The German Scientific Monotone Claims a Royal Victim

American are often accused -- quite rightly -- of having an instinctive weakness for showbiz that causes them to attach all sorts of fripperies and bells and whistles to the most mundane -- or profound -- things. Witness Baconnaise, Christian exercise videos, facebooked family tragedies, etc.

Germans, on the other hand, are accused of having precisely the opposite gift (curse?): the ability to take inherently interesting subjects and drain all the sizzle, controversy, originality, and human interest out of them.* One aspect of this is the Scientific Monotone, the low-frequency drone emitted by professors and experts when called upon to explain something important. This curious tendency appears to have emerged from the notion that just as the most powerful medications taste the worst, the only respectable (konsequent) way to deliver specialized knowledge is to crucify your audience on a cross of dogmatic boredom.

The Scientific Monotone can drain an inherently fascinating subject of life faster than a spider can suck the juice out of a fly. When the technique is applied to a not-particularly-fascinating subject, the results can be life-threatening. As the Queen can testify:

According to a new biography, “Our Queen” by Robert Hardman, she has fallen asleep at work once, very briefly, in 2004, during a lecture on new insights into biology and medicine with the use of magnets at the Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf.

(h/t Ed Philp).

* This is related to the tendency to pay intense attention to crushingly mundane subjects, which has resulted in such things as a live radio show about buttons and a book about urination.

Comments

[K. Pfeiffer]

Re: Norbert's comment

No, there is a difference between dressing something up with "fripperies and bells and whistles" (45 sec. talky segment with video on ALL of the morning news programs) vs. serious moderator and three serious panelists "pay[ing] intense attention" to something -- i.e. talking it to death for 45 minutes or longer on ARD.

[Norbert]

"causes them to attach all sorts of fripperies and bells and whistles to the most mundane -- or profound -- things." (on Americans)

"This is related to the tendency to pay intense attention to crushingly mundane subjects" (on Germans)

Spot the error? You're trying to say that the cultures are complete opposites behaviorally, yet you're using almost identical words to describe them!