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For me, what I love most about Esperanto is its unabashed affirmative optimism. The name itself means “one who hopes.” For me it’s a microcosm of competing epi

For me, what I love most about Esperanto is its unabashed affirmative optimism. The name itself means “one who hopes.” For me it’s a microcosm of competing epistemologies in society. I’ll be a little casual with definitions here, but if we adopt a rationalist / positivist view of the world, Esperanto is a straightforward solution to a problem. Zamenhof despaired at his multi-ethnic neighbors killing each other. He hypothesized that could be remedied if people were able to speak to each other on equal language footing. It’s not a bad hypothesis. It’s easy to hate “those people” but hard to hate the person whose face you’ve looked into and tried to understand. We can snipe at Esperanto and apply critical theories of how Esperanto falls short in crucial ways. Those critiques are largely valid! Esperanto is to euro-centric. Esperanto draws too much from romance languages. The need for Esperanto has been supplanted by the global dominance of English. The language was designed by an amateur. Synthetic languages are indulgent in the face the extinction of natural languages. But I think a lot of the criticisms miss the fact that, around this simpleton, inadequate language designed by an amateur, has coalesced a community infused with something of the “let’s build” optimism that gave rise to the language in the first place. If I look at society spanning from academia to pop culture right now, we have a hegemony of rhetorically sophisticated criticism. I wouldn’t want to lose the moderating effect of that critique and blunder into starry-eyed utopianism, but I do worry that the volume of critique to “we can do it” optimism is out of balance. The world needs more Zamenhofs.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Zamenhof’s optimism isn’t as universally admired as you suggest. First of all, the Yugoslav wars stand as bloody proof that even if neighbors can understand each other and speak more or less the same language, they can just find something else to fight over. Secondly, Zamenhof was still writing from an Enlightenment-era framework that saw language diversity as a problem, something to systematize away. In our modern era, there is a lot of support for preserving indigenous cultures, and some of Zamenhof’s views can be shocking today. Starting in the 1970s the Esperanto movement tried to hitch its wagon to the language-diversity movement, but this attempt has been rather half-hearted, plus World Esperanto Association is obliged by statute to be politically neutral, so it can’t comment on the most common instances of language discrimination (i.e. when a strong centralized state cracks down on the minority peoples within its borders). I have been out of the Esperanto movement for quite some years now, but among the most active Esperantists who attended the annual European congresses frequently and tried to maintain a social life in the language, Zamenhof was not someone anyone ever thought about much. Those super-idealistic Esperantists who praised Zamenhof and banged on about world peace, were seen as weirdos and a target of mockery.
- peatmoss 6y ago
  > Zamenhof’s optimism isn’t as universally admired as you suggest. Where did I say say his optimism was universally admired? I think I made it clear that I admire his optimism, and think it worthy of admiration :-) > some of Zamenhof’s views can be shocking today. That's fine, having admiration for his work and those views of his that I feel have merit don't mean I need to accept absolutely everything the man believed. > Those super-idealistic Esperantists who praised Zamenhof and banged on about world peace, were seen as weirdos and a target of mockery. That may well be true, but this feels like an ad-hominem argument: "the cool kids are so over Esperanto and world peace. You want to be cool, don't you?" You have critiques of Esperanto and maybe even the idealism that I find endearing. That's fine. Those critiques are valid. I still maintain Zamenhof added more to the world than the critics.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    > Where did I say say his optimism was universally admired? My mistake. I wished to say that he isn’t so universally admirable. That is, what you see as constructive in his ideals and aspirations, other people today might find destructive. > That may well be true, but this feels like an ad-hominem argument Well, human beings are social animals, so ad hominem arguments are perfectly valid here. If something feels cringe to a large group of people (even to most of those who one would have expected to be sympathetic), then it can fairly be called cringe. Also, these idealistic, Zamenhof-lauding green-star-flag-waving world-peace types were infamous for often having the least ability to actually converse in Esperanto. They would be visible at congresses, but in a way they were least involved in the actual Esperanto community. You'll also find plenty of arguments that those people actually hold Esperanto back from appealing to outsiders and getting more people involved.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  >Secondly, Zamenhof was still writing from an Enlightenment-era framework that saw language diversity as a problem, something to systematize away. The anarchist philosophy that was responsible for the global spread of Esperanto was far more complex than this and rooted in a rejection of reductive, Darwinist cultural formulations that were coming to prominence at the time. The idea was to preserve local autonomy, while providing a universal medium for exchange, such that communities could develop their own unique cultural systems and permutations thereof, but still have recourse to share them in a mutally beneficial way with others. Esperanto was widely popular in Japan under this rubric, for example: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23357508 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23357508 It was likewise suppressed by authoritarian regimes on the left and right for its encouragement of this eclecticism.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

Zamenhof’s optimism isn’t as universally admired as you suggest. First of all, the Yugoslav wars stand as bloody proof that even if neighbors can understand each other and speak more or less the same language, they can just find something else to fight over. Secondly, Zamenhof was still writing from an Enlightenment-era framework that saw language diversity as a problem, something to systematize away. In our modern era, there is a lot of support for preserving indigenous cultures, and some of Zamenhof’s views can be shocking today. Starting in the 1970s the Esperanto movement tried to hitch its wagon to the language-diversity movement, but this attempt has been rather half-hearted, plus World Esperanto Association is obliged by statute to be politically neutral, so it can’t comment on the most common instances of language discrimination (i.e. when a strong centralized state cracks down on the minority peoples within its borders). I have been out of the Esperanto movement for quite some years now, but among the most active Esperantists who attended the annual European congresses frequently and tried to maintain a social life in the language, Zamenhof was not someone anyone ever thought about much. Those super-idealistic Esperantists who praised Zamenhof and banged on about world peace, were seen as weirdos and a target of mockery.

peatmoss 6y ago
> Zamenhof’s optimism isn’t as universally admired as you suggest. Where did I say say his optimism was universally admired? I think I made it clear that I admire his optimism, and think it worthy of admiration :-) > some of Zamenhof’s views can be shocking today. That's fine, having admiration for his work and those views of his that I feel have merit don't mean I need to accept absolutely everything the man believed. > Those super-idealistic Esperantists who praised Zamenhof and banged on about world peace, were seen as weirdos and a target of mockery. That may well be true, but this feels like an ad-hominem argument: "the cool kids are so over Esperanto and world peace. You want to be cool, don't you?" You have critiques of Esperanto and maybe even the idealism that I find endearing. That's fine. Those critiques are valid. I still maintain Zamenhof added more to the world than the critics.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > Where did I say say his optimism was universally admired? My mistake. I wished to say that he isn’t so universally admirable. That is, what you see as constructive in his ideals and aspirations, other people today might find destructive. > That may well be true, but this feels like an ad-hominem argument Well, human beings are social animals, so ad hominem arguments are perfectly valid here. If something feels cringe to a large group of people (even to most of those who one would have expected to be sympathetic), then it can fairly be called cringe. Also, these idealistic, Zamenhof-lauding green-star-flag-waving world-peace types were infamous for often having the least ability to actually converse in Esperanto. They would be visible at congresses, but in a way they were least involved in the actual Esperanto community. You'll also find plenty of arguments that those people actually hold Esperanto back from appealing to outsiders and getting more people involved.
claudeganon 6y ago
>Secondly, Zamenhof was still writing from an Enlightenment-era framework that saw language diversity as a problem, something to systematize away. The anarchist philosophy that was responsible for the global spread of Esperanto was far more complex than this and rooted in a rejection of reductive, Darwinist cultural formulations that were coming to prominence at the time. The idea was to preserve local autonomy, while providing a universal medium for exchange, such that communities could develop their own unique cultural systems and permutations thereof, but still have recourse to share them in a mutally beneficial way with others. Esperanto was widely popular in Japan under this rubric, for example: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23357508 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23357508 It was likewise suppressed by authoritarian regimes on the left and right for its encouragement of this eclecticism.