Quote: (09-26-2016 11:24 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:
Worst of all, there is often a culturally-enforced ideology against improving things. If you see someone toss garbage out of a car, you will be encouraged
to do nothing. Don't be chismoso, as we say here.
The critical name of that phenomenon in Polish is tumiwisizm, untranslatable gerund (some translate it as Dudeism, but I think it misses the assertive aspect of tumiwsizm, focusing only on joyful nihilism, which may or may not be a part of it) made out of the entire phrase "Wisi mi to!", meaning "I do not care about it at all!", which is a very colloquial, idiomatic but much more assertive version of the previously discussed phrase "Co cię to obchodzi...!". The latter can go either with ? or ! as needed, but Wisi mi to always goes with !.
PS. If you like literature, then Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener 'I would prefer not to' is a devoted adept of tumiwisizm in its polite form. When you read about low participation in Polish elections, a low level of social capital etc, always remember that Poland has relatively large share of Bartlebys in its population.