New US finance minister - can he even handwrite?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Actually you've only been around that long on paper.

The French have been around since the Roman Empire. No, wait, they like to say their revolution changed everything, yet it was based on ours.

The Germans have been around just as long. No, wait, there's really only been a Germany since 1870.

The Brits have been around forever, but they've changed governments so many times that they're really not much older than we are, if at all.

In fact, no European government or way of life is really all that old. In fact, my ancestors are mostly English, with some German thrown in, and we can trace the family name back to the 400s. How do I compare in all this?

955 - Battle on the Lechfeld near Augsburg. First time that kingdoms and small dukedoms under the leadership of Otto I. united against the shared enemy, the Hungarians, who raided "German" territories and plundered them. This is seen as the birth date of a German identity.

962 - first German king was crowned in Rome and declared first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation.

The point is this, Steve. The formal nations called "Germany", "France" or "England" were just a late, if not the last step in a log process of identity forming. The feeling of being one people, one cultural entity of shared origin and history, is much older. And it is more important than a formality.

And the Brits, who "were around since ever", the Anglosaxons - well, there was a time when there were Angles and Saxons, and no Anglosaxons... And then formed up the socalled English... And the socalled Normans... The French intermezzo..., Great Britain is relatively late compared to all that - and still, the foundation of its heritage lies much longer back in time than just since the first Union Jack was raised.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I guess you're just as susceptible to 'two-bit dictators' and 'tyrants' as well then, if you're of European descent.

Me? Oh hell yes!

Originally Posted by Skybird

The point is this, Steve. The formal nations called "Germany", "France" or "England" were just a late, if not the last step in a log process of identity forming. The feeling of being one people, one cultural entity of shared origin and history, is much older. And it is more important than a formality.

No, the point is that some people seem to be born without a sense of humor.

At least Oberon got it.

[Skybird]

Oh!? Well then, at least we did not cross blades in anger there. I still fail to see the humor, but maybe that is because I am not British like Oberon. Or your humor is as dry as Bond's Martinis. To hell with this Anglosaxon chumminess!

[Sailor Steve]

The serious truth is that I see it both ways. Yes, some peoples seem to have ingrained national habits, and are somewhat subject to their own traditions. My late friend Rocky was a firm believer in national typecasting. He gave me a lot of grief over being too "German" in my thought patterns, while loving the fact that his thinking was pure "Italian". Of course he made fun of himself over that, but I loved to remind him that his own mother came straight here from Germany, so he was more "German" than I was.

That said, I'm not sure I really believe it all that much, any more than I believe in Astrology, and I wonder if our national "habits" really go back more than two or three generations. On the one hand we talk about national characteristics and claim them when it suits us and deny them when it doesn't, but on the other hand international media of all sorts have made us look at each other's cultures and adapt them wholesale.

How many Japanese today even think about the old ways, other than to wax nostalgic just like the rest of us?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The serious truth is that I see it both ways. Yes, some peoples seem to have ingrained national habits, and are somewhat subject to their own traditions. My late friend Rocky was a firm believer in national typecasting. He gave me a lot of grief over being too "German" in my thought patterns, while loving the fact that his thinking was pure "Italian". Of course he made fun of himself over that, but I loved to remind him that his own mother came straight here from Germany, so he was more "German" than I was.

That said, I'm not sure I really believe it all that much, any more than I believe in Astrology, and I wonder if our national "habits" really go back more than two or three generations. On the one hand we talk about national characteristics and claim them when it suits us and deny them when it doesn't, but on the other hand international media of all sorts have made us look at each other's cultures and adapt them wholesale.

How many Japanese today even think about the old ways, other than to wax nostalgic just like the rest of us?

I think there is a grain of truth in these national stereotypes. I would never exaggerate attributing such "typical" characteristics to an individual only because of his or her nationality. But some differences there are, and they both come from history and a tradition of lifestyle habits and clture as well as to some degree being genetically inherited. No human born ever ha sbeen a tabula rasa. Neither regarding his "gender", nor his mentality. They may try to deny today for PC reasons and extremist feminism that there are difference sbetween boys and girls, but that is BS. Theyx also may try in the eU today to deny that there are different indentites and mentalities in the people of Eurppean local regions. I think that is BS as well. It is the great socialist (not social but indeed socialist) making-everbody-euqal-and-featureless engineering game they play, becasue justice to them is not an issue about quality, but quantity, and so everybody must be made equal in material form. So there are no preset biological and psychological sexes anymore, but arbitrary gender-roles only that can be defined by political education in any way seen as opportune. And so , there are no grown historic identities of the various people in Europe, but in mrpiocniple they all are of the same thinking, tickiong, feeling, and desire. The Scandiniavian has the smae mentality like the Italian, and the Portuegese is as self-analytical as the German, and so on. No differences - we are all equal, wonderful!

Remember Orwell'S 1984, when the interrogator is not happy with the deliquent finally, after long torture, answering "five fingers" when the interrogator shows him four and wants him to admit it is five fingers? He explains he does not want the subject to just say "five" in order to escape the procedure and ease his suffering, he wants him to indeed be convinced and make himself be convinced beyond doubt, and he wants him to have a perception where he for real sees five fingers when being shown four.

That'S what PC and many other ideological modern schools do with us now, they show us four fingers and want us to make ourselves seeing five fingers. With PC, gender-engineers and the EUrocrats it is especially bad. I call it social-fascism now.

Jesus.
coming here after dropping a small smile last night, and august has turned his machinegun [US, texan made] on me.

I told you your friendly very Christian slapdown had really hit him hard

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The serious truth is that I see it both ways. Yes, some peoples seem to have ingrained national habits, and are somewhat subject to their own traditions. My late friend Rocky was a firm believer in national typecasting. He gave me a lot of grief over being too "German" in my thought patterns, while loving the fact that his thinking was pure "Italian". Of course he made fun of himself over that, but I loved to remind him that his own mother came straight here from Germany, so he was more "German" than I was.

That said, I'm not sure I really believe it all that much, any more than I believe in Astrology, and I wonder if our national "habits" really go back more than two or three generations. On the one hand we talk about national characteristics and claim them when it suits us and deny them when it doesn't, but on the other hand international media of all sorts have made us look at each other's cultures and adapt them wholesale.

How many Japanese today even think about the old ways, other than to wax nostalgic just like the rest of us?

Bingo, although the British of 60 years ago would scant recognise the youth of todays Britain, such has been the radical change in attitudes in what is virtually a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of history. However there is still, in British society itself, some trace elements of the stereotypical Brit.
Talking to other people on the Underground is forbidden, mass displays of public hysteria come as a surprise (no-one would have predicted the outpouring of grief after the death of Princess Diana) and such slogans as 'Keep calm and carry on' become a sort of national meme.

However, in the context of this thread, what I found disturbing is Augusts rapidity to resort to national labels and stereotypes when, indeed, there was no call for it. Gustav did not, at any point during his post, call upon national stereotypes of either side of the Atlantic, nor indeed, in my opinion, make the sort of comment that warranted the reply that he received which slurred an entire continent. If one ever wanted to reinforce negative stereotypes, then this is indeed the way to do it.

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

However, in the context of this thread, what I found disturbing is Augusts rapidity to resort to national labels and stereotypes when, indeed, there was no call for it.

Rapidity Oberon?

I've been reading European insults and diatribes against my country on this forum for years of which the topic of this 6 page thread is just the latest example.

[Betonov]

So ??

Like Europe is not insulted, degraded, stereotyped, shown as a weak bunch of quareling socialist monarchies and used as an american doormat (due to the fault of our democratively elected goverments) on every turn by the americans and your media.

And you think this thread is insulting ??
Try being a Croat and listen to a Slovene and vice versa. You'd hide away in one of your tanks and sob for three days.

Now do it like Neal and Steve and suck it up and stop giving us reasons to think that the US stereotypes are real.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

Rapidity Oberon?

I've been reading European insults and diatribes against my country on this forum for years of which the topic of this 6 page thread is just the latest example.

Likewise we have read American insults in return over the years, however, if you look at this 6 page thread, you'll find that 4 pages of it are Americans and Europeans alike completely dismissing the theory of the OP as either irrelevant or unlikely. Furthermore, the post that you resorted to using European stereotypes against did not even contain a directed insult against America as a whole, or indeed any stereotypes.

Besides, as I have stated before, America is the primary superpower at this time, you're going to be hated and loved equally by the world for your actions and beliefs, just as European nations were back when the US was in its infancy, you just have to develop a thick skin and ignore it, responding in kind is exactly what people want you to do, so they can just use it as an example of a 'typical overreacting American'.
If the internet had been around in 1840 then I dare say I would be fending insults and scrutiny from around the world too.