I've been lately going through old Word documents looking at some of the genealogy research I did - I wanted to better understand my ancestors by learning what others thought of their cultures. Since I'm a politically-incorrect kind of guy, I thought I'd post the fruits of this "research". I'd gathered them before I had a blog, so they are mostly unattributed.
The Germans
The Germans make everything difficult, both for themselves and for everyone else. - German poet Goethe
The Germans have intellectual pretensions, refusing to restrict themselves to pragmatic and utilitarian goals, but seek to find the secrets of the universe and to solve the riddle of man's relationship to God.
Germans push every good thing to the point where it becomes a bad one, that inimitable combination of tactlessness and sensitivity, of arrogance and subservience.
The difference between northern Germany and southern Germany is dramatic - Southern Germany is tender, intimate, full, warm. The Northern people are blase, superficial, industrial-minded.
The Irish
Perhaps the most common attribute of the Irish personality is its highly developed sensibility, which is alert and susceptible to its environment. The Irish personalithy is variable and very responsive to calls made on it, so that it can spring from inactivity to excitement or from sadness to gaiety in a few minutes. This vivacious temprament is Mediterranean in character, rather than north European, and it is puzzling to the English. It is associated with other characteristics of the Mediterranean such as talkativeness. Irish alertness combined with social awareness makes the Irish especially curious. The alertness and vivacity, combined with their developed imagination, often leads to restlessness and some personal dissatisfaction. An Irishman will frequently want to be somewhere else or even someone else. This is intensified by a tendency to romanticize situations or destinations not connected with himself, by making them appear more glamourous or attractive. A positive aspect of the Irish personality is personal objectivity. Without any warning an Irishman will reveal in a few quick words an ability to look at himself with the eye of an outsider - an ability rare among Anglo-saxons.
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