Thread by @moritheil

The @eigenrobot threadwar about a Chinese girl in Germany saying she's German and Americans who are 1/32 German are not is dumb.

Almost everyone is making comments that make sense to them but they have different ideas of "German."

1. The OP

If you're Chinese and grew up in Germany then when you encounter other Chinese they're consistently going to react with "wow, you're really European!"

So of course, relative to the baseline of an ethnic Han growing up in Shanghai, she thinks "I'm German."

2. The angry respondent

"Magic dirt isn't real" was his shorthand.

If you've read any Evola you know his theory is that race is not mere genetics and it is not simply culture either but some ineluctable property that persists beyond the sterile scientific analysis of the two.

First off, maybe 5-10% of Americans have analyzed and understood the "magic dirt" argument, so that is basically going to come across like word salad to 90% of people. Your odds are even worse going to Europe.

And Evola? Maybe 0.5%. I think he's actually banned in Germany.

There is no way you can reasonably expect 99.5% of the population to have any idea who Evola is, much less understand his arguments.

So you can't just invoke them. You have to carefully present them.

Not really practical to do to someone who has no interest in learning.

3. Americanism

The role of ancestry, to an American, takes on a mythic quality that is perhaps not well understood by foreigners, even other Westerners.

It is like a shamanic spirit that can be called up to explain things and ignored when inconvenient.

"Well I'm part Italian, so you know how we do, hahaha"

And everyone nods and laughs.

It's an important social lubricant.

It's a symbol.

https://twitter.com/moritheil/status/1382724936494690308

I really don't think this maps on to Chinese culture well: AFAIK you can't casually joke about being descended from Genghis, "so you know how we do, haha" and defuse a situation.

Nor can you casually excuse your own ladder-climbing with, "Ah, my mom's side of the family was from Shanghai," even though the stereotype of Shanghai people is they're obsessed with status.

You can insult it this way, but not positively gloss over it.

#culture

A half-Jew, half-Italian in the US could absolutely laugh off an obsession with price as "my mom was Jewish, it must be that part of me!"

It needs no explanation and only an awkward fool would inquire further.

On the other hand, using this as an explanation of behavior in Germany would often be a gaffe, not a smoothing over of things.

It's an Americanism. OP and various German commenters probably feel they understand #culture because they understand American English.

Not necessarily.

The biggest irony of this is the behavior on display:

OP has taken a position which on the surface is bland and reasonable, yet manages to violate someone else's bottom line, leaving them to act furious and shame themselves.

Very Chinese. I have to respect it.

And the angry respondent has failed both as a man (by losing his cool) and as a philosopher - by citing Evola, yet holding the unwarranted liberal expectation that other people are fundamentally just like you and will follow American rules.

He has not learned Evola.

#philosophy