Australia - Welcome to Stuttgart
June 23rd 2006 02:52
The reason for all this talk of football and crying and hugging and gyrating circles of magical Alice in Wonderland bliss is simple: the Germans are not really renowned for their emotional outbursts. They suffer the emotional ailment laid out in the preceding posts as if it were a permanent ideology-pathology. This is the nation that gave us Nietzsche. And before him -Schopenhauer. And after him - Hitler and his merry Henchmen. (OH! Faux Pas, mon amis! You mention Hitler! Shame on you!)
But even without Hitler, the Teutons never came closer to outward emotion than with Wagner, and let's face it, Debussy absolutely sh*ts on Wagner for expressionism.
Germans seem to be a naturally stoic race of people. Or at least, that's how it looks to us ignorant anglocentric Western types with our Big Mac worldviews and heart-on-the-sleeve romanticism.
In truth though, the Germans are deeply emotional - some say the most depressed nation in the world behind Japan. And what do depressed people do all day? They sit and weep.
So in the context of the Great Football Love-In, spreading itself across Germany right now, Germans might feel a little terrorised by all the emotion. They might feel a little unsettled. Maybe even 'challenged', to use a psychological term. They might all simultaneously pull out copies of Thus Spake Zarathustra and remonstrate themselves for forgetting the three Rs of nihilist philosophy: Resign, Resign, Resign.
Ok, not true, not true.
But I do wonder about how different cultures express emotion - and I just don't see Germans behaving in the same way as Aussies at football games.
"On zi count of sree, vee vill celebrate in unison"
Ah, stereotypes. So on to Stuttgart, where right now, Aussie expats are running amock and Germans are ogling in amazement.
"On zi count of sree, ve vill all scream "Bring back Schwarzter!"
But even without Hitler, the Teutons never came closer to outward emotion than with Wagner, and let's face it, Debussy absolutely sh*ts on Wagner for expressionism.
Germans seem to be a naturally stoic race of people. Or at least, that's how it looks to us ignorant anglocentric Western types with our Big Mac worldviews and heart-on-the-sleeve romanticism.
In truth though, the Germans are deeply emotional - some say the most depressed nation in the world behind Japan. And what do depressed people do all day? They sit and weep.
So in the context of the Great Football Love-In, spreading itself across Germany right now, Germans might feel a little terrorised by all the emotion. They might feel a little unsettled. Maybe even 'challenged', to use a psychological term. They might all simultaneously pull out copies of Thus Spake Zarathustra and remonstrate themselves for forgetting the three Rs of nihilist philosophy: Resign, Resign, Resign.
Ok, not true, not true.
But I do wonder about how different cultures express emotion - and I just don't see Germans behaving in the same way as Aussies at football games.
"On zi count of sree, vee vill celebrate in unison"
Ah, stereotypes. So on to Stuttgart, where right now, Aussie expats are running amock and Germans are ogling in amazement.
"On zi count of sree, ve vill all scream "Bring back Schwarzter!"
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