Chainy:

ceigered:So, instead of using my brain, because I don't see Targanook as being an Australian, I completely ignored the fact that the true but end of the joke might not be the arabs but the *westerners* who are so paranoid of them, or who keep sticking their nose into middle eastern affairs.

Your 'brain' seems to be straining somewhat! Your message just gets more and more bizarre.

I don't have the energy to go through every bit of it. My head hurts from reading it. Just take a look at the context of that original comment again and forget about all these silly ideas about somehow justifying it!

I feel starting a sentence with the "you"-baseball-cudgel straight at the others head would put me into a high defensive position. You, you, you are this and not that, you aren't, you, you ... Take care, for someones it could give the trigger to use the F* response. Just to mention what politeness tries to supress. It's not adressed directly to you. Its just...

I only used one time in my life that F* word. And that was the answer during a very personal stressfully situation. Italy: A train which was scheduled 1 minute stay but still was several minutes to late and these darned Germans doesn't know where to put the bicycles into the train. Every Italian kid knows. And at this Italian spoken sentence of which I only understood "stupido" what let me shouting across a TrenItalia train that F* word. I'm not proud at this, but, what is to much, is to much. La vera Internatia Komuniko.

ceigered:

qwertz:
So in result, growing up in Australia puts someone into a society with more collegiality "group-" beliefs and other anglophone society let grow their society fellows more an "individualists-" belief way, mate?

Haha, nice gratuitous "mate"

Someones has to experience that in Australia. You leave the coach after a long travel and some unknown folks start "Hej, mate, ...". It's like granting someone unknown 80% trustness and not like distancing someones unknown with 80% distrust. Granting someone unknown trustness comes with internal approach to avoid any self-centered attitude.

ceigered:
But the problem's too complex for that - political correctness is much more ingrained in American and UK society than it is in Australia (which is why we sometime get nicknamed "rednecks", based on perceived similarities with US "rednecks").

Someones calling others rednecks just gets offended by different behaviour in the way: "If I would behave like her/him, I would feel like a redneck". It's definitvly their problem and not the targets person responsibility.

ceigered:
In addition, we all have our own ideas of individuality, and how we should submit to society. In some countries, society rules how individuality should be expressed, where as in other countries, individuality rules how society should be expressed. I think the former is Australia, and the latter the rest, but we all are very intertwined except for these obscure cultural differences that we don't realise are there.

Yes, that's excactly what I tried to phrase. But you did it in better English. I would go more further that this is an international afero. Not just an Anglosphere one.

ceigered:
I repeat: In Australia, IT IS NOT UNCOMMON TO INCLUDE OTHER CULTURES OR GROUPS IN YOUR JOKE PROVIDED THE JOKE TREATS EVERYONE EQUALLY OR SPECIFICALLY INSULTS YOURSELF. Thus, Australian humility can be thought of as us insulting ourselves in round about ways.

Seems to be that members where society rules strong individualism have lost that capability. They can not laugh about/blame themselves. Because that would be an compliance with having personal weakness which is an taboo according their individualists beliefs. Strong individualist mostly take lot's of efforts to position itselves in an mistake-free attitude. Which makes them ridiculous in societies where society rules how individuality should be expressed. That's my opinion which comes from experiences inside "society rules how individuality should be expressed" (Thuringia before 2000), where as in other countries/areas (some percentage of folks in Munich), individuality rules how society should be expressed."

Oh my dear.

It seems like Ceigered and Qwertz are the only people interested in discussing this thing further, so could you two please take this conversation to private messages?

Thanks.

qwertz:
I feel starting a sentence with the "you"-baseball-cudgel straight at the others head would put me into a high defensive position. You, you, you are this and not that, you aren't, you, you ... Take care, for someones it could give the trigger to use the F* response. Just to mention what politeness tries to supress. It's not adressed directly to you. Its just...

What?! Why are we now talking about baseball bats? And you're telling me to 'take care'?! This thread is utterly crazy.

I agree with Erinja. Ceigered and Qwertz should just content themselves with a private discussion on this. Maybe invite Taganook along, too as you both seem to have a freakishly intense desire to justify his very odd statement.

If the Americans are such nice to Arabs then why do they shoot them? Perhaps bullets are less offending than words. And why is America so hated by the Arabs? Try to answer that questions honestly.

I agree with ceigered, actually. Targanook said something. Some of us didn't get what he meant at first glance. He didn't mean any harm though. I also agree with erinja though, because it should be dropped now. This thread seems to have veered rather off-topic.

Sensitivity to issues of prejudice is a good thing. Oversensitivity however, is counterproductive. And no matter what Targanook meant, pages upon pages of posts rebuking him or arguing about it on the internet is not helping address the wider problem of discrimination against Arabs or people of Arab/Middle Eastern descent. It is once again, getting us a bit off topic though.

targanook:If the Americans are such nice to Arabs then why do they shoot them? Perhaps bullets are less offending than words. And why is America so hated by the Arabs? Try to answer that questions honestly.

Hey, targanook... Stop attacking people. Nobody is talking about American International Politics (whether you agree with them or not), nor about shooting people instead of offending them... The issue is that THESE forums have rules, and one of them is to avoid offensive comments about other people/countries/races/etc.

I also noticed that you don't like English, it's a difficult language to master, lots of people are forced to learn it to get (better) jobs (or even to study some subjects, like aviation or computers science), but the language itself should not be blamed for that. And the (English/American/Australian/etc.) people in this forum is not guilty either. On the contrary, these are people who realize that we need a really international language (BTW: as somebody already said, English speaking people who become Esperantists should be doubly congratulated).

This thread is about an interesting article (though a bit biased, I would say) on "Lingua Franca" and (maybe) the future role of English in this matter.

By the way... you're all wrong... It's not Chinese, it's not English... the future is Spanish, THAT is the best language... it sounds beautiful, you know how one word should be pronounced as soon as you see it written, it has great culture and literature... and it's MY native language!!! (just joking, if you didn't notice)

Let's finish the discussion and focus on constructing a better future, not on destroying our present.

Amike,

Daniel.

henma:
Hey, targanook... Stop attacking people.

It was a question, not an attack. I am curious what they feel about that. I think that one should start mending the world at oneself.

Holas. Quiero espanol mucho.

targanook:

henma:
Hey, targanook... Stop attacking people.

It was a question, not an attack. I am curious what they feel about that. I think that one should start mending the world at oneself.

Holas. Quiero espanol mucho.

I think it's best you start a separate thread for that, if you want to discuss it. I think it'd be best in the Esperanto forums though, since t English forums are more for language related topics, while the Esperanto 'Viewpoints' forum is meant to accommodate a broader range of topics.