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Juan M.
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5688 days ago
460 posts - 597 votes 

 
 Message 121 of 142
19 July 2009 at 6:47pm | IP Logged 
William Camden wrote:
I wouldn't say it was all that remote in the past. Algerians were being murdered in Paris in the early 1960s when they demanded freedom from colonial rule. And as a UK citizen with some grasp of history, the idea that the British have "faith in reasonableness" does not stand up to much examination, IMO. The example of Priestley was one of many I could have cited.

Nazis would have abhorred the idea that they were heirs to the French Revolution, and I find it a dubious claim. It only received negative comment in their publications and propaganda, and as I have noted before, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic liberation of Jews from all sorts of civil disabilities was unwelcome. The Nazis also saw the French Revolution as a forerunner of Marxism.


My memory is uncooperative this morning, so I cannot point you to a specific work, but the early development of trade unions would be an example of what I refer to as "British reasonableness". The essence of the matter is that while on the continent unions assumed a position of confrontation and struggle against entrepreneurs, in Britain a more sensible understanding was reached stemming from the belief that reasonable gentlemen could come to agreement and compromise on the basis of dialogue and negotiation, and as a result British unions were regarded by their continental counterparts as traitors.

A comparative examination of democratic institutions in the U.K. and France during the 19th century also shows that in the former greater advances were achieved with minimum strife in comparison with the latter.

Again, the claim here is not of heavenly purity and virtue, but of contrast and distinction.

As for the relation of the French Revolution to Nazism, it would require an exposition more involved and scholarly than what is fit for an Internet forum.
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William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6061 days ago
1936 posts - 2333 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French

 
 Message 122 of 142
19 July 2009 at 7:56pm | IP Logged 
JuanM wrote:
William Camden wrote:
I wouldn't say it was all that remote in the past. Algerians were being murdered in Paris in the early 1960s when they demanded freedom from colonial rule. And as a UK citizen with some grasp of history, the idea that the British have "faith in reasonableness" does not stand up to much examination, IMO. The example of Priestley was one of many I could have cited.

Nazis would have abhorred the idea that they were heirs to the French Revolution, and I find it a dubious claim. It only received negative comment in their publications and propaganda, and as I have noted before, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic liberation of Jews from all sorts of civil disabilities was unwelcome. The Nazis also saw the French Revolution as a forerunner of Marxism.


My memory is uncooperative this morning, so I cannot point you to a specific work, but the early development of trade unions would be an example of what I refer to as "British reasonableness". The essence of the matter is that while on the continent unions assumed a position of confrontation and struggle against entrepreneurs, in Britain a more sensible understanding was reached stemming from the belief that reasonable gentlemen could come to agreement and compromise on the basis of dialogue and negotiation, and as a result British unions were regarded by their continental counterparts as traitors.

A comparative examination of democratic institutions in the U.K. and France during the 19th century also shows that in the former greater advances were achieved with minimum strife in comparison with the latter.

Again, the claim here is not of heavenly purity and virtue, but of contrast and distinction.

As for the relation of the French Revolution to Nazism, it would require an exposition more involved and scholarly than what is fit for an Internet forum.


The Tolpuddle martyrs might disagree with you. So might the victims of the Peterloo massacre. And last but not least, at the height of the British Empire, Ireland experienced the Potato Famine. Even Churchill, before WWI when he was a government minister, caused armed force to be used against striking miners, resulting in deaths.

It is true that bloodletting in Britain has often been exported in preference to use at home. So Indian mutineers were being blown from the muzzles of artillery pieces by the moderate and reasonable British. British governments have tended to be moderate and reasonable only until such a time as someone resists them - and then the reaction can be frightful.

I doubt whether there is a genuinely scholarly analysis capable of linking the French Revolution to Nazism (half-baked Internet claims, maybe). The reality is that the Nazis loathed the idea of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity", however far short the Revolution came in practice. Jews could be addressed as "Citizen" after the Revolution: the Nazis wouldn't even let German Jews use the same park benches as non-Jews. I take it you are admitting that it is actually a difficult case to make. I agree - because it is absurd.    
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Juan M.
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5688 days ago
460 posts - 597 votes 

 
 Message 123 of 142
20 July 2009 at 2:39am | IP Logged 
Only superficially. I'm not basing my analysis on slogans, but on the structure and function of a system of government. Most competent historians would agree that Stalin and Hitler were two variations on the same phenomenon, notwithstanding their ostensibly opposite ideologies. And from there to tracing their common origins in the rationalization of the State is but a simple corollary.

Furthermore, you're committing the first sin of historical analysis: measuring other epochs by our own standards rather than their own.
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William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6061 days ago
1936 posts - 2333 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French

 
 Message 124 of 142
21 July 2009 at 9:59pm | IP Logged 
"Most competent historians". History goes through fashion and phases. It was not all that long ago that it was being asserted that history had come to an end. Although we haven't heard so much from that idea since a certain dramatic event in 2001. Abu Ghraib was used for torture under both Saddam Hussein and the American armed forces, though they say the latter were bringing the blessings of Western democracy (the whole world has seen the pictures). So perhaps they, too, are variations of the same phenomenon? Jews had to wear distinctive marks so they could be shunned in many medieval European city states and under the Third Reich, though not in revolutionary France. So perhaps medieval European city states and the Third Reich are variations of the same phenomenon? After all, in one village near the Swiss border under the Third Reich, a Jewish business had a yellow circle placed on its door by the Nazis - because that was the symbol Jews had had to wear there during the Middle Ages, and the local Nazis were quite consciously reviving a medieval custom.
Personally, I think you are making far-fetched analogies.
I also think you have a rather rosy view of British history and civil development. No Irish Potato Famine, no Highland Clearances, not much about various British colonial wonders.

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Rout
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5501 days ago
326 posts - 417 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Spanish
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 125 of 142
21 July 2009 at 11:18pm | IP Logged 
William Camden wrote:
"Most competent historians". History goes through fashion and phases. It was not all that long ago that it was being asserted that history had come to an end. Although we haven't heard so much from that idea since a certain dramatic event in 2001. Abu Ghraib was used for torture under both Saddam Hussein and the American armed forces, though they say the latter were bringing the blessings of Western democracy (the whole world has seen the pictures). So perhaps they, too, are variations of the same phenomenon? Jews had to wear distinctive marks so they could be shunned in many medieval European city states and under the Third Reich, though not in revolutionary France. So perhaps medieval European city states and the Third Reich are variations of the same phenomenon? After all, in one village near the Swiss border under the Third Reich, a Jewish business had a yellow circle placed on its door by the Nazis - because that was the symbol Jews had had to wear there during the Middle Ages, and the local Nazis were quite consciously reviving a medieval custom.
Personally, I think you are making far-fetched analogies.
I also think you have a rather rosy view of British history and civil development. No Irish Potato Famine, no Highland Clearances, not much about various British colonial wonders.


I believe "the latter" were denounced by every U.S. politician and citizen and a public apology was issued. Get your facts straight before you make incitations.

This was a good thread. What does any of this have to do with language?
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William Camden
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6061 days ago
1936 posts - 2333 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French

 
 Message 126 of 142
22 July 2009 at 3:17pm | IP Logged 
Rout wrote:
William Camden wrote:
"Most competent historians". History goes through fashion and phases. It was not all that long ago that it was being asserted that history had come to an end. Although we haven't heard so much from that idea since a certain dramatic event in 2001. Abu Ghraib was used for torture under both Saddam Hussein and the American armed forces, though they say the latter were bringing the blessings of Western democracy (the whole world has seen the pictures). So perhaps they, too, are variations of the same phenomenon? Jews had to wear distinctive marks so they could be shunned in many medieval European city states and under the Third Reich, though not in revolutionary France. So perhaps medieval European city states and the Third Reich are variations of the same phenomenon? After all, in one village near the Swiss border under the Third Reich, a Jewish business had a yellow circle placed on its door by the Nazis - because that was the symbol Jews had had to wear there during the Middle Ages, and the local Nazis were quite consciously reviving a medieval custom.
Personally, I think you are making far-fetched analogies.
I also think you have a rather rosy view of British history and civil development. No Irish Potato Famine, no Highland Clearances, not much about various British colonial wonders.


I believe "the latter" were denounced by every U.S. politician and citizen and a public apology was issued. Get your facts straight before you make incitations.

This was a good thread. What does any of this have to do with language?


Sure. They let a few private soldiers or NCOs carry the can. The question of whether torture was ordered from on high was carefully unaddressed. Personally I doubt whether these people would have done what they did without encouragement from higher-ups, enraged at finding themselves confronting an insurgency.
There was something a little bit similar during WW2, at the Lichfield replacement depot of the US Army in England. US soldiers who had committed minor offences (absent without leave etc.) were beaten up by sergeants at the depot, quite systematically. A few sergeants were jailed after the war after a soldier witnessed NCOs beating a prisoner, and he complained to his local newspaper, but the sergeants said officers told them to do such things, so eventually an investigation of the officers started. Finally, the colonel in command of the depot was fined and was never allowed promotion to full colonel, but (of course) never did any jail time. I guess that's how it's done.
I wasn't the one who started making far-fetched comparisons between the French Revolution and Nazi Germany, but I take your point about it being well off-topic.     
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drfeelgood17
Bilingual Hexaglot
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 6238 days ago
98 posts - 117 votes 
Speaks: English*, Tagalog*, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Japanese, Latin, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 127 of 142
16 August 2009 at 3:35pm | IP Logged 
FuroraCeltica wrote:


Pope John Paul II was a gifted linguist, as is Benedict XVI, who speaks German, Italian and English perfectly, and
apparently can read Latin and Ancient Greek.


I don't know about John Paul II but Benedict XVI has a very strong German accent when he speaks in Italian.
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Rhian
Moderator
France
Joined 6286 days ago
265 posts - 288 votes 
Speaks: English*
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 128 of 142
16 August 2009 at 3:51pm | IP Logged 
Let's stay on topic please. The original post in case any of you have forgotten:

M-Squared wrote:
There was an article in the US Washington Post today on the visit of German Chancellor
Angela Merkel to the US that had some notes of interest on language. When Chancellor Merkel met one-on-one
with President Bush they used interpreters, as they did in press conferences. However, in Chancellor Merkel's
other meetings, including with groups at the White House, she spoke English on her own. The article said this
was a departure from prior arrangement. The article also noted that at their first meeting last year Merkel and US
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice spoke with each other in Russian.

So I am wondering, how many world heads of state typically conduct their diplomacy in a foreign language
without an interpreter? Is this common or very unusual? Do they all use interpreters in very important meetings
(one-on-one's) and complex situations (like press conferences)? Or, was Chancellor Merkel just using an
interpreter because President Bush would have in Germany?


If you wish to discuss the rest of the politics that has come up in this thread then please PM each other, but be
wary that politics is a very thorny issue. If you are hoping to exchange ideas and opinions then cool but if you
are hoping to prove something/someone right or wrong or bring them round to your way of thinking then I
suggest you don't PM at all. Mods don't really want to have to step in because someone said something in a PM
because they didn't just walk away when they should have.


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