if you look attentively at the picture above - which shows the Victoria-Luise-Platz in Berlin, one street away from my home - you might notice a little turret with a wind vane. (I do have a much sharper photo - but can't find it in the "cloud" of my computer among those over 16.000 photos... ).
The turret is on the house number 9 where Victoria Luise, only daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II (he had six sons) lived before her marriage on 2 storeys - there she went when she wanted to be alone, without the surveillance of the Imperial Court.
I could tell you very much about that place (and the idea of the garden design; or the inhabitants of the gorgeous houses) - but I do not know whether you are interested in historical details.
Half a year ago, inspired by Rachel, I started reading biographies - and find it very rewarding.
At the moment I read the autobiography of Victoria Luise.
I don't want to judge the interesting and well-written book in regard to the deep prominent partiality and glorification of the Emperor and the aristocracy.
But remarkable is the "bon ton", the decency and deep respect in which this autobiography is written. (Easy, you might say, if you live on two storeys and are the daughter of an Emperor).
But that is so different from our hysterical media-world, where in serious broadcast discussions people use words full of hate and derision and vulgarity.
Yesterday I heard a prominent young woman call the president of a well-known country (who also uses hateful foul language) "a bag of shit" - the fact might be true - but one could word it otherwise.
What I mean is - though I might sound very old-fashioned: I miss something: reverence for nature, for people, for ideas (also if they aren't mine).
I am grateful to live in a democracy where I can say everything I like - but "It's not what you say, but how you say it".
The Media in the last 20 years gives more and more attention and voice to the vulgar. That might bring higher viewing figures - as bad news do (how they gloat each evening like vultures over little ugly morsels of corona!). I honestly want to be informed, but I don't want to be incited - thus I often choose to read a good newspaper instead.
Sorry that I moan so much this time (which I seldom do, as you know).
But I wish:
Let decency, respect, democratic thinking, tolerance, awe for the beauty of creation come back.
Mankind is fallible and weak - always was - and power and greed corrupts many. I am not naive.
Yet I hope.
What is your opinion? I am really interested!
Yours Truly
Britta
Dear Britta - I hate the way that language today is being abbreviated and degraded - I see things written that mean absolutely nothing e.g. LOL - internet slang! In the future is it possible that people will loose the ability to speak and write correctly?
ReplyDeleteIf my mother heard me refer to anyone in the way you mention, she would definitely turn in her grave.
I share your opinion about abbreviated language, dear Rosemary - it seems so loveless, not worth taking care. It does not take much longer to write "Lots of love" than "LOL" (till today I am not sure wether it doesn't mean "lots of laughter"??)
DeleteI had to learn on WhatsApp that this is another form with other rules than writing a letter - I write too long, to formal -- and after a long resistance against emojis I now sometimes use some myself: :-) for hahaha, or xx for kisses.
Just today I discussed with a friend that journalists today quite often are not fit in grammar - and very often there are no publisher's readers anymore to revise a text.
Swearing and cursing has become a habit for many people - a few days ago I heard some words coming out of the innocent mouth of a kindergartner (a child), that could make a grown-up blush -- where did it learn these words?
I am fairly certain which president of a well known country the woman was referring to. I'm not crazy about him either. I do agree that the use of foul language is not called for. I feel we can make a better point when we use non-degrading words.
ReplyDeleteAutobiographies are my favorite reading. It is fascinating to me to learn how and why people from history did what they did.
Dear Emma, as you say autobiographies give such an interesting subjective view with special explanations seen from the writer about his or her motivation or the way they saw the world.
DeleteIn case of Victoria Luise I got a different picture from the one I had from history in class.
Zeitgeist plays also a big part - sometimes we judge very differently now, which is utterly ok - but I think it questionable when one tries now to erase some opinions one doesn't share anymore: I think it would be fine to add an explanation (maybe in a foreword or a footnote, without delete of original text - then the reader can think and form his own judgement.
I would like to read Kaiser Wilhelm II's biography as well as his daughter's because I have a confused vision of him. I agree with what you are saying and to resort to words such as you describe detract from anything of interest that might have followed.
ReplyDeleteThe confused vision will remain, Rachel: in her autobiography he is a wonderful monarch and a very fair and able man - often adored by other countries - and then again one reads of his craving for recognition etc.
DeleteHis education was awfully cool - but nothing compared to Friedrich II., who was forced by his father, the soldier king, as a very young man to watch the decapitation of his very close friend von Katte.
When I read autobiographies as Victoria Luise's I become humble: so many people in that time had - though glamorous on one side - awful fates (high and "low" people) - I would not want to go back in a time machine...
Even in the smaller picture I can see the onion shaped turrett.
ReplyDeleteI think it is really lovely, Joanne - my dream always was to have a little turret - or at least a bay-window (that I have by now - but the turret will stay a dream, I think)
DeleteYes to historical details, no to unimaginative, sloppy and potty language. We've been granted speech as a Gift, in my opinion, so why anyone needs to treat it with such disregard baffles me. I suspect it's the narrowness of much of modern life that has led us to this linguistic path, which for many has devolved into shorthand, so the path becomes a rut. You ask if your reader would be interested in the historical detail of your topic and I think this is an example of what I mean. Context and breadth widens our horizons and can't help but take our language along for the ride.
ReplyDeletePrint journalism doesn't play nicely, either. I was reading last night about a journalist in Moscow in the 60s, working for Fleet Street's Telegraph. Their "style" was based on an idea that "a reader may be struck down, or have to get off his train, in mid-story", so the story had to be condensed into the first paragraph in order that the reader still got his news. Lots of full stops, commas allowed, semi-colons banned, no adjectives, flat and bald language. This style has obviously taken off like wildfire. And is a whole other subject.
Yes, Pipistrello - language is a gift (and nuances are, and enthusiasm are).
DeleteAnd as you I suspect that "stress of modern life" (and I put that into quotation marks with deliberation) is one reason. No time for anything - always multitasking, hopping from one "excitement" to another.
Another reason might be education at school - I know what pupils have to read nowadays even when they choose German literature as honors course - so little classic reading among the canon, and I met some people who study cultural studies who honestly did not know who our prince of poets, Johann Wolfang von Goethe is - and of course had not read one line of him!
To read a long text was always not easy, you have to train that - but as books are often "out" many people have the attention span of a fly.
Your information about the requirements of the Fleet Street's Telegraph was new to me, and very interesting! The qualification (and pay) of journalists has changed a lot, not for the better - there are very good, serious ones, but many, many poor souls who rush from one event to another, trusting their auto-correction (hahahaha).
Facts and fiction - a wonderful character, created by our dear poet Theodor Fontane, 'der alte Stechlin' , would say: "Das ist ein weites Feld" - "That is a wide/broad field/area."
I agree.
It seems we live in a world of slings and arrows. Fowl language is used without restraint (as you also witnessed recently). Having decorum is a lost sentiment. Very sad. I wonder what it would take to bring back manners and civility?
ReplyDeleteI wonder too, Susan - yet I remember the complaint of Sokrates /"„Die Kinder von heute sind Tyrannen. Sie widersprechen ihren Eltern, kleckern mit dem Essen und ärgern ihre Lehrer“ (Sokrates, 470-399 v.Chr.) - "Children of today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, spill their meals, and annoy their teachers" - hahahaha.
Delete(Come to think of it: we have no proof that Socrates has really said that - as he hasn't written a word down, but that was a topic on Rachel's blog).
I believe that - for example - advertisement has to change: if on a poster they show a group of children with "funny" outstretched tongues and everybody thinks that is highly amusing, then one cannot be outraged a few years later when they come in groups and block the sidewalk - not being willingly impertinent but being uneducated.
I think media give too much attention to slobs, teachers have not many rights to educate (though I think that should begin at home! - a parent once said to me: "We have done our task - we gave birth and gave our childrento the world - now society has to care." Tsja.