I have encountered this lady before in Michele's comments. It seems we Americans frustrate her. Maybe we would't be so cranky with her and people like her if she didn't come on like some shirty schoolmarm, here to Save Us Natives From Our Benighted Ignorance. Here she is with the cultural superiority blah blah. Yeah, I've suffered through read "The Sorrows of Young Werther," not to mention Faust. In German, I might add. English-speakers in general are in her opinion much too simplistic, though I think maybe her grasp of English is not that great if she thinks that disagreement is "not accepting" difference of opinion, and that we want everyone in foreign parts to "adore" George Bush. (No, we'd merely appreciate it if you would refrain from comparing him to Adolf Hitler. Even if you mean it as a compliment.)
Well, in this post she lets slip an offhand remark that illustrates the ignorance and provincialism that supposedly doesn't exist anywhere else but America:
[...]somehow I never thought of america's side, I mean - here in germany we have enough stuff happened in WWII to think about for ages, there was no need to think about others.
And we are the ones who are supposed to be "ignorant of other cultures" (while we are "infesting" Europe and other places with our awful herds of tourists). Let me ask this of Our Foreign Friends: do you really think that the US became the economic, cultural, and military power it is today by being "ignorant" of the rest of the world? Idiots.
Posted by Andrea Harris at March 9, 2003 10:32 PM"..do you really think that the US became the economic, cultural, and military power it is today by being "ignorant" of the rest of the world
I've seen this sort of thing before myself. I've lost count of the number of conversations I've had with both tourists and immigrants from india that go like this..:
"Americans are so ignorant. blah, blah,.. education in India is soo much better.."
"So how come Americans are so rich, and so powerful and appear to be running the world..?"
"No.. umm, but they are ignorant about the world, aren't they?"
"So how come they buy T-shirts from India and can afford to pay one laborers monthly salary for one.."
"Umm, that's just because they are mean and stuff.. and ignorant"
At this point, furthur conversation is halted in favor of a Tec-9 on full-auto.. ;-)
Posted by: Suman Palit at March 9, 2003 at 11:51 PMLili: Okay, but is this a reason to treat us like we were blabbering children?
No, it's a reason to treat them like murdering savages. Which they are.
As soon as Europe manages to go for a full decade without genocide breaking out, I'll admit that they have room to criticize the United States. Not before.
Posted by: Niccolo Machiavelli at March 10, 2003 at 01:13 AMI've actually read a number of novels in German; Boll and Borchert. Some of it is quite good, but WWII pretty much wrecked German prose for the next few decades. Most of it is horribly depressing. Still, there are blooms to be found in the muck. It would have been better if I'd some cultural background and knowledge of idiom, perhaps.
I don't get the antiwar=anti-american bit she insists is a meme. However, most of the anti-American crowd out there is antiwar (because, how could we possibly have the right?) but few if any who think we ought to go to war are anti-American.
Posted by: David Perron at March 10, 2003 at 09:23 AM"Even if you mean it as a compliment." LOL!
The clowns calling Dubya Hitler should know he fails the comparison in its most important respect, he's not anti-Semitic. The clowns, however, are facilitating the murder of Jews (EU subsidies to the PA and complacency about anti-Semitic violence in Europe). So who're the real Hitlers here folks?
Posted by: Michael Lonie at March 10, 2003 at 08:47 PMAh, yes. "The Sorrows of Young Werther," I remember it well. I managed to greatly upset my World Lit teacher over this. One of the questions on a pop quiz she gave, asked for a paragraph summary of the book. My reply, "Young Werther was a lousy suitor and a worse shot!" She took umbrage.
Posted by: CGeib at March 11, 2003 at 12:40 AM