May 10, 2017

The debate about whether Germany has a "Leitkultur" — "a guiding national culture, or whether it is a truly multicultural nation."

Anna Sauerbrey, an opinion-page editor for Der Tagesspiegel, writes in the NYT about a pro-Leitkultur op-ed in Bild by conservative German minister of the interior, Thomas de Maizière.
He... listed 10 items, in bullet points, that he said define German culture: “We shake hands.” “We are not burqa” (whatever that means). We possess a diligent work ethic. We are committed to education and the arts. We are part of NATO, Europe and the West. And so on.

While conceding that a national culture cannot be more than a “guideline,” he went on to ask how the country should deal with people who object to adopting those guiding principles. Mr. de Maizière suggests that, alongside the characteristics of German Leitkultur, there are certain “nonnegotiable” values: the priority of law over religion, respectful manners in everyday life, being part of the West, being “proud Europeans” and being patriotic.
That got a strong reaction:
Almost instantly, Germans took to Twitter and excoriated Mr. de Maizière’s take on Leitkultur. If such a thing existed, they wanted nothing of it: According to the Twitter crowd, the human equivalent of the predominant German culture is a xenophobic, homophobic, ignorant hick who eats nothing but eggs and potatoes and spinach, even abroad, proudly displaying his “Piefigkeit,” his petty-bourgeois small-mindedness, to the embarrassed global community....
Sauerbrey opines:
In Germany, there still is a strong belief that you can change dissenters’ minds by erecting national cultural guidelines — in other words, thought-policing. If it weren’t for the radio, Hitler wouldn’t have happened, we feel....

But you can’t convey national culture by force. All you can do is live it, promote it and hope that others will follow suit. The answer to the challenges posed to our key values is not to make people shake hands.  The country needs to accept that it will be less homogeneous.... Germany should accept that putting your hand on your heart can be as much a gesture of respect as a handshake. Germany will have to accept that respecting the law is enough. Germans will have to accept habits and thoughts that are unfamiliar or even disturbing. Not because we accept them, but because we probably won’t change them.
By the way, can you understand the connection Sauerbrey makes between the ineffectiveness of "thought-policing" and the effectiveness of radio? When she recommends living and promoting the national culture does she mean that could work because radio worked for Hitler? That's the way the sentences fit together for me, but I'm also positive she isn't bringing up Hitler for the purpose of endorsing one of his techniques (propagandizing on the radio). 

73 comments:

MAJMike said...

It was more than just radio. The NSDAP used all of the available media to spread their message. Posters, radio, movies, books, broadsheets, even the airplane was a part of the Nazi propaganda effort. No other political party grasped the impact of these tools and they paid the price for their ignorance.

Kate said...

I can dislike German culture. I'm an American. It's a shame, though, to see the Germans hate on their own culture.

I lived there. They are exactly as described: law-abiding (to an OCD degree), authority-loving, perfunctorily friendly. They are also incredibly xenophobic. All of these people claiming otherwise -- let's see what they say about all those Turkish immigrants they refuse to legitimize.

Haha! Actually, the ridiculous posturing is so very Leitkultur. Hilarious.

MAJMike said...

If Twitter, Facebook and Internet blogs had existed in the 1920's, Goebbels would've included those as well.

Balfegor said...

Deutschland hat sich abgeschafft.

damikesc said...

The Soviet attack on Western Civ has worked wonders. These morons support cultures that HATE them passionately over the one that does not.

Nice to see some Germans viewing condescension as a German cultural goal.

robother said...

A Godwin gambit? I assume whatever the universal Godwin Unit (length of internet skein before the first invocation of Hitler) is, in German threads some small fraction of that.

buwaya said...

Germans can be annoying, but the objection to teaching Germanism is idiotic.
You most certainly can teach a culture.
Imperfectly and it takes time, but it can be done and has been done.
Plenty of civilizations from Greece to Rome to the Arabs to the Jesuits to the USA have done that.

Bay Area Guy said...

Multiculturalism is a country"s death wish.

In Japan, do we expect to see Japanese people, who speak Japanese?

In China, do we expect to see Chinese people, who speak Chinese?

In Spain, do we expect to see Spaniards, who speak Spanish?

Of course.

Now, Yes, obviously there are minority population centers in most countries. The goal, normally, is to assimilate or reach a point of equilibrium, where the different groups can live a peaceful coexistence.

But the goal should never be, let's throw a buncha different people, with different cultures and different values, and sometimes with historical or current grievances into one big stew, and not have them assimilate, but create a big welfare apparatus to sustain them, and then just passively see what happens - because diversity!

It's just a foolish left wing idea - just as purging ethnic minority populations on the opposite end of the spectrum is a bad idea.


tim in vermont said...

The cultural revolution continues apace. Why anybody listens to Twitter is beyond me, however.

JackWayne said...

Another one bites the dust.

Anonymous said...

AA: By the way, can you understand the connection Sauerbrey makes between the ineffectiveness of "thought-policing" and the effectiveness of radio?

Parsing duckspeak is a waste of time.

Fernandinande said...

If it weren’t for the radio, Hitler wouldn’t have happened, we feel....

Hitler wouldn't have "happened" if it weren't for Germans.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Germany is so screwed by it's past. Ironically and tragically, the only way out may be to embrace it a little bit. Which wouldn't be good news for it's neighbors.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Putting your hand over your heart is as valid a gesture as shaking hands.
Putting your wife and daughter in full-body black bags when they leave the house is as valid a cultural practice as allowing them to dress more comfortably/less modestly.
Having a "doctor" remove your young daughter's clitoris is just as valid a cultural practice as...not doing that.
Prohibiting women from driving is just as culturally valid as treating women as full, equal members of society.
Excusing sexual assault against women dressed immodestly is just as valid a cultural practice as upholding and enforcing the law and not blaming victims of sexual assault.

Expecting foreign people you allow into your country to assimilate to your native culture is the highest form of racism. Somehow.

How dare anyone prefer one set of cultural beliefs and practices to another?! It's the duty of every citizen to import vast numbers of hostile foreigners and then not complain when doing so changes the fundamental nature of "their" nation in ways they strongly dislike. Having and wanting to preserve a national identity--that's basically Hitler-talk. Shameful.

Sebastian said...

I guess Herder is no longer part of the German Leitkultur.

Anonymous said...

"But you can’t convey national culture by force. All you can do is live it, promote it and hope that others will follow suit."

Actually, you can, but it's easier to just keep incompatible people out of your country in the first place. Which can also be easily done by minimal application of force, regardless of what the bleeding hearts tell you.

"The answer to the challenges posed to our key values is not to make people shake hands. The country needs to accept that it will be less homogeneous.... Germany should accept that putting your hand on your heart can be as much a gesture of respect as a handshake. Germany will have to accept that respecting the law is enough. Germans will have to accept habits and thoughts that are unfamiliar or even disturbing. Not because we accept them, but because we probably won’t change them."

It's astonishing that people can be blind to the viciousness, dishonesty, and sheer effrontery of the above.

Though, to be fair, the writer is likely not so much vicious herself, as merely a vacuous conduit.

Jupiter said...

Kate said...

"I lived there. They are exactly as described: law-abiding (to an OCD degree), authority-loving, perfunctorily friendly. They are also incredibly xenophobic. All of these people claiming otherwise -- let's see what they say about all those Turkish immigrants they refuse to legitimize."

What did you say about those immigrants, Kate? Did any of them happen to rape you, by any chance? I understand that raping infidel women is part of Islamic Leitkultur. Not that there's anything wrong with raping infidel women, of course. Only a xenophobe would suggest such a thing.

Jupiter said...

Raping infidel women is just how Muslims express their perfunctory friendliness.

rhhardin said...

Muslims would be happier in their own countries where they don't have to fight enlightenment cultures.

Rick.T. said...

Who will win the culture war in Germany - the sitzpinkler or stehpinkler?

HoodlumDoodlum said...

The definition of "tolerance" is, apparently, an infinitely elastic thing.

I guess I thought I was tolerant for holding the opinion that people in far away lands with strange customs and beliefs ought to be allowed to live their lives without my active intervention to make them change their weird, backward ways. I mean, I find female genital mutilation, child marriage, forcing women to live as virtual slaves, etc. pretty offensive but I'm tolerant enough to not want to go to war with the millions of people in foreign lands who encourage that way of life. Let them do their thing in their lands--I disapprove but I won't conquer them and force them to live in a way I find more palatable. I thought that was tolerance.

Turns out that's not tolerance, though. Real tolerance would be for me to invite those millions of people into my nation, my community, and my home--for me to pay for them to come here and to bring their offensive beliefs and ways of life to my backyard so I can underwrite the spread and perpetuation of that "culture" and help it displace my own preferred culture/beliefs/way of life. To do any less is to be "literally Hitler."

I take it I'm supposed to feel bad for my intolerance on this front. I...don't.

Big Mike said...

Nein, kinder. Put grandfather's ashes in the hour glass, not the urn. Grandfather was a good German and Germans want to work.

Paco Wové said...

"The country needs to accept..."

"Acceptance" – the fifth stage of national grief, after the anger, denial, etc.

Rick said...

More elites hating the proles. If this happens enough people might start to think it's universal elitist snobbery rather than a reaction to whatever specific facts they highlight to justify themselves.

Luke Lea said...

A quote on effects of German propaganda in the 1930's:

“Joseph Goebbels had complete control of the media in Germany and the German birth rate shot up and German nationalism shot up and ethnic solidarity increased and out-group hatred increased. The reason was because of the images displayed. If you saw today on television, which I am sure you will not, lots and lots of nice blue-eyed blonde babies being born and women who had lots of these babies being happy having babies and wanting to stay at home and not to work, then you would increase the number of women who would want to have babies and stay at home. If the media showed attractive people standing up to drive the drug dealers out of their neighborhood and to not care what race they were, then I think many more people in suburban neighborhoods would rally together to drive out the alien drug dealers. And so what you see on TV portrayed by role models who look like you… Advertisers know this. Politicians know this."

DanTheMan said...

And what burdens of "tolerance" fall upon the immigrants? Any at all?


Balfegor said...

Re: HoodlumDoodlum:

Putting your hand over your heart is as valid a gesture as shaking hands.
Putting your wife and daughter in full-body black bags when they leave the house is as valid a cultural practice as allowing them to dress more comfortably/less modestly.
Having a "doctor" remove your young daughter's clitoris is just as valid a cultural practice as...not doing that.
Prohibiting women from driving is just as culturally valid as treating women as full, equal members of society.
Excusing sexual assault against women dressed immodestly is just as valid a cultural practice as upholding and enforcing the law and not blaming victims of sexual assault
.

You can take an affirmative stance that some cultures are superior to others, but you don't even need that to want people to assimilate. "Culture" isn't just something you can realise in an individual box. It's a pattern of interaction between multiple people, dependent on shared expectations. You don't need to think that one culture is superior to another to think that people should assimilate to the culture of whatever place they're moving to. The alternative -- and the usual pattern of multicultural coexistence throughout history -- is segregation, or perhaps the Millet system as a halfway solution.

Gahrie said...

The Germans may be willing to accommodate and co-exist with the Muslims, but are the Muslims willing to accommodate and co-exist with the Germans?

Owen said...

Buwaya: "...you most certainly can teach culture...". Agree. It is what families do; what neighborhoods can do; what schools should do. It isn't oppressive, it's a language of sorts, a set of values and references that enable implicit communication. It is not only possible but necessary. And inevitable: people will seek or construct such systems of meaning. They have to.

The only question is, *whose* culture.

mockturtle said...

"If you saw today on television, which I am sure you will not, lots and lots of nice blue-eyed blonde babies being born and women who had lots of these babies being happy having babies and wanting to stay at home and not to work, then you would increase the number of women who would want to have babies and stay at home." quotation from Luke Lea's post.

As a matter of fact, this very kind of propaganda was used here in the US post WWII, as was recounted by Betty Friedan and others, to encourage women who had worked in the war industries back into the home. My personal opinion is that it didn't take propaganda. Women were more than happy to welcome the men home and start a family. We call it the 'baby boom'.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

DanTheMan said...
And what burdens of "tolerance" fall upon the immigrants? Any at all?"

We can't expect the brown people to behave like civilized folk. Just like minorities here are assumed to be too dumb to get photo IDs or to know that apples are better for them than Big Macs. Those examples are petty compared to the assumption that Muslims can't be blamed for raping Western women or for reacting with violence when someone insults the Prophet, but it's all part of the same mindset. Only whites are responsible for their actions.

The most annoying thing about leftist "anti-racism," both here and in Europe, is how racist and paternalistic it is.

Kevin said...

Germany will have to accept that respecting the law is enough.

And yet the law can require handshakes. Or burqas.

mockturtle said...

The main difference between 'left' and 'right' is that the left sees people as mice in a maze to be manipulated into behaving as the leftists want them to. The right sees people as individuals with individual rights and freedoms.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"Women were more than happy to welcome the men home and start a family."

It never occurred to many of us in the '70's that maybe after growing up during the Depression and losing friends and relatives in WWII, Betty Crocker cookbooks, coffee klatches, and subdivisions looked pretty damn good to those women.

Earnest Prole said...

More elites hating the proles.

Exactly, and I take it personally. It's funny how there's a similar version of class politics in every kultur.

cubanbob said...

The thing about the Germans and it is also true of the French and other Europeans is that they don't do assimilation. America, Australia and Canada do, England to a lesser extent does but how long does a Turk have to be in Germany before he becomes a German, even if he tried his best to be like a German? How long does an Italian or a Cuban (for example) have to be in America, Canada, Australia or England before they become one of those nationalities? Not too long is the answer.

That said, how large does the turd in the European milk tank have to be before it is unacceptable?

mockturtle said...

Exiled asserts: The most annoying thing about leftist "anti-racism," both here and in Europe, is how racist and paternalistic it is.

This is so painfully obvious that the leftists' inability to see it only underlines their cluelessness. Or maybe they do see it and know they are racist and paternalistic but feel empowered [one of their favorite feelings] by it, nonetheless.

tcrosse said...

As for spreading the Leitkultur, Germany will never get the Muslims to wear socks with sandals.

BillyTalley said...

The Spanish Civil War and WWII were European Civil Wars, their eternal fight between national socialism and an international / globalist socialism. The latter was called Republicanism in Spain but what we think of as a republic in the USA and what the Europeans think of it seem to be two different ideas. The Europeans don't seem to have a mental category for what happened in the USA in 1776. The French Revolution made this clear when they emphasized equality and de-emphasized freedom and the negative rights attendant to it. From then on, they constructed governments that sought to engineer society, all the while being willfully oblivious to the design of an American system that balanced faction against faction and thwarted tyranny with limited, separated and enumerated powers. In contrast to a Federal system that respected the sovereignty of the several states within it, the Europe pays lip service to it and hides power within a bewildering organization of government.

It's no wonder that when they try to find coherence, they boot to long lists, as if citizenship were as simple as rigorously obeying the law. What makes the USA tick is the simple conceptual buy in: Do you like and defend freedom, yes or no? Do you accept and defend a system of government that is designed to thwart tyranny, yes or no? Two yeses and you're in. To memorize the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is not easy but it could be done with effort. It's easier still to describe succinctly the ideas embodied by it. Try to do the same with the European Constitution, or any of their several states. The task is either herculean or impossible. Their constitution is a phone book (this reference dates my age). As it is, design faults and all, the EU project is incomplete. Short of a redesign, they yet have to take the next step and advance a system of representation such that the citizens feel that they have a buy-in to the super-national identity of citizenship.

robother said...

What would Hermann Goering have to say about Leitkultur?

tcrosse said...

What would Hermann Goering have to say about Leitkultur?

He'd reach for his gun

dustbunny said...

Michel Houellebecq's novel Submission addressed this issue and caused a furor in France when it was released. His supposition was that the French elite would just give up and give in rather than fight for their culture as it was easier.

mockturtle said...

The whole German culture question will be irrelevant in a few decades, anyway, due to immigration and birth rate differential between Muslims and natives.

Anonymous said...

Balfegor: "Culture" isn't just something you can realise in an individual box. It's a pattern of interaction between multiple people, dependent on shared expectations. You don't need to think that one culture is superior to another to think that people should assimilate to the culture of whatever place they're moving to.

Precisely.

Somewhere along the line a lot of allegedly intelligent and educated people seem to have picked up a description of a dystopian hell-hole (no discernible "pattern of interaction between multiple people, dependent on shared expectations"), and mistaken it for the plans for paradise.

Marc in Eugene said...

Very amusing, tcrosse, Leitkultur and the revolver.

Owen said...

Mockturtle: "The whole German culture question will be irrelevant..."

I fear you are correct. The future belongs to those who show up. And the Germans aren't showing up.

What an incredible turn. In the late 1800's, Prussia/Germany was a leader in technology, industry, intellectual inquiry, political and military weight. Two horrible wars later, it was prostrate. It rebuilt itself economically but culturally something seems to have been lost. Now, 150 years on, what is left except beautiful machinery?

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Good comment, BillyTalley.

" The Europeans don't seem to have a mental category for what happened in the USA in 1776."

They really don't. And it really is baffling that it is the French Revolution, which ushered in a Reign of Terror and ended with a military dictatorship, that has served as the template for later revolutions, rather than the far more successful American one.

Europeans who like to sneer at the "immaturity" of the US ignore that our Republic has endured for over 200 years, with the Civil War being the greatest threat to national unity (up until now). The French have been through 5 Republics, a restoration of the monarchy, 2 military dictatorships, a puppet government controlled by the Germans,..., and how many governments has Italy formed since the end of WWII? I believe they are in the triple digits.

tim in vermont said...

There is a great German restaurant in Cambridge, I forget the name, I am sure Titus knows it. Who doesn't like a dinner of sausage, sauerkraut, potatoes, and beer once in a while? I know I do.

Jonathon Haidt did an experiment with liberals where he asked them if they would clean a toilet with an American flag, if that was what was handy, they all said sure! I wonder why he didn't probe further and ask them if they would use a Rainbow flag, or a Turkish flag. I guess he, being a self-declared liberal himself, was incurious on the matter.

I notice these new "RESPECT" bumper stickers have all kinds of symbols on them, except the Cross. Because, well, the lecture is aimed at Christians, not about actually respecting Christians, who, uniquely, do not deserve respect.

tim in vermont said...

that has served as the template for later revolutions, rather than the far more successful American one.

The problem with the American Revolution as a template, is that it does not guarantee power to the plotters, just to the people.

rhhardin said...

In Germany they do it other.

Anonymous said...

The German Leitkultur is what makes Germany work. The introduction of Muslim Colonists, is going to impact Germany like sand in a German watch.

"The Germans may not have Law, but they will have Order"

rhhardin said...

It started as Leitmotiv. A beautiful sunset that was confused with a sunrise, Debussy wrote.

furious_a said...

The thing about the Germans and it is also true of the French and other Europeans is that they don't do assimilation.

I'd dispute that about the French. Or at least that the French don't try. They remind me of the Romans in that exceptional service to the realm/state/republic/empire (e.g.,service in the Foreign Legion) regardless of nationality or race can earn one citizenship. They also embrace the Francophone world and have for a long time welcomed and admitted and made citizens of French-speaking former colonials.

It's just now that the French are admitting people who, unlike the Viets or Senegalese or pre-Salafist Algerians, don't want to assimilate.

furious_a said...

I notice these new "RESPECT" bumper stickers have all kinds of symbols on them...

I like the "C*O*E*X*I*S*T" bumper where the "C" is a bigger crescent moon with fangs devouring all of the smaller other symbols.

n.n said...

The [class] diversitists, congruence advocates, social justice adventurists, anti-nativists, abortionists project as they are wont to do, selectively.

William said...

The first culture war happened under Bismarck. Catholics vs the state. Germany was always multicultural. There was quite a lot of difference between Prussians and Bavarians back then. Now, there's quite a lot of difference between those raised in the east versus those from the west. You would think Germans would be more not less tolerant given their experience.........The Germans have always been ill served by their ruling class. The Junkers were irredeemably stupid and arrogant. They were good at war but not much else. They forbade their members from dancing the waltz. Germany would have been better served under the leadership of those Germans who invented the waltz rather than those who forbade it.

mockturtle said...

Very true, William. Rommel was Swabian, a culture unto itself.

Anonymous said...

Germany would have been better served under the leadership of those Germans who invented the waltz rather than those who forbade it.

Though I like the laid back Bavarians better than the Prussians,

I will note that it was the Waltz inventors (aka Austro-Hungarians that started down the path to WWI.

Marc in Eugene said...

Had the House of Austria been able to put the Hohenzollern upstarts in their proper place, the face of Europe would be... other than it is. I don't have much stomach for the sort of alternate reality workshop that happened yesterday. :-)

Lucien said...

The problem with the American Revolution as a template is that it was actually a Restoration rather than a Revolution. The colonial gentry (the class of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) had effectively governed the colonies for over one hundred years due to distance and the Crown's benign neglect. The Revolution restored the colonial gentry to power after the Crown's abortive attempt to reassert its power following the War of 1763, though it must be acknowledged that ending even lip-service allegiance to the Crown's authority was psychologically difficult for most of the rebels. The American Revolution was about throwing out the New Boss to return the Old Boss.

The French and Russian Revolutions, on the other hand, were genuinely about getting rid of the Old Boss to put in power the New Boss. Who of course turned out to be just as bad or worse than the Old Boss and slaughtered millions to ensure they would obey the new order.

n.n said...

The issue is not transphobia. It is politically convenient congruence.

The issue is not ignorance. It is conflation of logical domains and Pro-Choice doctrines (i.e. selective, unprincipled, opportunistic). It is the twilight faith.

The issue is not judging people by the "content of their character". It is [class] diversity or institutional prejudice that discriminate between individuals by the "color of their skin".

The issue is not human rights. It is abortion chambers run by national liberals.

The issue is not immigration. It is social justice adventurism including elective regime changes and extrajudicial trials, and the progress of anti-nativism, that are first-order forcings of catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform (CAIR) including refugee crises.

The issue is not xenophobia. It is insourcing/outsourcing to devalue capital and labor, and replace native populations lost in abortion chambers and to dysfunctional orientations; but, also to cover-up the collateral damage from [class] diversity, redistributive change, and abortion chambers.

Peter said...

"the effectiveness of radio"? Radio?? What Nazis loved was spectacle.

Flags, banners, standards, rallies at Nuremburg! Uniforms, black SS uniforms with SS lightening bolts, the totenkopf.

Spectacle is sight, smell, symbolism, and (yes) sound. But there's a lot more there than could fit through the speaker of a citizen's Volksempfänger.

(In any case, the question is the extent to which Germans are to be permitted to be German, for somehow "multicultural" always seems to morph into a celebration of all cultures except one's own, which is then uniquely singled out for denegration.)

Unknown said...

Bay Area Guy said...
Multiculturalism is a country"s death wish.

In Japan, do we expect to see Japanese people, who speak Japanese?

In China, do we expect to see Chinese people, who speak Chinese?

In Spain, do we expect to see Spaniards, who speak Spanish?

Of course.

5/10/17, 8:38 AM


we also expect to see people speaking english in all these places. funny how that works, huh.

Paco Wové said...

"we also expect to see people speaking english in all these places. funny how that works, huh."

I'll just speak for the majority here who are thinking what a stupid comment that was.
That was a stupid comment, V.V.

Paco Wové said...

and just to help you out, I'll try to show you why that was a stupid comment. First off, "we" don't expect that. Maybe you do, but that's your problem. Secondly, even if "we" expected that, it has no real bearing on BAG's comment, which explicitly stated:

"obviously there are minority population centers in most countries. The goal, normally, is to assimilate or reach a point of equilibrium, where the different groups can live a peaceful coexistence."

So your entire stupid snarky comment depended on ignoring the main point of BAG's comment. Nay, not ignoring it, but essentially pretending his comment said the opposite of what it actually did. And then pretending, like all the other lefties here, that this is an adequate substitute for actual thought.

chickelit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chickelit said...

It's true that Hitler thrived on Funk.

chickelit said...

Numerous outdoor amphitheaters were planned and built throughout the Third Reich during the early 1930s, but were disused because radio broadcasting proved a more effective means of mass communication. I recalled visiting one such amphitheater outside of Heidelberg here.

Unknown said...

Paco Wové said...
and just to help you out, I'll try to show you why that was a stupid comment. First off, "we" don't expect that. Maybe you do, but that's your problem. Secondly, even if "we" expected that, it has no real bearing on BAG's comment, which explicitly stated:

"obviously there are minority population centers in most countries. The goal, normally, is to assimilate or reach a point of equilibrium, where the different groups can live a peaceful coexistence."

So your entire stupid snarky comment depended on ignoring the main point of BAG's comment. Nay, not ignoring it, but essentially pretending his comment said the opposite of what it actually did. And then pretending, like all the other lefties here, that this is an adequate substitute for actual thought.

5/10/17, 8:00 PM


you use the word 'nay' unironically, so you have no right to call anyone else stupid.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Paco's comment was spot on. But sure, VV, focus on "nay" as a way to deflect from your own stupidity and dishonesty.

Anonymous said...

vicari valdez: you use the word 'nay' unironically, so you have no right to call anyone else stupid.

Maintaining the very high standard of irrelevancy and stupidity of your original comment wasn't easy, but you succeeded. Impressive.

But in all charity, vv, you could learn to be a better thinker and commenter if you took Paco's comment to heart. His criticism of your remark is 100% correct. Words and sentences mean things. They fit together in logical ways to convey things to other people. They aren't just vehicles for conveying vacuous snark and emitting the bromides and bullet-points floating around in your brain that get triggered by random vocabulary and phrase concurrences.

E.g., the issue under discussion has nothing to do with the issue of Americans' expectations of finding English speakers when they travel to foreign countries. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. But you apparently saw words or phrases in the discussion that sparked a few neuronal connections to some stored commonplaces pertaining to that unrelated issue, so that's what you, mindlessly, spat out. IOW, you said something stupid.

Unknown said...

man, lots of morons in these comments.

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