Meanwhile on tiktok British people are apparently mad at Americans for not knowing or caring about Robbie Williams
As an American, I am going to dine on this single example as if it disproves the idea that we are insular and provincial hicks for the next decade.
nah, it just proves that brits are as stupid as you are, which is, tbh, is not a surprise /s
We had Brexit. We can’t say nothing.
As a layman, i believe you have a stronger private school presence, which tend to specialize in order to differentiate. But I might be wrong because I have limited information on the topic of British education.
We have a strong private school presence, yes. Trouble is it leads to privilege and people get on in life not cause they’re clever, but cause they wear the right school tie.
People often choose the easier path, which in this case means choosing status over knowledge.
I am tired of western Cinema jerking off to same old stories, which tbh aren’t the pinnacle of literature or storytelling. There are so many cultural epics which are deserving of the big screen, but unfortunately this western culture bias keeps the general audience from being exposed to any of it.
It wouldn’t matter, but the issue is then you have utter fucking illiterates and philistines who believe that only western writers, thinkers or philosophers came up with anything good. New flash, many, many of the western writers took their influence from non-western sources.
I mean
Every culture does that, though? If anything, Americans appreciating the works of the Greeks is as widespread and diverse as a culture can possibly get.
Every couple of years Chinese make a new Sun Wukong move, TV show, or videogame. Tibetan Monks and the Dali Lama are a huge cultural phenomenon all over the world. Wuxia/Xianxia based on old Taoism writings and diagrams are popular in all forms of media. Period Dramas about the old aristocracy in Asia are a huge genre.
Koreans shove Korean dragons and Dokaebi into every medium they can.
Japanese love them some Shinto priestess main characters and Yokai stories.
Arabia’s got thieves guilds, Solomon, and genies and other creatures of fire and wind.
Russia has Baba Yaga and Rasputin depictions.
Germany and western Europe have Fairy Tales, northern Europe is obsessed with Trolls.
India has a strong and proud history of racism, classism, Hinduism, nepotism, sexism, I don’t really remember where I was going with this point, tbh.
Africa… Honestly, Africa might need more time to recover, idk what their cultural epics entail… I do like Shaka Zulu’s vibe, tho.
That’s how culture works. The differences and uniqueness make them worth experiencing, and why people work so hard to preserve them in perpetuity across many generations. Except India. Idk y tf they’re doing that shit.
They could all appreciate some other shit, yeah, but that’s not how culture works.
fucking crazy to denigrate South Asia like that when you made the effort to respect culture for all the other regions you mentioned. I guess all the other countries you mentioned don’t have a history of racism, classism, nepotism, sexism or religion?
I never got into geography, tbh. It’s not actually that useful for anything.
yes it is. you learn how the world works. what gets exported from where. where the refugees come from and to, and why. what conflicts there are, where, and why.
Sounds pretty violent. I hear about refugees pretty well without it, personally. As an analogy, not everyone needs to be a meteorologist to know the weather.
yes, you dont need to know about the history of the weather and why it happens to understand that it will be raining tomorrow. But, i think it’s kinda relevant to know how and why to understand what side of a conflict to support.
geography also helps you understand the claims politicians make and to see if they’re bs
The actual physical location, which side of an imaginary line a person was born on, should absolutely mean fuck all when deciding who to side with.
Only what each side intends to do and is capable of doing, to minimize all possible harm and loss.
that’s… what I said? geography helps you understand what each side intends to do and is capable of doing.
geography ≠ topography
Lmao no
because your many years of experience with the subject geography have taught you that geography is topography?
is this why the miniseries is trending on some torrent sites?? haha!
It was also just announced that Christopher Nolan’s next film will be the Odyssey
It could be an amazing movie if they follow the story and make it a multi part series… but also those hollywood assholes cant help but fucking up stories that tell themselves so I expect it to be shit.
Yeah, something like this deserves a several season show with one hour episodes. At least 10 episodes per season.
Remember when some assholes made The Dark Tower (eight novels, 4250 pages) into an hour and a half movie? I sure wish I didn’t. Great casting too. Such a waste.
The Illiad was like the Bible before the Bible.
Only in that it was widely published but there are others too like the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Illiad was like the ancient Greek Bible because it was used to provide behavioural guidelines and views common to all Greeks. It was a text central to any Greek’s education. How does a leader act? Read the Illiad. How are battles waged? Read the Illiad. What is the relation between humans and gods? Read the Illiad.
Alexander the Great was known to carry a copy of the Illiad with him at all times, and many philosophers routinely used excerpts from it to illustrate their points. And people would reference it like we reference things from the Bible in the west (Judas, turn water into wine, cross to bear, turn the other cheek etc)
I have not read the Iliad and I’ve only read a few excerpts from the Odyssey. They available as an audio book anywhere that isn’t Audible?
I have to admit that I have not read the Illias or the Odyssey in school, either. We were made read books in school intendet to make children shy away from books, so they won’t touch any of them after school ever again.
Luckily I had read loads of good books by that time, so I knew that only a few are as horrible as the ones they made us read in school.
It does feel a lot like that, doesn’t it? Why else would the Bronte sisters be on the curriculum if not to snuff out any interest in literature?
It could be worse. We read Brecht and Kafka. Several works of them. I’ve never encountered worse waste of paper and ink than those idiots. And the rest was not much better.
Just because it was wasted on you doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, Kafka’s short stories especially (Die Verwandlung, Ein Landarzt etc) are accessible for teenagers and a good gateway drug to get interested in other things. Which is really important for kids that don’t have natural access to literature at home.
Sorry, but I experienced “Die Verwandlung” as written diarrhea of a person with severe mental problems. “Der Prozess” didn’t improve my opition of him, either.
Well, lead a horse to water etc, doesn’t mean we should stop making teens read books in school they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise. At least now you have both read and formed an opinion on two of the most influential and well regarded works of world literature. (And hopefully they also made you read a lot of other literature in diverse styles and genres.)
The problem is not about “reading books they would not read otherwise”. Sadly, many, if not most, kids don’t get exposed to books anymore except in school. And then they are confronted with unlikable stuff that makes them shy away from ever touching a book again.
I still hope that one day the people who decide what children and teens should read in school get their elitist heads out of their asses and actually try to get kids to read because they enjoy reading a book. Problem is that most people in that area seem to hate books that actually sell in the shops because people like to read them. Like I said about Reich-Ranizky once: he would not notice a good book if it bit him.
So the obvious solution is they should read more books, more varied stuff, not less. Popular, niche, basic, normative, weird, etc.
Of course, your assumption that all teens hate Kafka just because you do is demonstrably false. The assumption that books sell simply because they are actually better and more enjoyable to read is also false, there are a lot of other factors at play.
The kids that enjoy reading will find what is pushed in the book shops anyway, but kids from working class homes will never be exposed to anything else - and therefore have no chance to decide if they like it or not.
Liam’s a tool. UK schools absolutely do teach the Odyssey, and have done so at least as far back as my youth.
most of the time someone says something wasnt taught in school its because that person straight up didnt pay attention in class
