country for a
| long time. I actually now find the cultural efforts of the
| Basque government to have been beneficial, even if most
| people I know would call them onerous. I think it has played
| out well for the Basque Country to emphasize Basqueness
| (whatever that can mean) as a way to distinguish a place that
| may otherwise have stood out even less on a global stage.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's a kind of cultural colonialism, albeit reflexive as much
| as strategic.
| hackerlight wrote:
| It's been happening in Russia for decades, too. The status
| symbols among the upper leadership of the Soviet Union during
| the Cold War were all products of Western capitalism. For
| example, luxury cars. That continues today, and Putin, due to
| being a Russian nationalist, is actively fighting against it
| (even though he himself wears luxury Western clothing). You
| could even argue it was one of his motivations for invading
| Ukraine. He saw the decreasing influence of Russian culture
| inside Ukraine, and he responded with force.
|
| The only way to effectively fight this homogenisation is to use
| authoritarian measures that force people into compliance. And
| that's when you are bordering on literal fascism, using force
| on your own people to ensure conformity to cultural and
| national norms. Cultural homogenisation is a natural process
| that will happen when you integrate people with trade, the
| internet, transport, and communications. You can't fight these
| processes without significant and unreasonable amounts of force
| applied to people.
| sschueller wrote:
| I think Rammstein put it in perspective how it feels sometimes.
| [1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/Rr8ljRgcJNM
| Gare wrote:
| And that was 19 years ago!
| raspo wrote:
| As an Italian now living abroad, every time I go back I am
| horrified by the way Italians mis-use all sorts of English words
| in many contexts of life...
|
| One example: "smart-working". At the beginning of the pandemic,
| when we all started to "work remotely" or "work from home",
| Italians decided to call it "Smart Working". The first time I
| heard this term from a relative I was very confused, I thought it
| was just young people trying to "be fancy" as usual, with their
| fancy english words, but no, it actually had become the official
| way to refer to "working from home"... people had it in their
| contracts.
|
| IMO this usage of the English language doesn't benefit anybody.
| Italians are not getting any better at English in general,
| language purists keep getting angrier and it's just adding a lot
| of confusion.
| lolinder wrote:
| It sounds like this isn't so much a misuse of English as it is
| a perfectly decent Italian phrase built on borrowed English
| words.
|
| One of English's greatest strengths as a language is its
| willingness to borrow wholesale from other languages when it
| comes up short. It would be pretty ironic for English to take
| issue with the way in which other languages adapt and use _its_
| words.
| riffraff wrote:
| FWIW, "smart working" was not invented during the pandemic,
| it's been in use since the '00s. But yeah, pseudoanglicisms
| abound in Italian.
| [deleted]
| mmarq wrote:
| It happens in all languages, I've never heard people talking
| about eating "al fresco" before moving to the UK.
|
| In theory "smart working" doesn't mean just working remotely,
| but it implies flexible working patterns as well. Also, it has
| been used in British English (even though it didn't become very
| popular): https://civilservice.blog.gov.uk/2016/01/21/smart-
| working-th...
| mercurialuser wrote:
| Unfortunately smart is just a name, 90% of smart working
| contracts are standard wfh with fixed hours
| [deleted]
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| They needed a word for this new thing so they took it from
| english. English itself steals words from all languages should
| it need a new word for thing. There's no governing body for
| language, people just use the words they think work best. You
| say this type of word use doesn't benefit anybody, but it does,
| it benefits the people who needed a word for a new thing and
| now have one. Words are just mouth noises after all, it doesn't
| really matter what it is, only that everyone agree what it
| means.
| ghusto wrote:
| 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 offence meant to the Americans here,
| but I detest the exportation of American culture to Europe. I
| don't mean music and films, but rather the way of thinking about
| the world. I suspect this is where things like these proposals
| are coming from; it's the pendulum swing reaching too far before
| it settles in the middle.
| giantg2 wrote:
| To be fair, American culture is not homogeneous either. There
| are multiple cultures throughout the country. Whatever version
| of thinking you're talking about is likely has both supporters
| and detractors here.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| It's not a version of USA culture (not American), it's the
| propagation of Capitalism, of the "american" dream, of USA
| exceptionalism.
|
| The idea that their army is the coolest and will save us from
| aliens, that their bilionaires (oligarchs) are secretly
| superheroes, that foreign leaders are crooks secretly
| plotting to conquer the world and so on.
| edgyquant wrote:
| >The idea that their army is the coolest and will save us
| from aliens, that their bilionaires are secretly
| superheroes, that foreign leaders are crooks secretly
| plotting to conquer the world and so on.
|
| These are Projections
| coding123 wrote:
| I get you have two hands, but they just said exactly opposite
| things. If you don't need a preservation movement, then there's
| no need to worry about global cultural homogenisation. So which
| is it? Or did you just speak too soon on hand 1?
| shivekkhurana wrote:
| I watched a Dr. Huberman podcast on dance and language.
|
| One of the key takeaways was that speaking and thinking are
| interrelated. When you are thinking, the same area of the vocal
| chords are activated but with a lower intensity compared to
| when you are speaking.
|
| This means that what you cannot speak, you cannot think. By
| prioritising Italian, they are scientifically enabling the
| population to think more like Italians.
|
| I don't care about the ban though, it doesn't affect me.
| Karellen wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
|
| (aka Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)
| MrJohz wrote:
| Note that there is a distinction to be made between
| linguistic determination (language controls how one thinks)
| and linguistics relativity (language affects how one
| thinks). The former idea is largely discredited, the latter
| accepted with lots of caveats.
|
| What the previous poster if describing is a strong,
| deterministic relationship between language and thought
| (the idea that, by banning certain uses of language, they
| can control how Italians think). This is essentially
| nonsense: Italians are Italian, regardless of whether they
| work in a company run by a CEO or an "amministratore
| delegato".
| circuit10 wrote:
| I would think it's more that you think in abstract concepts,
| then automatically put that into words in the background,
| because sometimes you think of a concept but the words for it
| don't come to you for a bit and also apparently some people
| don't even have an internal monologue at all
| [deleted]
| akomtu wrote:
| How do you think about music, art or abstract math? I doubt
| an architect designer speaks his design in his head.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| I wish these relic of the RSI (Italian Social Republic) of
| fascist memory where really thinking of the culture, even
| though it's a culture many Italians, including my family,
| fought and gave their lives to defeat.
|
| It is all smoke and mirrors to distract the public opinion from
| the government's failures.
|
| OTOH the use of English words that have an equivalent in
| Italian has reached such high levels of stupidity that it has
| become a popular meme here, under the name "Milanese
| imbruttito" which roughly translates to "this is too much even
| for someone from Milan"
| wizofaus wrote:
| 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...
| mihaic wrote:
| The US has managed to export significant parts of its
| political discourse in places where it makes no sense to have
| those discussions, simply by controlling global news. I think
| you underestimate how much this is.
| seydor wrote:
| TBH there is very little 'european culture' left (I'm not
| talking about fossilized cultural artifacts and tourist
| attractions, but alive culture and thought). The media is
| generally importing american anxieties and US domestic issues
| are even adopted as local (e.g. police violence or wokism). The
| public intellectuals representative of europe are dead. Europe
| needs the US to protect its borders and imports its economic
| policies to its detriment (e.g. high interest rates). The
| silent death of europe occured somewhere in the 00s
|
| OTOH, europe is exporting its talented people to the US, where
| they create those issues, so maybe it's a all a circle
| barrkel wrote:
| American culture is very different to local European
| cultures, which are all distinct from one another, and are
| usually as different from one another as they are from
| American culture.
| irrational wrote:
| We seem to have imported Naziism from Germany with little
| problem, so the circle is 2/3 complete.
| Bayart wrote:
| 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.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| 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
| are "online": those things might be something that I can read
| about every day while online, but I might never hear it come
| up in "real life".
|
| > The media is generally importing american anxieties and US
| domestic issues are even adopted as local
|
| Aside from some fringe people who are immediately made fun of
| by us normal baguette-eaters, no.
|
| In fact this is absurd on its face: high speed internet
| (thanks America?) made it clear to all of us too-online
| citizens of the country of Europe that Americans have
| concerns and opinions that are completely alien to us:
|
| - Trigger-happy police
|
| - Dying because lack of health insurance
|
| - Circumcision
|
| - Individualism of the type "I'm against taxes because it's
| involuntary; people should give out of their own free will",
| and yet also when they are facing hardships themselves: "I'm
| not gonna accept no charity!" (...makes sense)
|
| - Opinions on abortion
|
| - Etc.
|
| And people argue a lot about that. (In my experience English
| message boards are often split 50% between the US and 50% the
| rest of the world, so there are a fair few Europeans to argue
| with). That's what happens 95% of the time; the other 5% is
| _your_ version: "Oh wow, those things are so cool; I'm gonna
| adopt and argue for them here in the country of Europe."
| skavi wrote:
| > Yet in "real life" I have never, ever encountered a woke,
| virtue-signalling stereotype.
|
| I can't imagine most Americans have either (though the
| numbers may be different on this particular board).
|
| I think most Americans are aware that the primary culture
| wars going on right now are fairly divorced from everyday
| life.
| [deleted]
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| 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 europe occured somewhere in the 00s
|
| Sorry, how are we measuring this exactly? It's a significant
| reach of a statement by almost every measure. For example; if
| the EU is so "dead" then why do US manufacturers respect its
| regulations?
| amscanne wrote:
| > secularism, gun-rights, access to abortion, universal
| healthcare, labour laws, privacy and regulation
|
| I think most of these things are political rather than
| cultural. Specific laws take a variable amount of time to
| change/evolve, but are generally downstream of culture.
| Listing these kinds of political issues also tends to
| create a weird bias as you're generally paying attention to
| the most extreme takes on all sides (e.g. you've listed
| access to abortion, but I would hardly consider this to be
| an indicator that the US was more culturally liberal than
| most of Europe pre-2022, just as I wouldn't consider it an
| indicator that it is less culturally liberal post-2022,...
| it is more a political artifact than a genuine measure of
| culture).
| irrational wrote:
| > if the EU is so "dead" then why do US manufacturers
| respect its regulations?
|
| What does culture have to do with companies wanting the
| European money?
| giantg2 wrote:
| "between the average of the US and the average of Europe"
|
| I'm not sure how one even defines these. As an example,
| most of the examples you give have a near 50/50 (+/-10%)
| split here in the US.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > most of the examples you give have a near 50/50
| (+/-10%) split here in the US.
|
| That's what I mean. Many of those issues don't have
| anywhere near a 50/50 split in Europe, which is part of
| the definition of social norms, expectations and cultural
| values.
| giantg2 wrote:
| My bad, not average person, but average of the
| population. I got it. Although my statement still
| applies. You can look at voter breakdown by county to see
| a picture of how this 50/50 split is actually more
| homogeneous by locale. So there are cultural values, but
| they are at a more local level.
| seydor wrote:
| There's no 'average european culture' as inter-european
| differences are bigger than US-europe divide. The US is
| basically our common cultural base now.
|
| > secularism, gun-rights, access to abortion, universal
| healthcare, labour laws, privacy and regulation
|
| At least 4 of those issues are american , not european.
| this just goes to show how much attention europeans pay to
| the US issues instead of our own issues (aging of
| population, demographic deficit, unaffordable housing,
| unemployment , lack of global competitiveness, old money,
| brain drain etc). And what about european tech? I only
| discuss about it on HN, a californian forum.
|
| > privacy
|
| While these are interesting issues, they are nowhere near
| the top of the mind of average european person. Nobody went
| out on the streets because they wanted cookie prompts. We
| are just letting bureaucrats run the show and tell us we
| should like it
| edmundsauto wrote:
| 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.
| seydor wrote:
| american culture is almost homogeneous. ask a european
| visitor
| tmtvl wrote:
| Oh no, Peruvian culture and Canadian culture, for
| example, are very distinctly different, at least to my
| Belgian eyes.
| qlm wrote:
| This isn't what they meant, but I suspect you know that.
| seydor wrote:
| and so are Italian and Finnish cultures. But inter-USA
| cultures are as differnt as local cultures are within a
| single european country.
|
| Would be interesting to have a distance metric for
| cultures , however
| tmtvl wrote:
| Yeah, the Navajo and Lakota are very noticably culturally
| distinct from each other, maybe even more so than people
| from Swabia and people from North Frisia.
| pcrh wrote:
| >There's no 'average european culture
|
| Where do you live? Are you not aware that there is a very
| active and ongoing war in Europe which was triggered by
| the desire of a certain country to be more "European",
| and opposition to that desire.
| seydor wrote:
| ukraine was and is a european country. it wanted to be
| allied to the west and nato though
| pcrh wrote:
| Indeed, it recognised that being "European" was more than
| a geographical concept.
|
| Note that in 2014 it was "Euro-maiden" not NATO-maiden,
| or West-maiden.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > The US is basically our common cultural base now
|
| This is wishful thinking. People pay a lot of attention
| to the US due to its cultural output and importance in
| geo-politics but when they open the door they still pay
| attention to their own locality which has its own
| context.
|
| > At least 4 of those issues are american , not european.
|
| I'm sorry, how are those issues not European? Do you
| think Europeans aren't human or something? They're social
| issues and its harmful to think the US has any sort of
| monopoly on them. I could easily pull concrete examples
| where those issues are relevant to European events that I
| might suggest you are unaware of.
|
| > While these are interesting issues, they are nowhere
| near the top of the mind of average european.
|
| I would argue that for an average European elector,
| privacy is a much greater expectation than it is for an
| American.
| seydor wrote:
| > 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
| detaro wrote:
| Sorry, but that's bullshit. Does US discourse have impact
| on these topics in Europe: sure. But they are not solved
| topics that wouldn't be contentious otherwise.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > 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.
| seydor wrote:
| 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.
| barrkel wrote:
| Abortion was only legalized in Ireland in 2018.
|
| Abortion is one of the few cultural topics which doesn't
| tend towards borad consensus. E.g. acceptance of gay
| rights has a tipping point and then drifts towards the
| 90s+%, but abortion does not.
| throwawayiionqz wrote:
| 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_Polan
| d#Legal_sta...
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| Abortion ebbs and flows. As someone else mentioned,
| currently Poland has placed severe restrictions on it and
| Ireland only legalised it something like 20 years ago,
| N.Ireland only decriminalised it about 5 years ago.
|
| I would also suggest that considering the miserable
| failure of the mid-terms that the US has a similar strong
| average relatively set against limiting access to
| abortion too. Although I do appreciate that some areas of
| the US are more traditionally religious areas and more
| similar to the conservatives in Poland.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| When I go back to France I see burgers sold everywhere and
| massively more English words, both compared to 20 years
| ago.
|
| French culture has very noticeably diluted in that
| relatively short time.
| [deleted]
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| Use of language does not necessarily result in entirely
| changing the culture. Take South East Asia for example
| where they simply have their own spin on the English
| language. I fear that what the Anglosphere sees in this
| case is what it wants to see, its own victory, where in
| practice the actual outcome is more complex and doesn't
| necessarily result (in the long term) to the expectation.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Sure, foreign words are very often adapted.
|
| But when you see for instance the cooking section of some
| French media renamed 'Food' that means something... or at
| least that the editor is an idiot.
| jrockway wrote:
| > There's a clear cultural divide between the average of
| the US and the average of Europe on many topics
|
| This is very apparent to me reading HN late at night my
| time, which is mid-morning Europe time. It's like there are
| two totally different groups here. (We don't all think
| alike, of course, but there are prevailing views that tend
| to get upvoted. What's interesting to me is how it shifts
| with time!)
| Blackstone4 wrote:
| Who do you socialise with in Europe?! I'm a dual national and
| regularly spend time in 3 European cities and 8+ US cities.
| To be honest, it's the US that's devoid of culture and
| European culture is very much there and deep rooted.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| US has a distinct culture, its just not a one to one
| mapping of what "culture" even is, to Europe, or most
| places.
| schroeding wrote:
| What is "european culture"? :)
|
| Honest question in good faith, as even some individual EU
| countries don't have a consistent culture (think e.g.
| Germany) and at least for my very tiny slice of Europe, the
| culture and regional customs are still very much alive! :D
| whitemary wrote:
| It's the aggregate of culture(s) in Europe. Delineate them
| as you wish, or not. It's irrelevant to their point.
|
| I sympathize with concerns of mythologizing culture into
| existence, as is usually done in the process of nation
| state formation, but that only succeeds because culture is
| such a crucial component of human life. This sort of
| pedantry can get in the way of engaging with its
| importance.
| lm28469 wrote:
| You probably (99.9% certainty) spend too much time online and
| not enough time outside. twitter != the real world, tv != the
| real world
| seydor wrote:
| The 'outside world' is worse. Europe is aging, it's looking
| backwards and has very little interest in the future. The
| left side of the spectrum is stuck in '70s social democracy
| and believes it can still work despite the demographic
| collapse (french protests). It is not forward-looking nor
| has it made a post-boomer vision. The right is stuck in awe
| of its old glory and tries to revive nationalism (like Mrs
| Meloni, Brexit, Orban etc etc). People are (rightly) not
| very excited by those old minds. There is more interesting
| stuff happening in the US and Asia
| lm28469 wrote:
| That's a very limited definition of culture then
|
| I'd say the french protests are a good testament to the
| french culture being alive and kicking when basically
| every other country accept slaving their lives away until
| 67+
| hashtag-til wrote:
| I'm a big fan of french culture a wish other countries
| would do the same to establish where is the line of what
| they want to preserve, and really do the investiment for
| it.
| seydor wrote:
| 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
| vkou wrote:
| What's unrealistic is the upper few percent of society
| vacuuming up almost all the surplus wealth generated by
| the other 95% for themselves.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| It feels like a natural outcome of liberalism, social
| democratic band aids are kicking the can down the road
| before it explodes into the working class rioting on the
| streets. Can only do so much austerity and wealth
| redistribution to the wealthy, i.e. "IMF-approved, sound
| economic policies without alternative" before that
| happens.
|
| The real problems are the unfortunate contradictions in
| end of politics style liberalism: growing wealth
| inequality, wage stagnation, increased worker efficiency
| and record profits, the media can only do so much to hide
| it. So protesters are under the impression that their
| demands are realistic, of course thats at the root of the
| argument and your outlook on it depends on your degree of
| faith in liberalism.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > the protesters demand are not realistic
|
| The independent retirement board says otherwise but ok.
| If the trickle down economy and automation delivered we
| wouldn't even work until 60. But instead we have proles
| like you bootlicking the top 1%
| [deleted]
| edgyquant wrote:
| [flagged]
| zaroth wrote:
| Bootlicking proles? Please do better.
| lm28469 wrote:
| How do you call the working class defending longer
| working hours/lives ? They're literally proles, by
| definition, and are pushing for things which aren't in
| their own interests
|
| It reminds me of "socialism never took root in America
| because the poor see themselves not as an exploited
| proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires"
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > '70s social democracy and believes it can still work
|
| and it can. Bear in mind that these were hard fought
| social structures that Europe sacrificed generations for
| in the war, which toppled the greatest empires and
| ravaged our lands, they came at great expense. It might
| be easy for a modern American to scoff at the concept of
| "70's style social democracy", but it is our version of
| "liberty" which we would protect as much as any American
| might the bits of the constitution that they like.
|
| Remember that the totality of European GDP rivals US GDP
| (its in the big top 3 with the US and China), we will
| make social democracy work because to us, its the lowest
| acceptable bar. While one half of American news reels
| will continue to peddle the concept that its impossible
| because its within their vested interest to do so, it
| remains a stalwart part of European social expectations.
|
| Perhaps when the US suffers a crippling loss on its lands
| once more and is forced to face the worst outcomes of the
| human experience, it might consider building a kinder
| social state too.
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| >Europe is aging, it's looking backwards and has very
| interest in the future. Really curious of what you call
| "future" here. I could be wrong, but this concept usually
| hides some very dogmatic opinions.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > 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?
|
| This is a funny example to use, because while the first tomato
| reached Europe in the early 16th century, it was not widely
| eaten in Italy until the mid-to-end of the nineteenth century.
| For a number of reasons, people (incorrectly) believed them to
| be poisonous.
| uejfiweun wrote:
| > 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?
| sobkas wrote:
| > > 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?
|
| Your evangelicals export homophobia and prosperity gospel to
| Africa. And other not so nice things that were kept in check
| by church-state separation on your soil, but developing
| nations don't have mechanism to defend themselves against.
| Tobacco industry floods poor nations with cigarettes using
| marketing and legal threats. Your puritanism shoved into
| everyones throat, can watch violence all day, but saw a
| nipple? End of the world. YouTube no swear rule was/is
| ridiculous. The land of the free, my ass. And the idea that
| culture can be owned by corporations. Disney much?
| pyrale wrote:
| 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 borne by
| entertainment is mostly US now.
| [deleted]
| relativ575 wrote:
| > are actively trying to export themselves to Europe
|
| What are the evidence of this? Has there been an uptick in
| American right-wings activities in Europe?
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| 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 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.
|
| On paper there is absolutely nothing wrong with cultures
| seeking to preserve the use of their own language, however it
| is fair for us to argue that restrictive and punitive measures
| such as this are not helpful.
|
| Bear in mind one day English will no longer be the lingua
| franca as demonstrated by the word for lingua franca. ;). Would
| English then be a "relic" to you?
| [deleted]
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| > 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 that one passer by, who
| is also Polish or Ukrainian.
|
| That is, unless we start to curse. Then we are probably well
| understood.
| Veliladon wrote:
| Polandball means we all know what "kurwa" means.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There's a bit in the American TV series Fresh Off The Boat
| where the parents start shouting very normal sentences in
| Chinese so that it looks like a fake heated argument, and
| the salesman offers them a discount to get them to stop
| scaring the customers.
| Swizec wrote:
| As a Slovenian ... I don't have this superpower because I'm
| usually the only Slovenian there. There was a conference in
| NYC once where at least 10 people tried to introduce me to
| the one other Slovenian there, it was pretty funny.
|
| Slovenia being small, we had already met years ago at a
| local meetup or something.
| stavros wrote:
| Greek here, nobody understands us, period. It isn't
| anywhere close to anything else.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > 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.
| Bayart wrote:
| There was absolutely a sense of Italy in the 1500s, in fact
| it's the period where it really took off.
| eternalban wrote:
| There was a coherent and distinct civilization identifiable
| as _Italian_ , regardless of nation-state notions.
|
| https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/italian-americans-and-
| th...
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Meta-point:
|
| Does the pendulum really ever settle in the middle with
| anything society?
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| 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.
| satellite2 wrote:
| German was largely influenced and modified by nazism.
| Proper German words and syntax were pushed. This is part of
| a trend that's far from virtue signaling. Year after year
| the initiatives of the far right get more extreme but don't
| feel like so because they're only a small increments above
| the previous one.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > This is part of a trend that's far from virtue
| signaling.
|
| I would argue that signalling fascist virtues is still a
| form of virtue signalling. It just depends on what you
| consider to be a virtue. But yea, any attempts at
| cultural renaissance are vulnerable to nationalist and
| even fascist tendencies.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| no, but the amplitude of the oscillations decays (maybe
| exponentially, to keep our analogy fitting?)
| dfxm12 wrote:
| This is coming from an increasingly right wing, nationalist,
| Italian government. This is the type of government that will
| disqualify a person or way of thinking _just because_ of where
| it comes from, and this type of xenophobia is kinda dangerous.
| Plus, the emphasis on "correct use of the Italian language and
| its pronunciation" also seems to discriminate against people
| who speak southern dialects.
|
| After all, Tu vuo fa l'americano is merely satire.
| https://youtu.be/BqlJwMFtMCs
| InCityDreams wrote:
| An Northern dialects, too.
| poisonarena wrote:
| While not Europe, I can tell you my experience in Israel as
| someone who lived there in the 2000's, left in the 2010s, and
| returned in the 2020s(felt like a time machine).. within about
| 10-15 years so much of what I think was distinct about israeli
| culture seemed to vanish and it felt like American culture made
| a huge impact short of some older russian enclave
| communities(not including their children). Everything from
| television/music/movies/media, to slang and dating, politics
| and views, and just how people behaved in general (grew up in
| southern tel aviv surrounded by 'arsim' like a type of chav or
| something). There is still relics of it in behavior and style
| but it is almost always something I notice in people 40+ years.
|
| I also saw it happen over the course of maybe 4-5 years when I
| lived in Mexico City in 2013-2017.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Developing countries with their own culture also desire
| protection. Is it the law of the fittest or are some things
| actually sacred and worth preserving?
|
| Some might say only non western or ex colonised countries
| should get protection and the ex colonisers culture should be
| left to rot (i.e. to be swallowed up by Disney). I think that's
| the neo liberal / left view. It's a bit biased in my opinion
| but it's certainly a common thing I've heard.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > I don't mean music and films, but rather the way of thinking
| about the world.
|
| For example?
| hackerlight wrote:
| > I think countries should resist global cultural
| homogenisation.
|
| 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.
| vkou wrote:
| > 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_.
| notpachet wrote:
| Well, we're not really that far off...
| [deleted]
| vmilner wrote:
| April fool?
| bonzini wrote:
| 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.
| pb7 wrote:
| The rest of the world won't forget though. It's one of many
| ways Italians are embarrassing themselves recently.
| bonzini wrote:
| Oh, I know. :/
| can16358p wrote:
| Though the same. Too ridiculous to be true.
| unpopularopp wrote:
| 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.
| truthsayer123 wrote:
| Nobody is forcing you to watch them nor comment on this
| American forum.
| unity1001 wrote:
| Actually, they did, and this is the reason why people are
| commenting on this 'American' forum:
|
| In my country, immediately after the last US backed coup, the
| new 'democratic' government literally ditched French and
| German for foreign language education from all education
| institutions and pushed English in every level of education.
| As a result, I, like millions of youth in my generation, had
| to learn English as a foreign language. At this point it must
| be noted that a decent amount of the coup leaders were
| military men who received additional training in the US,
| 'School of Americas' style.
|
| In addition to that, the US-backed government first jailed or
| banned all the artists who used to create content in
| national, traditional formats, and instead promoted literally
| American music - one reason for this was the majority of
| those artists were left-wing, pro-people artists who opposed
| US corporate interests so they were detrimental to the 'new
| order'. Those who were not banned refused to appear in state-
| run channels in protest. Naturally private channels also
| excluded them because they were seen as 'hostile' to
| privatization and other US-backed policies. What was left of
| the creative space was wiped out by private TV and radio
| channels who were founded by US-friendly capital or direct
| US-connected investments, run by those who were educated in
| Angloamerican institutions, pushing either directly American
| artists or their imitators. It was a literal takeover of an
| entire country's culture.
|
| Result? Literally a decade of uncontested American movies,
| series, songs in tv and radio and recorded medium, culturally
| imperializing around two generations and slapping a weird
| layer of 'American' on top of their actual cultural identity.
| These generations still did not recover from this cultural
| rape, and they are unable to fit in in their own society,
| leave aside anywhere abroad.
|
| This is what happened in every other US-backed regime. Even
| in Europe, US-backed parties and capital literally
| Americanized their societies methodically by either through
| the local friendly capital or literally US-linked interests
| buying out local channels. Even in the country that I now
| live in, the biggest media group is still owned by a
| corporation that is owned by an American-German dual citizen.
| Leaving aside it pushes entirely American content with a few
| national ones sprinkled in, the news that it shoves into its
| programming is literally US corporate news, pushing literally
| the policies of the US itself.
|
| You would think that this would be something related to the
| US foreign policy, mostly affecting people abroad. It was
| not. It was a concerted, persistent policy that targeted
| Americans at home as well as it targeted foreigners.
|
| https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-
| me...
|
| The 1971 US Chamber of Commerce Lewis-Powell memo said that
| the then-existing popular movements like the antiwar movement
| etc were pushing Americans away from the 'American way of
| life'. And the rich who own the media and education
| corporations should use their corporations to condition the
| people back into 'the American way'. The result is the
| concentrated, lying corporate propaganda machine that not
| only pushed wars like 2003 Iraq War, but also destroyed all
| the humane behaviors and traditions in the US to maximize
| corporate profit.
|
| ...
|
| Then there is this thing about the monetization of entire
| world's resources that was started by Nixon, forcing everyone
| to trade in dollars and providing unending capital that was
| created from zero-interest money inflating everything in the
| US economy, leading to the corporate takeover of everything
| abroad by US interests as well as creating phenonenon like
| Silicon Valley and allowing business-model-free companies
| that ran on endless investor cash cornering all angles of the
| Internet and killing off their competition including the
| domestic independent players, forcing everything to revolve
| around Silicon Valley.
|
| Which is precisely why many non-Americans here not only speak
| English aside from the above cultural imperialism reasons,
| but also post in this forum.
|
| But no worries - as the zero-interest economy goes away,
| things will change.
| stametseater wrote:
| You've been downvoted for offending Americans by rejecting
| America's cultural imperialism. I challenge anybody who
| downvoted this post to provide any other explanation for
| their decision.
| unity1001 wrote:
| Yep.
|
| > I challenge anybody who downvoted this post to provide
| any other explanation for their decision.
|
| Let me provide one:
|
| A lot of Americans dont think that anyone could do a
| concerted, systematic sociopathy like the one I told in
| my post. Simply because they themselves wouldnt do such a
| thing, they think that those with whom they identify also
| wouldnt do that. Anything bad that happened to others or
| anything bad that is done by their establishment must be
| some 'coincidence' or a mistake.
|
| This mentality is strengthened by two things: The Just
| World Theory and lingering Christian behavior patterns
| that still dominate the American public.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
|
| The just world theory is utilized by people who need to
| escape reality to avoid cognitive dissonance. Because not
| doing so and acknowledging the evil and the evildoers in
| their own society would make living in that society very
| demoralizing and kill hopes for the future. So, any bad
| deed must have an explanation, any victim must have
| 'deserved' it, and everything must be alright with the
| world.
|
| And lingering religious behavior patterns, because in
| Christianity, the Christian god and the faithful can do
| no wrong. They are the good ones. Whereas all evil is
| done by the unbelievers, heretics and other gods. This
| belief is translated to modern culture as 'being on the
| good side' whereas anyone else that is not 'with them'
| are evil. And so, Americans can do no evil whereas any
| evil can only be done by others. The manifestations of
| this can be seen in how every incident like the 2003 Iraq
| war is interpreted as 'a mistake', or 'an ill advised
| war', and in things like every US enemy being Hitler.
|
| And these behavior patterns poison the minds of the well-
| intentioned Americans. Additionally a lot of Americans
| just flat-out keep the late 19th century manifest destiny
| white supremacist belief patterns - like how 'brown
| people' etc not being 'that important' and any bad thing
| happening in such countries being something unimportant
| even if it is done by their own establishment, hence it
| can be ignored.
|
| But mainly, the obsession with being 'on the good side'
| and projecting every evil and ill to outside to escape
| cognitive dissonance totally poison the American mind and
| cause them to ignore even the biggest evils that are
| being committed in their own society - like how their
| country kills its own people if they cant pay for
| healthcare and so on....
| tedunangst wrote:
| It's too fucking long.
| [deleted]
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| Oddly, I do not consider HN to be an ,,American forum" at
| all. I think of it rather as a global community of nerds of
| all shades and colors, using the language that is used most
| widely in technology/engineering/science.
| Aaronmacaron wrote:
| I mean that is a large part of what HN is, but not
| exclusively. As a non-american I frequently see posts that
| are obviously only on the front page because most people on
| this site are from Silicon Valley or USA in general. Some
| examples:
|
| - San Francisco housing crisis: This has been a frequent
| topic of discussion on HN but I don't think many people
| outside of San Francisco, let alone outside of USA care a
| lot about this
|
| - The collapse of silicon valley bank was a huge topic on
| HN but it was more or less non-existent in the news in my
| country
|
| - Posts about US politics, such as anything related to
| Trump or the American Supreme Court
|
| - When a post is specific to a particular country, it's
| usually indicated in the title, except in the case of the
| USA
| dontupvoteme wrote:
| It is funny seeing (presumably west) coastal americans take a
| very milquetoast pro-imperial view of "their country"
| (insofar as english is a representative weapon of america,
| despite it having originated ostensibly somewhere else
| centuries ago) to fight "the europeans"
| hanniabu wrote:
| You can use English without adopting the music, games, movies,
| etc
| hackerlight wrote:
| > 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".
| crazygringo wrote:
| Shouldn't the onus be on local music/movies/books to compete on
| their own merits?
|
| If you go to Brazil, for example, there's _zero_ worry about
| American music. Brazilian music holds its own, and then some.
| If you go to India, their domestic cinema is obviously
| _thriving_.
|
| Nobody's "pushing" American media on consumers around the
| world. Cultural imperialism is ultimately a false narrative --
| consumers pick the things they like, as they should because
| that's their free choice. Switching the TV channel or the radio
| dial is the easiest thing ever.
| antibasilisk wrote:
| Nobody competes on merit, so this comment makes no sense.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Things like TV shows and movies and music are precisely
| where people people tend to consume the stuff they
| _actually_ like, regardless of what is being "pushed".
| Word of mouth from friends travels fast.
|
| I can't think of any industry that is _more_ merit-driven
| than entertainment, and never more so than today -- both in
| terms of creation and distribution. A good movie is a good
| movie period. No amount of advertising and promotion can
| make people go watch a flop.
| dontupvoteme wrote:
| Indeed, it's telling when on average the foreign productions on
| netflix or such are an order of magnitude higher quality than
| the anglophone ones.
| pmoleri wrote:
| 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.
| lxgr wrote:
| I enjoy local music, books and games a lot, but legally
| enforcing "less American culture" seems like a really
| strange/indirect way of supporting local productions. Why
| shouldn't people be allowed to choose what they spend their
| money and time on?
|
| And if you think that there should be more support for their
| producers to compete with Hollywood budgets: Have you watched
| the credits of any European film or TV production recently?
| There are lots of government funds (EU and national/local)
| being spent on just that.
|
| Also, Netflix has probably done more for both the funding and
| international distribution of European TV shows than all
| European streaming services combined.
| est31 wrote:
| > Also, Netflix has probably done more for both the funding
| and international distribution of European TV shows than all
| European streaming services combined.
|
| Note that they also get a lot of subsidies from the local
| governments to film in their location. They are not doing it
| for charity.
| lxgr wrote:
| Absolutely, Netflix is not a non-profit by any means.
|
| Still, I think in this case it's a synergy. I don't think
| something like "Dark" would have existed without Netflix,
| for example, nor would I be able to watch Belgian, Spanish,
| Turkish, Japanese and many other productions in Europe or
| the US that easily.
| est31 wrote:
| Fair points. I'm definitely a fan of Netflix, and their
| european productions are very shiny visually although
| sometimes the the quality of the script is kinda bad. But
| some of their european productions are really great. But
| in those productions, at least if they play in the
| current day, they are using paypal, google, tinder, etc
| all the time. But yeah at least sth like Dark would
| probably not have gotten funding by either the public or
| private broadcasters in Germany.
| dontupvoteme wrote:
| Do you think nations play by rules? Whatever works, works,
| and the anglophone world is certainly up its elbows in dirty
| tricks. They're historically known as the perfidious albion
| for good bloody reason.
|
| Don't forget that Mercantilism and strict control of trade
| and information exchange was the rule until America forced
| "free trade" upon the world as a condition of entry into WW2.
|
| We live in what is mathematically the exception, not the
| rule. The world didn't begin in 1945.
| pmoleri wrote:
| > Americans are usually not aware of the extent of american
| cultural imperialism
|
| Which of the 35 American countries are you referring to? ;)
| pb7 wrote:
| The most important one is a safe bet.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> 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 languages,
| cultures, music, etc.
|
| The Internet and the growth of global media has helped, but
| it's not the same as going to another place and meeting the
| people there.
| samus wrote:
| 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.
| truthsayer123 wrote:
| Major month for Italy
|
| - Bans ChatGPT
|
| - Bans Bio Engineered food
|
| - Bans English.
|
| What next?
| [deleted]
| avi_vallarapu wrote:
| Interesting to see where the world is moving towards.
| truthsayer123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| obudo wrote:
| Don't fall for this, it's just a smokescreen while they try to
| sneak by a depenalisation of tax evasion hidden inside a
| completely unrelated law (why, oh dear reader? Because it serves
| their voter base, of course)
| notorandit wrote:
| As an Italian i really feel the shame. There is no such a thing
| as "pure language". We have words from a number of languages,
| from Sumerian, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic and also from French,
| German. And from English. So what?
|
| I really hope that law won't pass the parliament scrutiny!
| squarefoot wrote:
| History repeats itself.
|
| https://intimesgoneby.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/on-this-day-f...
| flandish wrote:
| Look at the Irish language. Almost dead. I can see a desire to
| keep alive the Irish language, because a lot of English
| imperialism has pushed out the languages of where they have gone.
| AHOHA wrote:
| And that's coming from a language shares a lot with English
| language. I personally encourage that, I think English right now
| is taken for granted, when you are having an online discussion or
| writing a piece of article, you will be discouraged if you have
| some spelling errors or grammatical mistakes, even if obviously
| English isn't your first, same with real life interactions, you
| will be discriminated against if you have an accent, either in
| meetings or public speaking. On the other hand, if you're only
| trying to speak other languages while in their countries, even
| only some words let alone just an accent, you will get a lot
| encouraging responses and appreciation gestures.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| Good. I hate reading Italian newspapers and seeing how many
| English words are used when perfectly well known Italian words
| exist.
|
| How is it that I, an "Italian as a Third language" speaker, who
| only lived there for four years can immediately come up with the
| suitable, precise, and everyday Italian equivalent of an English
| word?
|
| These folks are showing off that they speak [1] English to lord
| it over regular folk.
|
| [1] typically very poorly. Italians are some of the worst English
| speakers in Europe.
| [deleted]
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Glad things are going so well otherwise for them, that this is
| the most pressing problem for them to solve.
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