Socializing

Went to my "Deutsch in Park" lesson yesterday, except it looked like rain, so we had the lessons in a nearby school.

Then, during our break, the school maintenance guy wanted to lock up and go home early, so we had to figure out what to do. We schlepped over to the Hauptbücherei (the main library) a few blocks away and got introduced to this fantastic place. Thousands of CDs, DVDs, and of course books, in several languages including English. Not to mention, the view from the top floor was fantastic.

Took the subway to Simmering and B picked me up in the car, and we drove to Schloss Thürnlhof, a pretty cool restaurant in an old castle. The link will lead you to a slide show of the interior of the place. Evidently there's some kind of Napoleon connection, because there are paintings and statues and even three death masks of the guy. We sat out in the courtyard with our friend Margit and enjoyed a really nice meal, starting with a really fantastic mushroom soup. Don't think of the tasteless white things commonly thought of as "mushrooms" that we often find in American markets---think of delicious wild mushrooms, rich in taste.

Chicken breast wrapped in prosciutto on a bed of noodles, with bits of pear.

Leaving the restaurant, we saw this in an alley.
The graveyard of coin operated rides for children.

Then to the Altes AKH, which used to be a hospital complex but now is part of the University of Vienna. The courtyard part of the complex features a park and some restaurants. We were invited to join our friend P and lots of his friends for his belated birthday celebration.

A nice place to sit outside and enjoy drinks with 25 of your closest friends.

As usual with big gatherings, people break off into smaller groups. We talked with a couple of interesting guys, V and G. Both spoke excellent English.

G and P went to university together, lo these many years ago, and part of that process involved a year of study in America. G ended up in Lawrence, Kansas at the U of K. 

"It was an island of creativity and liberal thinking in a sea of conservatism," he said. 

"Yeah, the contrasts can be kind of stunning," I said, thinking of OU in Norman as compared to, say, the guys at the Nicoma Park feed store. When you gather thousands of people together, with the idea of getting them to learn stuff and think about stuff, you're obviously going to have a different vibe than a population whose main goal is to find a grindstone to shove their noses (and minds) against, people who might think: I've got it all figured out. And if I don't, so what? My thinking is good enough for now, and forever.

But G wasn't criticizing his time in America. He was just pointing out what might be called tribal differences among the natives.

V works from home for a big American pharmaceutical company. He has friends in the states and was encouraged by his company to move to Indianapolis, but he said fuck that. I didn't get to ask him specifically what he didn't like about Indie, but the general idea was that the place was unlivable.

He was born to Austrian parents but raised in Spain and speaks fluent Spanish, along with English and German. He and B were talking about the influence of mass media and how it's shrinking the global village and influencing public perceptions, sometimes for the worse as the "outside world's" opinions can affect the culture of the "target country." He cited bullfighting as an example. Because he was raised in Spain, he sees bullfighting completely differently than most of the "civilized" non-Spanish world. He and B were talking in German about this as I talked to G in English, but later she told me the guy made a decent defense of bullfighting, if not entirely convincing to her.

He doesn't watch television except for viewing the occasional DVD. "After you've been without it awhile, when you happen to see it in a pub or at someone's home, it shocks you how horrible it is," he said. 

"Some of it is pretty decent," I said. "But like with anything else, you have to wade through an ocean of shit to find a pearl. And the ocean's getting bigger while the number of pearls is shrinking."

"I don't mind missing out on the pearls to avoid the tsunami of shit," he said.

V has a 5-year-old daughter and he thinks America is a more child-friendly country than Austria---Americans tolerate children's antics better, I guess he meant.

With elections coming up in Austria, talked turned to politics. V and B differ on taxation in Austria. Both agree the tax rate is high when compared to the US, and both agree that they get a lot from the country for the taxes they pay, but V tends to think he's not quite getting his money's worth---and they're asking for more. For instance, the subways don't run 24-7; they shut down about midnight or 1 AM and start up again at 5 or 6. But now the politicians want to offer 24-7 subway service. An improvement? Yes, but is it worth the extra cost? How many people actually need to use the subway between 1 AM and 6 AM? 

All this is interesting to me because it illustrates that people are more alike than they are different. We might tend to think of Europeans as "liberal" "tax and spenders" when compared to the US, but they have their "conservatives." And we in America have our "liberals."

Ultimately these labels are meaningless. After a while you tend to think of a "decent society" as an interesting concept, something much easier to imagine rather than to actually experience. There are forces at play that "don't care" about the ideal society we might imagine---these forces just kind of operate independently of our desires. Build your house of straw, but the wind might blow. Build it of sticks, and it might catch fire. The best you can do is react, or do what you can in advance to minimize damage.

I just keep thinking about Daniel Quinn's BEYOND CIVILIZATION. Give it a read sometime.