This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
sorta related but I was just in Montreal, some obervations:
definitely seems like if you are a twenty something there you need to speak French. Communities / friendships seem largely segregated by francophone or anglophone groups, and there are more francophone ones
Downtown Montreal is full of taller buildings, but definitely seem like they stopped building after 1970s. Seemed to coincide with the first French language laws? My local friend said Montreal was the natural economic engine for Canada, not Toronto, since the former is on the coast, benefited from trade since 1600s, etc.
Seems like the first french language laws in 1970s are partly a reason for the switch to Toronto. Apparently those laws stipulated that companies headquartered in Montreal needed to have a CEO who has a certain leve of French skills (don’t quote me on this). Seemed to motivate companies and rich Anglos to move HQs to Toronto, spurring Toronto’s growth to now be the premier Canadian city.
the arguments for the laws were cultural, but seemed that people also think it was economically redistributive from the Anglophone to the Francophone. As my friend said, “yes Montreal lost companies, but it largely worker on the Quebec context, as there was really a trend that the Anglos increasingly economically dominant over Francophones here”. Not sure if that was an explicit reason for these policies, tho.
You mentioned the schooling language thing. Seemed like you either have to prove you already got anglo schooling or go private school to avoid French schooling. Seemed like more choice before.
Quebec gives free French classes to anyone, apparently. Plan to take advantage when I am between jobs if I have the living costs
It at least appears to me that Quebec has been able to solidify its status as a Francophone region. I was impressed by how French they are, despite not being part of New France for hundreds of years. Honestly maybe it was confirmation bias, but even the construction workers look French; I swear this older man looked like a second cousin of Charles De Gaul, but like, working class.
From a self preservation aspect for their Francophone culture, language, and identity, these policies all seemed to work. And Im impressed they work so well!
I’m not an expert on Louisiana, but other than their legal system, New Orleans and Louisiana in general does not seem French / Cajun to me anymore. Quebec is the largest province and most or second most populous, so LA and Quebec do not have similar situations. Nevertheless, LA’s current state seems like a possibility for Quebec had Quebec not enacted these policies (and taken the economic penalty for the cultural win. Montreal seems to have the lowest rents of the bigger Canadian cities)
Overall: impressed by the choices made there and the results. Seems like something other places that wanna strengthen their cultural identity can learn from. It would probably work if they have the will to enforce similar cultural / language rules and the unity to endure the economic costs. Maybe more impressed cuz these policies seem driven by the people, not some random Politician making choices thay the people have to endure (though that probably happened too, in the beginning)
oh and fun fact: Canada does border a tiny French territory still.
Maybe, maybe not, but it seems worth noting that Louisiana is only about 20-30% Cajun, although granted outmigration drove that down some(it seems like Cajuns migrate to Texas at very high rates compared to other Louisianans). Now granted some percentage of the black population is also descended from Francophones, but still- Louisiana simply does not have the numbers, and probably never did have the numbers since the civil war, to maintain itself as a francophone region. Tdlr Louisiana is a diverse state whose francophone population hasn’t been a majority since the 19th century.
In addition there’s a minor culture war in Louisiana over whether Cajun French should be treated as a separate language. As a partial speaker is seems very close indeed to quebecois french, but referring to it as french, unmodified, seems bound up in standardization attempts that actual Cajuns- particularly the ones most likely to be interested in language revitalization- sometimes object to. Just in general- I am not particularly close to revitalization efforts but have relatives who are quite closely involved- it seems like revitalization is mostly aimed at college kids and teachers, rather than even attempting to appeal to the median Cajun(who is a poorer-than-average red triber, likely does not take advantage of all the educational opportunities available to him, and lives in a rural area by preference).
Can't speak to much of this, but my French Canadian grandpa (though to be fair he was born in Massachusetts, my great grandparents immigrated from Quebec and raised him speaking French and English though) said any of the times he went to visit France he was treated better when he spoke English than when he spoke French with a Quebecois accent. So that's a datapoint in favor of your argument that there's real friction between a French that's true to how Quebecois (and Cajuns) speak it as opposed to Europhile French.
My grandpa never seemed to have any strong opinions one way or the other about Quebec separatism though.
It's been described to me as similar but not the same to speaking English with a heavy hillbilly accent in NYC or something -- of course if you went to actual England they probably wouldn't mind as they are mostly into classifying people based on their (English) regional accent. The French are fussy in a different way though. My (Western Canada) high school french class had no francophones of any kind involved, resulting in an altogether terrible accent -- going to France they seemed happy enough with any ability to communicate, but I guess to whatever extent we were taught pronounciation it would have been French-style vs Quebecois. (plus communication is always easier in dive bars)
There are definitely English people who will discriminate against anyone with a recognisably American accent (and we can't tell Anglo-Canadian accents from American ones). This is part of the normal anti-Americanism that exists close to the surface among substantial minorities of the population basically everywhere. But we can't recognise different American regional accents and, even if we could, we wouldn't be able to map them to social class, which is what Brits are really trying to read from people's accents.
My (French-born and native French-speaking) secondary school French speaker said that PMC French people look down on Quebec French as an uncultured dialect for uncultured people in the same way posh British people used to look down on American English. I have no idea if this is a good analogy or not.
Most Canadians sound similar to most Americans, but there are Newfoundlanders who sound like they're from Ireland.
Can you really not recognize a strong New York accent or southern US accent? These are very distinct.
My impression is that there is a larger average difference between the French spoken in Canada and the French spoken France than there is between the English spoken in North America and the English spoken in England.
Mapping accents to class in North America is easy. The higher class you are, the closer your accent is to a general North American accent that you hear in movies and on TV. The lower class you are, the closer it is to the strongest version of your regional accent.
I can recognise a New York accent because I have been to New York on business a lot. Most Brits couldn't. I could recognise that a sufficiently strong southern accent is a regional accent, but I wouldn't know which one unless the context gave it away.
I think most Brits could recognize an extremely strong stereotypical ‘New York’ accent (“cawfee”) or a Southern drawl. Maybe they know the stereotype of the Canadian “aboot” too. Not much beyond that, though.
That one doesn't help because we don't actually say that -- it's more like ab-ow-t.
'Aboot' is something Americans think we say because they have no ear for accents.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link