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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Now that's hyperbole. |
Not really. During the 80s, I found that people from the Eastern Bloc knew much more about : what was going on in the U.S., what America was doing in the world, what was going on in the East, etc. Despite the fact that their media was heavily censored, they generally had access to more accurate and better media, and frequently commented on the inferiority of American media.
Now, obviously they had a lot of over the top stuff too, but then again, so do we.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
Someone needs to read up on the history of English Literature in the 19th Century.
Not to mention the influence of Turner and Constable on French painting, and the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement and British Socialism and trade unionism.
What made English into an international language were trade and missionaries- the missionaries' tools being 'The Book of Common Prayer' and the 'Authorized King James Version' of the Bible. |
No, it was the Empire that made English the international language, and what gave the English an advantage in Empire building over the French was their ability to seperate national and commercial interests from religion. At crucial points in England's relations with India and China the English were willing to promise to cease missionary work in exchange for political and/or financial favors, favors which asured the English domination of two huge regions and in turn assured them dominance of international trade throughout the critical period of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Another important factor was that in 1814, at the end of the Napoleonioc wars they had captured or destroyed better than 90% of the rest of the world's shipping. What hadn't been destroyed had been converted into blockade ships along the coasts of Europe. The converted ships were not restorable to their original condition, so it took Europe 20 years to recover from the loss of their merchant fleets.
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Alexander's Horse
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Panmunjon, hands up!
Jan 1970
time: 15:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
That's because your nation of clerks didn't have the stroke of genius of the Yanks: you had never thought of selling culture to the masses, and you culdn't hope to compete with the French and Germans wrt the elites.
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Still fighting a losing battle I see Spiffor 
Yes, France and Germany had extreme chauvinistic tendencies, giving us the elitist monster of the 19th century, Napoleon, and of the 20th, Hitler.
I'd hardly call that a culture to be proud of.
And if you want to call the Anglos a nation of shopkeepers, go right ahead, but say it plainly, like Napoleon did.
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Sandman
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Sinister Penguin
Aug 2001
time: 05:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
An extremely rich literature. You might have heard of Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Honoré de Balzac or Jules Verne. I just quoted those, because I believe they're our main exports of that time.
What did Britain export during that time, except for Edgar Poe? |
Poe was American.
Sir Walter Scott, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen, George Elliot, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson etc.
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Sandman
Poe was American. |
Oopsie.
More seriously, Britain did have an active literature, though less active (and especially less prestigious, internationally speaking) than the French one. Just like the Brits had an existing music scene, even though it didn't begin to compete with the German one.
In the wake of the Napoleonian conquest, continental Europe was full of French culture, of French worldview. Francophilia was largely spread in most of continental Europe, and there are even still traces of it today (the Romanians remain largely francophiliac, and so were the Turks until the disagreement over the Armenian genocide).
When it comes to international culture, there is one huge difference between now and then: massive pop culture. Whereas "international" culture was a thing for the elite in the 19th century (something where French literature dominated largely, thanks to the wave of Francophilia and to the fact that French was the lingua franca of the elites), it is now something for the masses.
And this change of paradigm didn't come from the UK, nor did it come from France, Germany, Italy or whatever. It came from the US. The wave of English-speakingness actually occured thanks to a variety of factors:
- geopolitical absolute domination over the west: whereas Britain had actual rivals during the 19th century, the US was the undisputed hegemon of the west (BTW you'll notice that English wasn't used as the lingua franca in the soviet bloc).
- pop culture. In the US, culture was first and foremost in the hands of businessmen trying to sell it to the largest audience, rather than in the hands of artiss paid by rich sponsors. It led to a marketing mentality in the culture scene, and the Yanks were the ones who weren't shy of trying to reach the biggest audience.
- Progressive replacement of French as the language of the elites, because of a complete American domination of the economic, mass-cultural, "elite-cultural" and diplomatic scenes.
The UK did nothing similar either in nature or scope. You had a few wonders of pop culture (the Beatles for example), but the radical change came from the US, not from you.
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21-08-2005 07:29
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