Look it up.

[Ralf]

[Jamie (K)]

[Ralf]

Hi Jamie,

In Europe there are many different countries, cultures and ethics. Those which are more influenced by religion tend to be more conservative as well. What I can recall from growing up in Ireland is that whenever I started seeing a new girlfriend, I (being 16 at the time) was not allowed to be behind closed doors with her at 4pm. It was only thanks to my mother's slightly liberal attitude that I could have my girlfriend staying over night when I was 21. This girl would usually tell her parents that she was staying over at Siobhan's (whose parents were mostly not at home).

Growing up in liberal ways probably predesignates you to live and think more freely. In my opinion, everyone should be free to choose who to have sex with. And in my time there has never been any “bra-burning hippie feminism in full stink”. This movement was an extreme juxtaposition to its contemporary society. Women today don't need to burn their bras, because they can choose when to take them off. In Germany, you can see ads for condoms on posters and on telly, and people tell me that they had sexual education at school when they were 11 or 12. People know when to use a rubber. And they know that commercials with bras in it have no subversive power to undermine your society
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[Jamie (K)]

Ralf,

Sex education at 11 or 12 (in school) was the normal state of things in the US by 1965, so it has only been a big deal for the small segment of the population that wants their children to have NO sex education. The debate has been over the content of the instruction, and not whether kids should have it.

A liberal upbringing does not predestine people to think and live more freely. As often as not, it creates a desire for limits in the child, and the child ends up more strait-laced than the parents. My life is full of very conservative people who were raised in a very loose manner by liberals or even hippies.

The sexually liberal attitude in places like Germany is what looks old-fashioned to many Americans. People behave licentiously in the same way people did in the 1970s, as if the 1980s and 1990s had never happened in the meantime. There's a perception (partly true, partly exaggerated) that Germans don't have children, except by accident in a Wohngemeinschaft in which the father more or less walks away from the kid when he finds a better apartment. (This is one of those stereotypes that one German will vehemently insist is not true, while another one will just as vehemently claim it is completely accurate.) Statistically, Norwegian women in their 20s abort half their pregnancies, as if no one knew anything about the lasting psychological effects that abortion has on the mother, and often the father. As I say, it's as if the 1980s and '90s had never happened. Even Americans who support abortion wouldn't see any good reason why a prosperous country's women in their prime child-bearing years should terminate half their pregnancies. It all looks like the 1970s to us.

In the East European country where I lived in the early 1990s, at that time it was still traditional for girls to get married right out of high school, with a small percentage waiting until right after they finished university. Americans would have said they were living in the 1890s. Now, however, they've moved into the 1970s. The girls, now grown up, write to me, and the norm is that they've been living with the same guy for three, or even as long as eight years. They have one or more children, but they aren't sure if they'll get married, because the father isn't sure he's ready to be a father yet. Except that he already is a father! If I mention something about the disadvantage or absurdity of living that way, they think my head's in the 1890s and tell me "the world is changing". My perception is that these people are the ones living in the past, the 1970s, as if the damaging effects of that kind of fluid partnering and lack of parental self-discipline on children were still unknown. So they think I'm living in the past, and I think they're living in the past.

Sure there is no more bra-burning feminism anymore, because women can do whatever they want. However, in the States most people now think of the sexual liberation aspects of 1970s feminism as resulting not in true freedom, but in the freedom for women to be used dishonorably at the convenience of the man and then abandoned, often with the crushing responsibility of supporting and raising children alone. So the perception is that women's sexual liberation turned out to be a good deal for selfish men, but is a terrible deal for women. This revealed itself in the 1980s and 1990s, but people in many European countries don't seem to have noticed it, which is why many Americans perceive many Europeans as quaint throwbacks to a bygone era.

[Ralf]

Hi Jamie,

I agree that it is better for a child to grow up in an intact family. 1890s' ethics transferred to our days could provide a more conducive environment, but thinking of means to implementing these ethics make me cringe. It'll be hard to stop or turn back the wheels of time in most European countries, even if your argument about a shared flat "in which the father more or less walks away from the kid when he finds a better apartment" should ring true for at least the last hippie remains in society. Apart from those rare communities, there are many single mums who'd prefer raising their children with a father, but not necessarily the biological one.

If you ask me for my personal opinion - have as much sex with as many people as you like, but make sure you don't cause unwanted pregnancies or transmit deseases. In a relationship I try and avoid infidelity, though.

I'm still not convinced why a liberal upbringing should not predestine people to think and live more freely. In Finnland and other Scaninavian countries, people like their vodka and alcoloic beverages, but their government makes life hard for drinkers by introducing higher and higher taxes on alcohol. In America, alc bevs are cheaper and available at corner shops and supermarkets. There, people are thought to drink more reasonably.
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[Jamie (K)]

[prezbucky]

well said, Jamie, but how did you become so narrow-minded?

hehe j/k

I am deathly afraid of HRC becoming president -- I have a feeling enough of us will turn against the chicken-in-a-pot socialism to defeat her at the polls, but man, what if she actually wins? Can you say, "Ten percent tax hike, double unemployment and higher prices"?

Who exactly is going to pay for her socialized health care?

that's one of the good things about private health care -- most employers offer reasonable health insurance plans, and the job itself is an incentive to work.

Take awaqy that incentive and some will take advantage of it, our production will go down, prices will go up... and that's just two likely effects. The health care itself would cost a ton of money.

I think the central problem is this: where do we assign responsibility?

Should a person be held responsible for himself and his actions, or not?

I answer in the affirmative, assuming the person is not physically or mentally handicapped. There are some people i think we need to help... people who cannot help themselves. Aside from them, though, here's a couple months of welfare and good luck finding a job. Get to it.

Ohhh, good song -- I Can't Fight This Feeling. Gotta listen for a spell.
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[prezbucky]

And even as I wander, I'm keepin' you in sight
You're a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter's night
And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might.

And I can't fight this feeling anymore
I've forgotten what I started fightin' for
It's time to bring this ship in to the shore
And throw away the oars forever.

Cuz I can't fight this feelin' anymore
I've forgotten what I started fightin' for
And if I have to crawl upon the floor
Come crashin' through your door
Baby I can't fight this feelin' anymore.
----

Shades of junior high. (That's an REO Speedwagon song, BTW -- want to give them some sort of citation)
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[Torsten]

[Conchita]

Not looking words up in a dictionary can also lead to mispronunciation, which can be very difficult to correct, especially after a long time. It sometimes happens to me with words I encounter in reading only, until I accidentally hear them or see their phonetics.

Take the word ‘chore’, for example: I used to think it was pronounced [ko:] (I’m almost sure I never heard this word when I was in England, though they do use the expression ‘cor’ a lot!). Well, to this day the correct way of saying ‘chore’ still doesn’t sound natural to me. Which goes to show that bad pronunciation habits are much easier to acquire than to correct.

Other such words, among others, are ‘xylophone’ (I used to say ‘ksai’ instead of ‘zai’) and 'paradise' (my version was 'par9daiz'). All in all, my love for phonetics and those dear 'word books' (we've spent many happy moments together, I must say) has been of tremendous help to me.

Dictionaries are therefore very important and not so time-consuming any more if we can make use of their online or digital counterparts.