View on Romani and About Them

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IpseDixit
Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-09-25, 0:27

vijayjohn wrote:Yeah, Koko, I have trouble imagining myself killing somebody as well, but remember that this is medieval Europe we're talking about, not 21st-century North America. Most people were very poor peasants who had enough trouble feeding themselves as it was (and, being peasants, were in a subservient relationship to the lord of the manor or whoever owned the land that they worked on), and a lot of value was placed in those days on land ownership and property. Under the circumstances, either of us would have probably felt much more inclined to defend our land and kill someone in the process if necessary.


Except for a few nouns, to me this sounds pretty much the 21st century (America, Europe or whatever)!

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-09-25, 0:32

How so?

IpseDixit

Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-09-25, 0:41

For example, aren't workers subservient to the factory owners?

And moreover, the capitalistic system is entirely based on private property, isn't it?

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-09-25, 0:54

Sure, factory workers are subservient to factory owners, but that's quite different from the majority of the population being subservient to one particular person just because of who they were born to.

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2014-09-25, 5:57

vijayjohn wrote:Sure, factory workers are subservient to factory owners, but that's quite different from the majority of the population being subservient to one particular person just because of who they were born to.

http://inequality.org/selfmade-myth-hallucinating-rich/

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-09-25, 6:10

So? I never said that people become millionaires or billionaires or anything else from scratch. All I'm saying is that if your dad is a poor farmer, that doesn't necessarily mean that you will be a poor farmer forever. In medieval Europe, it did.

IpseDixit

Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-09-25, 9:36

vijayjohn wrote:Sure, factory workers are subservient to factory owners, but that's quite different from the majority of the population being subservient to one particular person just because of who they were born to.


I don't know... I mean, nowadays there is a small group of owners of big corporations and big banks that, if combined, have quite a good chunk of the population subservient to them.

vijayjohn wrote:So? I never said that people become millionaires or billionaires or anything else from scratch. All I'm saying is that if your dad is a poor farmer, that doesn't necessarily mean that you will be a poor farmer forever. In medieval Europe, it did.


I wasn't sure about the last statement so I googled "social mobility in the middle ages" and amongst the other results I found this:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/n ... 16.article

Anyway, I'm not saying there are no differences between the Middle Ages and the 21st century, but from that point of view, to me they look less big than many people may think.

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-09-25, 19:46

Can we at least all agree that in medieval Europe, people were generally poorer and more marginalized than Koko or me today, and that they were therefore much more likely to see foreigners as a potential threat?

IpseDixit

Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-09-25, 19:59

vijayjohn wrote:Can we at least all agree that in medieval Europe, people were generally poorer and more marginalized than Koko or me today


Yes.

vijayjohn wrote:and that they were therefore much more likely to see foreigners as a potential threat?


I honestly don't see a very strong cause-effect relation between the two things. :hmm:

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby Levike » 2014-09-25, 20:40

@IpseDixit

Even in today's Europe whenever the economy gets worse people start getting more xenophobic.

IpseDixit

Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-09-25, 20:44

Levike wrote:@IpseDixit

Even in today's Europe whenever the economy gets worse people start getting more xenophobic.


True...

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby linguoboy » 2014-09-25, 21:07

IpseDixit wrote:
Levike wrote:@IpseDixit

Even in today's Europe whenever the economy gets worse people start getting more xenophobic.

True...

Even assuming that's true (dare I ask for citations?) it still isn't clear that there's a strong correlation between poverty/marginalisation and xenophobia. Last year, some researchers used responses from the World Values Survey to draw a map of "the world's most and least xenophobic countries". In general, richer countries scored better, but not uniformly so:
Though you might expect the richer, better-educated Western European nations to be more tolerant than those in Eastern Europe, that's not exactly the case. France appeared to be one of the least racially tolerant countries on the continent, with 22.7 percent saying they didn't want a neighbor of another race. Former Soviet states such as Belarus and Latvia scored as more tolerant than much of Europe.
Like most surveys, this one is imperfect. Not all xenophobia is primarily race-based, for instance, and some divergences might be due more to the honesty of the respondents than real differences in attitude. But at least it's empirical whereas most other assessments seem to be purely anecdotal.
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IpseDixit

Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-09-25, 21:15

Yeah probably I've said "true" too quickly... Indeed if we look at nowadays' Europe, xenophobic parties are growing mainly in the North which is better coping with this crisis than the South...

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-09-25, 21:40

I don't get it. First you say:
linguoboy wrote:Even in the present day, outsiders arriving in your community is often bad news--especially if you're already poor and marginalised.

Then you say:
it still isn't clear that there's a strong correlation between poverty/marginalisation and xenophobia.

If outsiders arriving in your community is bad news, how would that not lead to you being afraid of them?

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby Johanna » 2014-09-25, 21:44

Maybe perceived poverty and marginalisation is a better measurement?

It's a bit more complicated than that here, but the xenophobic party gets more votes in places where the unemployment rate is higher than the average, and where people feel like they don't count. Sure, most don't think that immigration is the root to all evil, like that party likes to paint it, but the same party is also marketing itself as opposed to the Stockholm establishment, and most of Sweden is dead tired of being marginalised by that city.

A vote for for that party seems rational for these people, they don't really understand the consequences, and since most aren't Sami or Roma, they don't really care either; they can't relate anyway. And like I said before, Roma are pretty much still seen as vermin.
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IpseDixit

Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby IpseDixit » 2014-09-25, 21:58

and most of Sweden is dead tired of being marginalised by that city.


I really fail to see how a country can feel marginalized by a city.

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby Johanna » 2014-09-25, 22:20

IpseDixit wrote:
and most of Sweden is dead tired of being marginalised by that city.

I really fail to see how a country can feel marginalized by a city.

It's easy. Just make all media be about that city, and all national infrastructure only getting money if it benefits it directly.

But this is OT, so let's discuss that in another thread, shall we?
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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby Saim » 2014-09-26, 9:21

linguoboy wrote:Even assuming that's true (dare I ask for citations?) it still isn't clear that there's a strong correlation between poverty/marginalisation and xenophobia. Last year, some researchers used responses from the World Values Survey to draw a map of "the world's most and least xenophobic countries".


[flag=]en[/flag] The criteria for what a "race" is and its relevance as a social category varies so much by society that it's very hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from it. What languages was the survey printed in and what translations of "race" were used? Is it possible, for example, that "race" was conflated with "caste" in the Indian survey (with the word nasl for example)? Did the Eastern Europeans think about Roma when they responded on the survey, given that at least in Serbia they are a nacionalnost not a rasa? Are linguistic and religious differences not more relevant in some areas than "racial" ones? Is the way race is conceived in India at all comparable with the way it's conceived in the US, when the US is also different from other American countries like Cuba and Brazil (due to the one drop rule, for example)?

[flag=]it[/flag] Il criterio per establire quello che è la "razza" e la sua rilevanza come categoria sociale varia molto per società: allora è molto difficile trarre una conclusione da questa mappa. Quale lingue sono state usate nel sondaggio e così è tradotta la parola "razza" nelle varie lingue? È possibile, per essempio, che il concepto di "razza" è stato confuso con quello di "casta" nel sondaggio indiano (con la parola "nasl", per essempio)? Hanno pensato gli europei sulli zingari quando hanno risposto al sondaggio, dato che almeno in Serbia sono classificati come una nacionalnost e non una rasa? Non sono le differenze linguistiche e religiose più rilevante in alcune regione che quelle "razziale"? È la maniera che è concepita la idea di "razza" nella India comparabile con quella usata negli Stati Uniti, nonostante gli Stati Uniti siano differenti anche da altri paesi americani come Cuba e il Brasile (per la regola di una goccia, per essempio)?
Last edited by Saim on 2014-09-26, 12:23, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby Car » 2014-09-26, 11:44

Saim wrote:
linguoboy wrote:Even assuming that's true (dare I ask for citations?) it still isn't clear that there's a strong correlation between poverty/marginalisation and xenophobia. Last year, some researchers used responses from the World Values Survey to draw a map of "the world's most and least xenophobic countries".


The criteria for what a "race" is and its relevance as a social category varies so much by society that it's very hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from it. What languages was the survey printed in and what translations of "race" were used? Is it possible, for example, that "race" was conflated with "caste" in the Indian survey (with the word nasl for example)? Did the Eastern Europeans think about Roma when they responded on the survey, given that at least in Serbia they are a nacionalnost not a rasa? Are linguistic and religious differences not more relevant in some areas than "racial" ones? Is the way race is conceived in India at all comparable with the way it's conceived in the US, when the US is also different from other American countries like Cuba and Brazil (due to the one drop rule, for example)?

It'd be also interesting to know if it's the result of prejudice or bad experience.
Please correct my mistakes!

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Re: View on Gypsies and About Them

Postby linguoboy » 2014-09-26, 12:19

Car wrote:It'd be also interesting to know if it's the result of prejudice or bad experience.

I don't know that the two can be separated. If you're prejudiced against someone, you're likely to have a bad experience when you interact with them and blame them for it.
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