>Instead of having a bunch of barely connected Internets walled off by language, why not standardize language and have one global venue of communication, where everyone can work together?
Because I don't want a huge monoculture, and the end goal is not to have "everyone work together in one way" (which sounds like something from the Third Reich), but to let a thousand flowers bloom.
Ease of doing business is not the be all end all criterion...
First off, I disagree that a common language means a common culture. There are a lot of distinct cultures that share a language.
Personally I don't care that much about the ease of doing business. Rather, I think standardizing on a language would have a real benefit for humanity as a whole.
Apart from practical considerations, think about how often people from other countries are somewhat dehumanized as an "other" or "the enemy" without you being able to get a view of the situation from the other side of the fence because of the language barrier. I'm wondering for instance if the Cold War could have happened in a world where both parties share a language while being connected over the Internet.
Also, congrats on the unnecessary Nazi comparison.
The Nazi reference was unfortunate, but coldtea does bring up a valid point. Languages tend to become dominant because of military conquest or cultural hegemony, not because people want a language other than their own to be the lingua franca. English dominates the West because of the British Empire and because the US was able to exercise overwhelming cultural and economic power after World War 2.
Any discussion of "standardizing" the world on a language has to take into account how often attempts to do so have been employed as cultural genocide by colonizing powers, explicitly to separate native people from their culture.
To attempt to answer your original question, "why are we putting up with other languages anyway," we don't "put up with" them, because languages other than English are not a burden. Other languages persist because no one has forced their extinction yet.
And even if you "preserve" other languages, having a lingua franca means that eventually native languages will die out because they're simply no longer useful. How many Irish people actually speak Irish? How useful is Japanese outside of Japan? When those languages do die out, as they probably will, what will be lost when all of their literature and cultural referents are translated into English?
I'm not saying having a global common language wouldn't be good for a number of reasons, only that that commonality necessarily comes with a price not everyone is willing to pay.
>Also, congrats on the unnecessary Nazi comparison.
Not meant to offend (didn't even knew the parent was German at the time, thought I was an American), but it wasn't an gratuitous reference either. It's not like someone in an internet forum calling someone a "nazi" because they disagree with them or anything.
I legitimately believe that there are plenty of legitimate lessons to be learned (to avoid, of course) from the Nazis, as WWII and the Holocaust is the single most deadly and morally disastrous event of the modern era.
And these kind of schemes for "one global government" / "one common language" etc, do have parallels and historical precedents on ideas such that of the Third Reich. An occupied, German speaking Europe, if not world, was indeed one of their stated goals.
> Not meant to offend (didn't even knew the parent was German at the time, thought I was an American), but it wasn't an gratuitous reference either. It's not like someone in an internet forum calling someone a "nazi" because they disagree with them or anything.
The comment you took your quote from already mentioned that I'm German.
That's alright though. I'm not "offended" by the Nazi comparison because of my German heritage. I just wanted to highlight what I perceived to be needless hyperbole that inevitably derails the discussion about the idea at hand by way of Godwin's Law.
> I legitimately believe that there are plenty of legitimate lessons to be learned (to avoid, of course) from the Nazis, as WWII and the Holocaust is the single most deadly and morally disastrous event of the modern era.
Agreed.
> And these kind of schemes for "one global government" / "one common language" etc, do have parallels and historical precedents on ideas such that of the Third Reich. An occupied, German speaking Europe, if not world, was indeed one of their stated goals.
Your argument is basically: "The Nazis did X, hence we should never do X - for all X". I think this is a fallacy. There has to be difference between subduing Europe/the world and proposing to standardize language as a tool of communication for greater peace and more collaboration. I don't think choosing a standard language is any more sinister than choosing standard units of measurement or base 10 numbers.
>The comment you took your quote from already mentioned that I'm German.
Hmm, you're right, kind of read past that! I was still thinking I'm replying to an American as in my first comment.
>Your argument is basically: "The Nazis did X, hence we should never do X - for all X". I think this is a fallacy.
That would a fallacy indeed, as the Nazis also did some good stuff (cheap cars, some good welfare laws IIRC, etc), and also neutral stuff.
But I didn't say that for "all X" -- only for specific X which I, for one, think are of the Nazi's bad heritage -- "one global monoculture" I'd say is one of these, even if the culture is the English one.
>I don't think choosing a standard language is any more sinister than choosing standard units of measurement or base 10 numbers.
I guess our difference is mostly in how important we see language as part of culture and/or how sensitive we are to mightier cultures/languages taking over others.
For me losing a language would be as bad as losing a country's literary corpus -- that is, a huge part of the culture (where another might consider the whole literary corpus as something to be dispersed with, or not a big deal if it just survives translated or even forgotten).
On the other hand, something like "units of measurement" I agree are inconsequential -- and could be unified without much impact.
> I guess our difference is mostly in how important we see language as part of culture and/or how sensitive we are to mightier cultures/languages taking over others.
I think you are absolutely right, in that this is the key difference between our respective opinions. I nonetheless enjoyed the surrounding discussion.
Yes, and it was definitely one of the more looney parts of their world domination plan. The end goal of Lebensraum was not making everyone German, it was making everything more accessible to Germans.
It was a racist ideology (in the real, actual sense of racism, not the conspiracy theory academia is being haunted by in the US at the moment). Untermenschen you teach German are still Untermenschen -- they just make better servants because they understand your language.
Saying the idea of one global language is reminiscent of Nazi Germany is either gratuitous or belies a fundamental lack of understanding of just how dangerous the Nazi mindset was.
I too believe there is much to learn about our history to avoid making the same mistakes again but if you want something to worry about with regard to re-creating a Third Reich situation consider these two things happening in the US right now:
1. A resurgence of jingoism and ultra-nationalism (from dehumanizing civilian casualties in drone strikes all the way to Trump's treatment of Muslims).
2. Racism and sexism becoming socially acceptable under the guise of "intersectionality" (partially as a reaction to actual historic injustice and religous fundamentalist attitudes to gender roles).
It's funny how common a mistake this is. So often people try to distance themselves from the Nazis by using the phrase "let X flowers bloom". Unfortunately, that was a phrase used by Mao to flush out dissidents. I get what you're trying to say though. ;)
>Unfortunately, that was a phrase used by Mao to flush out dissidents.
Yeah, I know -- there have been other historical breakdowns of the phrase in HN.
That said (and to be the usual pedant I am):
1) Even if it was used to flush out dissidents, it would be the abuse of the phrase for a sinister purpose that would be the bad thing, not the phrase itself.
2)It's not that clear cut that Mao meant it in a cunning way. Even the link alludes to that: "Whether or not it was a deliberate trap isn't clear".
3) It's not even that clear cut that Mao was in the wrong in the first place -- revolutions and changes to whole empires are frequently bloody and rarely judged like normal historical periods, especially when they involve civil war et al. If one man killed 2.000 men, women and children we'd consider them a batshit crazy serial killer. Someone like Truman though can order to kill 200.000 people in two Japanese towns and still be considered a legitimate leader, not even a war criminal by many.
Because I don't want a huge monoculture, and the end goal is not to have "everyone work together in one way" (which sounds like something from the Third Reich), but to let a thousand flowers bloom.
Ease of doing business is not the be all end all criterion...