An American Furry in Germany

I've been reading a lot of Ayn Rand lately--and by a lot, I mean Atlas Shrugged. One very long book... fortunately it only took me one month to finish the whole thing. This whole tumultuous month, while I've been moving back to my hometown, preparing for a semester in Germany, and going through one existential crisis after another, I've been reading Ayn Rand. Scary, I know. Turns out that I didn't like it now as much as I did when I was young and impressionable (in high school), and now I disagree with a lot of it--but not all. I can't blame her for it; she grew up in communist Russia, and although she escaped from it, her entire philosophy is a reaction to it. Not to mention her writing style is more like propaganda than decent fiction--I guess you can never truly escape your roots. But her basic premise is only slightly flawed, and along the way to taking it way too far, she makes a lot of good points. So I think I've learned a few things.

But this post isn't about Ayn Rand--it's about Germany. Again. I think I've figured out their underlying premise.

You see, nothing is free in Germany. I know we have the saying "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (tanstaafl, for short), but we don't really mean it. We get ketchup free, water free, bread and butter, free refills, etc. I haven't gone to a doctor, but I bet they don't even give out little lollipops here. In Germany, nothing is free--tanstaafl.

But reality is like that, isn't it? We only say that because it's true--you can't get a free lunch, you can only get someone else to pay it for you. America is ruled by corporations that have realized that buy people free lunches can be a good business practice. It's not immediately obvious, but people will give you more money if they have the choice, instead of being nickle-and-dimed out of it. If you change their reality, and don't charge them for 2 cents worth of ketchup, they'll order 50 cents more worth of fries! If you give them a plastic bag that costs 1/100th of a cent for free, they'll do all their shopping at your stores! And so America is gradually slipping away from our hold on reality. Either that, or we were founded with a national mentality firmly outside of reality--either way, the result is obvious. Disneyland, Ronald McDonald, The Brady Bunch, all-you-can-eat, etc. Each asks for nothing but your money, and offers you nothing but a brighter and more perfect fantasy. Isn't it nice to escape reality for a while?
Don't get the idea that I'm saying one is better than the other--I've tried to avoid doing that. I'm certain that there is a difference, and I have a pretty good idea of its nature, but I'm not yet certain which is "better"--of if one can be better. Germans as a people tend to have a more bleak worldview--the cost of accepting reality. Is it worth rejecting reality, at least in part, if it makes you happy? Or is it our "duty" to keep ourselves firmly rooted in reality--I mean, look what the American way of life is doing to the world. Seeking individual happiness would seem to be a good enough meaning of life, but when everyone does it, it turns out it's not sustainable. But for what should life be sustained, if not happiness? It's certainly a quandary. Maybe I need to figure out what premises I'm working from--if any really exist.

This got off topic fast, but suffice it to say that the Germans have a very realistic worldview. This makes them at once less fun, and more responsible. So if you want to lay back and enjoy life, go to America. If you want to prolong life, and I mean all life on earth, I'd suggest Germany.

So far, what I've gotten from being here is a new perspective. It's not the only thing, and it's not the only new perspective, but I'll just stick to describing this one for now.

People always underestimate the degree to which they don't think beyond their own nose. Just "don't", not "can't"--it's not an absolute, it's just a hobby. We come into the world assuming, first of all, that there is a world, then further assuming that we perceive it as it exists. The fact is that we don't. We have a generally clear picture of things, but that's all it is--a picture. The world is full of information that must be inferred or learned, and a surprising amount of it is indirect. It must all be inferred. Coming into the world with five senses, we must build our entire world on the basis of them. We're very good at it, but it's a very variable process. I didn't say imperfect, because it's not a matter of right or wrong, perfect or imperfect. It's just a matter of opinion.
I've known all this, and generally it's not useful knowledge, so I don't think about it a lot. Certainly no one can be absolutely sure of anything, but to say that just undermines our further usage of the word "sure", or "right"-it's all semantics, and at the end of the day, we must act as if the world is real and solid, and as if we had free will. We have to get along somehow, day after day. But when I came to this foreign country, and learned this foreign language, it reminded me. I started to feel it in a visceral way, not just theoretically. All the human creations followed basically the same lines, but varied just slightly: Coca-Cola is made with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, McDonald's has a shrimp burger, people park cars on the sidewalk, streets and sidewalks are cobbled with stones or bricks instead of paved with concrete or asphalt. But nature, and the fundamental aspects of human life, remain mostly the same.

I guess what I'm learning is what's fundamental, and what is variable. And that the world doesn't need my agreement to function in a certain way. The concepts of "right and wrong" have a very limited function.

I made up the word all by myself, although I don't claim to have been the first. It means "foreigner tax", and no, it's not literal.
One of the things I discovered about going to another country is that I don't know the rules, the customs, or even the brands. I mean, I expected that, but what I discovered was that this has a very real financial result. The "Ausländergebühr" is paid every time I buy a new train ticket, not knowing that I could have transferred, or every time I eat at McDonald's because I didn't want to take a chance on whatever "Backfisch" might turn out to be, or every time I accidentally buy lipstick instead of ChapStick. And no, none of those examples actually happened. :P The train tickets don't transfer, I know what Backfisch is, and I found the Blistex just fine, thank you (I don't think they have ChapStick here...). But I have been noticing the effect.

Oh, and there's no free refills here at McDonald's. What the hell?

It didn't take me a day here to realize that I was completely right--I couldn't have prepared myself for this. Everything is so different, in so many ways. It's really the little things that count, and that can't be explained properly. For instance...
When I was flying into Denver, looking out the windows, I wondered briefly when I would first know that I was in Germany--what would be the first new thing I saw when I landed. Turns out I didn't even have to get there--when I boarded the flight to Frankfurt, a bunch of passengers and flight attendants were speaking German, and there were German newspapers there to read on the flight.
When I got into Frankfurt, I decided to get some lunch at McDonald's. You'd think McDonald's would be the airport equivalent of a US Embassy (a little slice of America), but it was also very thoroughly cultured. The first thing I saw on the menu was a big speckly burger with the words "Shrimp Lemon" above it. I almost ran screaming right then and there, but they had the long-estranged McRib, so I decided to try that. I'm not sure if it always tasted this terrible, or if it was Germany's fault... but I'm leaning towards the former. Heh, heh.

So yeah, now I'm in Germany. I'm pretty blown away... and I'm worrying about every little thing, because whatever I do, there's always the chance that I'm completely misunderstanding what's going on. (Lots of people here speak some amount of English, but surprisingly I often speak more German... so communication is a constant issue.) I'm getting better, though. And on Wednesday, I get to meet a bunch of other transfer students, so I might be able to make some friends who are in the same situation. :D

Lawd, lawd... I have a Livejournal. I guess it had to happen sometime.

But seriously... apparently you can't find American cheese in Austria, at least not commonly, and that leads me to believe that Germany is not much different. (To tell the truth... I pretty much lump Austria and Germany together in my mind. What's the difference, really? I hope they're not mad.) I guess you can still get it on a McDonald's cheeseburger, but... aha! If you can't buy American cheese, you can't make your own McD's cheeseburger! It's the corporation... it all makes so much sense now.