• NateNate60@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      What’s Germany? What’s America? What’s Coca-Cola? What’s an embargo? What’s Naziism?

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        2 months ago

        What’s Germany?

        Well, that one he knows at least! He fought with the Germanic tribes, who he notes came from a land called Germania.

          • NateNate60@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            2 months ago

            Not really. The existence of a unified German nation-state is less than two centuries old. Sure, there was a place called “Germania” by the Romans but it was just a name for a place and the categorisation of all Germanic tribes as essentially one barbaric people was just racism on the part of the Romans.

            Just like even though the word “America” is twice as old as the United States, and just because that label was adopted by that country doesn’t mean the country is as old as the label.

              • NateNate60@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                edit-2
                2 months ago

                The Holy Roman Empire was not a contemporary of Julius Caesar nor was it united. If your subdivisions are fighting wars with each other then I don’t consider that a proper “country”.

                • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  I think I’m taking this too seriously for historymemes, but if someone from the future came to tell me something was invented by “Slavia”, I’d probably assume it was a country northeast of what I know as Austria, even though those countries are currently at war with each other. I can imagine a future in thousands of years where they’re politically and culturally united, even though I can’t imagine one in twenty years.

              • jaycifer@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                Don’t go bringing that crackpot Edward Gettier into this. Caesar would know the Germans (those who hail from Germania) as a disorganized, unorganized group of tribes with a common heritage. That’s a justified true belief, or at least as justified and true as one could expect of him. His beliefs would not cover a unified German nation, at which point there can’t be a belief part of a JTB.