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This reminds me so much of my own lost heritage. My parents were Sami and Kven, but they didn't teach us, the children, their mother tongues. When they were gr
by ThJ 7y ago
This reminds me so much of my own lost heritage.
My parents were Sami and Kven, but they didn't teach us, the children, their mother tongues. When they were growing up in the 50s and 60s, Norwegian schools would punish children who spoke their mother tongues instead of Norwegian. There was an explicit policy of assimilation and being Sami in particular carried shame.
Unlike the person in the article, I was aware of my background. However, I am as robbed as he is of any cultural heritage. Our parents raised us as Norwegian — a generic version of it with few local roots except for the accidental Sami influences that did slip through the cracks. It didn't help that I grew up in a central area mostly populated by people from the surrounding areas. The distinguishing trait of my home town is that it doesn't have one.
I feel mostly like a mutt. When I travel Norway, I see people with an actual culture, and I envy them a little. I don't have that kind of anchoring or rich tradition to draw on.
- perfmode 7y agoCultural erasure is such a violent crime. I’m sorry to hear this.
- thucydidesofusa 7y agoViolent? Isn't that the sort of concept inflation the alt-right uses to disdain refugees and the ctrl-left uses to disdain gentrifiers?
- pesmhey 7y agoLike vampires, sucking the soul from your body.
- Simon_says 7y agoThis statement is the opposite of true.
- zapzupnz 7y agoWhat's your reasoning?
- Simon_says 7y agoViolence has a specific meaning, and an essential part of it is that there is physical harm being done. There is an increasing tendency to equate words with violence, but things can be bad without being violent.
- zapzupnz 7y agoAccording to Merriam Webster[1], one definition of violent is "extremely powerful or forceful and capable of causing damage". Another is "EXTREME, INTENSE". Further, according to the Oxford Living Dictionary[2], violence can also mean "involving an unlawful exercise or exhibition of force" or "very strong or powerful". The same dictionary [3] also lists a phrase, "do violence to", meaning "damage or adversely affect". Obviously, the definitions of words such as "damage" and "powerful" apply in a metaphorical sense, not a literal sense. This should go without saying. So, as long as we don't cherry-pick the meaning of the word 'violent' to specifically exclude these definitions, which would ultimately constitute a strawman argument, then I see no contradiction that cultures, through excessive governmental forces such as punishing children for speaking their heritage language(s), interdicting the use of a language in public through social engineering, or even forbidding under pain of fine or imprisonment for manifesting one's culture, justified in law as constituting some sort of social nuisance, have been and continue to be subjected to violent suppression and oppression all around the world. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violent https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violent [2] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/violent https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/violent [3] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/violence https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/violence
- kup0 7y ago> Violence has a specific meaning, and an essential part of it is that there is physical harm being done. I think this is an assumption / belief that just isn't true, no matter how much you want it to be. Adjectives, like "violent", are used metaphorically all the time, and the use of metaphor isn't inherently incorrect
- ChrisClark 7y agoI'm not so sure. Beating children when they speak in their own language seems violent to me.
- Simon_says 7y agoSure, beating people is violent. I didn't realize that's what we were talking about.
- ChrisClark 7y agoIt was at the beginning of his comment. I think you may have been half right anyway. Technically violence only covers that punishment part. But he probably did mean the systematic and purposeful actions to wipe out a culture were violent. Though you meant that violence technically involves something physical, right? But I think the English language is flexible enough to use the word violent to try and emphasize the evil of one cultural group wiping out another.
- Simon_says 7y ago> But I think the English language is flexible enough to use the word violent to try and emphasize the evil of one cultural group wiping out another. This is the core disagreement I have: I don't believe English should be that flexible. The word "violence" should necessitate physicality. People are trying to sneak the horribleness of physical harm in through the backdoor into discussions of non-physical harms in order to color perceptions of these non-physical harms. It's reminiscent of the "words are violence" idea. I don't know what happened to ThJ in his Norwegian schools, and he or she didn't go into any great detail. Maybe it was violent? Maybe it was just really horrible. It's possible for something to be bad without us having to mischaracterize it.
- zapzupnz 7y ago> I don't believe English should be that flexible And yet it, like any other language, is. The sociolinguistic term of what you are engaged in would be prescriptivism, to prescribe that some term should only mean a certain narrow subset of the definitions ascribed to it, or that certain terms should only be used in pre-approved manners both grammatical and rhetorical. Prescriptivism is very important for maintaining the ability for the majority of people who speak a language to communicate, and educators tend to be prescriptivist with very good justification. However, it's not an attribute that serves argumentation all that well; too much time is devoted to what a particular lexical item, a word or a phrase, might or perhaps should mean, rather than actually engaging with the underlying meaning. Communication is, after all, the movement of a message from one interlocutor to another. Yes, unambiguity is important, but so is engaging with the actual argument. If someone is calling cultural erasure 'violent', it does more service to both sides of the debate to enquire further into that which is supposed to be violent, allowing perhaps the elaboration of the argument to justify its use of such metaphor. The opposite of prescriptivism, descriptivism, is a much more useful tool (and attitude) when it comes to the way by which people actually use language, constantly changing. Change, however, is not the root of the difference of opinion between you and GP, as I shall explain in the next section. > The word 'violence' should necessitate physicality. From its roots in Latin, 'violence' never necessitated such a thing. Violentus (from vis, 'strength') can mean "full of [physical] strength" but also 'vehement'. It is my estimation that nobody can be physically vehement. They might exhibit certain traits, perhaps brutish intimidation, to achieve an air of vehemency, but it is certainly not a physical attribute. As far back as the days when Latin was not a dead tongue but one flitting about two continents, the poetic and rhetorical device of metaphor was alive and well — even to call it alive is metaphor itself! English, the bastard child of so many languages since, is not immune. To say that it should be would be to close the stable door long after the horse has bolted. > People are trying to sneak the horribleness of physical harm in through the backdoor into discussions of non-physical harms in order to color perceptions of these non-physical harms. They're using language as intended. One of the great gifts of language is metaphor, the proper command of which is not only the close, personal friend of the poet, the politician, but even the simple armchair It's natural that people should reason about the non-physical world by reference to the physical world; it is our natural starting point for turning the abstract into something about which one may efficiently communicate its nature, its severity, etc. Take the word from whence 'violence' takes its origin, vis. It means 'strength'. Obviously, there are people in the world whose physiques make them strong. There are those whose relative lack of muscular development makes them, relative to some abstract benchmark, weak. You can use the same words to refer to the bitterness of a cup of coffee. > I don't know what happened to ThJ in his Norwegian schools I suggest that rather than attack the wording of the argument, it would be preferable to find out what was meant, how severe the cultural erasure was, what steps were in place to enact it, and how the participants of that culture view it from their own perspective. For many a participant of a culture once or still undergoing cultural erasure, 'violence' is still too lax a term.
- yipbub 7y agoPeople are forced into cultural erasure by discriminatory practices of their neighbors/governments. They are forced with a choice: pretend to fit in or compete with a handicap. Handicapping a demographic is violent in the sense that it is a forceful abuse. The word violence, to some people, means only "physical force", but I think using it this way is a recognition that other forms of force are equally forceful. Maybe abusive is a better word. Violence does also have a connotation of suddenness and heat-of-the-moment action. So maybe the connotations were a little misaligned from some perspectives, but it's far from untrue. Unless I've missed something non-obvious in your eloquent rebuttal.
- Simon_says 7y agoNo, you didn't miss anything. That's a very nuanced perspective you have. You've given me something to think about. Thanks.
- hunglee2 7y agoI am sorry to read this. It is sadly the default mode of 'nation building', perhaps inherently so. One thing I would like to add is please don't blame your parents. No doubt they experienced the sort of systemic prejudice from the Norwegian state, and wanted to spare you that.