[Jordan]

Jm wishes he was black or something. You are totaly confused.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 08 October 2007 - 04:44 PM

[Spoon Poetic]

For once, I agree with Jm. Good post, man.

[civilian_number_two]

First of all, white culture is shit.

I agree. Among the many aspects of White Culture that are shit (Feel free to add to the list yourselves):

Hamlet
Star Trek
Alan Ginsberg's Howl
The Lord of the Rings
Ulysses
Mrs Dalloway
Everything by JD Salinger
Wes Anderson films
The US Declaration of Independence
George and Ira Gershwin
Catch 22
Kurt Vonnegut
The Beatles
Pink Floyd
David Bowie
The roof of the Sistine Chapel
Vincent Van Gogh
Citizen Kane
Singin' in the Rain
Blade Runner

What a collection of worthless shit. I'm so glad the Italians (who apparently aren't white) came to America with Olive Oil and pan-fried sausages. Mama mia!

[Spoon Poetic]

Haha, well, I missed that part. Yeah, I don't agree with that. There are bits of every races' history that isn't something to be proud of. But I think I get his overall message this time, being that American culture is an amalgamation of cultures from all the immigrants that founded this country (hey, sounds like something I said earlier...), and that we overall benefit from immigrants bringing their strengths to us and have since the country was founded. Jm's last paragraph is good, the first paragraph has its good moments.

And really I don't think anyone is on the opposing side anymore since Despondent took his leave (with some nice little biting remarks, and no real rebuttal to anyone's actual arguments).

(I'll bet anyone $5 that Jm will have something to say about Civ's listing the U.S. Declaration of Independence in the list of great things made by white men. )

[Jordan]

Theory of relativity
The Steam Engine
NASA, Sputnik
Tuxedos
French cuisine
Discovery of electricity
The transistor
Calculus
Newtonian Mechanics
DNA sequence
ARCHIMEDES
ARISTOTLE
NIELS BOHR
NICHOLAS COPERNICUS
MARIE CURIE
CHARLES DARWIN
LEONARDO DA VINCI
RENE DESCARTES
THOMAS ALVA EDISON
ALBERT EINSTEIN
BEN FRANKLIN
GALILEI GALILEO
ISAAC NEWTON
MAX PLANCK
WILHELM CONRAD RONTGEN
CARL SAGAN
NIKOLA TESLA
PABLO PICASSO
ANDY WARHOL
WILFRED OWEN
The Shakers
Aquaducts
First sewer system
The Automobile


any one else?

This post has been edited by Jordan: 08 October 2007 - 10:49 PM

[J m HofMarN]

Ok, I can debate a few of those things:

Howl was written in the style of, guess what, black jazz players who ginsberg went to see. Most of the beat writing is influenced by Jazz. No African Americans, no beat poetry. Same with Floyd.

Also, if you're trying to make a list of good things written by white people, please don't include Virginia Woolfe's novels. You only hurt yourself.

My point was not to disparage white or any other culture, but to point out that people who claim white culture is in any way superior and has to be preserved against some imaginary foreign immigrant aggression are nuts. I withdraw my claim of shittery, it was poor wording, but the message still stands. Immigrants are a large part of what makes American culture good.

[Bond]

Jordan, you should cross out THOMAS EDISON and replace it with NIKOLA TESLA; Edison was a no-good thief.

[El_Gostro]

So uh,I assume it s the old thing of using "White" as in WASP centric evolution of man thing?

Brings me some memories from my time in NY:
-Oh you speak spanish?
-I'm Argentinian
-I thought you were white

[civilian_number_two]

Ok, I can debate a few of those things:

Howl was written in the style of, guess what, black jazz players who ginsberg went to see. Most of the beat writing is influenced by Jazz. No African Americans, no beat poetry. Same with Floyd.

Also, if you're trying to make a list of good things written by white people, please don't include Virginia Woolfe's novels. You only hurt yourself.

My point was not to disparage white or any other culture, but to point out that people who claim white culture is in any way superior and has to be preserved against some imaginary foreign immigrant aggression are nuts. I withdraw my claim of shittery, it was poor wording, but the message still stands. Immigrants are a large part of what makes American culture good.

I knew you were going to say that "Beat" poetry was actually a prose form of jazz. This is something that pretentious beat poets were saying at the time because jazz was widely regarded as Negro music, and de facto counterculture. Also since a lot of jazz players were heroin addicts, "Beat" poets wanted that association, to escape the pain and horror that was their upper-middle-class Jewish lives. Yeah, I'm really just talking about Ginsberg on that one. Anyway, I'm well acquainted with jazz, and "Beat" poetry is not jazz. For starters, there are no trumpets in any of it. You can say what you like about Pink Floyd, because it's the same thing: should I say that if when White people produce something, we are forced to look at others who also produced the same, then can I suppose that all those Black Jazz artists were just making White European music in a different way?

If you want to say that Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are examples of shit English culture, then go ahead. You're absolutely wrong, but feel free to go ahead and say it. I put it to you that you're just homophobic

I don't think anyone here is claiming that American White culture is in danger of being weakened by immigration. I know, people do claim it, but noone here is claiming it. However the argument could certainly be made that it is underappreciated as culture even among white people such as yourself. I mean if you can say Alan Ginsberg, who I know you like, essentially wasn't even an example of white culture, then I can see the game you're playing. Everything you hate about White culture = white culutre. Everything you love = not really white culture. I can only imagine the fury I would incite were I to naysay every Black person of note with cracks like "well he was raised middle-class, and so wasn't really black" or such like.

Fine backpeddling there though, going from "white culture is shit" to "I used the wrong words, but the mesage still stands." I take that to mean that white culture is shit, but not "shit?"

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 09 October 2007 - 10:25 PM

[SimeSublime]

Seeing as Despondent has ducked out, I'm going to stand in on his side, though for different reasons (also, I'm less likely to have such an amusing finishing post as his as I'll probably forget this thread exists due to my seldom forays into the debate club). But to the point, I believe that the US should declare English as it's official language. Which I guess sounds rather presumptuous of me, seeing as I've never been there.

I'm about the most 'outsider' to America in this thread (with the exception of Cobnat, also Australian)and when I think of America, I think of it as an English speaking nation(well, butchered English, but that's irrelevant to this thread. Let's all just pretend that you speak real English for now ). Now, is the fact that I think of it as an English speaking nation important? Not particularly. Does it mean I think that everybody speaks English? Not at all. I think of Australia as an English speaking nation and I know for a fact that many citizens speak a cornucopia of languages. But the vast majority of them speak English, and that's important because it means we can communicate with at least one language.

Which brings me to my main thoughts. I believe we should have one official language for humanity. I don't care whether it's English, Spanish, French or even Lobjan. Whatever, just pick one. That language should then be taught to every student worldwide. Sure, go ahead and learn your native tongue, but learn this language as well. America is a major cultural and economic influence on the world, and I believe that making English it's official language would have little effect on the country, but would be a step towards a global language, and hence it's a step that should be taken.

[Jordan]

I don't care whether it's English, Spanish, French or even Lobjan. Whatever, just pick one.

No way, then you wouldn't feel like a stranger in a new land when you go travelling with a packback. Terrible terrible idea.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 10 October 2007 - 12:01 PM

[J m HofMarN]

Civ - In interviews with Burrougs and Kerouac, and in the scribblings of Neal Cassady, you can see that they freely admit to being influenced by jazz. I never said it was their soul influence. Whitman was probably a bigger part of Ginsberg's stylistic genealogy then jazz, but the influence is still there, and I think that if they hadnt been exposed to jazz the beat generation would have been the lesser for it.

And I never said they were examples of shitty English culture, just shitty English writing. I tried to read Mrs. Dalloway. After like an hour all I could comprehend was that some woman saw the queen at some time, maybe. I'm sorry, in proper Woolfian prose I aught to say

"That; at some time it is possible that; some woman (who lives down the street in a lovely flat with lilacs) saw the queen at: some time; maybe, the queen who was delightfully decked in a lovely; hat."

And what I meant was that white culture is not in need of any protection from the hordes of foreign language speaking immigrants, and that the idea that they have nothing to offer culturally or economically to our superior society is just nonsense. I'm no fan of the Cuban immigrants who come over here, sleep with some congressman and then get him to ok 4 billion dollars so they can beam propaganda back to Cuba that no one listens to, but if ordinary Cubans want to come here and make a living, I say go for it. They can keep a 1950s Chevy running for 60 years on parts scrounged from garbage dumps and improvisation, I want them to come fix my non-existant car if anything should ever happen to it.

Sime- For once I'm with Jordan. Having an international official language would be an insult to a lot of people. The only real possibilities are English and Spanish. Good luck trying to convince some Americans they have to speak "Mex-ee-can", not to mention Britain who fought the Spaniards a bunch of times to avoid ending up being required to speak Spanish.

And then what about telling people in India that they have to learn English? Or parts of Africa where British colonialism was defeated at the cost of blood. Muslims will also be rather reluctant to embrace either of these Western languages.

Either way it would be a good bit more trouble than it's worth. I think the best thing to do is to just have everyone speak at least two languages, something that wouldnt be encouraged by declaring English to be the official language.

[Spoon Poetic]

Here, here, Jm. (Did I actually just say that??? )

Honestly, I wish Americans were taught more language than we are. In most other educated countries, learning another language starts very young, and usually kids are nearly fluent in two or even three languages by the time they get out of high school (or equivalent). Here, we just expect everyone to speak English, and if they don't, people just speak louder and slower and wave their hands in the air, thinking that will help. Learning another language is only required for maybe one or two years in high school, and if one goes to college, they might be required to take another year or two (I wasn't). I think it's a rather isolationist attitude that conflicts with our rather not-so-isolationist country. I would be all for upping the language requirements in our schools (and I'd also support some kind of requirement where everyone has to pass a basic spelling and grammar English test before graduating).

[civilian_number_two]

Civ - In interviews with Burrougs and Kerouac, and in the scribblings of Neal Cassady, you can see that they freely admit to being influenced by jazz. I never said it was their soul influence. Whitman was probably a bigger part of Ginsberg's stylistic genealogy then jazz, but the influence is still there, and I think that if they hadnt been exposed to jazz the beat generation would have been the lesser for it.

I think you missed this part of my post:

"I knew you were going to say that "Beat" poetry was actually a prose form of jazz. This is something that pretentious beat poets were saying at the time because jazz was widely regarded as Negro music, and de facto counterculture. Also since a lot of jazz players were heroin addicts, "Beat" poets wanted that association, to escape the pain and horror that was their upper-middle-class Jewish lives. Yeah, I'm really just talking about Ginsberg on that one. "

Yes, they freely admit they were influenced by jazz, because jazz was something they liked and they wanted to be associated with it.

And I never said they were examples of shitty English culture, just shitty English writing. I tried to read Mrs. Dalloway. After like an hour all I could comprehend was that some woman saw the queen at some time, maybe. I'm sorry, in proper Woolfian prose I aught to say

"That; at some time it is possible that; some woman (who lives down the street in a lovely flat with lilacs) saw the queen at: some time; maybe, the queen who was delightfully decked in a lovely; hat."

If that's how you think you OUGHT to have written, then it's pretty clear to me you didn't actually try to read Mrs Dalloway at all. And after an hour you understood none of it? It sounds to me like you were reacting to this, the THIRD paragraph:

What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, “Musing among the vegetables?”—was that it?—“I prefer men to cauliflowers”—was that it? He must have said it at breakfast one morning when she had gone out on to the terrace—Peter Walsh. He would be back from India one of these days, June or July, she forgot which, for his letters were awfully dull; it was his sayings one remembered; his eyes, his pocket-knife, his smile, his grumpiness and, when millions of things had utterly vanished—how strange it was!—a few sayings like this about cabbages.

Which is brilliant stream-of-consciousness, and yet easy to follow. You're reacting like it wa Finnigan's Wake. In any case it's far easier than the stream of "Howl," which I happen to think is great stuff. For a cultureless white guy.

[Spoon Poetic]

I feel sad now for I've never even heard of this author and I thought I was pretty well-read. I better look into it.