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You don't have to understand it. However, I ask that you consider having faith in others' decision to uphold it. As a partial explanation or theory, consider t

You don't have to understand it. However, I ask that you consider having faith in others' decision to uphold it. As a partial explanation or theory, consider that the human brain is the most advanced pattern-matching engine in the known universe. Human relationships are emergent patterns shared between these machines as they operate during a finite lifespan and attempt to uphold a lineage of life through the ravages of time, turning into culture. Language is a configuration of a set of those machines which has survived long enough to uniquely capture a signaling and information-sharing medium with a unique set of rules, which is also a key to a culture among a generational network of the pattern-matching machines, a network which had enough shelter to survive for generations. This culture may have useful knowledge, and certainly contains universes of beauty and meaning. You don't have to agree. But there are certainly those who would recognize the beauty and importance of preserving the delicate, invisible, beautiful power of language structure.

rexpop 6y ago
Thank you for pushing back on this horrific take. What OP is proposing is literal genocide. As you said, language is "a key to a culture," and so many such cultures—and, therefore, the lives of their adherents—have been wiped out or critically threatened by more ruthless, or opportunistic groups. A good example is the notion to "Kill the Indian, Save the Man," as practiced by Canadian Residential Schools. Those were acts of genocide meant to erase the productive knowledge of a sovereign people, to erase their child-rearing, agricultural, architectural, and textile methods. To destroy their educational line and skillsets, to make them dependent on the new colonial regime, its modes of production, its agricultural tools and paradigms. It's genocide, and to destroy the language is the quickest way to perform it, by immediately cutting them off from their informational archives, be they written or oral.
- newsbinator 6y ago
  I'm not advocating for genocide, literal or figurative. I haven't advocated for the genocide of Ancient Rome either. People can still speak or study whatever dead languages or textile methods they like, even if every person in the world suddenly becomes a native Swahili speaker and all future cultural products are created in Swahili, as in my imaginary example.
- peatmoss 6y ago
  Saying the GP is advocating genocide is bad faith hyperbole. They are not advocating killing speakers of another language, nor did they advocate forcibly preventing people from speaking a language. It’s enough to disagree with an opinion (as I do), without aggressively rounding it up to a criminal act. I think there are plenty of ways to assume positive intent, without leaping to the preposterous conclusion that the GP would bring about their preferences through genocide.
  - rexpop 6y ago
    I promise you, I am speaking in earnest. In The International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the United Nations recognizes[0] "linguistic genocide" as a component of cultural genocide, which is defined under Article III, punishable acts. While it would be hyperbole to characterize OP's cavalier attitude toward others' cultures (verging on xenophobia) as a genocidal crime—or even as a direct recommendation of such—it is not hyperbolic, I hope you agree, to characterize it their post as encouraging a perspective which does NOT recognize linguistic/cultural genocide as aspects of a horrific crime. It amounts, frankly, to the same thing as logging into this website and professing a complete disinterest in the survival of a given people. (I can use no examples, here, in good taste, so you'll have to recall in your own mind the names of any group who have been victims of genocide in the past, or who might plausibly fall victim in the future.) > leaping to the preposterous conclusion that the GP would bring about their preferences through genocide. I agree. It would be preposterous to suggest that the GP were about to pick up a hammer and saw to build an extermination camp. I am suggesting not that linguistic erasure would be performed through an act of physical genocide, but that the ends themselves constitute genocide. Again, I understand you to be saying "GP is not proposing we deliberately exterminate languages," and I agree. I would not characterize them as, ostensibly, doing so. However, given the socioeconomic forces at play in the world, our history of extractive colonialism[1], etc. it's evident to me that there are people in the world who wake up every morning to perform a job that is actively eroding minority cultures and languages. There are still Nahua in Mexico. There are still Ha'aku in the States. These people have been brutalized by government policies, and corporate exploitation, alike. To log into this website and profess a disinterest in whether their language dies is to profess a disinterest in whether these people—beleaguered not by natural, but socially constructed forces—retain their cultures, the loss of which constitutes genocide. GP, therefore, seems to be flippantly professing a horrific comfort with genocide. They seem to be suggesting that, should we see any languages going under, that we ought to stand idly by which, as Edmund Burke notoriously asserted, is all it takes for "evil to triumph." 0. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/linguistic-genocide https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-alm... 1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187149.Open_Veins_of_Latin_America https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187149.Open_Veins_of_Lat...

rexpop 6y ago

Thank you for pushing back on this horrific take. What OP is proposing is literal genocide. As you said, language is "a key to a culture," and so many such cultures—and, therefore, the lives of their adherents—have been wiped out or critically threatened by more ruthless, or opportunistic groups. A good example is the notion to "Kill the Indian, Save the Man," as practiced by Canadian Residential Schools. Those were acts of genocide meant to erase the productive knowledge of a sovereign people, to erase their child-rearing, agricultural, architectural, and textile methods. To destroy their educational line and skillsets, to make them dependent on the new colonial regime, its modes of production, its agricultural tools and paradigms. It's genocide, and to destroy the language is the quickest way to perform it, by immediately cutting them off from their informational archives, be they written or oral.

newsbinator 6y ago
I'm not advocating for genocide, literal or figurative. I haven't advocated for the genocide of Ancient Rome either. People can still speak or study whatever dead languages or textile methods they like, even if every person in the world suddenly becomes a native Swahili speaker and all future cultural products are created in Swahili, as in my imaginary example.
peatmoss 6y ago
Saying the GP is advocating genocide is bad faith hyperbole. They are not advocating killing speakers of another language, nor did they advocate forcibly preventing people from speaking a language. It’s enough to disagree with an opinion (as I do), without aggressively rounding it up to a criminal act. I think there are plenty of ways to assume positive intent, without leaping to the preposterous conclusion that the GP would bring about their preferences through genocide.
- rexpop 6y ago
  I promise you, I am speaking in earnest. In The International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the United Nations recognizes[0] "linguistic genocide" as a component of cultural genocide, which is defined under Article III, punishable acts. While it would be hyperbole to characterize OP's cavalier attitude toward others' cultures (verging on xenophobia) as a genocidal crime—or even as a direct recommendation of such—it is not hyperbolic, I hope you agree, to characterize it their post as encouraging a perspective which does NOT recognize linguistic/cultural genocide as aspects of a horrific crime. It amounts, frankly, to the same thing as logging into this website and professing a complete disinterest in the survival of a given people. (I can use no examples, here, in good taste, so you'll have to recall in your own mind the names of any group who have been victims of genocide in the past, or who might plausibly fall victim in the future.) > leaping to the preposterous conclusion that the GP would bring about their preferences through genocide. I agree. It would be preposterous to suggest that the GP were about to pick up a hammer and saw to build an extermination camp. I am suggesting not that linguistic erasure would be performed through an act of physical genocide, but that the ends themselves constitute genocide. Again, I understand you to be saying "GP is not proposing we deliberately exterminate languages," and I agree. I would not characterize them as, ostensibly, doing so. However, given the socioeconomic forces at play in the world, our history of extractive colonialism[1], etc. it's evident to me that there are people in the world who wake up every morning to perform a job that is actively eroding minority cultures and languages. There are still Nahua in Mexico. There are still Ha'aku in the States. These people have been brutalized by government policies, and corporate exploitation, alike. To log into this website and profess a disinterest in whether their language dies is to profess a disinterest in whether these people—beleaguered not by natural, but socially constructed forces—retain their cultures, the loss of which constitutes genocide. GP, therefore, seems to be flippantly professing a horrific comfort with genocide. They seem to be suggesting that, should we see any languages going under, that we ought to stand idly by which, as Edmund Burke notoriously asserted, is all it takes for "evil to triumph." 0. https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/linguistic-genocide https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-alm... 1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187149.Open_Veins_of_Latin_America https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187149.Open_Veins_of_Lat...