Sunday 8 October 2017

'Today everybody's identity is his or her iPhone. There is no national identity as such.'

SHARE

In this article from the BBC site a famous Catalan writer is prosing on about the crisis when he suddenly says
Do we have an identity? I don't know. I think today everybody's identity is his or her iPhone. There is no national identity as such.
A Romanian academic economist when I asked him what the future of Romania would be in fifty years time thought it wouldn't exist and be no loss.
Surely there'll still be people speaking Romanian?
Not necessarily. Speaking English is much more efficient.
A young German computer scientist told me recently that there is no German culture or ethnicity. I asked him where he got these ideas and he said he worked them out for himself unaided. 
Do your friends think the same? 
Yes.
Angela Merkel's decision to take in a million migrants persuaded him to suppress his doubts about her and vote for her party.

An English, Oxford educated Labour supporting friend of mine said on her Facebook wall that we had to understand that religion and nationality were important to some people. Her friends all made it clear, though, in their comments, that they thought nations are passé and a hindrance to the free movement of people and ideas. How much nicer if their children could study in any university in the world.


8 comments:

  1. 'he worked them out for himself unaided.

    Do your friends think the same?

    Yes.'


    That's genuinely scary
    The fact that he doesn't recognize the programming


    I.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No one ever does. We are all programmed. I only very recently recognised my own programming. I was programmed to be a 'positive liberal' though I had also programmed myself to be a high Tory reactionary - I found a modus vivendi.
      http://pvewood.blogspot.ro/2017/09/john-stuart-mill-and-decline-of-west.html

      Delete
  2. "Angela Merkel's decision to take in a million migrants persuaded him to suppress his doubts about her and vote for her party."
    How did we get to the point where I, aa Jew, am more pro-German than actual Germans?

    ReplyDelete
  3. If nobody wants to put the effort in Germany, there won't be any Germany. That's just sad.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I still fail to see what is wrong with the free movement of people or goods. Both the author of this blog and I are beneficiaries of this. Anyone reading this on any sort of screen is a beneficiary of this - even the code written to keep this site up is due to this. Of course, that doesn't mean nationality and religion are unimportant, or that culture is irrelevant - culture (organically developed by a society) is more important than laws or anything man-made. But one doesn't have to give these up to enjoy free movement around the world - and the benefits of being able to trade with people from the other side of the planet.

    ReplyDelete
  5. These young people are becoming the Eloi
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBVjbYMG6dE

    ReplyDelete