Practically all of this happened in Spain. Recently one of the higher courts ruled our first lockdown, which was absolute, as unconstitutional. Over a year later! They will return all the money they stole from us in fines. But what about the time, and our rights? If I had known this I would've gone out...
And they have the media in their pockets so no one will complain. Until recently we were forced to wear a mask always, even if we were completely alone in the middle of the street. The police kicked doors down if they suspected there was a reunion going on in your private property. It was a nightmare.
If you are American, cherish your freedom! You don't know how valuable it is.
What’s funny is I’d have to go to random streamer accounts to find any evidence at all of anti-lockdown protests happening all over Europe at different times. I’ve seen people in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, etc getting beat and firehosed… without a peep from the media here. They sure are selective about which causes are righteous. Covid completely broke my innocence regarding “trusted news sources”
I'm German (i.e. not primarily looking at US media) and have seen US media reports about the protests here online. from a quick google for just the pairing CNN/Germany there's at least a dozen articles?
Yeah, for me the US and Canadian media completely ignoring or dismissing anti-lockdown protests in Europe were pretty clear evidence of bias. If the event got any coverage at all they were dismissed as far-right (read: Neo-Nazis) and nothing even worth discussing.
If poor people didn't own that kind of stuff then pawn shops wouldn't exist, but they clearly do and are a good business in impoverished neighbourhoods.
On the other hand, degrees are "free" in Europe, and I don't want my tax money spent on people doing masters degrees on "poetry".
The fact that you have to pay for your degree out of pocket may mean that more people will choose to do degrees that are worth something, which is a great thing for society overall. Having said that the prices of degrees in the US are outrageous. A middle ground should be found.
How bleak are our prospects as a civilisation when we reduce the value of a higher education in the arts, such as literature, to something as rudimentary as a waste of tax money. It is short sighted to think that since a "degree in poetry" won't yield a substantial dollar-value return economically, that it therefore has no value. Especially when several of recent history's social and political movements were in fact born of literature, writing and the kind of written articulation that characterises such academic fields.
And to your point about "free" education in Europe. The act of decoupling the pursuit of education and knowledge, from a high financial cost, is a crucial mechanism to ensure that institutions retain the freedom to pursue knowledge for its own sake, and to not be (solely) steered by the industrial interests of the status quo.
That's a very romantic view of society, but a graduate on poetry will most likely spend the rest of her days writing copy for a marketing agency, selling burgers, or cleaning latrines. And that's ignoring the fact that you really don't need to study "poetry" for four years to be able to write poems.
Because those countries are either under the fiscal control of Big Booze (taxes), or they are under control of criminal enterprises (usually from neighboring country)
Or the culture is such that people regularly use alcohol both for pleasure and to avoid their emotional issues. Real men don’t have emotions, and if you’re feeling them then it’s better to knock back a few glasses then to express them.
Your theory is big booze and government corruption creates a problem of alcohol. Mine is that culturally many people really like to drink as an emotional salve. I didn’t ascribe the entire problem to it, just offering an additional or alternative cause, of which there can and must be more than one.
Throwing around accusations like intellectual dishonesty sorta doesn’t help conversation.
I agree with you that many people like to drink to suppress or bring forth their emotions. This could be generalized: many people like to heavily alter their state of consciousness.
Now, mostly because of Big Booze and government corruption, we are stuck in a system where the only legal way to heavily alter one’s consciousness is alcohol.
Culture revolves around this. Counterculture then naturally involves illegal ways to alter one’s consciousness. Since counterculture exists defined through culture as an avantgarde-like necessity - a forefront of cultural innovation - it is again natural that the makers of mainstream culture are actually counterculturalists. It is also why mainstream art - music, books, movies, TV - contains so many examples of ”promoting” drug use.
It is thus obvious that the legality of alcohol and illegality of drugs are more significant drivers of behaviour than ”alcohol culture”.
We have hundreds of mainstream idols from Willie Nelson to Snoop Dogg openly promoting cannabis use, yet cannabis culture is literally cracked down on wherever it is illegal.
Certainly “because it’s legal” is a decent argument, but culture does a lot more than decide which recreational drugs are in or out. Overuse of and dependence on drugs and alcohol vary widely among different cultures regardless of legality.
Were there cultures that didn’t produce as much demand for altered states of consciousness, those might be seen as better addressing the needs of its people (in theory, not making this argument as I’m not a Puritan but just for the sake of conversation).
Different cultures generally get exposed to foreign substances due to imperialism and capitalism, see the opium wars.
It’s obvious that original cultures have their own traditional substances, from fly agaric to psilocybe shrooms to cava to ayahuasca. They would be taken as a part of a prosocial setting, an initiation or a healing ceremony, and the inebriation would be seen as a transformative process: something that enables living fully. Alcohol, on the other hand, tends to only disable and provide a means to escape stress.
What happens to the aforementioned shaman culture once western values and substances are introduced?
I would assume the increase in ego-centric stress drives the population into escape mode, and the imperialist offers alcohol.
It might not have had the psychological impact that it did in the US, but the world became a drastically different place afterwards with the "war" on terrorism.
In my mind there was weird post Soviet innocence in the 90s where the West felt invincible and many believe Western style democracy would take over the world within decades. 9/11 was a rude awakening, and we have been living in its shadow for the last 20 years.
>In my mind there was weird post Soviet innocence in the 90s where the West felt invincible and many believe Western style democracy would take over the world within decades.
This viewpoint was well described (and I think influenced) by Fukuyama's book "The End of History and the Last Man"
People here in Europe cared a lot. Not really for the terrorist attacks, except in an 'it happens over there too now' kind of sense.
No, general reaction was: The biggest military/nuclear power in the world is going to be very pissed, lets hope the results don't end up here.
And it did end up here. The US lost all moral high ground. All kinds of nasty military and spy industries smelled an opening, making the world a worse place.
And they have the media in their pockets so no one will complain. Until recently we were forced to wear a mask always, even if we were completely alone in the middle of the street. The police kicked doors down if they suspected there was a reunion going on in your private property. It was a nightmare.
If you are American, cherish your freedom! You don't know how valuable it is.