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Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

(www.cnn.com)
231 points rntn | 3 comments | 02 Apr 23 17:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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hunglee2 ◴[02 Apr 23 17:47 UTC] No.35413150[source]▶
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

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1. hackerlight ◴[02 Apr 23 21:09 UTC] No.35415240[source]▶
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.

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2. chadlavi ◴[03 Apr 23 04:58 UTC] No.35418723[source]▶
The ruling party in Italy currently are literally fascists.
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3. 0xDEF ◴[03 Apr 23 06:53 UTC] No.35419497[source]▶
True. So are the ruling parties of Hungary and Russia.