American Imperialism not Imperiled 2 October, 2008
Posted by Zack in Berlin.10 comments
I’m in Berlin. Here’s one thing I have to report. A few years ago no one would get out their laptop in a cafe anywhere in Europe. But that had already become the norm in America. Today, I’m sitting in a hippster coffeeshop where everyone’s got their laptops open and are competing furiously for the maxed-out wifi.
What does this prove? America still sets the (really awful) trends. So what if our dollar is worthless and no one watches our movies anymore: We have the power to ruin the sociable, sophisticated European cafe!
One other really fascinating thing to report. I gave a presentation to a cool political group here about field organizing and the Internet. I kept using the word “leader,” like: “And so ___ is a great way to recruit leaders for your campaign!” Afterwords, I had a beer with one of the German organizers at the meeting. He told me that “leader” is “a non-concept” in Germany. “Leader” is the word “Fuhrer” as in “Mein Fuhrer!” as in Hitler! I actually knew that, but I never would have guessed that a whole word — a whole concept could be obliterated like that. The very concept of leadership is a “don’t go there” subject. Using the word “leaderSHIP” is not even a solution because it was highly co-opted by East German Stalinism. I was talking to this group about how to get a field campaign going. But after that I had to sit back and say, “Wow, what do you do then?”
Going to Dublin tomorrow to speak at a European Union conference. I’ll tell you tomorrow if laptops have taken over Dublin cafes yet. (In London at least, they were forbidden when I was there in 2005. And then I saw 2 or 3 out on a short visit this year.)
