Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 4:09 pm Post subject: The truth about Germanic - Latin antagonism?
With so many people in here being intensly interested in the various "cultural zones" of Europe and with the whole forum being somewhat on the bisexual side, I´m amazed that not more people have jumped onto Thomas Mann´s key novel, "Tonio Kröger". If there ever was a highly sophisticated and very readable approach to the essential discussion of society´s inherent fascism, of North vs. South, of Latin vs. Nordic, of art vs. life, of outsiders vs. insiders, Nietzscheism and why blondes have more fun but ain´t great artists, this is it!
Most of Thomas Mann´s books are not easy reads, but this is a very short one and a very sweet one. No doubt Pauline will diagnoze me with severe Thomasmannia (), but this book is a real Geheimtipp for everybody who once has pondered why we fall so helplessly in love with beautiful people when we know how stupid they are....
(And yes, it´s been translated into English!) _________________ Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. = Those who don't know foreign languages, know nothing of their own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Hehe, but it's so funny. I had never given Germanic-Latin antagonism any thought before I stumbled upon Antimoon and its more civilized offshots. I was really startled when people were arguing that Germanics are inferior to Latins and vice versa, that Latins are degenerates and Germanics barbarians etc. etc. and I realized that the only place I had seen such thoughts treated in an interesting and sophisticated manner that actually gave some sense, was in "Tonio Kröger". _________________ Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. = Those who don't know foreign languages, know nothing of their own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Hehe, but it's so funny. I had never given Germanic-Latin antagonism any thought before I stumbled upon Antimoon and its more civilized offshots.
Same, lol. And to be honest, I had absolutely no idea that anyone divided Western Europe (plus its former colonies) in that way and thought that there was such a difference between the two 'zones'.
But Tonio Kröger did. I translate a bit:
"Tonio Kröger was sitting in the North and wrote Lisaveta Ivanovna, his friend, as he had promised her:
[...]
My father, you know, was of a Nordic temperament: contemplating, thorough, correct from Puritanism and prone to melancholy; my mother was of undefined exotic blood, beautiful, sensual, naïve, simultaneously uncaring and passionate and of an impulsive licentiousness. No doubt this was a mixture that encompassed extraordinary opportunities - and extraordinary dangers. The result was this: a bourgeois, who went astray in art, a Bohemian who longed for his well-ordered childhood home.
[...]
I stand between two worlds, am not at home in either of them and thus have a bit of a hard time.
[...]
I admire the proud and cold ones, who venture out on the paths of grand, demonic beauty and despise "humans" - but I don't envy them. Because if anything is able to make a poet out of an aesthete, then it is this bourgeois love of what is human, alive and ordinary. All warmth, all good, all humour comes from it,...
[...]
But my deepest and most furtive love is that of the blond and blue-eyed ones, the happy, loveable and ordinary ones. Don't scold this love, Lisaveta; it is good and fertile. There is longing in it and melancholic envy and a litte bit of contempt and a quite chaste bliss." _________________ Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. = Those who don't know foreign languages, know nothing of their own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
You know though, maybe we are subconsciously prejudiced against countries which primarily speak Romance languages. There's a list of the top 100 (well actually 122) European universities, compiled in 2004 by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. I tend to take such ranks with a pinch of salt, but I went through and counted how many of these top-100 universities each European country has. I then worked out how many universities each country has proportionate to their population, so that Denmark's 4 such universities is better than Germany's 22.
Before I did that, I'd guessed which countries would come near the top. And when I asked Shouga, she guessed basically the same countries as me.
I didn't really understood what you meant. Your exemples, Denmark and Germany are not romance-speaking countries...
actually I checked university ranking on internet, and found at first places British universities. That didn't surprised me at all.
Netherlands or switzerland seemd to have a lot of them comparatively to their populations.[/quote]
Same, lol. And to be honest, I had absolutely no idea that anyone divided Western Europe .... (plus its former colonies)
Really ? you never had heard about latin-America before going on antimoon ?
Quote:
I was really startled when people were arguing that Germanics are inferior to Latins and vice versa, that Latins are degenerates and Germanics barbarians etc.
I actually think those insults were under the responsability of few trolls, (maybe only one who tried to pass for being from countries were he wasn't). I remember one of them called himself "french", or "frenchman" maybe, and was insulting germanic-speakers, he finally revealed himself not being able to speak french...
I didn't really understood what you meant. Your exemples, Denmark and Germany are not romance-speaking countries...
I worked it out for all European countries involved. What I meant was that Denmark's 4 top-100 universities for its population of 5 million is better than Germany's 22 top-100 universities for its population of 82 million.
Here is the list which I put together. The number in brackets indicates the total number of universities the country has on the top-100 list (which is actually 122, because many universities had the same score):
1. Switzerland (7)
2. Sweden (8)
3. Denmark (4)
4. Belgium (6)
5. Britain (33)
6. Netherlands (9)
7. Norway (2)
8. Finland (2)
9. Austria (3)
10. Germany (22)
11. Ireland (1)
12. France (9)
13. Italy (7)
14. Czechia (1)
15. Spain (3)
16. Russia (1)
Amazingly, Scotland would actually come in first place if counted separately. Which really did surprise me, especially for a country whose socioeconomic situation is otherwise comparable to that of the Czech Republic.
My overall point is that the fact that I expected the results to be like that before I even looked at the list suggests that I subconsciously believe that the primarily Germanic-speaking countries are in a way superior to the others.
fab wrote:
Quote:
Same, lol. And to be honest, I had absolutely no idea that anyone divided Western Europe .... (plus its former colonies)
Really ? you never had heard about latin-America before going on antimoon ?
I'd always talked about South America and Central America — which is often synonymous with the term 'Latin America' here, even though that is not technically accurate.
I never took the Latin part of Latin America literally -- or seriously! (Big deal, they speak Spanish. Doesn't automatically make them anything like Italians.)
What's funny to me is that the British especially, seem to always think of Americans as being far too "Latin" in temperament for their tastes -- too loud, boisterous, emotional, even histrionic! _________________ An apple a day....
What's funny to me is that the British especially, seem to always think of Americans as being far too "Latin" in temperament for their tastes -- too loud, boisterous, emotional, even histrionic!
what the walloons don't like about the dutch are that they're too loud, too direct, fussy and boisterous!!! They don't give the impression to be emotional or histrionic, but for sure arrogant, and critical. But the dutch aren't Latin at all!!
NB The image have the walloons of the dutch, I didn't tell that it's my opinion!!!!!!!!
What's funny to me is that the British especially, seem to always think of Americans as being far too "Latin" in temperament for their tastes -- too loud, boisterous, emotional, even histrionic!
what the walloons don't like about the dutch are that they're too loud, too direct, fussy and boisterous!!! They don't give the impression to be emotional or histrionic, but for sure arrogant, and critical. But the dutch aren't Latin at all!!
Hm, that's pretty much what English South Africans sometimes says about Afrikaners... _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
What's funny to me is that the British especially, seem to always think of Americans as being far too "Latin" in temperament for their tastes -- too loud, boisterous, emotional, even histrionic!
what the walloons don't like about the dutch are that they're too loud, too direct, fussy and boisterous!!! They don't give the impression to be emotional or histrionic, but for sure arrogant, and critical. But the dutch aren't Latin at all!!
Hm, that's pretty much what English South Africans sometimes says about Afrikaners...
There is a simple reason why British universities in general and Oxbridge in particular dominate any international league table. They have a generous endowment fund which is gifted by legions of grateful graduates, all sons and daughters of their almae mater.
This is why universities should charge fees according to market forces. Having a tertiary education is not a basic right but one that is actually surplus to requirements. It is ridiculous that tuition fees by undergraduates are not enough to cover even one tenth of monthly expenses.
I am not sure about the fees which British and EU students pay when they study in the UK. I have a friend currently at the LSE who forks out close to 100K per year. Being an economics and law student, he is aware that even this princely sum is not sufficient to cover the cost of educating him alone. He acknowledges that some of his expenses are still subsidised by the university to a certain extent.
How much do local students pay in contrast? It is no wonder that the majority of the universities worldwide are struggling to stay financially afloat. _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
I can tell you. The maximum tuition fees which universities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland can charge to UK and other EU students is £3,070 per year, although it's often much lower. And one doesn't have to pay it until after one has finished university and is earning at least £15,000 per year anyway.
If you go to a university in Scotland, and you're a citizen of an EU country except the UK, or you've lived in Scotland for at least the past three years, then you don't have to pay any tuition fees at all. Students from England, Wales or Northern Ireland have to pay tuition feels at Scottish universities, although they're usually much lower than £3,070.
Paying tuition fees was only re-introduced a few years ago.
Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 4:10 am Post subject: Re: The truth about Germanic - Latin antagonism?
Fredrik wrote:
With so many people in here being intensly interested in the various "cultural zones" of Europe and with the whole forum being somewhat on the bisexual side, I´m amazed that not more people have jumped onto Thomas Mann´s key novel, "Tonio Kröger". If there ever was a highly sophisticated and very readable approach to the essential discussion of society´s inherent fascism, of North vs. South, of Latin vs. Nordic, of art vs. life, of outsiders vs. insiders, Nietzscheism and why blondes have more fun but ain´t great artists, this is it!
Most of Thomas Mann´s books are not easy reads, but this is a very short one and a very sweet one. No doubt Pauline will diagnoze me with severe Thomasmannia (), but this book is a real Geheimtipp for everybody who once has pondered why we fall so helplessly in love with beautiful people when we know how stupid they are....
(And yes, it´s been translated into English!)
*******
Hallo Fredrik,
You know, this is funny that you mention this, because I never really noticed this either until I lived in France for a few months. At the time I had a French boyfriend who was not at all uneducated (he was actually a university professor), but he still told me that he hated the guys of "my kind." When I pressed him about what exactly that was supposed to mean, he said that these "blond, tall, Germanic types don't have blood in zeir veins! Zey have TURNIP JUICE in zeir veins! Zese boring cretins!" usw., etc., etc. Well for my part, I feel sort of in the middle because I have quite a bit of French heritage, but my last name is German and I am taller than many French males. ha ha When I spoke French everyone in the local village I lived in asked me if I was from Germany or the Netherlands -- they said I did not sound American but rather German -- ha ha I still don't know why! Anyway, I feel that France is a no-man's land because it is not as Latin as the other Romance-language countries but not as Germanic as the Germanic countries. Also, as far as I have researched it, all my French ancestors came from Normandy and that area, so that is not exactly "Latin" anyway...
I would love to read this book -- it is fun to read about the views of the two "sides," even if you feel somewhat caught in the middle! :)
Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 6:00 pm Post subject: Re: The truth about Germanic - Latin antagonism?
Hallo, Marie!
Marie Reiher wrote:
I would love to read this book -- it is fun to read about the views of the two "sides," even if you feel somewhat caught in the middle! :)
Like Tonio Kröger did... "ich stehe zwischen zwei Welten, bin in keiner daheim und habe es infolgedessen ein wenig schwer.".
While I still thought you were German, I was surprised that you had not read it, because it's very widely read in German high schools, probably because it's a very short novel that also is very "German" and probably because the German education authorities hope that the slightly homoerotic friendship between Tonio Kröger and Hans Hansen and Tonio Kröger's mad crush on the blonde Ingeborg Holm will get the pupils interested! But as an American, it's natural that you are not familiar with it. And now you have a treat to look forward to, especially as you can read it in the original German.
That's very funny what your French boyfriend said! Although when you read the book, you will see that Thomas Mann does not agree totallly with your Frenchman. He describes southerners as hot-blooded, but not necessarily more alive. For Thomas Mann, passion was not equivalent with life - life in its full, rich meaning. It comes as a bit of surprise to us who have been force-fed the notion that the noisy, passionate and Catholic life of Southern Europe is the good life as God intended it, when Thomas Mann and Tonio Kröger label the bourgeois life of sailor-suit-dressed blondes in Gothic environs by the Baltic as the richest, warmest, deepest form of life. I guess they just had Heimweh to their native Waterkant... _________________ Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. = Those who don't know foreign languages, know nothing of their own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Now this is going to get touchy but when I went to Amsterdam and Paris last year, I was surprised to find how hot-blooded Parisians were (no, I don't think I said anything to offend!) and how warm the Dutch are!
I never took the Latin part of Latin America literally -- or seriously! (Big deal, they speak Spanish. Doesn't automatically make them anything like Italians.)
What's funny to me is that the British especially, seem to always think of Americans as being far too "Latin" in temperament for their tastes -- too loud, boisterous, emotional, even histrionic!
And that's the thing - things at least here seem so much more like that associated with northern Europe than southern Europe. People here aren't much like the English per se, and neither do they have little in common with the "Prussian" aspects of northern German culture, but they seem to not be all too different in this kind of way from the Dutch or Scandinavians or the less stern sides of German culture. On the other hand, I can see very little "Latin" at all in the majority culture here; the urban black culture, though, here in Milwaukee seems to be far more like southern European cultures in this regard, in a way that often results in social friction with white majority culture here. However, much of the US outside the Upper Midwest and New England does seem to be less northern European in character to me at least, but even still such does not seem "Latin" to me at all outside of areas with a significant Latino presence.
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), but this book is a real Geheimtipp for everybody who once has pondered why we fall so helplessly in love with beautiful people when we know how stupid they are....
Every day you write about Thomas Mann!!! 
