This sounds very self-centered. Many people already see the EU bureaucrats as something alien, let's not give them another reason to think they're selfish.
I think it's the other way around. Many people have no idea about how the EU works and what exactly is going on there. I believe highlighting the key institutions through their iconic buildings will raise awareness and increase trust in EU institutions!
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic; they are as extremely alien, as they are deeply “selfish”, as you put it so generously.
I know many people will see and think of the EU as a positive thing, just like how the colonists of the past rationalized their selfish harm and destruction through things like claiming to bring civilization to the savages; but under all the fluff, all the slick marketing and propaganda lies and manipulation, the indigenous European cultures and people are being destroyed right before our very eyes. Many people cheer it on while decrying how those horrible people of the past could have done the very same thing they support through the EU, only towards their very own people.
Considering the alien and hostile nature of the EU towards actual Europeans and European culture, it does seem most appropriate to have the alien, dystopian, monolithic, uninspired, cold buildings on the currency looking like alien spaceships, as a true representation of what the EU is; an alien bait and switch occupation that is devastating the indigenous people and cultures of Europe just like the ruling class did all over the rest of the planet in previous centuries.
Now the European peoples are getting the racist, narcissistic, supremacist colonization experience…even if in a kind of inverse form…that will and is destroying and devastating the indigenous people and cultures.
What’s amazing is how people cannot see that they are part of the very kind of thing they often decry others having done elsewhere in the past; indigenous European languages and dialects are dying out because they’re being killed off by EU policies by the dozens, cultural practices that are centuries and millennia old are being killed and dying out with them. Europeans don’t even see the thing that is obvious to a self-aware transatlantic person; Europe is being turned into an America. Look at America what it is now … that’s your future, kid. Do you really want to do that, be a devastated, hollow husk of what you once were, what you could have been???
Just look around you; Europe is gearing up to be a war machine, the civilian industrial base is being destroyed, the economies are being financialized, deficits are spreading, unique cultures are being destroyed and turned into corporate Disney versions of themselves! Sounds familiar!
The European Union is not a good thing. Full stop.
Excellent debate. Good arguments made.
You lack the imagination for what the EU could have been, not an institution that imposes itself on the people while screaming “democracy” and “equality” as the abuses continue unabated and the indigenous people and the millennia and century old cultures of Europe are being eradicated and snuffed out. It is being done in far more sophisticated and subtle ways, but like they were in the Americas, in Russia, in China, in Asia in general, etc. it was also done to the Americans who were a prosperous and educated and vibrant people before the 20th century, and now it is what everyone knows it as…… the future face of Europe if this continue.
they could put the ECB on the 500€ since a money factory is a decent image to put on a banknote, and follows the original bridge series theme of ancient-modern.
but find some actually nice buildings to put on the rest
Perhaps making the notes as ugly and boring as possible will push folks off physical money onto trackable digital money that is just as soulless as the buildings on the notes.
Are you against the idea of European cooperation in general? Or against the implementation?
If there is to be European cooperation that goes beyond heads of states talking to each other, you're going to need some kind of space where they can do that. Using that building as a symbol seems like an obvious choice albeit not a very creative one. Really struggle to see how that choice can be "extremely insulting".
> Are you against the idea of European cooperation in general? Or against the implementation?
I'm against ugly soulless buildings. Those buildings can't be a symbol for anything, because they, like all modern [1] buildings, were deliberately designed to remove all identity. They are completely generic, no different from modern buildings in Beijing, New York, or Dubai. The only thing they represent is a capitulation, or refusal, of making things beautiful.
I'd vastly prefer some national landmark of the nation that committed war crimes against us in WWI & II, than that.
[1] Or is it "modernist"? Whatever the "style" of basic geometric shapes in steel and glass is called.
The average European does not view those buildings as symbols of European cooperation. They are just another generic office building some nameless and faceless bureaucrats work in. They lack the symbolism and recognizability of some US buildings like the White House, the Capitol, or the Pentagon - which are all inherently linked to the institutions they host.
A movie showing an external shot of the White House establishes that we're going to be looking at the US President next. A movie showing an external shot of the European Parliament establishes... office drones working in the Business Factory?
this is because people don't even recognize the buildings. Even I only recognized the commission and the ECB. I think if we put them on our money, citizens will recognize them more!
I don't think any of these buildings has the recognizability potential. I could recognize the Commission too since I see it on TV every day, but others are generic offices.
The White House has a distinct shape. The Capitol has a distinct shape. The Pentagon absolutely has a distinct shape.
I don't think the ECB will ever be recognizable (or at least won't become recognized via exposure), since it's just a glass tower like thousands of others.