Funnily, you see similar things with e.g. Americans who lived for generations in America, but still identify as Irish, German and so on.
My wife’s late grandma had a daughter who moved from Germany to the USA at age 18. Her children never lived in Germany. Some of them have learned a bit of very rudimentary German. None of their children (the cousins of my wife) learned German in any meaningful way and they maybe visited Germany once or twice as children. One of these cousins (the second generation born in the USA) now had a kid (third generation born in the USA) and they called their kid “Schaefer” to “honour their German heritage”.
“Schaefer” is a misspelling of the word “Schäfer”, which means “shepherd” and is, if anything, exclusively used as a last name in German (German countries are quite strict about what’s a first name and what’s not). There’s actually a registry of first names that were given to children in Germany, and the name “Schaefer” doesn’t occur once over the last 80 or so years that this registry covers.
So they identify as “German”, even though they never had any meaningful contact with the country and couldn’t even be bothered to google whether the name they chose to “honour their German legacy” was actually a German first name.
TLDR: People identify as all sorts of garbage, because it makes them feel cool or makes them feel part of something, even if they have no clue about or interest in what they identify with.
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
Hierarchy. The invisible sky wizard makes the rules, and if we don’t follow them we burn. And so on down the line, priests, pastors, presidents (unless they’re black, hoo boy did that send them over the edge), police, parents. Do as you’re told. Do not question authority. It’s practical preparation for school and the workforce at least.
Meanwhile, all of my birthday parties were keggers because the weather was nice and the adults liked to party. And I was at most 4 years old when I learned that I shouldn’t touch the small squares of mirror. Or the plastic film canisters.
There’s nothing quite like the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. Overflowing ash trays and last night’s beer cans when you’re trying to eat breakfast comes close though.
UniversalBasicJustice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Wisconsin?