The importance of linguistic barriers

submitted by DisgustResponse from self.debatealtright

One of the things that has been most baffling about these BLM protests is how our uniquely American social/political issues have been exported to other countries. Unsurprisingly, though, it's the Anglophone countries - the UK, Canada, and Australia- that are the keenest swallowers of American culture wars garbage.

When I was a naiver man, I thought that the world would be a better place if everyone knew English as a native tongue. If everyone understood each other, there would be less resentment, more trade/cultural exchange and overall more prosperity, right? Now, I am beginning to appreciate not being able to communicate with others. The same ways physical, political and economic barriers help protect us, language barriers reduce the flow of information between cultures, thus modulating cultural change and subversion.

I'm not sure what the practical lesson is here other than if you happen to live in a country that is still relatively sane (e.g. Poland), probably one of the best things you can do for your country is to discourage others from learning English.

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[–]deAccount 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I didn't save the video, but I know that on the old r/debatealtright sub there was a video in Poland that showed some degenerates celebrating blm while lying on the street. I doubt they knew English, this sort of cancer is just very effective at energizing those among the lowest rung of society.

Now of course, probably close to 100% of Poles would reject those losers from society. Not too long ago I saw a video of them stomping on and dragging a rainbow flag with their feet across the ground in public. I'm not worried at all about them succumbing to globohomo, or any other Eastern Europeans, it's the rest of the white world that I'm worried about.

[–]JuliusCaesar225Nationalist + Socialist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I doubt they knew English, this sort of cancer is just very effective at energizing those among the lowest rung of society.

The youth know at least how to read basic English.

[–]deAccount 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't know why they would want to learn English. At the moment, the English speaking world is utterly inundated in degeneracy, why would you want to associate yourself with collapsing nations?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

When I was a naiver man, I thought that the world would be a better place if everyone knew English as a native tongue

Regardless of whether it is a good or bad thing, English has caught on internationally because of its phonetic simplicity and malleability to various cultures.

The same ways physical, political and economic barriers help protect us, language barriers reduce the flow of information between cultures, thus modulating cultural change and subversion.

I think this is a very interesting observation. Definitely gives me something to wonder about. An interesting note on this topic: most Asian countries' embrace of English has more to do with the fact that people want access to technological and medical developments. That material is mostly published in English, so, people need the language for their own development. The political subversion is clearly unwanted but effective baggage.

[–]bruker 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I regret ever learning english tbh. I'm from norway and all young people know english so well, I once met a norwegian girl who barely knew any english and i was honestly in awe of her

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's an interesting point which has a lot of truth to it, although I'd say the fact that America is the world superpower and global center of power and trade has more to do with the spread of BLM to other countries and also the existence of the Internet.

The lingua franca does in indeed help spread exchange of information and thus culture between civilisations, it was why some universal religions had liturgical languages to enforce a common language across their laity. Historically, knowledge of the lingua franca (which used to be Latin and then French before English) or a foreign language was only held by elite members of society who were required to learn it or people who did engage in regular foreigner exchange. This controlled and limited such cultural exchanges. But now in countries outside of the Anglosphere, English is taught as the second language and so the average person has basic knowledge of the language and can engage in a more vast range of information than what would be culturally limited by their language. As English is the global language, its sources of information are quite globalised and so people engage its content not as observers of Anglosphere but as active participants. But like I said before, I think other factors are more tied to it. Also, it is a double-edged sword. BLM is not the only benefactor of this, the alt-right has benefited from having mainly globalised English language content.

While I sympathise with your statement, I think for now English will stay and you'd probably lose a lot more not knowing it than knowing it. But I do like linguistic diversity (across borders obviously) and the world would be boring if we all just spoke English or Esperanto.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

As a person of predominantly Anglo heritage, I'm somewhat ashamed of what we've allowed our culture to become. Yes we've accomplished a lot of great things and we must never lose sight of our accomplishments and our strengths, as some encourage us to. But our language and the discourse that takes place in it should be a shining beacon of the best that reality has to offer, not ... a degrading cesspool. That someone could say, "I think learning English made my life worse" should be a shame and a spur to action to fix the situation. It's our responsibility to fix this.

I do think being able to talk to anyone from around the world has had some positive effects. Yes, some negative too, but also some profoundly positive.

I also agree that keeping linguistic barriers in place is important. The ability to say no. The ability to let your own culture develop appropriately in its own way. I really don't like seeing people take up these American ideas in contexts they don't belong either. We're supposed to learn from each other, not just copy each other.

Also: I think the Anglish project is interesting and could help separate Anglo-English from International English. I sometimes envy cultures that get to have their own private language in addition to English too. I used to feel lucky because it meant I didn't have to learn a foreign language to communicate internationally, but now I realize it also means that, in some sense, I don't have my own ethnic language that doesn't belong to the entire world.

[–]Hadza 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ehh, english isn't my mother tongue either, yet here I am getting banned for fedposting lol. Inb4 anecdotal