But I sure don't want to hear any other Germans lecturing me about the shortfalls of the US.
“student duelling societies have become renowned as bastions of deeply conservative and right-wing thought”
Here in the US, obsession with race is a trait of “progressives” and the “left wing”. Maybe the labels are different in Europe.
Why would he want to belong to a club that doesn’t want him? There are others welcoming him, problem solved. Private club, own rules for membership.
These dueling societies are like Japanese Sumo. It was only with great difficulty that the Japanese allowed an american of hawaiian extraction fight in their games. their rules are very strict and very Japanese. They remain so. Few non Japanese get to compete.
Both the Germans and Japanese are competent people. We are lucky to have them as allies. It was the generation of our betters that made them so.
The term as a name for girls has become somewhat popular: Aryana, Arienne, Ariana and yet more variants.
This is actually pretty oddball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_fencing
About the only way you can see this extremely stylized fencing is in the 1964 movie “Ecco” (1964) (Il mondo di notte numero 3 (original title)), when it was still illegal after WWII. Fortunately it is right at the start of this “mondo” movie, the rest of which is gross and tasteless, even if narrated by George Sanders, who lends a great deal to its grossness with witty repartee.
In the movie it shows two fencers, seated at a table and wearing their complicated protective gear, with their seconds seated behind them to hold their arms before fighting, and to stop them the instant that a halt is caused, typically if one or the other gets their face slashed.
Though the facial scars were, and still are highly prized, in one fencing school they were strictly prohibited to the point where face masks were worn, and poking, instead of slashing, was how they dueled. This school was for actors, whose career might be ruined by an unfortunate facial scar.
IMHO...
The early founder ethnicities, English, Welsh, Scottish, German, Dutch, French, etc., are purported to be evil racists and exploiters of the “lower classes” by the politically correct. Especially if the person happens to be male. Especially if they’re old.
Any time they form an ethnic heritage group it is cast as evil. Why can they not be proud of their heritage of their ethnicity like everyone else ?
The Telegraph puts non-Aryan into quotes as if that was a citation. These duelling societies never used the word Aryan. They want their members to be of “German lineage”. Aryan is a word more or less made up and used by the Nazis.
I don’t agree with that but it is their good right. There are Turkish culture clubs exclusively for Turks, african clubs and so on, which are apparently all OK.