As noted before,
Germans are brutally honest, and this is not because they mean any ill-will, it is simply because Germans love facts. Their universal national love of data manifests itself is many different ways in German society, the most direct being the advertisement of the very popular magazine Focus, whose motto is: “
Fakten, Fakten, Fakten!” This translates to “facts, facts, facts”, a slogan that wouldn’t sell any magazines in America without being prefaced by some celebrity’s name.In America we like to fill ourselves with news that fits our world-view, by choosing a political persuasion and consuming only those TV and radio programs that we know match our standpoint, and we can filter out all opposing views by choosing the right network. The German language, on the other hand, doesn’t contain a single word for truthiness; searching LEO is futile.
German TV, in contrast, is filled with shows with names like Galileo, Adventure Knowledge, World of Wonder, and documentaries that painfully detail the banalities of the lives of people who herd goats or make cheese somewhere in the Alps.
We don’t need data to make theories. We have Intelligent Design, because science is too much trouble. Just take a look at what the Germans did to Erwin Schrödinger. They made this poor Austrian figure out stuff with partial differential equations and lots of Greek letters, just because they love truth more than simplicity. Before the teuro came out, Germans showed their love of exactness on every 10 deutschmark bill, featuring an equation trying to make order out of random variables. Germans don’t understand that dead politicians belong on currency, not scientists.
Germans take their love of facts so far that the majority of them don’t even believe in the Bible, probably because it doesn’t contain any links to Wikipedia.
deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden
Hallo Astrid,
anbei die Übersetzung.
Deutsche lieben Fakten
Wie bereits vorher festgestellt, sind die Deutschen brutal ehrlich, und das nicht, weil sie es böswillig meinen, sondern einfach, weil die Deutschen Fakten lieben. Ihre landesweite Liebe von Daten aüßert sich auf verschiedene Art und Weise in der deutschen Gesellschaft, die direkteste ist eine Werbung des sehr bekannten Magazins Focus, dessen Motto ist: “Fakten, Fakten, Fakten!”. Dieser Werbespruch würde in Amerika keine Magazine verkaufen, ohne dass er vorher mit dem Namen einer berühmten Persönlichkeit in Zusammenhang gebracht wurde.
In Amerika mögen wir es, Nachrichten zu konsumieren, die in unsere weltsicht passen, indem wir eine politische Überzeugung wählen und nur die Fernseh- und Radioprogramme einschalten, von denen wir wissen, dass sie unserem Standpunkt entsprechen, und wir können alle gegensätzlichen Ansichten herausfiltern, indem wir das richtige Netzwerk aussuchen. Die deutsche Sprache hingegen enthält nicht ein einziges Wort für truthiness; es ist aussichtslos, LEO danach zu durchsuchen.
Deutsches Fernsehen, im Gegensatz, ist voll mit Sendungen wie Galileo, Abenteuer Wissen, Welt der Wunder, und Dokumentationen, die schmerzvoll detailliert über das Leben von Menschen berichten, die irgendwo in den Alpen Ziegen hüten oder Käse herstellen.
Wir brauchen keine Daten um Theorien aufzustellen. Wir haben intelligentes Design, weil Wissenschaft einfach zu anstrengend ist. Schauen Sie nur, was die Deutschen mit Erwin Schrödinger gemacht haben. Sie haben diese arme österreichische Figur genommen und mit partiell differentiellen Gleichungen und grichischen Buchstaben verziert, nur weil sie die Wahrheit lieber mögen als die Schlichtheit. Bevor der Teuro herausgekommen ist, haben die Deutschen ihre Liebe zur Exaktheit auf jedem 10 Markschein zum Ausdruck gebracht, der eine Gleichung zeigt, die versucht, Ordnung in Zufallsgrößen zu bringen. Die Deutschen haben nicht verstanden, dass tote Politiker auf die Währung gehören, nicht Wissenschaftler.
Die Deutschen nehmen ihre Liebe zu Fakten so ernst, dass die Mehrheit von ihnen noch nicht einmal an die Bibel glaubt, wahrscheinlich weil sie keine links zu Wikipedia enthält.
Gruss,
John
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October 29th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Well, you do have Franklin on a bill, don’t you?
I always thought it’s funny because if you look at any German book on electrodynamics (or any physics school book..) Franklin won’t be mentioned at all, instead they all start with Coulomb. In contrast: I don’t know any American book on electrodynamics that doesn’t mention Franklin.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:26 am
We don’t believe in wikipedia! It COULD contain the untruth. (but we like wiki anyway because of the cool facts)
October 29th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Yes, you are so right. Who the hell decided to print Gauss on the formerly new 10-DM notes? I mean, exactly that guy who causes so much pain for any student… lol.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:22 am
I took this photo at the Neanderthal museum. Distance along the path to the museum? Not 300 meters, but 294 meters. Because Germans, they are very precise.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:31 am
@Michael - “Because Germans, they are very precise.”
Genau!
October 29th, 2008 at 4:17 am
Pro7’s Galileo show has about as much to do with facts as does a speech by Sarah Palin. I oughtta know - I was actually on it once, baking a pizza. A total farce! You can read about it here:
http://lettershometoyou.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/on-flags-and-faking-it-i-actually-came-in-second/
October 29th, 2008 at 5:24 am
”In America we like to fill ourselves with news that fits our world-view, by choosing a political persuasion and consuming only those TV and radio programs that we know match our standpoint, and we can filter out all opposing views by choosing the right network.”
Is that the reason you have the president you have?
Truthiness: I think the german word ”Bauchgefühl” (gut feeling, gut instinct,…) is something like that.
October 29th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Nix Bauchgefühl … rather: Selbstbetrug (self-deceipt). “Truthiness: The quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.” Something I truly despise, being half Austrian, half German and living in Switzerland, the land of precision … ;->
October 29th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Didn’t we handle this topic a few times ago?
Please John, if you are running out of ideas, let this blog die in dignity. You proved you can be funny, but the latest posts were just plain stupid.
And YES, I know what irony, sarcasm and humor is. It’s more than just writing untrue, stupid stuff…
October 29th, 2008 at 7:22 am
by the way: Isn´t “Intelligent Design” a part of the creationism, which is seen as a kind of comedy-religion by most germans???
I´ll try to imagine “Gerhard Schröder” or better “Helmut Kohl” printed on our currency… *lol*
By the way the older “2-DM”-coins had faces of politicians like Adenauer, Brandt and “Franz Josef Strauß”
Isn´t “thruthiness” something like “wikiality“???
October 29th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Yes, thats just the way it is. And if you know much facts, it is easy to smartass…
October 29th, 2008 at 8:34 am
> the majority of them don’t even believe in the Bible
well don’t know statistics about that (facts again ;)). But one sentence came into my mind: “Glauben heißt ‘nichts wissen’” (believing means “not knowing”).
Btw, I prefer scientists instead of politicians! They’re more trustworthy.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:52 am
@Manuel (1):
You do realize that Franklin was also a politician (besides being a brilliant scientist, of course)?
That’s a fact!
October 29th, 2008 at 10:21 am
The 10 DM Schein helps through my math exam in the 13th grade. I just couldn’t remeber the formula for the normal distribution.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:18 am
@üther
“You proved you can be funny”
so? most of his jokes were stale already by the time the hebrews left egypt (probably because they couldn’t endure them any longer …)
October 29th, 2008 at 11:29 am
ach, ich muss sagen, dass ich den eintrag sehr witzig finde und ich kann es absolut nicht verstehen, warum manche hier sagen, dass john weniger lustig wird…denn ich lache immer noch!!
john, mach weiter so!!
…und ich kann dir nur mal wieder recht geben!
October 29th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
“the majority of them don’t even believe in the Bible”
My dad’s favorite phrase: “Nicht glauben, sondern denken.” (Don’t believe but think”
October 29th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
@ Uether und Puck:
…warum seid ihr denn noch hier, wenn es so unlustig ist?
Ich muss Paula zustimmen, ich finde es nach wie vor sehr lustig und lese gerne weiter!
October 29th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Also diese Sprüche von “glauben” und “wissen” sind doch abstrus: Keiner weiß was Wissen überhaupt ist
October 29th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Ok, you got me.
I’m exactly like you described.
And I wetted my pants when reading the Wikipedia part.
October 29th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Being in Austrian, I do like fact and figures as much as all my fellow Austrians. I also don’t believe in the Bible, but facts and figures and the Bible can’t exist in the same sentence anyway. However, that’s an entire different topic.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Galileo sucks damn. Several years ago it was a fantastic science show, but today they only talk about “how to make the perfect pizza”, “we take any huge, expensive machines and do something very stupid” or “a tall and fat guy is making a chocloate-clone of himself and its it”. But there are still good science shows. The “public law”-channels like ARD, WDR or 3Sat you still find shows like “Quarks & Co” or “W Wie Wissen”. But Galileo changed into trash.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Das Land der Dichter und Denker! What else should we therefore print onto our money? Carl Friedrich Gauss was a Denker, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, for example, as seen on the 20 DM bill, was a Dichter(in).
More facts: The German Wikipedia was (one of) the first and is the largest non-English Wikipedia!
sorce: Wikipedia!!
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Enzyklopädie/Deutsche_Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Wikipedia
October 29th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Is this an attempt to have a go at americans this time to get cheers instead of boos?
Or is this supposed to be funny as well?
Your blog is confusing…
October 29th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
funny: the correct proverb is “glauben heisst nicht wissen” without a s
… oh.. me, german, did it again, did i?
You’re often, but not always right. That’s the point, why i continue reading your blog. Sights from the Outsight improve and increase our facts about german society. Ouch, did it again.. but it is so much fun!
October 30th, 2008 at 4:27 am
Congratulations on being features in c’t “Websites aktuell” - I guess you’ll have a lot of Germans pop up here now.
–> I really enjoyed reading your stories and anectdotes, some of which made me cry laughing so hard!
October 30th, 2008 at 10:47 am
We do not believe in the Bible not because there are no facts in it, actually there are facts galore. But the question is: Can we believe in the truth of them? “Fact” does not necessarily mean “truth”. Remember the Flying Spaghetti Monster…
It is a popular European virtue to question things all the time. But the more people simply believe what “Galileo” shows or “Bild” publishes, the more this virtue will become extinct. Sometimes it seems that we return to the ancient priciple of “Brot und Spiele”…
But when it comes to personal relationships, I suppose there are the same clichés about “facts” on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. When you did something wrong or you was told something important (to her), your wife always seems to remember all facts by the exact wording, even when it happened 10 years ago. But they always instantly forget your imploring request not to open all these Spam-attachements on your brandnew laptop…
October 30th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
That’s Gauß and not Schrödinger on the old 10 DM note.
And Max Planck was on the first 2 DM coins.
Maybe we do not have Unintelligent Design but many of those facts are not that much better.Better do not trust TV documentaries or news aired by private stations (or published by BIld or the german yellow-press).
October 30th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
well … change is a recurring thing with our politicians too…
October 31st, 2008 at 8:43 am
Die da oben! Wir hier unten!
October 31st, 2008 at 11:18 am
The love for facts has a long tradition. There is the German encyclopedia “Meyers Konversationslexikon” from the 19th century. It was conceived to attract a large number of people and to entertain them - with facts.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
On the leo forum the is a nice translation for
Truthiness is a satirical term coined by Stephen Colbert in reference to the quality by which a person claims to know something intuitively, instinctively, or “from the gut” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts. Colbert created this definition of the word during the first episode (October 17, 2005) of his satirical television program The Colbert Report, as the subject of a segment called “The WØRD.”
—> Bauchwahrheit
October 31st, 2008 at 3:53 pm
hm, interesting view. I agree to the extend that we really LOVE facts, but wth is wrong with that? basing your views on mere intention (such as all arguments are concerning intelligent design) does not make much sense either, and simply using input that already is streamlined for what you like does not improve your pov either. the point about the bible is true, though, why should we believe in it? see what it helps some of the Americans from the biblebelt? Natural design is one of the most despicable mistakes of the twentiest century and it doesn’t come from wikipedia;)
November 4th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
You wrote:
“German TV, in contrast, is filled with […] documentaries that painfully detail the banalities of the lives of people who herd goats or make cheese somewhere in the Alps.”
I’m sorry, but your arrogant look onto people that are less industrialized than yourselve shows a weak spot of your character. Apparently believing in the christian god or bible does not seem to help.
I may not believe in the bible and your christian god, but I do not talk in that way about people of these culture. These people do have a great life in simplicity that has proven to its stability for generations, without destroying the environment that they are living in. Your statement just shows how much you understand about the live expectation that your kind of living probably has.
Ah, sorry for bothering, don’t even think about that and keep on enjoying your mundane life.
November 5th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Germans treasure their own anti-facts as much as any other people. Where some Americans have ‘intelligent design,’ plenty of Germans cling to the myth that cold air causes colds. (German readers: colds are caused by germs.) For some reason, Germans believe it is the neck that is especially vulnerable to this cold-causing cold air; therefore a scarf is essential. Going outside with wet hair is also an invitation for a cold, according to Germans. A German friend of mine, when I challenged his cold-air theory of colds, responded with a defense that could have come from an American defending creationism: Well, it’s hard to ignore what your mother told you.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Having lived here as an Ami ex-pat since before the first Gulf War I will say that the Dutch are brutally honest and Germans are selectively frank. The difference lies in whether the honestly will result in any form of confrontation or discomfort. The Dutch don’t care and will speak their minds. Germans will avoid doing so if being brutally honest will do either. They won’t dance around the issue like the British, they will just pretend it’s not there. It’s amazing to watch, really.
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
germans love facts, thats a point!
we love them because its a pleasure to know something and its also a great experience if you are able to tell a fact to others who did not know about it yet…
aaand: by reading your blog - I recognized that you also do not seem to be aversed to use facts (e.g. germans eat 1.7times faster, or work exactly 86% the time that americans do)
to put it in a nutshell: facts are great - thats a fact
December 8th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
so very true… all these stupid facts… why can’t we just all lean back and enjoy the feeling of knowing everything already because we know what to believe :D… why can’t we just have more fox-news and truthiness (bless you colbert
)
December 9th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Hey, I believe in the Bible and like being katholic (you guess right, I am Bavarian), but the fact is : THE BIBLE IS NOT THE F*%$ LAW
December 11th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Es sind Wissenschaftler auf den Banknoten, weil sie etwas geleistet haben. Leider hat sich das mit der Einführung des Euro geändert, aber Kunstepochen sind immer noch besser als irgendwelche Politiker.
May 24th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
@Michel:
You’re stating that fact doesn’t necessarily mean truth. Now, that’s bullsh*t.
Per definition a fact is a concept whose truth can be proved.
There is, in fact, no truth that’s not fact. Everything else is nothing but believe, and that’s especially true for religions.
Of course people just love to establish their beliefs as facts but people are usually a bit inaccurate with the truth. I’d say that’s a fact but of course it’d be hard for me to prove, right?
June 18th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
The Bible is not the Truth! You learn that at every school in Germany - it is symbolic!
But hey, 50% of the Schools in America don’t teach the evolution theory - you think that is good?