২১ ফেব্রুয়ারী, ২০২৫

"The Germans are open-hearted, good-natured, witty, and irresistible in war but inclined to fritter away their time and money on drink."

"The Englishman, by contrast, is affectionate, effeminate and graceful in thought, albeit prone to lechery and 'changeable as the moon' in his religious observances. He gets off comparatively lightly: the Swede is cruel and superstitious, the Hungarian is disloyal and bloodthirsty, and the 'wild, peasant-like' Pole is most likely to meet his end in a cowstall. These are the bald assertions of a 'Table of Peoples' artwork executed by an anonymous Austrian painter in about 1720, during the early throes of the Enlightenment mania for taxonomy."

From "The Enlightenment exhibition that poses troubling questions in Trump era/The German Historical Museum’s landmark exhibition on the 18th-century era has become surprisingly relevant in light of cultural and geopolitical trends" (London Times).

১৯টি মন্তব্য:

robother বলেছেন...

History through the lens of today's politics. As ever, a mug's game.

Earnest Prole বলেছেন...

Any serious discussion of a counter-Enlightenment would need to begin with free-speech persecutions and gender-ideology amputations.

Iman বলেছেন...

The Germans are a humorless people. You’ll note the absence of world famous German comedians…

The German watched a Three Stooges episode and had one reaction:

“Why do they call that man Curley? He has no hair.”

Temujin বলেছেন...

Interestingly, all of those nations are now about to become Islamic nations, with the exception of the 'wild, peasant-like Poles'.

Bill, Republic of Texas বলেছেন...

What was the stereotype description of the Muslim fellow on the right side of the picture?

Bill, Republic of Texas বলেছেন...

Iman said...
The Germans are a humorless people. You’ll note the absence of world famous German comedians…

Maybe it is an urban legend but didn't Robin Williams answer this question by saying the Germans killed all their funny people?

Didn't Robin Eilluams

Zavier Onasses বলেছেন...

"Trump era?" What is different between "Trump era" and (e.g.) "Biden era?" Difference is: current President is in agreement with majority of electorate. To or for whom does the exhibit now pose "troubling questions" that were not "troubled" by the exhibit last October?

Why would anyone be "troubled" by a piece of 300 year old art?

Balfegor বলেছেন...

I find the current doublespeak about free speech awfully tiresome. When people write things like this:

ascendant authoritarian movements abuse free speech and other Enlightenment ideas to squash their enemies.

Do they not see how nonsensical what they're saying is? Or does crimestop kick in to protect them from thoughtcrime? These supposed "authoritarian" movements are mostly "abusing" free speech by refusing to submit meekly to censorship and other actually authoritarian measures. That they're winning the argument isn't a sign they're abusing freedom of speech; it's a sign your side needs to make more persuasive arguments (or, in many cases, is simply wrong).

Aggie বলেছেন...

This is another in an embarrassing series of stories that have nothing to do with Donald Trump, being made to represent Donald Trump in an unfavorable light, not matter how tortuous the path.

Buried in paragraph 9: "Since President Trump returned to the White House, though, all people seem to want to know is whether “we are living through a time of counter-Enlightenment”.

“There’s something that is very paradoxical here,” Weissberg said. “You’re curating a historical exhibition and it suddenly becomes more up to date than you ever thought it would be. That is something that is perhaps good for an exhibition but also extremely troubling.”


And then the rest of the story, making no mention of Trump whatsoever, and no further mention of those crowds of people all asking about the 'counter-Enlightenment', and nothing more about those terrible, 'extremely troubling' thingies out there - whatever they may be.

Archived: https://archive.ph/5IM3i#selection-1615.0-1619.137

Two-eyed Jack বলেছেন...

What an odious bit of twaddle that London Times story proves to be.

Krumhorn বলেছেন...

The Thirty Years War was recent history at the time. It's time for a defenestration of the bug-eyed lefties.

- Krumhorn

RCOCEAN II বলেছেন...

There was Prussia, Austria, and a whole bunch of little states in the German-speaking world of the 17th century. A Saxon had little in common with a Prussian and neither cared for a Bavarian.

Josephbleau বলেছেন...

My favorite judgemental 14th century statement is:

An Englishman will piss in the street. A Spaniard will piss on your door.

RCOCEAN II বলেছেন...

When I first started reading foreign newspapers in college in the 80s, I was blown away by the superiority of the "The Times" to the NYT's and WaPo. Even in the 90s one of the pleasure's of visiting London was eating an English breakfast and reading the Times, Telegraph, Guardian, etc. So superior to the USA press.

Now, they're almost equally bad. Pretty soon, we'll be saying of the "The Times" what we said about NYT's - "it reads like it was written by Germans who learned English as a 2nd language".

Lazarus বলেছেন...

I was slammed into the paywall (or some kind of wall), so I never did find out what these "troubling questions" that are posed in the Trump era are. I might have mentioned the 20th century fetish with decades here a few days ago. It really is an obstacle to actual thought. One decade's good and another one's bad. Kennedy or Reagan gets elected, and people think everything changes. Look to journalists to do to the 2020s what they did to the 1980s (and to the 1950s and 1920s for that matter).

FWIW, it's said that Isaiah Berlin had a very nuanced and balanced view of the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent বলেছেন...

All I took away from it was a desire for the return of bulbous pantaloons.

Bunkypotatohead বলেছেন...

If you die and go to heaven, you'll be greeted by an Englishman, your food prepared by a Frenchman, your itinerary kept by a German, and your entertainment provided by an Italian.
If you die and go to hell, you'll be greeted by a Frenchman, your food prepared by an Englishman, your itinerary kept by an Italian, and your entertainment provided by a German.

Lazarus বলেছেন...

In the 1970s and 1980s every largish city had an "alternative" weekly that you could pick up for free all over town. When Reagan was elected, it seemed like all the arts and entertainment coverage was more about Reagan than about the paintings or performances or books or films that were being reviewed. The assumption was that everybody hated Reagan, and everything produced was either a sell-out to Reaganism or a noble protest against Reaganism. I hope we're not going back to those days.

Lazarus বলেছেন...

The English think of themselves as practical and hard-headed, but for some Continentals, Britons were moody dreamers. I guess industrialization changed the English or others' perception of them.

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