Christopher Caldwell writes in the Financial Times:
Much commentary about immigration to Europe is written as if no reasonable person could possibly care who, specifically, a country’s residents are and where, specifically, they come from. In an age of debt this indifference is not reasonable. No matter Italy’s demographic make-up decades from now, it would be quite natural for the “new generation” of multi-ethnic Italians to ask why they should pay for a decadent “old generation” that carried out its fiscal misdeeds before they (or their parents) were even in the country.
Another problem is that Italy is the land of Dante’s The Divine Comedy and the Sistine Chapel. It might be possible to convince an American or an Australian to believe (or to say) that a big arrival of migrants will be a cultural “enrichment”. It is a harder case to make in Italy, even in the 21st century. Immigration may enrich Italy in many ways, but is unlikely to do so culturally. It is just as unlikely to do so fiscally
And, it's less the old stuff (although some of it, like The David and the Pantheon, is as great as advertised). It's the Italians. I don't think I'd want to live there, but Italy is a great place to visit.
As for the notion that the world will be better off when Italy is filled up with Libyans ...
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it would be quite natural for the “new generation” of multi-ethnic Italians to ask why they should pay for a decadent “old generation” that carried out its fiscal misdeeds before they (or their parents) were even in the country.
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As Italians ask themselves why they should pay taxes or generations, to build infrastructures that will be gifted to illegal immigrants, often with precedence respect those who paid for them.
Or Italians ask themselves why they should pay for an uncertain retirement when immigrants are gifted of free money for them and their families overseas. Italians' retirement money was already used to build mosques.
Or Italian ask themselves why they should tolerate the progressive decay of their society due to crimes and incivility of immigrants from Africa or gypsies, just to make happy some rich leftist from a rich family who lives in an ivory tower well separed by those immigrants (like your SWPL elites).
Concrete cases in point the Milan mayor called Pisapia (lawyer of lawer family who venerates gypsies and extreme left rioters) and the probable disaster of Expo 2015 that is actually just a leftist exercise in 3rd worldism and anti Western wealth.
If you want details about Italy just ask. If anyone reads Italy chronicles will notice it is becoming like USA, more shootings and more violent rebellion towards authority (shooting the same day the new government was created, in front of their palace).
" As for the notion that the world will be better off when Italy is filled up with Libyans ..."
That's pretty much a mathematical impossibility given that Libya has about 5 million inhabitants and Italy 60 million.
The only densely populated country in North-Africa is Egypt and Egyptians are famously stationary.
I don't think that most leftist a-hole from Hollywood would like to vacation in Italy when all they would see are African immigrants everywhere (not that they would ever openly admit such sacrilegious thought).
Anyone know why the so called lion of Western civilization Silvio Berlusconi kissed the hand of the transvestite Amazon enthusiast Gaddhafi?
Does he know what that gesture signifies to the Middle Easterners?
And why did he do a turnabout and get involved in an ill concieved neo Mussolini type expedition in Libya?
Everything about the Libya thing is so bizarre.
It makes the cassus belli for Iraq seem like the prototype for Just War
Other than countries colonized by Western powers, are there any countries that have benefited with cultural enrichment through immigration?
I remember visiting Italy in the early 90s and was struck by the abundance of naked ladies in advertizing be it soap,perfrume,cars or chocolate on billbooards,TV,magazines or what have you.
Im told that it is no longer the case now..pity!
Immigration may enrich Italy in many ways, but is unlikely to do so culturally. It is just as unlikely to do so fiscally.
I don't think this conclusion follows from the author's premises. Culturally, if immigrants "enrich" they will enrich Italy. Just because Italy has more culture than other places to begin with doesn't mean that additional culture won't add to what is there. Fiscally, if the old generation (Italians) were decadent and if they are now old, then new Italians (multiethnic) might have a shot at not being decadent and will at least be young and able to work and generate tax revenues.
I'm in favor of immigration control in the United States and other Western countires (a 50-year moratorium in fact), so I am seeking to make our arguments stronger.
There's is a quiet revolution going on that you can pick up on the comment section of many major news sites that support diversity and rampant immigration.
Just today in the NY Times there's a story about Tech companies aggressively lobbying for the Gang of 8 immigration bill. Well the comments have to be running about 9-1 in opposition even in the very liberal NY Times comment section.
I'm also noticing folks suggesting banning Muslim immigration in comment sections a lot more and receiving favorable reps. This didn't happen even after 9-11. The elites are over stepping and while no violent revolution is coming a political one maybe brewing.
French nationalists use Charles Martel as a symbol. Italian nationalists could use Rome's victory in the Punic Wars. Carthage was based in North Africa. North Africans under Hannibal invaded and terrorized Italy before being defeated.
Italy for Italians. That should be Priority One. And so it’s dispiriting how many white men of formidable faculties spend their lives cruising intellectual cul-de-sacs as the neighborhood burns around them.
Conservatism: Less tax, more war!…and we’re dead.
HBD: Isn’t it interesting how different peoples are different?…and we’re dead.
MRA: Pepe, D’ontavious, and Tom frolicking nude in the meadow…and we’re dead.
Libertarians: You are cordially invited to this lesbian inter-racial non-denominational wedding ceremony. Drugs and RPGs to be served at the reception…and we’re dead.
PUA: Hey Peter Pan, think you can bang that 187th bar slag?...and we’re dead.
Mainline Churches: We’re happy to report that your donations have allowed us to sponsor resettlement of this beautiful 18-member family from The Sudan…and we’re dead.
Liberalism: Whites should just die…and we’re dead.
Call it separationism, preservationism, or just nationalism: like The Clash, it’s the only brand that matters.
It doesn't seem as if Libyans enrich Libya itself, let alone any other place. That seems to be something that can be broadened to include the US whereby some groups that were caterpillars in their home country are expected to become butterflies in the US.
It'll only still be Italy for as long as its demographics are Italian, and I don't mean any hyphenated, in name only "Italians". How people can fail to recognize that any place is as its demographics are is a mystery. Can they not merely compare cities in America that used to be white to those same cities that are now "enriched with diversity" and draw reasonable conclusions about just how enriched they are?
I lived in Italy, and it was just as great living there as it is to visit.
Steve you should ask Vox Day about this as he has been living in Italy for the last 10 yrs.
Porter: What about citizenism?
Well, we usually think of Italy as poor compared to other European Countries but Italy has high home ownership around 69 percent. In fact Northern Europe versus Southern Europe is kind a like North East and California versus the South. Lower wages in the South higher hone ownership. In Europe Home ownership, Cyprus 77 Percent, Spain 83 percent, Italy 69 percent, France 55 Percent, Greece 72 percent, Austria 48 percent and Portugal 72 percent, and Germany 44 percent. This from some article in the Wall Street Journal and overall personal wealth is higher in the South because of own ownership in the thousands Wealth, Cyprus 267, Spain 183, Greece 102, Austria 76, Portugal 75 and Germany 51.
"Immigration may enrich Italy in many ways, but is unlikely to do so culturally. It is just as unlikely to do so fiscally"
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Whether mass immigration enriches "Italy" or impoverishes it isn't a problem for ethnic / racial Italians if "Italy" isn't Italian any more.
Carla Jean Moss: I ain't got the money. What little I had is long gone, and there's bills aplenty to pay yet. I buried my mother today. Can't pay for that neither.
Anton Chigurh: I wouldn't worry about it.
The only densely populated country in North-Africa is Egypt and Egyptians are famously stationary.
Praise be to Allah.
Just today in the NY Times there's a story about Tech companies aggressively lobbying for the Gang of 8 immigration bill. Well the comments have to be running about 9-1 in opposition even in the very liberal NY Times comment section.
It's one thing to believe the lie that Americans just won't pick vegetables in the hot sun. It's a lot harder to believe that people who went to college and took on loans to get IT degrees just won't do IT jobs in nice, air-conditioned offices.
It helps that we have the names and faces of tone-deaf billionaires such as Zuckerberg representing the management side, which we don't have when it comes to fruit-picking. I think most people recognize that, while Facebook is a valuable product and Zuckerberg earned great wealth by creating it, a lot of his billions come down to perfect timing and luck. He shouldn't have time to lobby for cheap workers, because he should be too busy kneeling and thanking God that Myspace sucked as bad as it did.
What needs to be feared is the further encroachment of American "culture"... which is not based on immigration, but the forces of moohla. Culture is a privately owned cafè... The future? Starbucks operated by foreign born students. Culture is privately owned rosticcerie. The Future? McDonald's and Burger King. What's to be really feared is American culture... the huge shopping centers, ethno-Bolshevism, gay marriage, the destruction of families, the transformation of sin into mental disprders cured by pschyotropic pills, the veneration of system and govt. Political correctness... the whole Franfurt School deal which is spread through Anglo-American cultural clout.
"it would be quite natural for the “new generation” of multi-ethnic Italians to ask why they should pay for a decadent “old generation” that carried out its fiscal misdeeds before they (or their parents) were even in the country. " - And even more quite natural for them to not identify as Italians as all, completely obviating the problem in the 1st place.
"That's pretty much a mathematical impossibility given that Libya has about 5 million inhabitants and Italy 60 million." - the "libyans" refered to are transshipped sub-saharan africans.
"That's pretty much a mathematical impossibility given that Libya has about 5 million inhabitants and Italy 60 million."
Depends on their rate of reproduction, doesn't it?
From 'out of the closet' to 'into the spotlight', especially as the light happens to be so glowing and warm as it's controlled by the liberal powers-that-be.
On the other hand, it's not the Libbers who are spreading rap music, interracist porn, and mindlessly dumb comicbook superhero movies all over the world.
Is America culturally enriching the world? Or is it fattening the world with cultural sugar and fat?
Has Silvio Berlusconi enriched Italian culture with his mondo trasho TV shows where little happens but big-breasted and fat-arsed women act like whores and sluts?
Italy is the best country to visit as a tourist.
While my own tastes much prefer Northern European culture -- being both an Anglo- and Germano-phile -- the larger point is that of European culture. Whether Italy, France, England, whatever, European culture is so dramatically superior to every other culture on earth, that nobody from anywhere else could possibly "enrich" a white European nation.
If you could with a wave of a wand make every non-European cultural artifact disappear, the loss would probably be less than 10% of the world's greatest cultural works (I am including traditional American culture in with European). The competition isn't even close.
The sad and hilarious thing are the Euro boobies that think "multiculturalism" means a good kabob shop down the corner. But then, Europeans -- and Americans -- have been so culturally broken by Frankfort school Marxism that they haven't the slightest idea anymore about their own sterling heritage, other than to feel misplaced guilt about it.
Well, if it all goes the way it's going, at some point the Mussies will take over in Europe and all the great cultural artifacts will be destroyed. Yes, that's right, everything in the Louvre will be burned the moment the Mussies take over in France. Because annihilation of the native culture is the end-game of "multiculturalism."
Changing Times in Italy : The Chinese have taken over the needle trades in Florence.
Changing Times in the US : Mario Lanza, Singer (1921-1959). Adam Lanza, Homicidal Maniac (1992-2012).
DETECTIVE CLUB OF JERSEY CITY.
A blogger discusses his recent Italian vacation:
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-unofficial-guide-to-surviving-italy.html
(...)
"FUCK ITALY or My Guide to Surviving Your "Dream" Italian Vacation
Disclaimer: I only visited the northern part, Rome, Firenze (Florence), Venezia (Venice), Milano (Milan), Siena and Pisa and Lucca, because after seeing how shambolic the north of the country is, I had no desire to see the south, which the italians themselves say is WORSE than the north. I have spent 5 weeks in Italy as a tourist/vagabond traveller, so your experience may vary.
My First and Every Other Piazza or First Impressions
The country (the north) was generally very clean. The people were slim, short but good looking. italian women are no beauties on the face, yet the shape of the body (slim and svelte) make up for it. The shape hugging jeans or pants leave very little to the imagination.
Yep, I am a guy.
On each touristy piazza, the first thing you will see (other than the usual horde of tourists) is the Bangladeshi street vendors, with their ever present...well, how do I explain it... they have this toy, which is a jelly like substance, in the shape of a piggy. Once thrown on a hard surface (these guys usually have a wooden block on the ground) they splash, flatten themselves, and then come back to their original shape.
Whoop dee doo.
No one buys their stuff, I have no idea how they survive in italy.
There are a lot of Bangladesh guys in italy.
Next up, there is a horde of Africans, who usually sell knock off purses, made from actual leather and with marquee signs (Prada, Liu Jo, Valentino, Fendi etc) on them. In fact, the joke I made to my girlfriend was that the knock offs purses were made from real leather, were better made and with an actual marquee sign than the expensive boutique store purses, which were made from cheap plastic, shoddily made and with no marquee sign (and costing from 600Euros up)."
(...)
"n fact, you can observe the African guys on every piazza (yes, even in Venezia, I was amazed, the same shit everywhere) with their knock off purses and their ever present "EXCUSE ME!", slooooooowly packing up and trotting off, carrying their purses, when they spot a police car slooooooolwy and laaaaazily driving toward them and, err, pursuing them, at .001 miles per hour. Of course, once the cops clear off, the Africans, who have, err, "run" away with their bags the massive distance of 2 metres, will come back and put their wares again on the floor - no biggie."
(...)
"On every train ride, and I mean on every single one, a gypsy man, woman or child, came on and on every seat near a passenger put a computer printed note (the same one every time) about needing help, please give some money, and God protects at the end (Dia proteggio!).
That's happened on every train in Rome, every single one we took.
Interestingly, no one gives them money, EVER, and so I think the tactic here is to notice who has a purse not on their shoulder, without a hand on top clutching it, and then stealing it - otherwise this begging does not make sense, as, again, no one gives these fuckers any money, ever."
(...)
"Cultural enrichment"?
Face it, the only "cultural enrichment" most people experience from such populations who invade through mass immigration is through the introduction of different food, "cuisine" as the effete call it. I can't think of any other way my life has been "enriched" by the influx of millions of Mexicans and other Central Americans. Further, I didn't need the mass invasion in order to experience those foods.
I certainly don't like their music and they don't like mine. And why should we? We are different peoples with differing tastes in just about every which way. I imagine Italians feel the same.
When East Coast elites speak of the value of diversity, they are thinking of food as well, aren't they? They'd never admit it, of course. That's it--food.
When Italy is filled up with Libyans, then there will not BE an Italy. Metternich's "Italy is but a geographical expression" will have taken on a meaning truer than any he could ever have dreamed of.
I'm a young Italian (as in Italian-Italian, not Italian-American) and my personal and limited experience over here is that crime = immigrants. It's a perfect equivalence - where there are immigrants there is crime (with the exception of some better behaved white groups) and where there is crime it's immigrants. Granted my experience is limited, I'm just one guy who lives in one city - Rome - not one of those southern ones that have traditional crime syndicates.
Gypsies are the worst by orders of magnitude. They are far worse than American blacks - no gypsy ever has a normal job, they are either beggars or criminals, and I guess usually it's both things. Areas that have gypsies around them live in terror.
Someone said that Lybia can't possibly overtake Italy because our population is 10 times greater, but this is not the case because those "Lybians" aren't necessarily Lybians; Lybia is just the last stop before the crossing of the sea; they're African.
However, the situation here is immensely better than it is in the US. We have very little political correctness the way you have in the US. There's no enforced diversity. Companies are free to discriminate against non-whites for any reasons and I'm told that they very happily do so. There's no sense of collective white guilt whatsoever. There's no social benefit to having a black friend.
For decades we've had a political party worth 8%-10% of voters (in the context of an electoral system that is NOT first-past-the-post), the Northern League, which is explicitly anti-immigration and nationalistic. They are Po Valley nationalists who want independence from Rome, but keep in mind that 50% of Italians live in the Po Valley (many of them of southern descent, including League politicians) so it's a big deal. They have been part of coalition governments which helped slow down immigration a little bit.
I have a theory that the big problem in the US is the first-past-the-post system, which restricts choices to just 2 parties which end up being identical. Now that is what makes it impossible for a fringe group to get heard. If the US had a more democratic electoral system, everybody - libertarians, secessionists, anti-immigration people - would be a meaningful force in Congress and the media would then be forced to take them seriously. In the Italian parliament for a long time there's been Communists, Mussolini admirers, the kind-of-libertarian "radicali", and of course the explicitly secessionist AND anti-immigration League, and their very different positions are thus legitimized. This would be impossible in the US first-past-the-post system which greatly shrinks the Overton window.
"Companies are free to discriminate against non-whites for any reasons" I mean, for the same reasons that you normally can reject someone.
"Companies are free to discriminate against non-whites for any reasons" I mean, for the same reasons that you normall can reject someone.
But Britain is the home of Shakespeare, Isambard Brunel, the Magna Carta, the Mother of Parliaments and St. Paul's Cathedral. They didn't need "enrichment" either, but they got it anyways--plenty of "enrichment" from Somali goat-herders and Bangladeshi curry chefs.
And France is the home of haute cuisine, Monet and Cezanne, Voltaire and Flaubert, and exquisite formal gardens. But they got "enrichment also, from Algerian street hustlers and Senegalese drug dealers.
There is no nation in Europe that needed "enrichment." Their cultures were all "rich" enough.
"They are far worse than American blacks - no gypsy ever has a normal job, they are either beggars or criminals..."
I'm sure you're right about gypsies in Italy. One thing one should keep in mind about American blacks is that while black women do often have real jobs here (certainly more often than black men), they are almost never expected to be as competent, to work as hard or to have as good an attitude as their white and Asian co-workers. If blacks were typically held to the same standard as whites and Asians, how many would have real jobs? Not very many.
"We have very little political correctness the way you have in the US."
Of all the large white ethnic groups in the US, Italian-Americans are the least likely to be politically correct.
Good point I do believe they do that. I recall during the Argentine financial crisis stories of ethnic Italians and Spaniards applying for passports to work in these countries. I'm not sure how effective it is though.
The Japanese aggressively reached out to Japanese Peruvians and Braziilians and many took them on it but the Japanese quickly realized these people were no longer Japanese, in fact many had fractional Japanese heritage. These returnees quickly sunk to the bottom of Japanese society with many returning to Latin America. The experience soured the Japanese even more to immigration.
Whenever I hear some fool justify 3rd World immigration by bringing up their food, I am reminded of Essau, the son of Issac who gave up his birthright for a bowl of soup. Absolute jackasses.
peterike said: While my own tastes much prefer Northern European culture -- being both an Anglo- and Germano-phile -- the larger point is that of European culture. Whether Italy, France, England, whatever, European culture is so dramatically superior to every other culture on earth, that nobody from anywhere else could possibly "enrich" a white European nation.
Italy isn't just valuable as one of many European nations. The fall of Italy to multicultural barbarism entails not only the loss of a unique European culture, but the loss of a source of inspiration, solace, and renewal for the great minds of ALL European nations. Italy has animated the western spirit for centuries, and is the repository and source source of much of the west's accumulated glory. It may sound cheesy, but in a sense Italy is the soul of the west. While I view 19th century German culture as perhaps the apogee of human development, there is something very,very special about Italy.
-The Judean People's Front
Latin american countries like Brazil and Argentina are packed with italian ethnic descendants. Their culture isn't all that different from the italian one, and they are willing to integrate. Those countries are poor, shitty, and most of these people would simply love to immigrate. So, if demography makes Italy long for young workers, why don't the italian government stimulate migration from italian-latinos, insead of muslims?
5/5/13, 11:31 AM Good point here, a lot of Latin American Italians would love to go to Italy.
Italian-Italian at 1:57: Nice post. Stick around, pick a handle, contribute. We could use more European contributors.
I have a theory that the big problem in the US is the first-past-the-post system, which restricts choices to just 2 parties which end up being identical. Now that is what makes it impossible for a fringe group to get heard.
You may be underestimating the media's power in the United States.
" As for the notion that the world will be better off when Italy is filled up with Libyans ..."
That's pretty much a mathematical impossibility given that Libya has about 5 million inhabitants and Italy 60 million.
It only takes time.
This is not an attack on the Irish, merely a mathematical point: The population of Ireland is only about 5 million yet how many people now claim Irish ancestry in the US?
It's interesting that even private companies in Britain are getting in on the surging popularity of nationalism in the wake of the London riots. A Scottish ferry company has a pointing viking as a logo and the leftists are up in arms. And they are refusing to back down! It's great.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/world/sensitive-northlink-ferry-slammed-for-nazi-logo/story-e6frfqai-1226635722157
Whenever I hear some fool justify 3rd World immigration by bringing up their food
99% of the time thats the only positive, concrete benefit they can come up with. Hence in debate I always bring it up first, tell thats on the house and then wait for them to offer up a second benefit. Never had anyone tell me what number two is yet.
The Eastern Roman Empire was overrun by Muslims in 1453. Look what they've done with it since.
Turkey is backwards, poor, overcrowded, and now run by religious fanatics.
But not a bad place to spend an afternoon.
99% of the time thats the only positive, concrete benefit they can come up with. Hence in debate I always bring it up first, tell thats on the house and then wait for them to offer up a second benefit. Never had anyone tell me what number two is yet."
Japanese gardener I suppose.
Seriously though ,a small amount of bourgeoise immigrants will give the Left nightmares as they insist on condemning homosexuality,despise feminism ,are usually anti abortion(depends on the country-Indians and East Asians are for abortion and Arabs tend to be against)and wishing you Merry Christmas instead of Happy holidays.
Herodotus describes Libyans as being composed of fair skinned North Africans and darker ethiopian types.
It was one of the former who invaded Egypt in the 9th century and later even plundered Israel,the blonde(!)pharaoh Shishak made famous in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Egyptians considered Libyans to be barbarian riff raff(but then thats how they saw most people).
And Hannibal was not Libyan , he was from Carthage which Tunisians claim as their heritage. Tunisians would object to being called Libyan or Algerian as they think of themselves to be rather cosmopolitans like the Lebanese.
Which is just as well since Carthaginians were descended from Phoenician settlers
The Eastern Roman Empire was overrun by Muslims in 1453. Look what they've done with it since."
THe fall of Constantinople was a tragedy but Im not sure it consituted a loss in terms of culture.
The Greeks were already a spent power by then,be it on the military,artistic or scientific front.
Turkey is backwards, poor, overcrowded, and now run by religious fanatics."
The religious fanatics are new but what what part of Turkey have you been to? Izmir,Ankara and Istanbul are pretty nice.They are poorer than Europe but overcrowded and backward? Turks are pretty well educated on average but alas all the education in the world may not remove a conspitorial mindset and a persecution complex which the Turks embody and of which Erdogan is but a spokesman.
But not a bad place to spend an afternoon."
Doesnt this contradict the overcrowded ,poor and backwards bit?
However, the situation here is immensely better than it is in the US. We have very little political correctness the way you have in the US. There's no enforced diversity. Companies are free to discriminate against non-whites for any reasons and I'm told that they very happily do so. There's no sense of collective white guilt whatsoever. There's no social benefit to having a black friend."
I remember watching this Dogme 95 film called Festen in which this blonde woman introduces her black boyfriend to her family and they respond by breaking out into a racist song.It seemed to me that Von Trier was taking too much of a cinematic license(having a minimalist aesthetic with regard to technology doesnt always translate into authenticity as he claims ..or so was my thinking)
One Danish guy later confirmed that indeed such things do occur with many families as blacks or even non Scandinavian whites are a nono.
That coupled with europeans pelting the black soccer players ON THEIR OWN TEAM with bananas and racial slurs makes me think what liberals are smoking when they speak of a Europe being more open and tolerant?
If you could with a wave of a wand make every non-European cultural artifact disappear, the loss would probably be less than 10% of the world's greatest cultural works (I am including traditional American culture in with European). The competition isn't even close. "
Wait a minute. Seriously? This show the ignorance of your knowledge of other cultures. Europeans may have the upper hand in painting but in general at architechture, classical music and literature ,the output the Middle East,China and India is more than just comparable.
Its one thing to be proud of your heritage(good) and another to indulge in such bonheaded supremacism(bad in case you are wondering) and yes yes that goes for Jewish supremacism as well.
Whenever I hear some fool justify 3rd World immigration by bringing up their food, I am reminded of Essau, the son of Issac who gave up his birthright for a bowl of soup. Absolute jackasses."
Nice! I was always confused by this food argument. I mean cmon! While the Age of Exploration was motivated by the Europeans desire for better tasting food, they ended importing the spices and not the people growing them or knew how to use them.
I dont know about American chefs but any self respecting British chef knows some Indian food ,ditto for French and maghrbine food,Germans and Turkish kebabs, Dutch and Indonesians and so on.
If smart third world people can learn the essential STEM skills and take them back home, surely perceptive European chefs can pick up foreign cuisines as well.
I leave out American chefs as for the most part they seem to be rather provincial and conservative apart the usual French fare.
"It may sound cheesy, but in a sense Italy is the soul of the west."
It doesn't sound cheesy as much as nonsensical. The key driver and contributing culture of the West has been the Anglosphere, yet you only need to read E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread to realize how radically Italians differ from the peoples of the British Isles. Or failing that, watch Jersey Shore.
?While I view 19th century German culture as perhaps the apogee of human development,
In music perhaps but what else? Their philosophical writings from that era are fatuous and overwrought, their contributing to the visual arts sub-par at best.
"Whether Italy, France, England, whatever, European culture is so dramatically superior to every other culture on earth, that nobody from anywhere else could possibly "enrich" a white European nation. "
A silly and insular remark even by the standards of this website.
What about the venerable and copious literary traditions of Iran, India, China and Japan? Their immense canon of painting and sculpture - East Asian traditions of fine arts are very arguably superior to the sedulous mimesis which has characterized painting in the West, and China and Japan are host to the most sublime and expressive specimens of visual art produced by members of our species.
"The key driver and contributing culture of the West has been the Anglosphere"
No. Germanic Europe is the heart and soul of Europe. Even France, England and Northern Italy are what they are because they were invaded and conquered by Germanic tribes. Without German influence Britain would be an island of backward Celts, Gaul would be a European area of backward Celts and Milan, Florence and Turin would have achieved the level of Palermo and Naples.
Nice! I was always confused by this food argument. I mean cmon! While the Age of Exploration was motivated by the Europeans desire for better tasting food, they ended importing the spices and not the people growing them or knew how to use them.
How is it scores of Western cities have many excellent Japanese restaurants when there is very little Japanese immigration to the West?
Just enough immigration, I suppose.
Cennbeorc
"Without German influence Britain would be an island of backward Celts,"
Germanic influence is implicit in the term "Anglosphere," Pete the Shark, for anyone possessing a rudimentary knowledge of history.
No. Germanic Europe is the heart and soul of Europe. Even France, England and Northern Italy are what they are because they were invaded and conquered by Germanic tribes. Without German influence Britain would be an island of backward Celts, Gaul would be a European area of backward Celts and Milan, Florence and Turin would have achieved the level of Palermo and Naples."
Look I know your lot here has hardons for a specific type of northern europe but seriously this is ridiculous.
Are you going to make the argument that the Italian Renaissance was what it was because they were more Germanic than the Germans themselves who were busy slaughtering each other when divided in 100 or so statelets?
I know you dont wish to categorize the Romans as the southern Mediterranean type but the painful reality(for you) is that they are NOT northern European,neither celt,nor Germanic.
And if it had not been for the Roman Empire , the Germanic peoples would still worship in shrines made of human bones and live in mud huts not all that different from sub saharan African mode.
We are talking about a people for whom the concept of writing was so amazing that they considered it magic (hence the germanic word glamor derives from grammar)
Pete Wong said:It doesn't sound cheesy as much as nonsensical. The key driver and contributing culture of the West has been the Anglosphere, yet you only need to read E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread to realize how radically Italians differ from the peoples of the British Isles. Or failing that, watch Jersey Shore.
Jersey Shore you say? Is it some sort of musical production, old bean? In any event, please do go on with what you were saying. I would be delighted to here more about your theory that the Italians are not like us Brits. It is as novel as it is fascinating. The wags were utterly, utterly wrong about you chaps, for the Chinaman is indeed capable of innovation. There is nothing more pleasant or invigorating than sharing cigars and port with a bold thinker like you! Bravo!
-The Judean People's Front
Pete Wong said:It doesn't sound cheesy as much as nonsensical. The key driver and contributing culture of the West has been the Anglosphere, yet you only need to read E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread to realize how radically Italians differ from the peoples of the British Isles. Or failing that, watch Jersey Shore. "
Englishmen accusing Italians for bad behavior and gauche tastes is pretty is another level of projection.
Mate! Have you noticed English behavior these days- and no drunkenness is no excuse.
Italians drink more on average than the English.
Apart from harassing women with crude comments(does this occur anymore) the most anti social revelers you will meet in Italy or any continental city are English.
And EM Foster as an unbiased ,objective source in analyzing the English? Seriously?
"I don't think this conclusion follows from the author's premises. Culturally, if immigrants "enrich" they will enrich Italy. Just because Italy has more culture than other places to begin with doesn't mean that additional culture won't add to what is there."
Muslims will actually subtract from the culture which is already there, because they will begin destroying and defacing any Italian cultural artifacts which do not support the Koran's teachings(which is all of them). They have already done this to thousands of statues, books and buildings across the middle east and south asia. Most recently, those big Buddhist shrines in Afghanistan which the Taliban dynamited.
"Whenever I hear some fool justify 3rd World immigration by bringing up their food, I am reminded of Essau, the son of Issac who gave up his birthright for a bowl of soup. Absolute jackasses."
Yeah. And why not just import the recipe?
The whole world drinks coca cola and eats McDonalds but that doesn't mean Americans have to immigrate to nations all over the world for them to have such things.
There are prolly more KFCs than Americans in Japan.
" Anonymous said...
Immigration may enrich Italy in many ways, but is unlikely to do so culturally. It is just as unlikely to do so fiscally.
I don't think this conclusion follows from the author's premises. Culturally, if immigrants "enrich" they will enrich Italy."
I think what he means is that they enrich Italy in the same way that diversity in the US has enriched many big cities- Detroit, Baltimore, etc. Basically the only enrichment is getting to talk about how enriched they are.
"Are you going to make the argument that the Italian Renaissance was what it was because they were more Germanic than the Germans themselves who were busy slaughtering each other when divided in 100 or so statelets?"
Your definition of "German" is pathetically narrow, and your understanding of German history very shallow. And yes, I am arguing that the Italian Renaissance was only possible because of the Gothic invasions of northern Italy that restored some life to an region that by the 5th century AD had become a cultural backwater within the Roman Empire, the same is even more true of France, whose very name is of course Germanic.
PW:Your definition of "German" is pathetically narrow,
DVN: It is not any more narrow than your definition of Germanic is convenient.
PW: and your understanding of German history very shallow.
DVN: Lets assume that is so, but atleast I have common sense which you seem to lack.
PW: And yes, I am arguing that the Italian Renaissance was only possible because of the Gothic invasions of northern Italy that restored some life to an region that by the 5th century AD had become a cultural backwater within the Roman Empire,
DVN: How generous of the Germans! Renaissance for you Italy, fraticidal warfare for us.
5th century? Seriously Rome was a spent force for sure by then but the Goths werent exactly an apogee of culture.If anything culture travelled towards them thanks to the Holy Roman Empire.
Your beloved Goths ,if not the factor, were one of the symptoms of the Dark Ages.
To restate YOUR argument: The Germans contributed to the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century by invading Italy in 5th century and establishing a genes conducive to development of great art,architechture,sciences and literature a 1000 years later.
All the while the Germans in Germania themselves were considered little better than traders and farmers by others.
Again THIS is your argument?
BTW this is not to deny the magnificient achievements of Germans but ascribe the output of others in Europe by using such tortured logic is too much to bear.
PW: the same is even more true of France, whose very name is of course Germanic.
DVN: Seriously? THAT is your argument? Well Britain is named after a Celtic tribe in northern France.Argentina is named after a piece of silver. America is named for a me too Italian explorer who most Americans have little knowledge of.
French language and culture have little to do with Germanic influence despite the early Frankish dynasties such Carolignians and Merovians.
There was a Gallo Roman culture already established in France that your beloved Saxons werent able to destroy like they did in England.
re my previous: I confused Pete the Shark with Pete Wong.
Well seeing how you are both Petes and are Germano apologists, I hope you will forgive me.
I have a theory that the big problem in the US is the first-past-the-post system, which restricts choices to just 2 parties which end up being identical. Now that is what makes it impossible for a fringe group to get heard. If the US had a more democratic electoral system, everybody - libertarians, secessionists, anti-immigration people - would be a meaningful force in Congress and the media would then be forced to take them seriously. In the Italian parliament for a long time there's been Communists, Mussolini admirers, the kind-of-libertarian "radicali", and of course the explicitly secessionist AND anti-immigration League, and their very different positions are thus legitimized. This would be impossible in the US first-past-the-post system which greatly shrinks the Overton window."
I see your point about two parties becoming near identical and a lack of diversity in policy ideas.
However the flipside is chaaos and political fractitiousnes that alternatively induce gridlock and volatility in the political process.
Italy had something like 8 prime ministers in the 70s!
A country with super power responsibilities such cant risk enduring those negatives that come with a more open political process which I agree is very much needed.
The Pantheon is in Greece, not Italy.
Easy to misread, but:
Pantheon - Rome
Parthenon - Greece
DR Van Nostrand
But not a bad place to spend an afternoon."
Doesnt this contradict the overcrowded ,poor and backwards bit?"
Not at all -- if you have money and can leave at will. Any number of countries fit this category, including Mexico.
As for the loss of culture, Mehmet the Conqueror was illiterate and, like many of his descendants, lived in a jumped-up nomad encampment filled with skilled Christian slaves and purloined treasures.
A Congolese-born (Cecile Kiyenge) eye doctor obtained a position in the newly formed coalition government in Italy.
I don't know which party she belongs to ( probably the greens or the socialists). This woman, immediately upon obtaining the position, told the media that her "priority" would be to introduce Jus Soli citizenship. She also said that she wanted to do everything to make immigration less hard and to basically change what it is to be an italian ! Far right politicians reacted by making crude sexual and racial remarks about her. I find this extremely stupid because what that woman said was extremely hostilee to the historic italian people and that should have been enough to create outrage.
In any case, I can never understand the gall of african immigrants who actually seem to believe that they have some "culture" to bring to peoples like the Italians.
Dr van Nostrand :
Re :Lybians
A moroccan used to tell me that everyone in the Maghreb thought of lybians as savages. Rich, spoiled savages but savages just the same.
That was kind of confirmed during the fall of the ghaddafi regime. Compare what happened in Lybia to what happened in Tunisia, for example.
The white, fair skinned and blue eyed Berbers seem to have disappeared from the Lybia ( used to be known as Cyrenaica) area and they must have been gone for a while. The white north african type is still found in Algeria and Morocco though.
I met an algerian girl last year who had to be seen to be believed. She looked way, way, way whiter than the vast majority of italians and I'm not saying italians aren't white. I'm just saying that she looked like a blue eyed, light brown haired, fair skinned denizen of north-western Europe. She said that people never, ever guessed where she was from and that she got to hear tons of anti-arab stuff.
She was a kabyle from a mountainous area and those people aren't particularly known for mixing so I don't think she was part french or anything like that.
Libya is mostly farther south that the rest of North Africa, so agriculture is harder, so a larger proportion of the population was nomadic until quite recently. (Thus, Kadaffi's infatuation with pitching a tent when he'd come to New York to address the UN.)
Robert D. Kaplan pointed out that in Tunisia, the Roman's built the local equivalent of Hadrian's Wall to protect the fertile north (Carthage) from the wild south. To this day, that divide remains in how the people behave. Northern Tunisia is kind of like the Sicily scenes in the Godfather. while southern Tunisia is like Lawrence of Arabia.
Northern Tunisians have been, for many thousands of years, civilized in the oldest meaning of the word: settled.
Latin american countries like Brazil and Argentina are packed with italian ethnic descendants. Their culture isn't all that different from the italian one, and they are willing to integrate. Those countries are poor, shitty, and most of these people would simply love to immigrate. So, if demography makes Italy long for young workers, why don't the italian government stimulate migration from italian-latinos, insead of muslims?"
Well they have imported one recently anyway,look under "new Pope"
Chile and Argentina are actually pretty nice. Even venezuala due to its oil wealth was a pleasant place until chavez wrecked,ditto for Colombi before the cartels and guerillas took over.
Peru isnt doing bad either and has recovered from Shining Path.
Dont about the two gay countries.
The Portuguese elephant in the room is of course which Im told for the 20 years is one of the emerging economies.I was leaning towards believing that it was a nice place until my ex boss who visited in 2007 told me that it was a hell hole - he was mugged in broad daylight in Rio.
There apparently is a great demand for the diasporas of South America in their home countries. Spain is eagerly wooing its Spanish speakers(of pure Castillian,Galician and Basque only need apply) from all over Latin America. I think there was a movement among Lebanese Chrisitians to invite the many Arab Christians there to help fight the demographic (and other) wars in Lebanon.
They wisely refused.
The white, fair skinned and blue eyed Berbers seem to have disappeared from the Lybia ( used to be known as Cyrenaica) area and they must have been gone for a while. The white north african type is still found in Algeria and Morocco though.
I met an algerian girl last year who had to be seen to be believed. She looked way, way, way whiter than the vast majority of italians and I'm not saying italians aren't white. I'm just saying that she looked like a blue eyed, light brown haired, fair skinned denizen of north-western Europe. She said that people never, ever guessed where she was from and that she got to hear tons of anti-arab stuff.
She was a kabyle from a mountainous area and those people aren't particularly known for mixing so I don't think she was part french or anything like that."
The reason for their whitness could be various- they could be descendents of the northern European Sea Peoples(one of whose descendents were the tall Philistines)
Or it could be due to Germanic Vandal rule in the early part of the 1st millenium.
European slave girls in the medieval era.
The presence of horny French soldiers in the colonial age.
But Herodotus (400 BC) notes the presence of blondes even back then which predates even the Sea people.
And they are not Indo European but their language group is related possibly to Basque or more distantly Caucasian(Chechen languages) so its quite a mystery!
Sailer:Libya is mostly farther south that the rest of North Africa, so agriculture is harder, so a larger proportion of the population was nomadic until quite recently. (Thus, Kadaffi's infatuation with pitching a tent when he'd come to New York to address the UN.)
DVN: Kaddafi traces his descent from tribes from the Arabian peninsula(and prophet Mohammad). In that culture, if you set up a tent in anothers land, that is a declaration of war ie you are claiming the land for yourself. I think some patriarchs did this in Genesis.
Sailer:Robert D. Kaplan pointed out that in Tunisia, the Roman's built the local equivalent of Hadrian's Wall to protect the fertile north (Carthage) from the wild south. To this day, that divide remains in how the people behave. Northern Tunisia is kind of like the Sicily scenes in the Godfather. while southern Tunisia is like Lawrence of Arabia.
DVN:Yes, not exactly Carthago delenda est.
It was to the Romans advantage that Carthage continue to thrive but only as a tributary.
Doesnt this contradict the overcrowded ,poor and backwards bit?"
Not at all -- if you have money and can leave at will. Any number of countries fit this category, including Mexico."
Oh I dont doubt that..My point is Turkey doesnt really fit the standard third world template -atleast from my experiences.
Maybe not quite first world but easily 2nd world!
"As for the loss of culture, Mehmet the Conqueror was illiterate and, like many of his descendants, lived in a jumped-up nomad encampment filled with skilled Christian slaves and purloined treasures."
Mehmet and his illiterate Turkic hordes were not all different from the Germanic invaders in 4th century AD Italy.
They were not really a destructive force with respect to monuments and insitutions and the intelligentsia as they were in awe of what they saw.
Note that they didnt destroy Hagia Sophia or similar structures-they just appropriated them for their own belief system.
IMO that is not a justification-but an argument that they were a purely destructive force.
Greeks view the loss of Constantinople as loss of glory and power rather than a loss of culture.
Indeed many Turks go so far as to claim indigenous descent particularly from the Trojans as to not just consolidate their claim on Anatolia but also to take a page out of Palestinians as Canaanites book and claim themselves as victims of Greek aggression!
@Dr Van Nostrand
My experience living abroad as a black man taught me one thing: Europeans (and Asians, to a lesser extent) will treat you like family as long as you "play the role". By that, I mean to assimilate to the fullest extreme (pick up or already possess a useful skill, follow the local team or teams, follow local/national socialisation protocols, etc.), nd you'll normally achieve some level of acceptance at a micro level (usually at a "That's *our* black guy" range.) It helps if you're also smart enough to limit your romantic overtures to the older and/or unattractive (especially in rural areas, where the locals would rather see an infertile and unmarried woman take up with a non-native than to have to worry about supporting her in the long run. I met a few dozen 'fluent enough', gainfully employed, rap-abhorring, married to middle-aged divorcee Nigerians during my time in Europe. As long as those men played their positions, they were treated like everyone else (in public.) The local Turks/gypsies, OTOH, who harassed the teen girls, avoided regular jobs and followed "ghetto culture" were tolerated at best (and they always found themselves in jail at least once a month, usually for doing somethingflagrantly illegal or culturally ignorant.)
@MaxMu1977
What you are saying seems plausible.
I have seen cases where they have been accepted on a micro level as you mention. However I have noticed quite a few African and even African American nab some very attractive white women.
These tend to middle class types,not the ghetto dudes who dont mind the husky ladies!
From what I have seen and heard its French,German,English and Iberian women who are more receptive to black men. Eastern European and Russian women- the least.
Many white American women(of those who are open to interracial coupling) told me that they prefer the company of an African African man to an African American as they see the latter as nogoodniks.
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