More fun trivia about Garibaldi: he was elected to the french parliament, and he caused a stir when he showed up wearing his signature poncho rather than formal clothes. He was also the only french commander in the Franco Russian war to capture a Prussian flag.
Also, he was supposedly invited to fight in the American civil war but refused since he couldn't get the level of command he wanted, although there was a Garibaldi Guard in that war.
Queen Victoria wrote in her diary , about Garibaldi's visit to London, that most of the elite was far too fascinated with him. During the same visit, the servants at the house he was staying sold the water he used to wash himself to collectors.
"If an entire race of human beings, subjugated into slavery by human egoism, has been restored to human dignity, to civilization and human love, this is by your doing and at the price of the most noble lives in America."
I think the most hilarious fun trivia about him -being the unifier of Italy- is that Nice named a square after him in 1870, thus 10 years after _splitting_ from Italy and joining France. And then to add insult to injury at his death the city decided to put a statue of him into the square. So now he stands on a square in France which actually during his lifetime was Italy. Must hurt him every day ;)
You can’t get to those feats with good looks alone. This guy was rizzing [1] as hell when he was in his prime!
[1] Rizz: from the word charisma. As I understand what it means: being amazingly charismatic towards your romantic interests in order to start a conversation with them and ultimately seduce them. It’s similar to the word game in that sense. Younger people seem to use the word rizz nowadays.
IMO "seduce" has the negative connotation that you are somehow manipulating a "target", whereas "charisma" is more positive; it means your behavior attracts positive attention -- that people find you compelling and interesting, that they will want to follow your lead. (Granted, in concrete terms these may not always be so different -- but to say that is to accept a cynical frame.)
I understand "rizz" as entirely a short form of "charisma" with all the same connotations -- in which case I wouldn't focus it to "romantic interests" or to the goal of "ultimately seduce[ing] them" -- but it's possible that younger people use "rizz" differently than I use "charisma".
The word "charisma" is a little gendered. You are more likely to hear a man described as "charismatic" than a woman. A woman is more likely to be -- well, honestly, the word would probably just be "hot" (or "sexy" -- as used here for Garibaldi), which would place a lot more emphasis on appearance; though to focus more on behavioral aspects, one might hear (I'm reaching here) "effervescent" or "fascinating". I suppose "magnetic" is also an option, though that seems pretty gender-neutral to me.
The slang "game" you mention seems intermediate in connotation to me. The meaning is closer to "ability to seduce", but the connotation is not quite so negative. The implication is that "the game" is simply part of life, neither good nor bad; it is what it is.
Of course, the connotations of "rizz" or "charisma" are less sexual overall. Possibly some amount of what I'm calling "positive connotations" or "negative connotations" simply reflects that, and our society's Judeo-Christian negativity towards sex (which in "conservative" places forces LGBT people at least a little into the closet; and in "liberal" places survives primarily for straight men, the bastards).
Put another way, "charisma" or "rizz" is work-safe, indeed desirable in a CEO (and will likely be rewarded in most employees); whereas "seduction' is not work-safe.
My understanding is that you are correct that "rizz" comes from "charisma", and when used as an adjective it's pretty well used the same (although there may be shades of difference I'm simply missing), but notably "rizz" also gets used as a verb in a way that "charisma" does not.
> IMO "seduce" has the negative connotation that you are somehow manipulating a "target"
Hmm in pickup artist lingo, sure. Though that perspective has been eclipsed by all the <insert color> pill people anyway.
But the concept of seduction has a long history before that, so I think that that particular view is way too narrow. To seduce someone is to entice, make them fill with anticipation, and so on. I feel certain female seducers, that have a social media presence about it, explain that part relatively well.
> that perspective has been eclipsed by all the <insert color> pill people anyway
though I think I get the general idea; the culture has moved on since the early 2010s.
...
> To seduce someone is to entice, make them fill with anticipation, and so on. I feel certain female seducers, that have a social media presence about it, explain that part relatively well.
I see no contradiction with what I am saying, apart from (a) the (orthogonal) emphasis on the emotional state being cultivated in the target; and (b) that these speakers are unapologetic.
Certainly I have seen efforts to reclaim "seduction" as a kind of "girl power", but there are a few issues with it. The biggest -- and I know this norms on a particular kind of relationship, but I will do so -- is that it primarily makes sense to cultivate this as a "skill" if you plan to have a large number of short term relationships. For many reasons, including the theory of repeated games, I think this is not good for the individual or for society. Instead I would encourage the formation of lifelong pair bonds -- which, yes, has sexy/fun aspects of
> entic[ing], mak[ing] them fill with anticipation
but I think that would be a little further from the archetypes of the word "seduction".
...
If we are looking for a word with positive connotations, I would be a little more comfortable with a gender-neutral use of our other word, "charisma".
Just to offer food for thought, some people in the south of Italy still regard him as a Sardo/French invader and do not buy the “national hero” persona that garibaldi got attributed after the unification.
I don’t share the nostalgia for burbonic rule, but I have to point out that the fact that they lost does not mean that they were not invaded. Both things can be true.
Other than being defined as "sexy" this article doesn't add much more than what one would have learnt at school in Italy.
There are so many aspects which are more recently brought him about his campaign (i.e. Making deals with local lords in the south, which allowed today's mafia families to de facto remain in power).
So, if you think this article was interesting, do go dig a bit deeper as it's rather shallow.
I posted it, and agree that it's shallow. I reckon a majority of people outside Europe have never even heard of Garibaldi - as much as that might appall an Italian. The article may be clickbait, but now the reader knows.
stalin's pictures were photoshopped when he was in power, he was actually quite ugly. napoleon similarly was ugly looking but had himself painted as a chad after he betrayed the revolution
The article gives the impression "Italy" was always a nation in the making for all of history, just waiting to "unify". It talks of a "national rebirth".
But it's an invention. It never previously existed. Yes the penisula was referred to as Italy for a long time and the language is shared across the area and there are cultural similarities. But none of that automatically makes a nation - you don't have to think hard of counter examples. History could have panned out differently. It still could.
I think the bourgeoisies have been enormously successful in giving the impression that these nation states, whether it be Italy or Germany, or India, etc, that they're inevitable, they're permanent and anything else is a perversion. And Garibaldi was one such whose brilliance was to forge a nation so quickly from so many disparate states.
I have happy memories of the struggle to open the Trotsky boxes. In my house we used to have them with cocktails, so it was easiest to just pull out the bar tools and hack away.
I know little more than what is written in Giovanni Guareschi’s work. But he feels more like the Napoleon of Notting Hill. I wonder where Chesterton got his inspiration from…
He's a unique figure. Running across the world, finding himself constantly drawn to battles for the freedom of this or that group, he had a penchant for winning military campaigns that were then politically squandered by the people he trusted. A committed republican at a time when it was a revolutionary and scandalous position, he won half of Italy for a king he didn't like (and who really didn't like him) and then effectively self-exiled. More than once, he had to be held back by aristocratic leaders scared by his "uppity" plebeian success. And he was as popular as the Beatles - all over Europe, men wanted to die for him and women wanted to run away with him. The difference between him and Napoleon (the real one from Corsica, not Notting Hill) was that he sincerely never wanted to rule anything or anyone.
I can imagine he’s mentioned a lot in Don Camillo since the communist and socialist parties in the first republican election of Italy joined in a coalition called “the Garibaldi front”, but Garibaldi himself was already long dead by then.
More fun trivia about Garibaldi: he was elected to the french parliament, and he caused a stir when he showed up wearing his signature poncho rather than formal clothes. He was also the only french commander in the Franco Russian war to capture a Prussian flag.
Also, he was supposedly invited to fight in the American civil war but refused since he couldn't get the level of command he wanted, although there was a Garibaldi Guard in that war.
Queen Victoria wrote in her diary , about Garibaldi's visit to London, that most of the elite was far too fascinated with him. During the same visit, the servants at the house he was staying sold the water he used to wash himself to collectors.
Re: the civil war, here's a letter Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln, congratulating him on the Emancipation Proclamation
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/giuseppe-...
I think the most hilarious fun trivia about him -being the unifier of Italy- is that Nice named a square after him in 1870, thus 10 years after _splitting_ from Italy and joining France. And then to add insult to injury at his death the city decided to put a statue of him into the square. So now he stands on a square in France which actually during his lifetime was Italy. Must hurt him every day ;)
Mussolini tried to take Nice back in WW2 when the Italians shamelessly stabbed France in the back.
Damn!
He has mad game, holy hell.
You can’t get to those feats with good looks alone. This guy was rizzing [1] as hell when he was in his prime!
[1] Rizz: from the word charisma. As I understand what it means: being amazingly charismatic towards your romantic interests in order to start a conversation with them and ultimately seduce them. It’s similar to the word game in that sense. Younger people seem to use the word rizz nowadays.
IMO "seduce" has the negative connotation that you are somehow manipulating a "target", whereas "charisma" is more positive; it means your behavior attracts positive attention -- that people find you compelling and interesting, that they will want to follow your lead. (Granted, in concrete terms these may not always be so different -- but to say that is to accept a cynical frame.)
I understand "rizz" as entirely a short form of "charisma" with all the same connotations -- in which case I wouldn't focus it to "romantic interests" or to the goal of "ultimately seduce[ing] them" -- but it's possible that younger people use "rizz" differently than I use "charisma".
The word "charisma" is a little gendered. You are more likely to hear a man described as "charismatic" than a woman. A woman is more likely to be -- well, honestly, the word would probably just be "hot" (or "sexy" -- as used here for Garibaldi), which would place a lot more emphasis on appearance; though to focus more on behavioral aspects, one might hear (I'm reaching here) "effervescent" or "fascinating". I suppose "magnetic" is also an option, though that seems pretty gender-neutral to me.
The slang "game" you mention seems intermediate in connotation to me. The meaning is closer to "ability to seduce", but the connotation is not quite so negative. The implication is that "the game" is simply part of life, neither good nor bad; it is what it is.
Of course, the connotations of "rizz" or "charisma" are less sexual overall. Possibly some amount of what I'm calling "positive connotations" or "negative connotations" simply reflects that, and our society's Judeo-Christian negativity towards sex (which in "conservative" places forces LGBT people at least a little into the closet; and in "liberal" places survives primarily for straight men, the bastards).
Put another way, "charisma" or "rizz" is work-safe, indeed desirable in a CEO (and will likely be rewarded in most employees); whereas "seduction' is not work-safe.
My understanding is that you are correct that "rizz" comes from "charisma", and when used as an adjective it's pretty well used the same (although there may be shades of difference I'm simply missing), but notably "rizz" also gets used as a verb in a way that "charisma" does not.
> IMO "seduce" has the negative connotation that you are somehow manipulating a "target"
Hmm in pickup artist lingo, sure. Though that perspective has been eclipsed by all the <insert color> pill people anyway.
But the concept of seduction has a long history before that, so I think that that particular view is way too narrow. To seduce someone is to entice, make them fill with anticipation, and so on. I feel certain female seducers, that have a social media presence about it, explain that part relatively well.
I think my sense of the word "seduce" predates male "pick up artists". My intention is to speak from the cultural mainstream.
Consider also uses like, "do not be seduced by fascism".
Or:
> Pope Francis: ‘The devil is a seducer’
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/12/27/pope-franci...
...
I am a little curious what you mean by
> that perspective has been eclipsed by all the <insert color> pill people anyway
though I think I get the general idea; the culture has moved on since the early 2010s.
...
> To seduce someone is to entice, make them fill with anticipation, and so on. I feel certain female seducers, that have a social media presence about it, explain that part relatively well.
I see no contradiction with what I am saying, apart from (a) the (orthogonal) emphasis on the emotional state being cultivated in the target; and (b) that these speakers are unapologetic.
Certainly I have seen efforts to reclaim "seduction" as a kind of "girl power", but there are a few issues with it. The biggest -- and I know this norms on a particular kind of relationship, but I will do so -- is that it primarily makes sense to cultivate this as a "skill" if you plan to have a large number of short term relationships. For many reasons, including the theory of repeated games, I think this is not good for the individual or for society. Instead I would encourage the formation of lifelong pair bonds -- which, yes, has sexy/fun aspects of
> entic[ing], mak[ing] them fill with anticipation
but I think that would be a little further from the archetypes of the word "seduction".
...
If we are looking for a word with positive connotations, I would be a little more comfortable with a gender-neutral use of our other word, "charisma".
Slight typo - it was the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.
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Just to offer food for thought, some people in the south of Italy still regard him as a Sardo/French invader and do not buy the “national hero” persona that garibaldi got attributed after the unification.
The thing is: even ignoring that campaign, Garibaldi was successful elsewhere and mostly coherent in his political positions.
So really, the nostalgics of Bourbon rule are just the Italian equivalent of American Confederates: they just never got over the fact they lost.
I don’t share the nostalgia for burbonic rule, but I have to point out that the fact that they lost does not mean that they were not invaded. Both things can be true.
Other than being defined as "sexy" this article doesn't add much more than what one would have learnt at school in Italy.
There are so many aspects which are more recently brought him about his campaign (i.e. Making deals with local lords in the south, which allowed today's mafia families to de facto remain in power).
So, if you think this article was interesting, do go dig a bit deeper as it's rather shallow.
I posted it, and agree that it's shallow. I reckon a majority of people outside Europe have never even heard of Garibaldi - as much as that might appall an Italian. The article may be clickbait, but now the reader knows.
There's a character in Babylon-5, the sci-fi TV series of the 90s, also named Garibaldi. Professional hater of authority.
has the author never seen a young che guevara, fidel castro, or joseph stalin?
stalin's pictures were photoshopped when he was in power, he was actually quite ugly. napoleon similarly was ugly looking but had himself painted as a chad after he betrayed the revolution
Ok about Che, but Fidel and Stalin were nothing to write home about. That obviously didn't stop them from having loads of women, of course.
no wonder they named an SSX tricky stage after him
The article gives the impression "Italy" was always a nation in the making for all of history, just waiting to "unify". It talks of a "national rebirth".
But it's an invention. It never previously existed. Yes the penisula was referred to as Italy for a long time and the language is shared across the area and there are cultural similarities. But none of that automatically makes a nation - you don't have to think hard of counter examples. History could have panned out differently. It still could.
I think the bourgeoisies have been enormously successful in giving the impression that these nation states, whether it be Italy or Germany, or India, etc, that they're inevitable, they're permanent and anything else is a perversion. And Garibaldi was one such whose brilliance was to forge a nation so quickly from so many disparate states.
Well yes, every nation is just a construct.
Many interests - not just bourgeois - have used national identity to motivate people, for better or worse.
It's amazing how many Italian dictators had biscuits named after them.
You've got the Garibaldi of course, you've got your Bourbon, and you've got your Peek Freens Trotsky assortment!
> how many Italian dictators had biscuits named after them.
So, how many?
Well, it seems Garibaldi biscuits were genuinely named after this guy. However Bourbon was named for the House of Bourbon, a French royal family.
I'm discounting the Peek Freens Trotsky assortment because Trotsky was, of course, Russian.
So, one. Which is still more than you might expect.
Also, Trotsky was only a only a butcher and repressor, never a dictator, as he didn't held power.
> House of Bourbon, a French royal family
Which also ruled in Spain and multiple different parts of Italy (like Parma and the Two Sicilies).
I have happy memories of the struggle to open the Trotsky boxes. In my house we used to have them with cocktails, so it was easiest to just pull out the bar tools and hack away.
(Oh the embarrassment. My ears are burning)
Garibaldi wasn't a dictator.
While it's misleading to characterize him as a dictator without further context, he momentarily was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_Giuseppe_Garib...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11CvBKpKbn8
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_(The_Young_Ones)
It's weird to remember Garibaldi as a dictator, as though he were similar to Mussolini or Hitler. That said, he was one, for a few months in 1860.
I know little more than what is written in Giovanni Guareschi’s work. But he feels more like the Napoleon of Notting Hill. I wonder where Chesterton got his inspiration from…
He's a unique figure. Running across the world, finding himself constantly drawn to battles for the freedom of this or that group, he had a penchant for winning military campaigns that were then politically squandered by the people he trusted. A committed republican at a time when it was a revolutionary and scandalous position, he won half of Italy for a king he didn't like (and who really didn't like him) and then effectively self-exiled. More than once, he had to be held back by aristocratic leaders scared by his "uppity" plebeian success. And he was as popular as the Beatles - all over Europe, men wanted to die for him and women wanted to run away with him. The difference between him and Napoleon (the real one from Corsica, not Notting Hill) was that he sincerely never wanted to rule anything or anyone.
That description fits Che Guevara too. Who, coincidentally, also was considered to be incredibly handsome.
Which of Guareschi’s work is about Garibaldi?
I can imagine he’s mentioned a lot in Don Camillo since the communist and socialist parties in the first republican election of Italy joined in a coalition called “the Garibaldi front”, but Garibaldi himself was already long dead by then.
[dead]
‘Garibaldi’ is the German word for pressure cooker!
Considering how he was a thorn in the side for Austrians, the pun is almost apt.
? It is? Which part of Germany?
None. That’s a bad pun.
I love bad puns but this one escapes me. Help?
Garen means cook, bald means soon, I guess a pressure cooker cooks your food quickly (soon)?
Oog. It’s puns like this that make people doubt freedom of speech.
Nothing bad about this pun then.
Edit: and thank you, of course. :)
Ouch!