• Randomdog [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    You've got to remember that a lot of Americans have a really poor grasp on history. Like the country is less than 250 years old so something that happened 50 years ago can actually seem like a really long time for them.

    It's very probable that they had it in their heads that this is ancient history and it would be no more weird than a French person doing a tour of an English castle.

      • Sen_Jen [they/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        But there's been a German entity on central europe for like 1000 years. It's a bit like saying turkey is only a hundred years old, you know?

        • JuneFall [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          No, sorry. There isn't a "German" entity on central Europe for 1k years, it actually is the other way around. The entities that came after claimed there was a unifying "Germanness" that led to unification, while - again - it was the other way around. The material conditions and social relations and propaganda create and fabricated the thing you now assume to have existed for a thousand years and more.

          Prussia isn't and wasn't back then the German entity, the HRE wasn't and isn't the German entity. As a person with very Prussian and German heritage it isn't something I'll let stay in the room like this.

          • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
            ·
            4 years ago

            All the states that are now Germany were still inhabited territory going back at least a thousand years, with their own history and interactions during those times. So you can see a statue built 700 years ago and know who built it when and why(not for all of them, but at least for some). So an atrocity France committed a few hundred years ago will seem not super important when discussing current relations to France. However, in america, finding a hundred year old building is a bit of surprise in most states. Any history in the land going back more than 500 years is either just a untouched land or history that is lost or destroyed by settlers. So all the places we now call Germany have existed for a very long time with a storied history that is mostly known, whereas america doesn't. So thinkgs that happened only 5 or six decades ago feels like ancient history, as that's a 5 of american history and a tenth of the america's history, but feels recent compared to a few thousand years of european history.

            • JuneFall [none/use name]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Not gonna read all what you write, but pretty much all of Earth was populated for the last couple of (tens) of thousands of years.

              • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
                ·
                4 years ago

                I acknowledge as much in my comment. White people don't learn native american history, so the place they live in only 300-ish years old. germany cities have at least a thousand years that the people might know some of. if you want to critique any lost nuance, read the other comment first.

        • SerLava [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Nope sorry only 31 years old thats how she works