Linguistic Hegemony

You know?  I don't believe there's such
a thing as TV.  I mean -
They just keep showing you
The same pictures over and over.
And when they talk they just make sounds
That more or less synch up
With their lips.
That's what I think!

Language!  It's a virus!
Language!  It's a virus!
Language!  It's a virus!
  --Laurie Anderson

I admit I am guilty of linguistic hegemony.  I have made a fair living off of teaching English.  To be fair, I have also taught Spanish and German, but I go where the market is.

I also point out that I am fluent in four languages, conversant in another five, and have at least elementary command of an additional eight.  So I claim a certain amount of expertise on the subject at hand.  I have formally studied English, Spanish, German and Latin, and I have learned the rest by osmosis.  I have even learned a foreign language using another foreign language, which is a fun thing should you have occasion to try.

That said, I will tell you that empires are built on little more than language.

I find very few commentators or writers pointing out this fact.  They speak of economic, religious or military domination, but rarely, if ever, highlight the role of language in the maintenance of empires.  All other forms of empire are founded on the power of language to project them across time and space.

The Roman empire could not have stood for 900 years had not Latin been forced on all conquered peoples and nations.  In order to conduct commerce or access information or receive public appointments, one had to be proficient in Latin.  It was that simple.

If the Teutans wanted to trade with the Gauls or the Angles, they had to do so using Latin.  It was the only common means of communication available, and most people with any amount of education had already been forced to learn Latin as subjects of the empire.

Even now, there are five primary Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian).  Latin is still the official state language of the Vatican, which has no small amount of influence on global events, as evidenced by events of the past month.  And Latin suffuses dozens, if not hundreds, of languages worldwide.  The etymology of nearly every polysyllabic word I have written thus far is from Latin, with a smattering of Greek (another empire) and a grammatical base of Teutonic that is English.

Language is the mortar which binds many of our modern nation-states.  The United States could not exist without the use of American English as the common denominator.  Indonesia maintains its republic through the use of a Malayu dialect.  China's republic is held together with Mandarin, just as the vast nation of Russia is held together with a common language.  In fact, none of these monolithic political states could exist without a common language.

Most of the success of the Anglo-American empire has been founded on the international use of English as a sort of trading language.  Just as Arabic holds the Islamic world together, English creates the hegemony of the Anglo-American empire.  Those who wish to access the economic or intellectual benefits of the empire must perforce use English.  All the professional journals of any consequence, most of the translations of more obscure texts in other languages and the vast majority of international trade are available only to those who have a command of the English language.

But why is this important to empire?  The answer is both simple and complex.

All language is symbolic.  When we speak or write, we are converting images and symbols in our minds into a form of carrier wave and transmitting them to others who are capable of decoding and rebuilding the images and symbols in their heads.  Every form of human communication is nothing more than encoding and decoding information to transfer and recreate images between transmitters and receivers.

The key concept here is that the images and symbols we have in our minds are cultural and experiential.  For instance, the concept of elephant will have vastly different images and symbols connected with it for a US school kid and his Thai counterpart.  The former will envision zoos and circuses, while the latter will see a common work animal.  Thus it is true that no matter what we say or write, it carries specific cultural meanings and contexts.  So anyone learning a foreign language must necessarily become immersed in the culture of that language, because language and culture are one and the same thing.  Language simply encodes culture and transmits it to the receiver.

By the same token, culture is language.  We typically call this phenomenon slang.  Each generation develops its unique slang based on its unique experiences, and as a way of identifying itself as distinct from others.  Some slang catches on in the general culture and becomes a permanent part of the language, while other forms fade over time and are eventually lost in meaning.

We need look no further than Shakespeare himself for clear examples of this.  The terms fish monger, nunnery and fishwife are all contemporary slang for whorehouse, pimp and whore, though modern readers of Hamlet will hardly get the pun.

So what's the point of all this, you ask impatiently.  I'm getting there.

Language has been the single most effective tool for maintaining empires in the squalid history of Mankind.    The English language has been shoved down people's throats for hundreds of years, first by the British empire, then later by the American empire.

Enforcement is simple.  If you want to do business with the empire, you need to use the language of the empire.  Plain and simple.  In so doing, the empire ensures that its culture is infused into subject nations, thus ensuring a market for its products and services.  One of the largest global cottage industries is teaching the English language, and by extension suffusing other cultures and peoples with the Anglo-American way of life.

Learning English gives access to English-language books, movies and music.  It brings with it a very subtle and likely permanent invasion.  The ideals, concepts and contexts that are the 'Western way of life' are encoded in the language and infect all who tap into the transmission.

The English language itself is a study in conquest.  At its core, it is a Germanic language and many English speakers will find they recognize a lot of German vocabulary.  Over this base is laid Latin, French and Greek.  In addition, English has picked up words from dozens of other languages, especially those of conquered peoples.  American English contains dozens of American Indian words.  Australian English stole many Aboriginal words.  British English has picked up a significant Indian vocabulary.

Another phenomenon, noted by myself and others of my acquaintance, that becoming fluent in other languages usually means creating entirely new personae, as well.  When I speak Italian, I find myself gesticulating wildly, or Spanish makes me feel romantic, while French turns me into a snoot.  It is quite obvious that learning and using other languages carries with it cultural viruses that infect the user and subtly change the personality.

Language is a curious thing.  It not only encodes, but is encoded.  It creates a culture, but is also created by a culture.  It is at once the chicken and the egg.

Powerful economic, political or military cultures leave their impressions in other languages, as they have been left in English, and the study of a language is a study of its cultural history.  Indonesian is embedded with Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch and English...all empires that have squatted on this country.

English does have certain advantages over other languages.  It readily assimilates foreign grammar and vocabulary, and the syntax is flexible enough to accommodate a variety of dialectical forms.

Still, it is a tool of hegemony, like other languages of conquest.  It transfers and overrides other cultures and is the key to a number of 'thought viruses' that tend to infect minds.  Of course, this power behind the language is and has been dependent on the economic engine of the empire.  Without the financial might backing it, the linguistic hegemony may well collapse.

All of which should leave you with two distinct ideas:
1) You feel dirty now because I've infected you with thought viruses; and
2) You really should start learning Mandarin.

Ex-Patty Cake

Sodium Fluoride

The other day, I happened upon one of these brochures intended for ex-pats, particularly American and British, who are being transferred to Indonesia.

They are given as general FAQs to executive types whose companies are sending them abroad on assignment.  The tone of these things is usually quite condescending.  They reflect the ruling paradigm of the two cultures from which they come.  At the same time, they are almost comical in their hand-holding.

The British pieces are of a common tone.  They primarily go to the idea that even though the ex-pat will not be under the direct control of the monarchy for a while, they will still be able to find a tea cart and cucumber sandwiches at 4pm, and if they look hard enough, even a bit of culture to while away their time.

The American ones are even worse.  They have the tone that even though the ex-pat is away from the usual brain-washing, they can still find pockets of Americanism where they can get their fix of tele-screens and paranoia.  Just, for God's sake, don't mix with the natives!

The one I was reading was geared towards Americans, though it included information for British, as well.  The one thing that absolutely riveted me was a small side-bar blurb.  The graphic was a water cooler and inside the bottle it read, "Water in Indonesia is not fluoridated.  You may want to check with your doctor to supplement you intake."

Now, let's just let that soak in for a moment...

For those who are still in the dark, sodium fluoride is an industrial waste product that was commonly used as rat poison until the post-WWII era.  It is produced most commonly in uranium and aluminum processing.  The Nazis used it in drinking water in concentration camps to keep the natives in a stupor and controllable.

Yes, I've read all the studies about fluoride.  Most of the early ones showing benefit to teeth involved naturally occuring CALCIUM fluoride in ground water.  The populations that had higher levels of CALCIUM fluoride had less incidence of tooth decay.  Makes sense.  When one drink the water, the calcium fluoride bond breaks leaving a calcium ion which readily bonds to the tooth enamel.

SODIUM fluoride is highly poisonous.  If you look on the toothpaste tube, you'll see a warning NOT to ingest the contents, and to call a doctor or POISON control center if you do.  They put it in small print and most people never read the damn labels on things they shove into their bodies.  Sodium fluoride causes all kinds of problems, such as fluoridosis, that damages teeth and bones and suppresses certain brain functions.  It is linked to suppression of the pineal gland, which has all sorts of implications.

I was floored.  Here in a brochure was a warning that the ex-pat wouldn't get his daily dose of poison in the drinking water and should check with his doctor!  Why didn't it simply go on to say, "Be sure to swallow your toothpaste every day to get your fix so you don't wake up?"

The entire piece was, of course, typical of the Anglo-American superiority complex.  Both cultures have this damnedable attitude that theirs is the highest form of culture on Earth, and if you absolutely MUST live outside it for a time, don't worry.  The natives generally won't eat you.  The sheer arrogance of these people is rather astounding.

Indonesians generally consider Anglo-Americans to be sombong, meaning arrogant.  The British are the worst, as they look down on everyone.  The Americans still worship the British, but shit on everyone else.  Both cultures have spent years terra-forming the Earth to meet their particular needs and aesthetics.

English language schools are a huge global racket, especially in Asia.  Since Americans and Brits refuse to learn any other language, the world is forced to learn English in order to take their money.  I'm not opposed to the use of trading languages.  Certainly, the world is full of them.  Indonesian is a trading language, as is French and a number of others.  But none of them have the global infrastructure to force everyone to speak English.

In fact, most non-native English speakers I have met use better language than the average product of American public schools.  If English survives into future generations, it will ironically be on the tongues of foreign speakers.  The average Indonesian high school graduate knows more about English grammar than the average US college grad.

Columbus Sticking It To The Natives

It's no wonder so many Indos are amazed that I am fluent in Indonesian.  They are even more amazed that I speak a smattering of Java, Sunda, Batak, and Manado, to boot.  Then they are gob-smacked that I speak an additional 10 languages above that.  I have to remind them that I am Texian, and by that I exclude the US occupying forces in my mother country.  Most true Texians are more erudite and culturally sensitive than even the most ardent bone-headed 'diversity' advocate.

To their credit, most of the Canadians, Germans, Dutch, Spanish, Romanians, Russians, Croatians, Mongolians, Chinese, and Koreans I have met here all speak Indonesian fairly well.  Very few Americans or Brits do, at least beyond "I want...".  The Ozzies?  Well, they're still debating which is their native language, much less learning any other.  Hahahaha!

Of all groups, Americans seem to be the worst offenders.  Wherever they go, they demand that the locals supply them with hamburgers, pizza and fluoride.  In general, Americans are the most provincial, quivering ninnies when it comes to diving into foreign cultures.  They give endless lip service to diversity and multi-culturalism, and have quaint festivals once a year with arts and crafts from some hapless victim culture.  But take them out of their protective, paranoid shells and dump them in the middle of a new land they can't even find on a map?

To be fair, Americanism is just an extension of Britishism.  The unmitigated gall of a people to think they can go around sticking flags in things and calling them colonies sets one back a bit.  It was that British mentality that led the US to wholesale slaughter of native North Americans, or Australian aborigines, or Indians or any of a dozen other peoples.  How does a group of people come to believe that its culture is so superior to anything else that all others must conform or die?

I don't single out the Anglo-Americans, either.  The French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italians, and Spanish, not to mention the Catholic Church have all done the same, just not to the jaw-dropping extent of the Anglos.  I mean, they literally landed on foreign shores, were greeted with open arms, and then proceeded to slaughter anyone who was brown, spoke a different language, or didn't acknowledge the genetic aberrations called the royals.

There's an old joke that seems appropriate about here:

Someone who speaks multiple languages is calles a polyglot.  Someone who speaks only two languages is called bilingual.  But someone who only speaks one language is called British.

At any rate, I wish I could find the author of the brochure I received.  I would love to add some things to it.  First, this:
"Don't panic!  Others have done this an survived.  They have McDonalds and Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza here.  You can even get your daily psychotropic medications readily at the local pharmacy without prescription, so you don't wake up before going home.  There are many English speakers among the few natives you will encounter on your stay.  They will not force you to participate in local culture or try to teach you new languages.  YOU ARE SAFE!  Just do NOT leave your hotel room, except to take our armored shuttle to your workplace.  Be sure and register with the embassy so they can email your daily paranoia warnings.  If at any point, you feel like you are assimilating, call immediately and we will be happy to re-indoctrinate you at no additional charge."

You know, if more Americans and Brits actually go out and learned about other countries and peoples, they might stop bombing them.  But, that may be too much to ask.  After all, those other countries and peoples are sitting on top of our precious resources.  Can't have that.  And certainly, nasty folks like Qaddafi who have independent central banks and debt-free currencies need special attention.

See your doctor about lack of fluoride in the water.  Hahahaha!  If that doesn't beat all.  In fact, it says so much in so few words, though I think many people won't get the joke.  In fact, the more I think about it, that little side-bar blurb may just be one of the sharpest jabs I have seen in a long time, and brilliantly disguised, at that.

I should write a letter to the author thanking him/her for such wry and subtle humor!

Jaya Riot

Ever have one of those days where there's so much to think about that it's hard to think about anything?

Sometimes I dread writing, because things come out that spook me.  Like the other day I posted the Dog Days of August piece, where I joked about Putin and Perry and the SEAL fiasco.  Two days later, right on cue, there's a photo of Putin after finding Geek vases while diving.  Perry suddenly comes on big time with the religion thing.  The SEAL story gets changed and bios are released.  Obama even goes to receive the bodies personally.

It's amazing how predictable this stuff is, if you know what to look for.

I mean, you've got financial markets going nuts, wars and rumors of wars, people admitting they personally fabricated the POTUS birth certificate, the price of gold going ballistic, and nascent global revolutions.

The revolutions are the the things sticking in my craw the most, I suppose.  Really, we should be more selective with our words, since we are trying to deprogram our minds here.  These global events are NOT really revolutions.  They are the ultimate product of welfare states and manipulation by banksters and media.

What we are seeing are a bunch of gangsters expressing their displeasure with not having taxpayers buy them the latest XBox/Nintendo/360 what-evers.  In other words, all the death and destruction is little more than temper tantrums by mentally and emotionally stunted welfare rats.  Those bipedal animals are nothing more than an army of convenience, bought and paid for with your tax dollars and 'trained' by the public school system.

I say, 'trained,' but the truth is more like 'dis-educated'.  I just made up that word, so remember where you got it.

The whole thing is a planned set of events designed to create tyranny.  It is the hegelian dialect in process.  It's already begun, with the UK rolling out face-recognition toys on the streets and in the neighborhoods.  It's all the fault of the internet and 'social' media.  Cameron has called for limitations on the internet.

Of course, in a country where you have to pay an annual TeeVee tax, what do you expect?

The riots are nothing more than the old mafia protection racket writ large.  Governments for centuries have maintained a welfare class for just this purpose.  To paraphrase George Carlin, 'the poor are there to scare the shit out of the middle class to keep them working to support the elite class.'  I think the truth of that is splattered all over the media at this point.

The Indonesian newspaper Kompas, is blessedly free of political correctness issues.  They (and I use direct translation here) lay it all at the feet of the 'black skins,' but there's enough blame to cover the 'yellow,' 'brown' and 'white' skins, as well.  I really love that Indonesian is a very blunt language.  It's just no bullshit-straight to the point.

Perhaps that's what's wrong with the West just now.  It's too easy to hide things in English.  Too many subtle shades and weasel words.  If you're able to flavor your thinking with so many options, you reach the pinnacle of language manipulation, called government.

But that's another article.

I get the sense that people are slowly starting to see the Big Picture.  From what I scan on the net, the masses just aren't buying it anymore.  When you can get an Indonesian to discuss politics, to a man they see the 'man behind the curtain.'  They are not fooled by Libya or Afghanistan, and bin Laden, as well.  And the markets couldn't be less interesting to them.  I think they represent a very large segment of the world.

And that's the point here.  When you step outside the constant barrage of media and look back, there's a much larger world.  All the wailing and gnashing of teeth that if America goes down, it takes the whole world with it.  Sorry, don't think so.  Westerners tend to have a very inflated view of their importance, but really, they are a small minority of the world population.  I get the distinct impression that if EurAm tree were to die off, the smaller trees in the forest could get some much needed light.

I mean, come on.  Westerners have been wondering around sticking flags in everything and calling it 'mine' since the 1400s.  After they raped and pillaged and looted and plundered, they left and forgot about the 'colonies' until one day, they stood up and said enough.

If you're wondering what REAL GlobalRev is about, it will be a complete rejection of the "Western Paradigm."  You will see people attacking the real sources of the Problem, not each other.  There's no doubt it's coming.  I can feel it.  But it will be against the producers of these faux revolutions: the colors, the springs, that sort of thing.

The problem with weltanshauungs is that they die violent deaths.  People don't let got of their delusions easily. The Western elite have gotten used to sitting on top of the Hill.  They have come to believe their own BS.  At the core, though, they are nothig more than petty thieves and gangsters who have stolen the king's clothes and are parading around in front of the mirror.

After a while, you get so busy protecting what you've got, you forget that you got it by having nothing to protect.  At that point, you have the ouroboros, the snake eating its tail.  The body starts eating itself in an ironic bid to stay alive.

If we study history, we can see this stuff coming a mile away.  It's as predictable as night follows day.  Nero fiddling while Rome burned is exactly what's happening in the so-called revolutions breaking out across the globe.  "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

The ultimate point here is, yes, the riots are causing a tragic loss of life and property, but be careful where you lay the blame.  The people committing these acts are little more than mindless animals.  They are being kept by a group of ruthless folks who will destroy anything to protect their little pile of gold.  Once we peel back the curtain, we clearly see the withered, putrefying corpse of a long-dead idea.

That idea spawned a great many things, and used correctly they are quite valuable.  But the idea has reached a dead-end.  It's become so drenched in lies and secrets that it must now destroy anyone who can find it.  That anyone is us.

Remember HAL in Kubrick's 2001?  He killed the crew in order to prevent them from finding the truth about the mission.  It's the logical conclusion to a lie or a secret.  One must eliminate the risk of being found out.  We are the risk.

Like Western medial treatments for cancer, it's a race against time.  Can the doctor kill the cancer before he kills the patient?  We have been injected with a lethal dose, because the elite see us as a cancer.  They, being the megalomaniacs they are, are trying to wipe us out without killing them, too.  So, we have to wonder, which will go first?  The cancer or the patient?  And the deeper question, is the patient worthy of saving?  Damn these philosophical moral judgments.

The time has come to use a whole lot of perspective, a healthy dash of truth, and keep on lovin' throught the pain.

Student Becomes The Teacher

I call them my kids, but they are young adults with college degrees embarking on their first big job.

This group was all computer whizzes in the field of IT. They've been hired by a major international oil company in the support services, and the company wants them to have above-average skills with the English language. To that end, they are enrolled into an intensive class, one month long, five days a week, eight hours a day. In that time, they do nothing but read, write and speak English.

The part that is important to me is that I develop a relationship with my students. I am able to gain a good insight into their strengths and weaknesses. I am able to adjust the materials to suit their learning styles. Hopefully, I am successful in transferring what I know about the langhuage to them, many of whom have never been taught by a native speaker.

For me, it is one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. To give a key to someone that unlocks new avenues of learning and experience is something beyong ability to express. It can only be experienced.

Nearly all of the most influential teachers in my life have been my English teachers. Joe Zarantonello, Lou Swilley, Pat Schereib, and most importantly, my mother.

My mother was a task-master. I had to read constantly. When I wrote papers, they had to be perfect not only in structure, but also in penmanship, which is nearly a dead art these days. Oh the tears I cried, wathcing my papers get torn up and having to start again. The endless re-writes. The late nights trying to ensure that every letter on two pages of writing was perfectly formed, not to mention the grammar and spelling.

These days, my mother would be considered a monster. The current paradigm is to accept whatever a child does as being 'their personal best,' so that we don't damage their fragile self-esteem. Rubbish. Though the work was formidable, I have gained a skill for life that I have made a good sum of money from using. I have written articles, stories, scripts, manuals, and presentations in my professional career. I have won awards for my wordcraft. And the skill has served me well throughout the world, not the least of which is my exant situation.

I am not a vocational teacher. I have had a full career in media. In the latter half of my life, however, I have settled into teaching both as a means of eating, and as a way of transferring my experience to people who can use it to further their own aspirations. Hopefully, their skill will increase their earning power and open opportunities to them, as well.

I have never taken any 'education' clasees. My certification only means that I have been trained in the various standard techniques for teaching English as a second language. However, I have found most of the 'standard' approaches to be nothing better than jumping off points. They are a place to start, but the individual student determines what will best open the door of learning.

My teachers were as different as night and day. Joe Z was the poet, Swilley the reader of ancient texts, Schereib enjoyed old and middle English epics. But, Stan Norman taught me to interpret the word to the stage, thus bringing it alive. At the base of all that was my mother who gave me the desire to read, the skill to write and a large and useful vocabulary.

I use everything they taught me every day. In my classes, we practice the techniques, we read the literature. We imagine ourselves in real life situations and role-play them in improvisational skits.

And one last teacher who influences me: my father. He was a history teacher, and that gave him a passion for the etimology of words and the precision of language. He ensured that I studied Latin in high school. I hated every minute of it, but it has served me well over the years. Not only has it deeply influenced my writing, but it has opened ancient texts and the impenatrable fortress of 'the law' to my prying mind.

So, I got misty today as we wrapped up our month-long course. I made the students read the daily paper, so they made hats out of folded newspapers. I spent time playing with language, not only English but Indonesian. I told them about the Indonesian word I made up, memberlihat-lihatkanilah. I said that it means, "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt," though in Indonesian it is pretty much unintelligable. Never-the-less, they gave me a T-shirt with my imaginary word on it. They also gave me a photo, a LARGE photo, framed behind glass, of our group together outside on the campus.

I was floored. I wanted depereately to make a quick escape before I let loose too much emotion. They, of course, wouldn't let me go that fast. I was overwhelmed by the gratitude and thoughtfulness of their gifts. I wish that I could extend that moment, but I can only cherish it: the feeling that I did something for a group of people that opened some locks. And that they were so moved as to invest time, effort and money to show their gratitude.

So, as I write this, wearing my T-shirt emblazoned with 'memberlihat-lihatkanilah,' I am in the presence of the ghosts of teachers past. Perhaps I can never tell them personally (though I have already told my mother) how grateful I am for what they gave me, but I can take those tools and pass them on to others. I can use them to open doors and offer some measure of what those tools have done for me to another generation.

With any luck, they will use the tools to make their part of the world a better place. Hopefully, something I did will lead to greater understanding and new insights. But, if nothing else, I hope they will be enriched both financially and spiritually by something they learned in my class.

The key word there is 'hope.' Hope is such a strong motivator and powerful weapon. The greatest gift anyone can give, is hope. And in my case, I was the recipient. It strengthens my spirit and empowers me to hope that the future is better than the past. I teach not just to give hope, but to get it.

By the way, who made the British the arbiters of the English language, anyway? Most of them can barely speak it themselves! Half of English is Latin, which means a Roman would be just as qualified to teach English as a Brit.

I'm just sayin'.