Hitler complex?? Gimme a break! First, truedog, let me tip you the wink about European patronymics: it's most of the time IRRELEVANT to guess the background of a European fellow from his/her last name --especially in ''fuzzy'' border-cultures such as Belgium, ie a country straddling two different cultures (Germanic and Latin). For, over the centuries, Jewish merchants from Northern/Central Europe have migrated towards the South of Europe --carrying their Germanic (or Slavic or Polish) names with them-- and, likewise, impoverished folks from Sicilia, Andalusia (Spain), and Portugal have emigrated to the North... That's why you've got an Oskar Lafontaine as a German Socialist leader, or a Dominique Strauss-Kahn as France's Finance Minister. In Belgium, the patronymic mishmash is even more shambolic since many Walloons bear a Flemish name (although they can't utter a single phrase in plain Flemish) and vice versa.
And now the new one: I'm arrogant!! Whew! I think the Internet is tolling the knell of arrogant folks because interactivity allows everybody to challenge any arrogant Mr Know-it-all... Arrogance was a feature of the broadcast media-world, that is a world where information flowed top-down: the Top (ie the Establishment, the media gurus, the symbolic analysts, etc.) knew it all and, benevolently, casted their learning lights upon us, benighted laymen.... If I were arrogant, I wouldn't sweat it in a public e-forum --I'd dispatch a newsletter instead!
Later,
Gustave. |
