This is a genuine question. I’ve always had an interest in learning languages and I have a list I want to learn. I am already somewhat decent in Spanish, so I’m picking up that, practicing my Portuguese, going to learn French and Italian, maybe German, learning Polish, and possibly Russian.
I already canceled the idea of living in Russia due to obvious reasons, but will I have any need to learn the language? Will it be useful? Will that be offensive? Many people HATE Russia and the language.
Russian culture spans way beyond whatever Putin’s currently doing, and has given the world an immense cultural, scientific, historic heritage.
Trying to cancel and destroy Russian culture is akin to destroying German culture and heritage just because one German dude with a weird moustache decided to start Holocaust.
Would be a tragedy to lose either.
As a German, “German culture” is really not worth preserving.
German culture and heritage was destroyed by the world wars. What remains is not what was there pre-WWII.
And I’m not cancelling or destroying anything. I’m just prioritizing cultures worth preserving over those that have been poisoned by a century of dictatorship, misinformation, and hate.
Name me one major culture that was not poisoned by dictatorship, misinformation, and hate.
They all are. Our duty is to take the best of each.
I don’t have to, I just have to name one better than Russian. Learn Ukrainian, Polish, German, French Finnish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, Romanian, etc then consider Russian.
About half of these countries were militaristic authoritarianist shitholes, some even not that long ago by historical measures. All of them had some shameful moments in history.
Yet, all these cultures have proliferated, and you consider them worthy of studying. Same idea here. Give it time.
It’s not the same idea, as I didn’t advocated s studying them when they were authoritarian shitholes who were actively slaughtering their neighbours.
You were telling about cultures worth preserving - and by your definition, most of the cultures you list were not worth preserving and should have become extinct. Good thing that they were preserved even through the worst of times.
Fair enough, I am just being overly angry and hateful.
I mean, I get it.
I used to hate Mandarin a lot because of my government, kinda hated Cantonese too because of my parents and their conservative culture
But I realized they don’t own the language, fuck governments, language is a weapon, and I can wield it to advance my goals.
Make anti-government content using the very language they use as an official language, wield the language as a sword. Use it to attack the corrupt governments.