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What are you currently reading?
cybersmurf:
--- Quote from: hedgie on 01 Mar 2020, 12:09 ---Edit: I must admit, that I haven't read much, if any cyberpunk in years. It kinda stopped being fun for me once it started becoming reality.
--- End quote ---
When fiction becomes reality, it loses its appeal. Also applies somewhat to societal change.
--- Quote from: Case on 01 Mar 2020, 09:15 ---Read the English version, though - I cannot imagine that it'd work in a German translation.
--- End quote ---
That's something I keep trying. Once you realise how much gets lost in translation, you go original whenever possible.
Thanks for your recommendations!
hedgie:
Except for Kant. For the love of all that is good and decent in the world, and if one doesn't want to plunge into the depths of Lovecraftian madness, read him in English, if at all.
sitnspin:
--- Quote from: hedgie on 01 Mar 2020, 12:09 ---I do wonder if in a non-gendered society, what would happen with individuals who desired to express one would be treated like that one lady was in that TNG episode.[1]
Or would contact with other cultures create a broader social movement a la Cheery Littlebottom and other Ankh Morpork dwarfs who in Discworld have a mono-gendered society.
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Gender expression is largely a social construct. And, as i recall, it isn't as though everyone in The Radtch looked, dressed, and acted exactly the same way, they just didn't ascribe gender to those differences. To them, seeing someone in a dress would be no different than seeing someone in pants. A person with what we called "feminine" characteristics and would be seen the same as someone with "masculine" features. They would just see them, and themselves, as "human'. The Radtch language didn't even contain words to describe gender.
Case:
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 02 Mar 2020, 00:02 ---
--- Quote from: hedgie on 01 Mar 2020, 12:09 ---I do wonder if in a non-gendered society, what would happen with individuals who desired to express one would be treated like that one lady was in that TNG episode.[1]
Or would contact with other cultures create a broader social movement a la Cheery Littlebottom and other Ankh Morpork dwarfs who in Discworld have a mono-gendered society.
--- End quote ---
Gender expression is largely a social construct. And, as i recall, it isn't as though everyone in The Radtch looked, dressed, and acted exactly the same way, they just didn't ascribe gender to those differences. To them, seeing someone in a dress would be no different than seeing someone in pants. A person with what we called "feminine" characteristics and would be seen the same as someone with "masculine" features.
--- End quote ---
Yup.
Proper mindf**k. Glorious! :-D
--- Quote from: sitnspin on 02 Mar 2020, 00:02 ---They would just see them, and themselves, as "human' Radchaai.
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"To be Radchaai is to be civilised ..." :-D
(click to show/hide)In the Radchaai's language, 'Radchaai' simultaneously refers to citizens of the Empire as well as 'the state of being civilized/virtuous'. They even have this moral aphorism (see above) that linguistically amounts to a tautology - it only makes sense if you accept the conceits of Radch society (*). In some scenes, Breq points out that the literal translation would be 'To be civilised is to be civilized' or 'To be Radchaai is to be Radchaai' - but the other Radchaai don't seem to see the obvious.
(*) That they are civilized by default, rather than trying to match their actions to an ethical standard they try to live up to. A lot of those actions are ... 'civilized' more in the sense that an Imperial Roman Legate would have approved of
--- Quote from: hedgie on 01 Mar 2020, 23:11 ---Except for Kant. For the love of all that is good and decent in the world, and if one doesn't want to plunge into the depths of Lovecraftian madness, read him in English, if at all.
--- End quote ---
Omg Kant ... I can't manage more than two pages of the Critique of Pure Reason before going cross-eyed (and very, very cranky ...). Even his interpunctuation and word-order seem odd to me; I could very well be missing something, but I have doubts whether he fully understood how to properly mark the beginning and end of subclauses - or what is and what isn't a subclause to begin with.
TL;DR - I doubt that it's easier for us native speakers. The man was simply a very, very bad writer (and German provides bad writers with a lot of tools to use badly).
hedgie:
German always did strike me as the Perl of human languages.
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