The Big ACL Opening

[Lennart Poettering]

On Sat, 18.10.08 13:10, Axel Thimm (Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net) wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 07:14:51PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > Hmm, am I the only one who finds the choice of the term "überpackager"
> > a bit questionnable?
> > 
> > I am assuming this refers to Nietzsche's "Übermensch" which to start
> > with is not a particular sympathetic idea to many. What I find
> > particularly problematic however is that at least in Germany this term
> > more often than not implies some kind of connection to, uhh, certain
> > dark times about 60 years ago.
> 
> I wouldn't give to the dark time in Germany the benefit of stealing
> words and ideas. Nietsche was against the NS ideology, it was his
> sister that aided the misinterpretation and distortion of his writings
> for their purposes.

"Nietzsche against NS ideology"??? This argument is bogus. Nietzsche
died 20 years before the Nazi party was founded. How could he have
been against them if they didn't really exist?

Discussing whether Nietzsche liked the Nazis or not is completely
irrelevant here. Don't make this some kind of Stammtisch discussion
about philosophy and Who's-A-Nazi.

> So, don't allow Über- to become an NS prefix by declaring it as
> such. Use it as much as possible in other contexts, so it gets clean
> from any smell that might have remained. And BTW it is being used very
> often in German words as a prefix meaning really harmless things
> (anything that uses over- or trans- in English likely has an Über-
> translation, like "translation" itself - "Übersetzung").

Unfortunately the Nazis didn't ask you for permission before they
appropriated "Übermensch" for their purposes. Sorry, but you won't
be able to clean the words "Führer", "Schutzstaffel" or "Übermensch"
from their Nazi associations. Trying to do that is both too big for
your boots and a sign of Geschichtsvergessenheit.

And of course, "über-" is a very common prefix in the german
language. In verbs, in adjectives, everywhere. But please, don't twist
my words: I find it questionnable to use the prefix as kind of
superlative in reference to the Übermensch. That is all.

Let's end this discussion! Fedora-devel is not the place to discuss
Nazi vocabulary. Toshio already agreed to change the term. So I am
happy, no need for pointless bikeshedding discussions.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering                        Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net         ICQ# 11060553
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