Larssen
Member
+99|1858

Larssen wrote:

Dilbert is an idiot
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Larssen wrote:

Of the english speaking world I would say Australians Ive met have by far been the most cheerful / good humoured / easy to talk to.

It's just strange to me that out of all the above the english seem least interested in meeting / socialising with foreign people (even when in a different country). It's like there is a barrier of sorts holding them back. Tend to stick together as well.
australians also happen to be the most racist and most brash. so you win some and you lose some.

and, yes, it's definitely an english stereotype, particularly among the upper-classes, to go abroad and only seek out english enclaves. hence whether you're in cairo or rangoon, there will be a gentleman's club, a cricket pitch, tennis courts, a boarding school ... really something rather roman and imperial about that.

why would we want to talk to europeans, though? we all know the french have issues with taking showers and urinating in appropriate places. most unseemly.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
Maybe a society's downfall can be correlated to a peak in its narcissism. That imperial attitude isn't doing them any good these days.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
i mean, latin europe has england beat for cultural narcissism. as does france.

the UK is definitely dealing still with its post-imperial climbdown, in some ways very badly, but i'm not sure why you feel entitled to tut tut over it. aren't you from the low countries who faded out of global prominence in the mid-18th century? don't you have webbed feet? i'll be sure to tell all of my english friends that they haven't been friendly enough to this guy larssen.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
And yet it is the UK voting population & political class that seems most convinced it isn't really part of Europe, politically or culturally.

I'l agree that the southern neighbours definitely carry a superiority complex, particularly the french, but at the very least there's far fewer people who deny a shared cultural and political identity or need for it.

Speaking for germany but also belgium/the netherlands, the experience of the world wars did much to humble these countries.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
the UK voting population, let alone the political elite and aristocracy, have never been convinced they were part of europe 'culturally'. nothing new there. what has changed is that now the mass, and mass politics, have changed tide with regards to their economic participation. the UK has never felt a part of 'the community of europe' culturally, or at least has always had a distinct identity as an island apart. why are you misrepresenting things as if this is some new, dark chapter? have you missed the last, i don't know, 1300 years of european history or something?

plenty of populist political parties in france and germany are drawing huge voting populations. not enough to tip the balance or achieve electoral success (yet, anyway) but making out that the UK is the only country in the union with skepticism is disingenuous in the extreme. the front nationale and AfD want a fucking word.

https://lawandreligionforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1.jpg

and why would we be humbled by the world wars? our experience of the war wasn't one of being conquered. we don't have heavily redacted or excised histories of collusion, collaboration, vichy, exporting our jews to concentration camps, etc. it is entirely right that a place like holland or belgium should be humbled -- and even ashamed in part -- of its history in the wars. we fought off the germans, remember? i am definitely not one for this rose-tinted 'keep calm and carry on' 1940s fetishism, not at all, but again, STOP misrepresenting the fucking history. of COURSE we will have a different attitude. why on earth would the UK be 'humbled' in the same way that modern germany is humbled? make sense man.

to say nothing of countries like poland, who have reverted right back to jew-bashing and catholic far-right politics, despite being the literal staging ground of the holocaust.



wow! humbled!

by the way germany has more nationalists, and certainly more of a problem with neo-nazis, than the UK does at present. your rose-tinted view of the 'humbled' european community isn't quite right. this story is only 4 days old, for example.

https://cdn3.creativecirclemedia.com/jewishstar/original/20200219-124558-German%20Far%20Right.jpg

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-07 08:29:14)

uziq
Member
+492|3423
your whole tone of the 'insufferable english' and 'the uniquely problematic' british is part of the whole fucking problem. keep acting like your shit doesn't stink in europe
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
I didn't say anti Europeanness is uniquely british, but it's true that in the UK these sentiments were and are much stronger than elsewhere. Yes, AfD and FN do get quite a lot of votes, but FN will never win a second round election in France and in Germany the AfD can't ever win a majority let alone be part of a coalition if nobody wants to govern with them.

The fact that the UK was one of the big winners of the last century is exactly the point. It wasn't conquered, it imposed a victor's justice on the germans and its social classes, economic and governing system came out the other end largely intact. Moreover, after the war it immediately assumed a strong position against the soviet union and in a parallel development it also became clear that in the process of decolonisation many former UK colonies ended up doing rather well for themselves, often better than those of other countries. All this caused much of the world to definitely shift and look to American-British cultural/intellectual/economic leadership. Much to the chagrin of the French, but evidently something they've learned to live with.

These developments didn't give a whole lot of reason for soul-searching and second guessing. I don't think it's outlandish to introduce the hypothesis that maybe that status also caused a stronger sense of nationalist nostalgia among the general public in the UK today than elsewhere. Idealising the past and the nation-state is certainly not unique to the UK, but the narrative of going-it-alone, being unique and different to everyone else etc. seems to have much greater draw there. I'll also theorise that perhaps not being destroyed by the world war allowed more unsavory parts of UK society/culture to live on, whereas most other countries had to reorganise many things and reflect on their past more deeply.

On the topic of Poland: I think their historical trajectory is so unfamiliar to the British experience that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to draw a comparison.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-07 11:56:06)

Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia

uziq wrote:

if i was posting pictures of georgia or ukraine and claiming it to be russian culture, you'd maybe have a point.
orly? how do you know you weren't?

you do know that the 'united' kingdom is a bit like the 'USSR', right? i'm english. don't talk to me about the welsh.
ah, so that's the game. very well then - you do know that russia is a federation, right? how do you know that pictures you googled up are of actual russians, and not tatars? or mansi? or kalmyk? why do you think it's okay to pull whatever stereotypical crap one wants from internetz to "illustrate a point" is okay for you but not for me?
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
i posted slavs. aren't you a slav?
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia
ah, so you zinged all the slavs there? pols, checks, bulgarians, ukrainians, russians, slovaks, slovenians and more - all simply in support of you statement that russia - one country mostly populated by slavs - is, in your opinion, shit?
well done.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
On the topic of diversity I think russia probably has the UK beat. Now as for equality between different nationalities/ethnic groups, that's a different issue...
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Shahter wrote:

ah, so you zinged all the slavs there? pols, checks, bulgarians, ukrainians, russians, slovaks, slovenians and more - all simply in support of you statement that russia - one country mostly populated by slavs - is, in your opinion, shit?
well done.
you're being a little bit disingenuous considering how hard the 'ethnic' russians have tried to sideline the other ethnicities throughout history.

so i'm using western russia and the slavic populations, major metropolitan hubs, etc, as shorthand for 'russia'.

yes, it is a shithole. i don't care about shamans in siberia or mansi's hoopoolahing in the arctic woods or whatever-the-fuck.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
shahter i quite literally challenge you to give me proof that russia is not, in fact, hell frozen over. TAKE THE STAND!
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia
@zeek: you are the one making claims here, not me. so its you who needs to substantiate your opinions.

that said, i've actually been to a fair number of eu countries (on business mostly) and i can confidently tell you that, while russia IS frozen over most of the time, its definitely not hell compared to eu.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia

Larssen wrote:

On the topic of diversity I think russia probably has the UK beat. Now as for equality between different nationalities/ethnic groups, that's a different issue...
i'm pretty sure in terms of sheer ethnic diversity of population russia pretty much beats everybody out there, with the exception of maybe united states.
the equality did take a nosedive since soviet union collapse though.

Last edited by Shahter (2020-10-08 03:27:51)

if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Shahter wrote:

@zeek: you are the one making claims here, not me. so its you who needs to substantiate your opinions.

that said, i've actually been to a fair number of eu countries (on business mostly) and i can confidently tell you that, while russia IS frozen over most of the time, its definitely not hell compared to eu.
you serious bro?

paris or moscow? are you serious? you prefer to live in moscow?

florence, venice, milan ... or st petersburg. you'd take the latter?

your brain has been rotted by too much mulched potato.
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia
you haven't been to any of the places you compare eu cities to - how the fuck can you tell?
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
i am never in my life visiting russia. it's on a tier with china as a desirable location.

i consider it the divine call of the united kingdom to eradicate russia from the face of the earth. you're like an early rough draft of white people. you make me sick.
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia
there we go. it's personal after all. it's okay, man, nobody gives a damn anyway.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
personal? i'm doing this for chechnya.
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia
of which, i'd bet, you know about as much as you do about the rest of russia, slavs and other stuff we've been discussing here - that being whatever it is theguardian is pushing your way and internet meemes.
well... okay.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia

Shahter wrote:

that said, i've actually been to a fair number of eu countries
just realised that alone probably means i'm now a suspect gru agent and chemical wmd carrier. O_o
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
yes we certainly have no evidence in europe about GRU agents in salisbury or novichok!!!! aaaaa truth is an elusive category!!!
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Shahter wrote:

of which, i'd bet, you know about as much as you do about the rest of russia, slavs and other stuff we've been discussing here - that being whatever it is theguardian is pushing your way and internet meemes.
well... okay.
i know that chechens with good sense slit the damn throats of you white trash ruskies.

Board footer

Privacy Policy - © 2024 Jeff Minard