Experiential Evidence Against Moral Relativism Vis a Vis German Nightlife

I am entirely fascinated by Germany in what may be a slightly unhealthy way. It seems like I’ve greeted every revelation about German culture with a perhaps-slightly-exaggerated enthusiasm that nonetheless has entertained the Germans I’m with. Here are a few examples of things that have totally blown me away over the past two days:

-        Germans put butter on their ham and cheese sandwiches. This is actually a pretty great idea, since German bread can be a bit dry, and the butter acts as a nice grain lubricant.

-        Germans would never pronounce the year 2012 as zwanzig zwölf (twenty-twelve), but they would say that for something that costs €2.012. (Also, did I mention that they switch periods and commas for number decimals, and that Excel will add you numbers incorrectly if you put in 1.25 instead of 1,25? I’m pretty sure this is a European convention as well, and I have no idea why this isn’t standardized.)

-        Apparently, Mexican food means chili con carne, and for some reason chili con carne does not imply the use of actual chili powder. Generally speaking, it seems that Germans are not big on spicy foods or, for some impossible-to-fathom reason, garlic.

-        The big opening day for movies in Germany? Thursday. I still can’t get over this. It’s completely nonsensical. Are people really going to midnight debuts on Wednesday nights? Is Friday considered a weekend here? And what about the weekend box office numbers? They’re rendered completely meaningless here.

In any case, this general fascination with cultural differences has led me to a rather unfortunate presumption: specifically, that German culture is entirely different from American culture. This is the same concept that a lot of overly dramatic cultural theorists have espoused (I’m looking at you, Franz Boas), and after tearing apart hard cultural relativism in many a religious studies class, I’m glad that last night finally gave me a counter-example, even if it was a rather trivial and embarrassing one. To whit: in Germany, it is still a bad idea to let three drunk girls you met on the street drag you to a €7 club when you have work the next morning. I wish I didn’t have to make the same mistakes as a college freshman to get to this point, but it still feels nice to definitively debunk moral relativism (that’s right, Robert Orsi—erotic method my ass), and that’s the nice thing about being a foreigner—you basically have carte blanche to do anything, as long as you preface it with, “I’m not from around here.”

Speaking of which, I’m off to Berlin today. Pictures should be forthcoming.