America is supposed to be like far cry 5 without the violence and like need for speed payback. And like new dawn without the violence in the spring. But also like playing cabela’s big game hunter, certain areas were kind of empty house and road wise. Meaning we raced hatchback cars/suvs on dirt roads, just flipping them wasn’t wanted so there was heavy metal in the bottoms or trunks and roll cages. If you get to Detroit then it’s like need for speed underground 2 and or midnight club mixed with max payne and four brothers.
Otherwise it was just amusement parks, coney islands and zoos or sea world and beaches, with fast food restaurants not called Mc Donald’s but it came to exist and places like Detroit came to exist. Detroit wasn’t that bad it was gangster as fuck though, fur coats, gold diamond jewelry, guns, cocaine, Escalades, of course there was pot, it’s like pot was legal back in the early 2000s and 90s then outlawed in 2007 then decriminalized in 2008 in Michigan, maybe because of dispensaries.
Head shops probably sold weed and other substances back then. Cocaine was and pharmaceuticals were widely used, Detroit or Detroit area was were pharmaceuticals were manufactured. It’s like medical marijuana was to get dispensaries back in Michigan and then they were specifically banned in the medical marijuana bill that was voted on, but pot was decriminalized so we didn’t get the legalization thing. This all just went on with local drug enforcement through the Westland police department. Because they were disease killed by them like wow cable.
It was like a more realistic version of Houston Texas rap music. All those guys did was buy gold and that’s why they had big chains. It was just like the show American Pawn. Detroit was just scary to think about like SUVs pulling up on the side of you with Al 47s and jackin or kidnapping you, like being robbed or killed at any time. This is why communication didn’t always go on at all. There were certain businesses people went to and tv existed or they went through tv commercials or the radio or road billboards, flyers, and people supported them or had a reason of going there instead of starting a business or making their own.
Detroit was entirely a western tavern or town where you would carry a pistol or two. And most of Detroit watched television during Kwame, Kwame was still here before he was mayor. I just go with the flow we all kind of got separated by diseases 20 years ago as self employed or sole proprietor Detroit.
Just cocaine dealers stayed in the winter or no one went many places so cocaine was more noticed or shoot outs over it back in 2003. It’s why it’s good to always give someone a free ounce or kilo to start selling and or using, or a front, fronting is repeat business but becomes like credit card debt without interest and you get used like slaves or as sellers or promoters/workers. But everyone needed some type of base salary to spend like ten or twelve grand a year or 25, people sitting or standing scare other incidents from taking place same with law enforcement. Yes everyone knew and cocaine was like legal or illegal and certain trials or chases went on. Men didn’t really go near each other or near dictators or they were doing business. If it’s not friendship one guys probably a porn producer or pimp. There’s definitely a big after market economy in Detroit, especially with automobiles.
Diamonds were but weren’t valuable, they were a more risky investment but yes they’re desirable and bought as earrings and things or even as bullion. This is why we didn’t constantly synthesize them. Custom jewelry work was just as much as custom anything work and resale value can fluctuate if you can even find a buyer, I didn’t buy chains back or I might melt them down. But molds got saved, no ones supposed to grow broke and some inflation did go on, so only drug dealers and sole proprietors kind of had money in places like Houston. Most sole proprietors were also drug dealers/sellers or buyers.
It’s wild that the U.K. doesn’t teach the Odyssey, I thought their whole thing was stealing other peoples’ culture and pretending they owned it now.
Shakespeare invented literature, so clearly there’s no value in teaching anything from before him…
You haven’t experienced Shakespeare unless you read it in the original klingon.
taH pagh taHbe’!
ghu’ qaS wa’DIch’e’, qar’a’!
Fair point.
Well Greece wasn’t ever a British colony, so they didn’t have as many opportunities to steal artifacts and culture as they did with, say, Egypt or India
I’m sure they had ample opportunity to steal Greek artefacts from when Greeks invaded Egypt and India.
Also see: the Ionian Islands from 1815 to 1862
I’ve heard of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, does that count?
That translation has fallen out of favor with contemporary scholars but you get the gist.
Is it even taught in the US? 🤔
I didn’t read it for school. I just liked reading and had this gnarly book featuring all the greatest hits of Greek mythology growing up.
I read it for school
Literally a part of a classical education. As in Classical.
We had to do skits. Broke it down by chapters and each group did like a page or two. I was the son in the scene where he’s working with his dad in disguise right when Odysseus returns home and sees all the other guys trying to bang his wife
That we did do; but for The Lion in Winter. I was Geoffrey.
Definitely was in the rural, redneck school I went to.
Went to a mediocre high school in the US, and I had an English/writing course where the only materials were the Aeneid, Illiad, Odyssey, and Mythology by Edith Hamilton.
That seems above average, but I don’t have too much to compare it to. I read all of this when I took Latin as my language classes. And the odyssey for fun.
My 10th grade English class studied a small section of it, like one self contained story.
This is what we did as well, in AP English. We also did Beowulf. We also had to read the first fucking Harry Potter book because the teacher liked Harry Potter. Imagine a group of the highest achieving 17 and 18 year olds out of 600 students their age writing papers about a book written for 10 year olds.
Such a waste of time. We got college credit for this bullshit. I’m still mad about it.
I feel like there’s a way to do it that doesn’t suck - an examination of the book WRT the hero’s journey, picking out elements borrowed from English literary tradition to see how they’re deployed v. original texts, etc.
Real talk though, I feel it comes from a place of not knowing how to appeal to young people. I ran into the very same thing once when asked about course ideas for first year students coming directly from high school. I had no idea (still don’t) what would appeal to kids, so I thought a course that used Harry Potter as a keystone text (everybody being familiar, using it as a bridge to more traditional lit) could work. But as I said the words I knew 18 year old me would’ve hated that, sooo…
I read both The Illiad and a shortened version of The Odyssey in school.
Just looked it up, the Odyssey can be taught in the UK but it is rarely chosen because Shakespeare is easier to teach and students who pick Shakespeare get better grades on average.
We don’t like to brag about it but we fought the Brits in the War of 1812, one of the things we took from England was Greek literature. In turn, we Americans lost the definition of jams vs jelly and the superior spelling of “colour”.
I rebel against this fact by being American and using the spelling of “Grey” for the color, autocorrect be damned.
Odd that it’s a choice between them. We learned Shakespeare and Homer where I am in the US.
In the UK secondary students study 3 bits of literature for the exam, modern (20th century+), victorian and classical which is everything before then, I think that’s how it works but that’s just from memory
……………I did the odyssey at various points man I think the guy in the tweet is just Polyphemus or smthn like ‘I don’t know who this nobody guy is, ain’t never heard of no odyssey before bro’
Not in secondary school but I did the Illiad, the Anaed, the Odyssey and Ovids Metamorphoses in 6th form college.
I did study it at school but had to take Classical Civilisation for one of my GCSE options. Our default in English Literature was a Shakespeare work as previously mentioned (Merchant of Venice for me). I also recall studying An Inspector Calls?
When the only Homer they know is Homer Simpson.
Fun fact: the voice actor for Homer Simpson also voiced Homer (the Greek one) in the Disney Hercules animated series.
Fox should sue those lazy Greeks for stealing the name.
Even The Simpsons covered the Odyssey at some point though.
The world doesn’t revolve around America, but you’ll see idiots in Bumbfuck, Romania talking about Soros and wokeism. It’s got to be exhausting.
Soros is a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust and moved to America afterwards btw, so when someone from the Balkans is complaining about him it’s not ignorance, it means something very specific.
Even more of a Nazi dog whistle than when the American right does it? I guess that would make it a Nazi Air Horn
More that it’s not just an idiot complaining about things supposedly happening in a different country.
“The Jews are trying to replace us.” ?
Orban / the party in charge were saying Soros was using his money and power to flood Romania with immigrants.
Still exhausting!
I find that people get more ticked off about the woke in non American countries even if it really doesn’t involve them (it should) but even then they increase their hostility because of it
As an American, I am going to dine on this single example as if it disproves the idea that we are insular and provincial hicks for the next decade.
nah, it just proves that brits are as stupid as you are, which is, tbh, is not a surprise /s
We had Brexit. We can’t say nothing.
As a layman, i believe you have a stronger private school presence, which tend to specialize in order to differentiate. But I might be wrong because I have limited information on the topic of British education.
We have a strong private school presence, yes. Trouble is it leads to privilege and people get on in life not cause they’re clever, but cause they wear the right school tie.
People often choose the easier path, which in this case means choosing status over knowledge.
The /s is unnecessary, I can assure you we are stupid and nobody should be surprised.
it’s /s because someone could’ve implied that i consider americans and brits as the winners in this competition, when in fact, the only competition they’re winning is the one for the most villanous politic actions. USA is a leaéer here at the first glance, but brits literally created USA, so that kinda makes all of the USA villainy into a subset of the british one
edit: i was wrong, the best villains are the french, bc William the Conquerror is the reason brits exist, and therefore also the reason usa does
No country has a monopoly on villainy
i’m not saying they have, i’m entertaining the idea of this trio’s leadership in it in terms of quantity
Certainly stashing it away in the ammo belt.
The problem is, I have this big bag of stones in my glass house, and I want to throw them at the UK for being dumb, but if I do, I also have to admit the US education system is trash.
I’ll throw that stone for you
The British education system is almost as bad as the American education system. The biggest difference between our cultures is that a lot of Americans are willing to point out how incredibly racist our country is
It’s not just slavery minimization. A lot of far right Americans have taken over local school boards to ban books that talk about gay people existing or the fact that sex is something that happens, among other nefarious purposes. And a religious organization in Texas writes pretty much all the textbooks used across the country. It can’t be this bad in the UK can it?
So much broken glass, was it worth it? Now I have to go get the broom.
The amazing part is you somehow broke France and the Netherland’s glass too? Just so much to clean up.
I mean, I have no qualms with recognizing the US education system is garbage… It gives me more fire to try to improve it.
I can do both. I’m ot gonna let some backwater pit like the UK insult my home, especially since the UK is essentially completely dependent on the US at this point.
Both can be true. We can be trash in different ways!
The Illiad and the Odyssey are classics and hardly American culture. They are western culture as a whole. No idea what the drama is about but some dude not knowing what the Odyssey is, is the same as not knowing any other classic. (There are too many to count, but not knowing the most popular ones are is like not knowing the titanic sank.) (Spoilers)
That’s the joke.
To be fair, the only people left on Xitter are idiots
The world is awash in morons and they aren’t localized to that venue, although by way of it’s very structure, it’s a venue that strongly attracts people incapable of holding two thoughts at the same time.
As G Carlin would have said, think how stupid the average person is and realize 50% are stupider than that. This is the world we live in - where the trivial thoughts emerging from society’s dreck take have equal stage and prominence to expertise and wisdom
$10 says the dipshit in question did a frantic google, saw ‘ulysses’ and went james joyce.
Still not American though
Getting closer at least
…the US is not closer to the UK than Ireland though…
You haven’t experienced The Odyssey until you’ve read it in its original Klingon.
Liam’s a tool. UK schools absolutely do teach the Odyssey, and have done so at least as far back as my youth.
most of the time someone says something wasnt taught in school its because that person straight up didnt pay attention in class
I suspect there is significant overlap between the kids who were complaining in math class that what they were learning was useless along with the adults who claim math class didn’t teach them “how to do taxes”. (As if you do anything other than fill out a form, anyways.)
Take the numbers from the numbered boxes, and transpose them into the numbered boxes on the tax form. There, you know how to do taxes, what are we gonna do with the other 13 years of your pre-college education?
But what if it puts me in a higher tax bracket and I get less moneyyyyyy?
lol
Let’s see… what other words are in the Financial Incompetants’ Guide to Life… ok here’s something that sounds cooL WRITE OFFS!!!1
Wait we were supposed to pay attention in school now it makes sense
Guess someone didn’t pay attention when the teacher said “Pay attention please” multiple times.
Mine didn’t. We did Buddy, The Crucible, Animal Farm and Shakespeare from what I remember. First I heard of the Odyssey was when I was 19 and DW did a retelling of it on Arthur. When I saw a copy of the story in the shop I worked at, I got it so I could read the actual story.
Were you not aware of it at any point? I don’t necessarily mean as part of the GCSE curriculum. I’ve been aware of the Odyssey and the Iliad from the “Ancient Greeks” part of our primary school curriculum back in year 4. Of course we weren’t analysing texts, but I’d expect any ten year old to be capable of rattling off some major plot points like blinding Polyphemus, or sailors plugging their ears with wax against the sirens and tying Odysseus to the mast.
Nope, I don’t think I’d ever heard of it prior to the Arthur version.
We did the fall of Icarus in Year 3. My little sister learned Theseus and the Minotaur when she was around the same age, which is how I knew about it. Other than that, I don’t remember studying Ancient Greek anything, not even Heracles. Your school was obviously better than mine.
I have to admit that I have not read the Illias or the Odyssey in school, either. We were made read books in school intendet to make children shy away from books, so they won’t touch any of them after school ever again.
Luckily I had read loads of good books by that time, so I knew that only a few are as horrible as the ones they made us read in school.
There are basic versions of these stories with big drawings, mostly made for kids. Basically manga. When i was a kid(in Greece), 35 years ago, i had this
https://www.stratikis.gr/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iliada-nea.jpg
This is Iliad and it was cooler than Odyssey. Badass dudes with almost divine powers fighting other dudes and entire armies on their own, while Gods are taking sides and fucking things up. Isnt that shonen.
Odyssey’s ending was cool though, even if it was a bit sad.
I first read the classic translation by Schwab when I was ten or eleven.
It does feel a lot like that, doesn’t it? Why else would the Bronte sisters be on the curriculum if not to snuff out any interest in literature?
It could be worse. We read Brecht and Kafka. Several works of them. I’ve never encountered worse waste of paper and ink than those idiots. And the rest was not much better.
Just because it was wasted on you doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, Kafka’s short stories especially (Die Verwandlung, Ein Landarzt etc) are accessible for teenagers and a good gateway drug to get interested in other things. Which is really important for kids that don’t have natural access to literature at home.
Sorry, but I experienced “Die Verwandlung” as written diarrhea of a person with severe mental problems. “Der Prozess” didn’t improve my opition of him, either.
Well, lead a horse to water etc, doesn’t mean we should stop making teens read books in school they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise. At least now you have both read and formed an opinion on two of the most influential and well regarded works of world literature. (And hopefully they also made you read a lot of other literature in diverse styles and genres.)
The problem is not about “reading books they would not read otherwise”. Sadly, many, if not most, kids don’t get exposed to books anymore except in school. And then they are confronted with unlikable stuff that makes them shy away from ever touching a book again.
I still hope that one day the people who decide what children and teens should read in school get their elitist heads out of their asses and actually try to get kids to read because they enjoy reading a book. Problem is that most people in that area seem to hate books that actually sell in the shops because people like to read them. Like I said about Reich-Ranizky once: he would not notice a good book if it bit him.
So the obvious solution is they should read more books, more varied stuff, not less. Popular, niche, basic, normative, weird, etc.
Of course, your assumption that all teens hate Kafka just because you do is demonstrably false. The assumption that books sell simply because they are actually better and more enjoyable to read is also false, there are a lot of other factors at play.
The kids that enjoy reading will find what is pushed in the book shops anyway, but kids from working class homes will never be exposed to anything else - and therefore have no chance to decide if they like it or not.
Only boring kids would find Wuthering Heights & Jane Eyre boring. Both books would be excellent choices in any curriculum. If you wanna talk boring early 19th century authors, Jane Austen is the name you’re looking for.
I found Wuthering Heights more miserable than boring.
the illias and the odyssey are ancient greek literature, I don’t think they’re that fun to read.
But, you still should be taught about their existence in history.
They were more fun to read than the sh-t the forced down our throats in school. At least Homer knew how to write a story.
The Illiad was like the Bible before the Bible.
Only in that it was widely published but there are others too like the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Illiad was like the ancient Greek Bible because it was used to provide behavioural guidelines and views common to all Greeks. It was a text central to any Greek’s education. How does a leader act? Read the Illiad. How are battles waged? Read the Illiad. What is the relation between humans and gods? Read the Illiad.
Alexander the Great was known to carry a copy of the Illiad with him at all times, and many philosophers routinely used excerpts from it to illustrate their points. And people would reference it like we reference things from the Bible in the west (Judas, turn water into wine, cross to bear, turn the other cheek etc)
Iliad was not a religious text(or even a text for many centuries). It was just a story of a dude trying to get back home.
I know you know this and likely just mistyped, but for clarity, the Iliad is about the war itself. The Odyssey is about the dude trying to get back home.
They weren’t religious texts per se, but they were certainly cultural touchstones which contain important lessons about the human condition, death, love, and what’s truly important in life. They would fill a role similar to histories in the Old Testament, probably, like the book of Ruth.
You are right, i wrote a comment about iliad before and mistyped iliad here too. And you are right, it was a cultural touch stone for ancient Greece.
I have not read the Iliad and I’ve only read a few excerpts from the Odyssey. They available as an audio book anywhere that isn’t Audible?
I don’t reccomend reading/listening to the original, but reading/listening to one of Steven Fry’s books about them.
If you are going to delve into that, you could also try the book “Circe” by Madelleine Miller. Loved it.
is this why the miniseries is trending on some torrent sites?? haha!
It was also just announced that Christopher Nolan’s next film will be the Odyssey
simpsons did it first
Wasn’t that the Minivan Homer rented? So many cup holders
It could be an amazing movie if they follow the story and make it a multi part series… but also those hollywood assholes cant help but fucking up stories that tell themselves so I expect it to be shit.
Yeah, something like this deserves a several season show with one hour episodes. At least 10 episodes per season.
Remember when some assholes made The Dark Tower (eight novels, 4250 pages) into an hour and a half movie? I sure wish I didn’t. Great casting too. Such a waste.
Probably trending because of the musical tbh , it’s been pretty popular in some circles.
I am tired of western Cinema jerking off to same old stories, which tbh aren’t the pinnacle of literature or storytelling. There are so many cultural epics which are deserving of the big screen, but unfortunately this western culture bias keeps the general audience from being exposed to any of it.
It wouldn’t matter, but the issue is then you have utter fucking illiterates and philistines who believe that only western writers, thinkers or philosophers came up with anything good. New flash, many, many of the western writers took their influence from non-western sources.
I mean
Every culture does that, though? If anything, Americans appreciating the works of the Greeks is as widespread and diverse as a culture can possibly get.
Every couple of years Chinese make a new Sun Wukong move, TV show, or videogame. Tibetan Monks and the Dali Lama are a huge cultural phenomenon all over the world. Wuxia/Xianxia based on old Taoism writings and diagrams are popular in all forms of media. Period Dramas about the old aristocracy in Asia are a huge genre.
Koreans shove Korean dragons and Dokaebi into every medium they can.
Japanese love them some Shinto priestess main characters and Yokai stories.
Arabia’s got thieves guilds, Solomon, and genies and other creatures of fire and wind.
Russia has Baba Yaga and Rasputin depictions.
Germany and western Europe have Fairy Tales, northern Europe is obsessed with Trolls.
India has a strong and proud history of racism, classism, Hinduism, nepotism, sexism, I don’t really remember where I was going with this point, tbh.
Africa… Honestly, Africa might need more time to recover, idk what their cultural epics entail… I do like Shaka Zulu’s vibe, tho.
That’s how culture works. The differences and uniqueness make them worth experiencing, and why people work so hard to preserve them in perpetuity across many generations. Except India. Idk y tf they’re doing that shit.
They could all appreciate some other shit, yeah, but that’s not how culture works.
fucking crazy to denigrate South Asia like that when you made the effort to respect culture for all the other regions you mentioned. I guess all the other countries you mentioned don’t have a history of racism, classism, nepotism, sexism or religion?
No they do but for most of them it’s sort of died off a little bit in the last 200 years.
In India, it doesn’t seem to be declining much…
Looks like it’s being lifted up.
I would actually argue that in many ways it’s increasing, at least in Pakistan where I have family, although these aren’t the only countries with growing fascism and regressive social politics (see lots of Europe and of course the US).
But your comment was about stories of cultural importance, not race or gender or class; I can’t help but feel offended that you would choose to shit on my culture for some reason instead of identifying relevant stories like you did for the other cultures you mentioned in your comment. I agree that those -isms should be criticized, but India definitely caught a stray from your comment.
Yeah, and I did very poorly represent my case. I really didn’t give it much effort or thought, and I apologize for that. It just appears from an outsiders perspective that the Caste System, while not officially in effect, is an integral part of India’s society and it shows in their films and TV. This is also true for the USA whose poor record of Civil Rights is also a continued focus for films and TV.
Every couple of years Chinese make a new Sun Wukong move, TV show, or videogame.
Let’s not forget that in the same way you can trace a huge amount of things you see in Western stories to the Greek epics and Gilgamesh you can trace a huge amount of things you see in anime/manga to the Journey to the West.
This comment serves as a reminder that the normalized hatred directed at India/South Asia on Reddit is alive and well on Lemmy too
A wise man once said “There are two things in the world I can’t stand: people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures… and the Dutch.”
In both his case and mine, the cultural insensitivity was part of the joke.
That wasn’t exactly my point. There are examples of Epic tales from other cultures which people often don’t get exposure to because the main focus of western cinema or storytelling is Greek or English.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_folk-epics
Note that epic tales are a distinct type of genre
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_(genre)
Edit why does it make sense for western cinema or storytelling to talk about other tales from other cultures? It’s just the right thing to do if something preceded you, or your work was influenced by it.
None of this is a competition as far as I am concerned, the point is just to find great ideas and stories.
Western media trends towards the myths and legends from western culture? No shit
I mean, what else would you expect? That’s human nature. Kinda a wild thing to be complaining about
But imagine if African or pre-Columbine American mythologies were used to film movies and series.
I get what you’re saying, but I guess I am just idealistic and expect more from people, like being honest about the sources and influences of their works
Edit here’s one of the inspirations for Homers odyssey, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
Look, I am not saying both of these aren’t great works with their own merits, I am just saying that people aren’t exposed to different things and then live with cultural and racial biases.
How many movies are there about the Odyssey?
Quite a lot, although older. Not including On Brother, Where Art Thou?
Western cinema films western stories, internet rando upset.
