The Big ACL Opening

[Axel Thimm]

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.

Banning Nietsche, Hoffmann, Haydn and any other misused authors and
artists because they were abused by bad people is a Bad Thing. As a
better known contemporary analogon look at the song by the Beatles
"Helter Skelter" that was misused by Manson and was considered his
property for several years therefore, until U2 covered it [1] starting
with "This is a song Charles Manson stole from The Beatles. We're
stealing it back."

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").

[1] actually there were other less known covers, too, but U2 really
    lifted it out of the Mansion occupation.
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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