Iceland teen known legally as 'girl' fights for right to name

[Immortal]

pezus said:

Immortal said:

This whole ability to get together and agree to sacrifice a certain amount of freedom in order to preserve culture is really quite admirable. Since I've really got used to the American tendency to refuse to trade off freedoms for something as silly and subjective as culture, the idea that such a thing has been successfully implemented and for the most part been accepted by the populace is completely blowing my mind.

Well I've never quite understood this whole 100% freedom thing (except not on the internet!) either lol. Culture isn't silly, it's what makes Icelanders Icelandic.

Although you're going to get into this argument with some very enraged American rightist sooner or later if this thread lasts long enough, I'm gonna start it just to play devil's advocate.

Even if culture does have some value in it, the fact of the matter is that all Icelanders won't necessarily appreciate it, right? I mean, I'm sure that there's at least a few Icelandic citizens who don't actually give a damn about their history or language. (Certainly, these people exist in huge numbers in most countries.) Isn't it unfair, then, to force these people to keep an Icelandic name, even though they really don't want to?

I mean, taking the idea of "preserving culture" to its extreme, you might as well ban all foreign brands and other forms of external influence so that Icelanders don't become less Icelandic. If you can do it with names, then why not with all other life choices?