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> I generalize it as the US protects companies, the EU protects people. And as is often the case with sweeping generalizations, it stereotypizes and oversimpli
by V-2 9y ago
> I generalize it as the US protects companies, the EU protects people.
And as is often the case with sweeping generalizations, it stereotypizes and oversimplifies reality.
Eg. read about the toll the infamous thalidomide took in Germany vs. in the US, and for what reasons.
The Wikipedia article is comprehensive - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide
One of the interesting bits:
> After the Nazi regime with its Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring used mandatory statistical monitoring to commit various crimes, western Germany had been very reluctant to monitor congenital disorders in a similarly strict way.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoIs 1950’s Germany relavent here?
- V-2 9y agoWe're talking about fundamental (European vs. American) values, so why not? The whole concept may be flawed, but if we accept their existence - for argument's sake - then they shouldn't be assumed to change every ten years or so.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoEvery hundred years? Every thousand? The people who hold European values today, whatever that might mean, today aren’t the same people from 100 years ago.
- V-2 9y agoI agree that the very concept of "European values" is vague and of limited use. The continent is very diverse to begin with.
- wsy 9y agoThis incident happened because after WWII Germany distanced itself from all practices that were misused by the Nazis. If at all, it is maybe representative for Germany's reaction to its own Nazi history. It is surely not representative for fundamental European values.
- V-2 9y agoFirst-hand experience of various dictatorships - not limited to the Third Reich, whose impact reached well beyond Germany anyway - has played a strong role in shaping European mindset, and is a significant difference between the US and Europe.
- wsy 9y agoWould you care to elaborate which European values exactly have been shaped by of dictatorship experience, in your opinion? The only one that comes to my mind is shared with US: that power must be distributed among several institutions so that it becomes difficult to establish a dictatorship.
- V-2 9y agoEg. much greater ease of banning fringe political groups, ideologies, websites etc. This is one example of "freedom to" (everyone has right to express their opinion, even if it's hateful and extreme) valued less than "freedom from" (these loonies might get to power one day, we gotta protect ourselves against it). Off the top of my head: https://www.theblaze.com/news/2012/03/22/simply-visiting-terrorist-websites-could-mean-jail-time-in-france https://www.theblaze.com/news/2012/03/22/simply-visiting-ter...
- ben509 9y agoGerman anti-Semitism was very much reflective of fundamental European values, and in countries where there wasn't a big denazification effort it's quite persistent. And, alas, steadily coming back.
- dullgiulio 9y agoWe were talking about laws, thus more like EU vs US. In that case, Germany in the 50s was not in the EU. Even if the EU already existed, it would be better to talk about more recent facts as the "spirit of the times" (there must be a word in German for that) changes.
- Lev1a 9y ago> "spirit of the times" (there must be a word in German for that) There is. It's "Zeitgeist", a term that AFAIK has also been introduced into the English language.
- V-2 9y agoThe comment that sparked the discussion referred to Europe, not just EU: > I think this is quite indicative of European and the US values. The US generally values the freedom to, while Europe values freedom from The reply that prompted me to jump in didn't question this view; just generalized it in a way I'm very sceptical about: > I generalize it as the US protects companies, the EU protects people. It's easy to poke holes in this generalization, even without needing a clear-cut definition of what European values are, exactly. > We were talking about laws, thus more like EU vs US. In that case, Germany in the 50s was not in the EU. The laws reflect the spirit, so to speak, and while the EU as such didn't exist in 1950s, its "alpha version", the European Coal and Steel Community, of which Germany was a founding state, did. The process was already on. The Paneuropean modern idea of a united continent is almost 100 years old. The EU is an outcome of a long and difficult process, not something that just came to existence in 1992, in a form that happened to trendily reflect the spirit of the 90s ;)
- walshemj 9y agoNot really the US was lucky that one individual Dr Kelsey at the FDA dug deeper and did not lenience it for use in the USA. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/science/frances-oldham-kelsey-fda-doctor-who-exposed-danger-of-thalidomide-dies-at-101.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/science/frances-oldham-ke...
- soneil 9y agoOf course, as you say, this is the curse of generalizations. It's just the easiest way I've found to explain how legal systems which are superficially similar (I live in an "english common-law" country), end up being wielded very differently. The other is a general trust of the justice system. "Hate speech" as a legal concept would be abhorrent in the US. 1A aside, it feels like no-one trusts the state to reasonably decide where the line between free speech & hate speech lays, so you simply don't allow it to - Whereas we're much more prone to allow judges to make these judgements. Of course there's exceptions, how boring the world would be if there weren't. (eg, "I know it when I see it" is a line most famously attributed to a Supreme Court Justice, while the concept behind it finds itself much more at home on the other side of the pond). But the trends seem clear. (This isn't to beat my chest and admire how much better we think we are - I do think both sides could stand to learn something from the other.)