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Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

(www.cnn.com)
231 points rntn | 1 comments | 02 Apr 23 17:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.234s | source
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ghusto ◴[02 Apr 23 19:01 UTC] No.35413937[source]▶
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.

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seydor[dead post] ◴[02 Apr 23 19:16 UTC] No.35414075[source]▶
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Quarrelsome ◴[02 Apr 23 19:28 UTC] No.35414188[source]▶
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?

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seydor ◴[02 Apr 23 19:45 UTC] No.35414348[source]▶
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

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Quarrelsome ◴[02 Apr 23 19:55 UTC] No.35414457[source]▶
> 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.

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seydor ◴[02 Apr 23 20:03 UTC] No.35414553[source]▶
> 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

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1. bombcar ◴[02 Apr 23 23:15 UTC] No.35416385[source]▶
It would be interesting to setup a sort of “quiz” about the US for Europeans and vice versa for Americans, I bet both would get those political points vastly wrong (eg, they’d think abortion laws way stricter or lax than they actually are, same with guns, etc). Most of what you know about other places comes from the media depicting it.