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.

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.”