From Cultural Arrogance to Respect: A Personal Reckoning

For a long time, I regarded Roberto Blanco as a curious anomaly in German popular culture. Here was a Black entertainer, born in Tunisia with Cuban roots, who had become a beloved figure especially among conservative audiences, including in Bavaria, a region known for its strong sense of tradition and cultural identity. I found it remarkable, almost paradoxical that someone representing the polished, television-friendly Schlager genre could be so warmly embraced by people who prided themselves on preserving local customs, dialects, and folk music. The Schlager world he embodied seemed far removed from Bavarian brass bands, Trachtenvereine, and deeply rooted regional traditions. And yet, he was not merely tolerated; he was cherished.

In my younger years, I reacted to this phenomenon with a mix of irony and condescension. I found his music irritating, simplistic, repetitive, emotionally unambiguous. To my ears, it lacked depth. Worse, I looked down on the people who consumed it. I considered them primitive, culturally unsophisticated, perhaps even intellectually limited. I also used language and labels that I would not use today - terms that were common in everyday speech at the time but that carried deeply problematic and demeaning connotations. At the time, I convinced myself that this was harmless irony, or social commentary, or simply an accurate description of cultural reality. In truth, it was arrogance.

Part of that arrogance was shaped by the cultural environment from which I come. I grew up in a context where social hierarchies were deeply ingrained. Status, education, profession, and family background carried enormous weight. Although I was fortunate not to be explicitly raised with a disdainful attitude toward others, traces of hierarchical thinking were nevertheless embedded somewhere deep within me. There was an unspoken sense that some people stood higher than others - not necessarily morally, but socially and culturally. Even if I consciously rejected that worldview, remnants of it lingered.

At the same time, my sense of superiority was not solely rooted in those traditional hierarchies. It was also nourished by a distinctly Western form of cultural arrogance. In Western societies, hierarchy often disguises itself as taste. It is not openly declared but subtly signaled: through musical preferences, intellectual references, aesthetic sophistication, and the ability to articulate complex arguments. I absorbed that model eagerly. I equated complexity with depth, intellectual refinement with moral seriousness. By that logic, simple music implied simple minds.

Life, however, has a way of dismantling such equations. Over the years, I encountered people who enjoyed precisely the kind of music I had dismissed. Some of them were indeed “simple” in a purely intellectual sense - they did not engage in abstract debates, they did not read philosophical treatises, they did not analyze cultural theory. But they possessed qualities that I could not ignore: integrity, loyalty, decency, consistency. They kept their word. They treated others fairly. They were emotionally transparent and free of cynicism. In many ways, they were more grounded and authentic than individuals who could effortlessly navigate intellectual discourse.

These encounters did not instantly transform me. The shift was both gradual and punctuated by key moments. Some conversations lingered in my mind. Some gestures revealed quiet dignity. Gradually, I began to see that I had mistaken aesthetic preference for moral worth. I had confused cultural capital with character.

Looking back, I feel a certain shame about my earlier attitudes. I see them as youthful foolishness. Yet even that assessment requires nuance. Youth often seeks identity through distinction. Especially for those who care deeply about culture, it is tempting to define oneself against what appears unsophisticated. That phase of differentiation can feel empowering. It creates a sense of belonging to a perceived intellectual elite. Only later does one recognize how fragile and unnecessary that posture was.

Today, I take pride not in my former judgments but in the capacity I developed to revise them. I value authenticity more than cultural sophistication. I have learned that respect is not automatic; it is cultivated. It requires confronting one’s own inherited patterns, both the overt hierarchies of one’s cultural background and the subtler hierarchies embedded in Western notions of taste and refinement. It requires admitting that one has looked down on others and choosing to do better.

The case of Roberto Blanco now appears to me not as an oddity but as a quiet testament to something hopeful. His enduring popularity among conservative audiences suggests that many people are capable of embracing individuals beyond superficial categories. Even in environments where outdated language was once commonplace, personal warmth and familiarity could override prejudice. His presence in German pop culture for decades reflects continuity, professionalism, and a kind of emotional reliability that transcends stylistic boundaries.

I still do not enjoy his music. It still strikes me as simplistic. But I no longer attach moral weight to that judgment. The people who love it are not diminished by their taste. Nor am I elevated by mine.

If there is anything worth feeling proud of, it is not that I once considered myself culturally superior, but that I eventually recognized the emptiness of that superiority. Respecting people “of all kinds” was not a given for me. It was something I had to learn, sometimes painfully. And that learning has made me calmer, less defensive, less eager to categorize.

In the end, maturity may consist in moving from evaluating people by their preferences to recognizing them in their humanity. One begins life armed with categories and hierarchies. With time and experience, one learns to let them loosen their grip. What remains is simpler and far more demanding: the commitment to treat each person with dignity, regardless of how refined or unrefined their taste may appear.