4 ms·

I agree with you wholeheartedly until you stated this: > (Generally, the ability to participate in a larger market.) It all hinges on your use of market: I wo

by qubex 8y ago

I agree with you wholeheartedly until you stated this: > (Generally, the ability to participate in a larger market.) It all hinges on your use of market: I would have written society. It's extremely telling that nowadays ‘market’ and ‘society’ have become almost synonymous, not because markets have subsumed the role of societies at large, but because monetary exchanges have become the de facto be-all and end-all of social interaction. Implicit in your choice of words is the notion that the only thing that merits making the effort to interact with others is the exchange for the sake of profit. I'm an economist but this kind of stuff saddens me profoundly. If this isn’t a path straight to dystopia then I don't know what is.

arethuza 8y ago
"monetary exchanges have become the de facto be-all and end-all of social interaction" Now that's a dystopian theme- I presume you mean that a lot of social interactions these days are on technological platforms that are themselves seeking to make a profit (or a at least a return on investment if not an actual operating profit)?
TeMPOraL 8y ago
I think it's more like this: most parents want their children to be better off. The vast majority of people is a couple steps away from poverty, holding themselves afloat only through decades of hard work. Not surprisingly, the core consideration is the child's ability to find a well-paying job. And if you really think about it, "monetary exchanges" have been "the de facto be-all and end-all of social interaction" for a very, very long time now. A part of growing up is the ongoing realization that all the things you believed are done because they're needed are actually incidental, and done primarily to make money. It's a sad state, but not new.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
Parents generally do not value the opportunity for their children to abandon the parents' society in favor of some external one. But they do value the opportunity for their children to earn money. Market access is what they want. If they could do it without culture access, they would. The contrast is live in the US in deaf communities. Deaf community leaders have a strong and unconflicted opinion on surgery to restore the hearing of deaf children: it's bad, it's a denial of the inherent worth of deaf people, and you should be ashamed for even thinking that a deaf child's hearing needs to be "fixed". They think that way because they have a direct personal interest in the size of the deaf community: the larger the community is, the more power community leaders wield. But they have zero interest in the well-being of any specific child, and less in the well-being of a child who isn't even part of their community. In contrast, the deaf parents of deaf children are often very conflicted. They know a child is better off being able to hear. But the child is unlikely to participate much in the deaf community (important to the parents) if its hearing is restored. But still, I think it's hard to argue that it would be an example of disempowerment to exterminate sign language by restoring everyone's hearing so they can learn a spoken language and communicate with the people around them.
TomMarius 8y ago
Are you a native speaker? Maybe you just have trouble understanding what leads to people learning English. My anecdote: I have enough people around me (literally several millions in my city) that speak my language. All books, movies and TV shows I ever wanted to see are available translated in very high quality. There is so much original content that a lot of people simply don't even crave foreign content, that includes any science you would think of (and our countrymen are the pioneers of many), programming guides etc. The sole purpose of learning English in my country as viewed by the government (that sets up schools) is to take advantage of foreign profit and then return back home with the money and participate in our society, and that view reflects the wishes of the majority of our society - we prefer to interact with our people because the people and especially the language "make sense" (Czech language is regarded for its internal consistency and hard rules combined with freeform sentences - that makes the language a form of wild art where you can completely change logical meaning of the whole 10-sentence block with a single tone pronounced differently, if you wish to do that). This purpose ("to be worthy on the job market") is said to you numerous times (I heard it at least once a week the whole 12 years I had English class) your whole childhood by your parents (who truly believe that our culture is big enough and English is not for that purpose), youe teachers, your school principal and of course the government.
- qubex 8y ago
  Yes, I am a native English speaker (British on my mother's side, education), but I'm also a native Italian speaker (father's side, raised in Italy). My concern was primarily directed at the fact that it's strange to indicate that one is learning a language to participate in a market which is a subset of all social interactions.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    > it's strange to indicate that one is learning a language to participate in a market which is a subset of all social interactions. Is it really? I'm sure it's strange to you - as a native English speaker, there is no language that would offer you significant new opportunities. However I've never met a Czech person who doesn't learn English because of the market (academic/job/business opportunities) - as I said, this purpose is frequently highlighted from the youngest age (I was 4 when I was first told I need to learn English because of my future job). Also consider that until 1989 our borders were closed - meaning WE couldn't travel. It has became perfectly normal during the past 90 years to participate socially only within our own culture (and language).
marssaxman 8y ago
> not because markets have subsumed the role of societies at large, but because monetary exchanges have become the de facto be-all and end-all of social interaction. This was part of the joy of Burning Man: it felt like an experimental laboratory where we could try out non-exchange-based modes of society. After a week in an environment which was, thrillingly, both utopia and dystopia at once, we could then go home and see about recreating the good parts of those experiences in our everyday lives. (I don't know if it still feels that way - it got too big and too institutional for me to feel like I belonged there anymore, but it's possible that it still works for people who are less sensitive about the presence of complex power structures.)

by qubex 8y ago

arethuza 8y ago

"monetary exchanges have become the de facto be-all and end-all of social interaction" Now that's a dystopian theme- I presume you mean that a lot of social interactions these days are on technological platforms that are themselves seeking to make a profit (or a at least a return on investment if not an actual operating profit)?

TeMPOraL 8y ago

I think it's more like this: most parents want their children to be better off. The vast majority of people is a couple steps away from poverty, holding themselves afloat only through decades of hard work. Not surprisingly, the core consideration is the child's ability to find a well-paying job. And if you really think about it, "monetary exchanges" have been "the de facto be-all and end-all of social interaction" for a very, very long time now. A part of growing up is the ongoing realization that all the things you believed are done because they're needed are actually incidental, and done primarily to make money. It's a sad state, but not new.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

Parents generally do not value the opportunity for their children to abandon the parents' society in favor of some external one. But they do value the opportunity for their children to earn money. Market access is what they want. If they could do it without culture access, they would. The contrast is live in the US in deaf communities. Deaf community leaders have a strong and unconflicted opinion on surgery to restore the hearing of deaf children: it's bad, it's a denial of the inherent worth of deaf people, and you should be ashamed for even thinking that a deaf child's hearing needs to be "fixed". They think that way because they have a direct personal interest in the size of the deaf community: the larger the community is, the more power community leaders wield. But they have zero interest in the well-being of any specific child, and less in the well-being of a child who isn't even part of their community. In contrast, the deaf parents of deaf children are often very conflicted. They know a child is better off being able to hear. But the child is unlikely to participate much in the deaf community (important to the parents) if its hearing is restored. But still, I think it's hard to argue that it would be an example of disempowerment to exterminate sign language by restoring everyone's hearing so they can learn a spoken language and communicate with the people around them.

TomMarius 8y ago

Are you a native speaker? Maybe you just have trouble understanding what leads to people learning English. My anecdote: I have enough people around me (literally several millions in my city) that speak my language. All books, movies and TV shows I ever wanted to see are available translated in very high quality. There is so much original content that a lot of people simply don't even crave foreign content, that includes any science you would think of (and our countrymen are the pioneers of many), programming guides etc. The sole purpose of learning English in my country as viewed by the government (that sets up schools) is to take advantage of foreign profit and then return back home with the money and participate in our society, and that view reflects the wishes of the majority of our society - we prefer to interact with our people because the people and especially the language "make sense" (Czech language is regarded for its internal consistency and hard rules combined with freeform sentences - that makes the language a form of wild art where you can completely change logical meaning of the whole 10-sentence block with a single tone pronounced differently, if you wish to do that). This purpose ("to be worthy on the job market") is said to you numerous times (I heard it at least once a week the whole 12 years I had English class) your whole childhood by your parents (who truly believe that our culture is big enough and English is not for that purpose), youe teachers, your school principal and of course the government.

qubex 8y ago
Yes, I am a native English speaker (British on my mother's side, education), but I'm also a native Italian speaker (father's side, raised in Italy). My concern was primarily directed at the fact that it's strange to indicate that one is learning a language to participate in a market which is a subset of all social interactions.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  > it's strange to indicate that one is learning a language to participate in a market which is a subset of all social interactions. Is it really? I'm sure it's strange to you - as a native English speaker, there is no language that would offer you significant new opportunities. However I've never met a Czech person who doesn't learn English because of the market (academic/job/business opportunities) - as I said, this purpose is frequently highlighted from the youngest age (I was 4 when I was first told I need to learn English because of my future job). Also consider that until 1989 our borders were closed - meaning WE couldn't travel. It has became perfectly normal during the past 90 years to participate socially only within our own culture (and language).

marssaxman 8y ago

> not because markets have subsumed the role of societies at large, but because monetary exchanges have become the de facto be-all and end-all of social interaction. This was part of the joy of Burning Man: it felt like an experimental laboratory where we could try out non-exchange-based modes of society. After a week in an environment which was, thrillingly, both utopia and dystopia at once, we could then go home and see about recreating the good parts of those experiences in our everyday lives. (I don't know if it still feels that way - it got too big and too institutional for me to feel like I belonged there anymore, but it's possible that it still works for people who are less sensitive about the presence of complex power structures.)