Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

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.

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?

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

Similarly, there is no average American culture, as inter-state differences in attitude are large. America is as polarized as it's ever been, which is another way of saying the same thing.

american culture is almost homogeneous. ask a european visitor

Oh no, Peruvian culture and Canadian culture, for example, are very distinctly different, at least to my Belgian eyes.