Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 December 22

= December 22 =

Millenials in other nations
In the article "Millenials", you only mentioned Millenials in US, which supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party primaries in 2016 and Millenials in UK, which they were known for Bremain also in 2016. What about their counterparts in France, Germany, and other nations? What were they famous for? Donmust90 (talk) 00:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)Donmust90Donmust90 (talk) 00:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Donmust90, Millenials is pretty much an Anglophone concept. Other countries probably don't have "Millenials", because they go through the generations in a different way than someone from the Anglophone world. Hence, people in other countries don't need an exact equivalent concept for Millenials. SSS (talk) 00:33, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * What on earth do you mean by the statement that other countries "go through the generations in a different way than someone from the Anglophone world"? What is the difference, in your view, between the experience of a young person growing up in England and one in Germany, for example? --Viennese Waltz 08:57, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * As a disinterested reader, I understood SSS to mean that other countries do not employ the demographic analysis that divides people into "Baby Boomers", "Generation X", "Millennials" etc., which is based on historic, economic, demographic and cultural evolutions and perceptions that may differ from country to country. (I neither endorse nor refute the assertion itself.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.220.212.173 (talk) 10:16, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I refute it. The term "bobo" doesn't have an article in the English Wikipedia, but see Bobos in Paradise. The term is in widespread use in France, Germany and Austria. --Viennese Waltz 10:37, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok... but that leaves the core of Don’s question unanswered. Whatever the generation that is just coming of age may be called, are there political and social trends that they are identified with?  Blueboar (talk) 00:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I remember reading the Baby Boomer generation a while ago. IIRC, the Baby Boomer generation was the first generation to recognize themselves as "one generation" with respect to social and political trends; and this group decides to pave the way for the generations before them and the generations after them. Clicking around on Wikipedia, a similar sociopolitical generation occurs in China, where the young, relatively rich and comfy generation born after the one-child policy differs starkly from the parental generation (who probably lived through the rise of the Communist Party and the Cultural Revolution). SSS (talk) 01:00, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure. According to our articles, the term Silent Generation dates to 1951 and Lost Generation pre-dates 1926. How much generation mutual feeling there was I don't know but the terminology is older than the Boomers. Rmhermen (talk) 01:46, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * We are wandering off topic... so let me try to rephrase the question that was asked: Outside of the US and UK, are there social/political trends that are associated with younger people? Blueboar (talk) 08:42, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Certainly. See my post above. --Viennese Waltz 10:39, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * What are those trends? Blueboar (talk) 11:44, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Did you read my post above? Bobos. --Viennese Waltz 12:11, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything in that article about bobos being particularly young; it also seems to relate to a period 10-20 years ago, so even if they were young then, they would be approaching middle age now. Is the meaning different in continental Europe? HenryFlower 17:41, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Different from what? As I've already stated, it's a continental European term! And the term is used to describe each generation, so I don't know what you mean about them approaching middle age. --Viennese Waltz 23:08, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Different from the only source you've provided (the article on the book), which is about about Anglophone use of the term. If it is used to describe each generation in turn (which is not apparent from that source), then it doesn't seem to answer BB's question. HenryFlower 15:39, 23 December 2017 (UTC)


 * What in the world is this talk of "boboes"? In the 1970's in the Delaware Valley that term meant non-brand name sneakers, such as store-brand tennis shoes, rather than Nike or Adidas.  Boys who wore boboes and floods (pants too short to cover your socks) got taunted mercilessly.  I haven't heard the term bobo since Jimmy Carter left office. μηδείς (talk) 19:38, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It apparently stands for bohemian + bourgeois. (Not to be confused with "bozo".) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:59, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * @Viennese Waltz... I am not asking what names are given to the current “younger generation” (outside the US and UK) ... I am asking whether the younger generation can be identified by specific political/societal trends, and if so... what those trends might be? Blueboar (talk) 00:45, 23 December 2017 (UTC)


 * First, to quote two editors here:"Which moment in history you pick as the 'dividing line' is unimportant. You make your own decisions (and it is really relevant what criteria you use), instead try to appreciate the breadth and complexity of the situation. Singular and exclusive definitions are far less important than understanding relationships and processes.' Jayron32 5:31 pm, 2 May 2017""It doesn't matter what you call stuff. It's still stuff. --User:JackofOz 6:05 pm, 19 July 2015"I remember Viet Nam, Watergate, duck and cover, free love, Three color channels plus PBS and black and white on UHF, when you had to pay an extra fee monthly for a push-button land line. Adults of 21 nowadays don't remember the fall of communism, when AIDS killed quicker than pancreatic cancer, when there were no cell phones or email, let alone facebook or smart phones.  The Simpsons didn't exist when I was in grade school, and yet they still exist even though they predate the fall of the Berlin Wall.
 * Basically, the economic boom resulting from the winning of the Cold War and the deregulation and privatization of business in the Anglo-American world led to a huge transformation spanning the 1990's. People who don't remember the Carter Administration and the Miner's Strikes and the Troubles and the forced coming out caused by the AIDS epidemic have no idea how radically the world changed in the time from the Fall of the Wall to the Fall of the Twin Towers.
 * Dynamics in China, the Muslim World, India, and Eastern Europe have paralleled this in many ways, but their starting and ending points have been far different as well. μηδείς (talk) 02:53, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Are accusations of hypocrisy or double standard inherently opinions?
Since every situation is unique in one way or another, anyone could claim that their own context is sui generis and, so their own respective action is somehow special and does not contradict the principles, ideals, or laws they claim to uphold. Does this make logical sense? 70.95.44.93 (talk) 01:24, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. If you condemn redheads who rob banks and praise blondes who rob banks, then your double standard is evident; and if you are a redhead who robs banks, then your hypocrisy is evident. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:B8D8:3FE9:323E:5312 (talk) 05:30, 22 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Kant would say that you should not wish for yourself something you would not wish for everyone (see Categorical imperative). What you describe is more or less Situational ethics (the opposite of the Categorical imperative), which was avant-garde in the 1960s, but doesn't seem to have a very good reputation today... AnonMoos (talk) 06:37, 22 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I wish that everyone would give me gifts I desire, including my giving myself gifts. μηδείς (talk) 22:15, 23 December 2017 (UTC)


 * When I accuse someone else of hypocrisy or having a double standard, that accusation is truth. When someone else accuses me of hypocrisy and having a double standard the accusation is just their opinion. Blueboar (talk) 09:56, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." (Daniel Patrick Moynihan). So it depends who you are and in what context you speak, argue or judge your "opinion". If a person is able to "set facts" like the Judge of a supreme court or the President of a superpower it is pointless to argue that this is only an opinion. The only option left then would be to "rewrite history" later, for whoever then can "set facts". --Kharon (talk) 12:28, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I also like Hubert Humphrey's The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:36, 22 December 2017 (UTC)


 * In historical narratives you often find one side of a conflict receiving praise and another being condemned for actions that seem identical. "Our" summary execution of prisoners was a necessary action for security reasons, while "their" summary execution of prisoners was an atrocity, war crime, etc. That sort of thing. Later writers use the double standards in these texts to examine the biases in the older texts and the writers who wrote them. Fiction writers often use such double standards to expose the biases of the characters. An amusing scene in A Song of Ice and Fire has a character placed on trial for various crimes. He points out that his judges are actually ruthless vigilantes and have all committed similar crimes to his own. Dimadick (talk) 13:05, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

What's the biggest island people are pretty sure has never seen (non-cold) war?
Antarctica might win but it's a continent. Devon Island is currently the world's largest uninhabited island but perhaps too close to the Inuit to be sure. Is it one of the relatively few islands that weren't discovered till the last handful of centuries or so? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:59, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, Greenland has never been a theater of active warfare. Blueboar (talk) 08:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

The German base on Sabine was bombed by USAAF bombers from Iceland.[15] It was then seized by a Coast Guard landing party, but all German personnel save one person had already been evacuated by a Dornier Do 26.[16] Apart from fire exchanged between German aircraft and U.S. ships, this was the only offensive air attack on the Greenland mainland.An American air force formation attacked the station on 14 May to make sure it could be of no use to the Germans.[1] Two more skirmishes occurred between the Sledge Patrol and the Germans, leaving the Greenland force with two more dead and four wounded by the end of conflict in 1944.[8]
 * Ok... so not Greenland then... Baffin Island? I would assume it would have to be a place that was mostly uninhabited, and fairly remote. (I doubt any of the Pacific islands would qualify... the Polynesian and Micronesian islands, for example, saw many wars ... both before and after Europeans arrived) Blueboar (talk) 09:37, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Depending on how intense your definition of war is, it's possible that the Norse had conflicts with the Dorset culture on Baffin Island (which is likely the Norse Helluland), and also that the Dorset culture conflicted with the Thule people. There was U-boat activity in Canadian waters during World War II, including probably around Baffin Island, but apparently no actual fighting occurred. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:27, 22 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I would suggest Ellesmere Island in northern Canada. It is the 10th largest island in the world, but has always been scarcely populated, poor in resources, and in an area with unforgiving Arctic climate. Our article mentions hunting expeditions by the Inuit and by the Vikings of Greenland, but little evidence of actual habitation. Another suggestion would be Alexander Island in Antarctica. It is Antarctica's largest island, the world's second largest uninhabited island, the 28th largest island in the world, and was completely unknown prior to the 19th century. There have been a number of territorial disputes over which country owns the island, but apparently no battles on its surface. Dimadick (talk) 13:34, 22 December 2017 (UTC)


 * List of islands by area μηδείς (talk) 22:12, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Australia?--Kharon (talk) 06:07, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
 * See North Western Area Campaign. Whether the Australian frontier wars also count depends on your definition. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.220.212.173 (talk) 08:10, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Australia also had the Emu War.- gadfium 19:01, 24 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Australia and New Guinea comprise the Sahul continent, and consist of continental crust. With its lack of volcanism, Australia proper exhibits some of the oldest continental area in the world.  By definition it is not an Island, and New Guinea's "island" status rests solely on the fact of the creation of the Torres Strait by rising sea levels during the Holocene interglacial.


 * My favorite candidate is the Kerguelen Islands which have never been the location of a battle, although they have been claimed by France since their official discovery. They are slightly smaller than Corsica, Crete, and Puerto Rico. μηδείς (talk) 19:47, 24 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Baffin Island is larger but that depends on if you consider the interactions of Martin Frobisher and the Inuit to be "war". If so then Victoria Island (Canada) is next in size. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 00:36, 25 December 2017 (UTC)