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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How enlightened are they? How educated? How worldly? I'm struggling to find the right word, but are they familiar with quasi exotic things?

We were all just talking about Christmas being two weeks away and how it has snuck up on us. Somebody said 'what's your meal going to be this year'? The new guy said Bouillabaisse. Literally three quarters of my office didn't know what it was.

And then I realized I was working with people way less cultured than myself.[/quote]

You must be super old to try and make a troll post using a French recipe as a cultural touch point. [/quote]

I'm 43. And honestly I think of Bouillabaisse as more of a west coast thing than a French thing.[/quote]

I'm 45 from the west coast and have never had bouillabaisse. I was vaguely aware it was a soup.

People have different cultural touchstones, it doesn't make them "uncultured." Right now I work with a lot of people from NYC. I have had to learn about it, as I know very little. Growing up in the SF Bay Area I can promise you very few people there know or care about NYC and many have never been: [b]no one thinks it's relevant.[/b] I'm sure we'd come across as uncultured to someone who does care.[/quote]

What does this even mean? Relevant to what? It’s the largest city in America. Is Paris “relevant?” Is Tokyo? Nairobi? [/quote]

Paris is a great example. Nothing against Paris but no, it's not relevant to my life. I don't know the neighborhoods, or the big office buildings or restaurants, or the transit system or the parks. Not knowing those things doesn't make me uncultured, it just means the focus of my life is elsewhere. Ditto for NYC. [/quote]

Fine, but that DOES make you uncultured. Especially because you don't even have the slightest curiosity about it. Being cultured means being well versed in a vast array of things and being able to have a conversation about them whether they are relevant to your day-to-day or not. [/quote]

But I am conversant in a vast array of things, including many you're unlikely to know about. I'm just not familiar with a specific thing that you've decided matters, the way OP decided bouillabaisse is the thing that determines sophistication.

And I'd be curious about your life in Paris if I were speaking to you, but I'd be engaged because it matters to you and we're talking, not because Paris is objectively important.[/quote]

Paris is objectively important as are many other things whether they are relevant to your life or not. The fact that you can't see that is what makes you uncultured. Not that you don't know about every little fact that someone might bring up, as OP did. I don't agree with the whole premise of her post. I think she is obnoxious. But in your post you seem to be proud of only knowing about things that are somehow relevant to you. Which is not what makes you cultured. [/quote]

I'm the PP you're responding to (not the reading comprehension one, although I do think youre moving goalposts since your question was what makes something relevant).

What makes Paris objectively important?

I've noticed that a certain type of person conflates Paris (and/or NYC, and I'd add anything British) with capital-c Culture. That's a very limited view. Every people and place has culture. [/quote]

That was my first response to you so I'm not sure what goalposts I could have possibly moved. I also never said anything about any other place not being important but stating that Paris is somehow not important culturally is just ignorant. Are you seriously telling me that a well-educated person doesn't need to know the most basic things about Paris? The history, the architecture, the art, the fashion????? How is it possible for someone to dispute this? I similarly think that there is a certain subset of Americans who will always feel threatened by European history (French in particular) and will do anything to discredit the importance. 
[/quote]

I'm well educated in history, art, and architecture - none of that *is* Paris, nor does Paris have a monopoly on it.

If you told me where in Paris you lived, I would not have a reference: is that near the airport, or far? fancy or not? Does the Metro go there?
Do you know those things about Paris neighborhoods? Why or why not? 
Do you know similar things about San Francisco or Los Angeles? If not, why not?[/quote]

I think you know you were wrong so now you're just arguing for there sake of arguing. [/quote]

If you'd read the thread you jumped into, you'd see that just above you I said, "I don't know the neighborhoods, or the big office buildings or restaurants, or the transit system or the parks. Not knowing those things doesn't make me uncultured, it just means the focus of my life is elsewhere."

The OP is about food as culture, and whether ignorance of a French dish makes you uncultured. Nobody here is talking about history.[/quote]

Let's not pretend that you didn't say a lot more in conjunction with that. For example "what makes Paris objectively important?" [/quote]

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