Lawry,
At 13:14 06/12/2011, you wrote:
Good morning, everyone,
Great post, Keith.
While language is important and can serve as an attractant during
times of crisis, this is neither automatic nor necessarily
predominant over other attractants.
As a near ex-Swiss, I can testify that Switzerland works well,
politically, and even during times of internal stress, despite
having four official languages -- German, French, Italian and
Romanche. One of the reasons that this works well, is that each of
these languages is recognized officially and reflected in all
official documents, including, last time I checked, Switzerland's banknotes.
What I suggest is that although language (like religion) is an
important factor in many cases of culture demarcation it's not the
only one. Both social and trading relationships can exist happily
between different cultures which speak different languages. It's when
matters like economic stress and governance issues become involved
with it that trouble starts to occur. For example, think of the
former Yugoslavia. After all the different cultures within it became
united under Tito in order to fight Hitler and then, still united,
remained communist under Tito with a fairly common living standard,
then in many parts Muslims, (Serbia-type) Orthodox Christians and
(Croatia type) Roman Catholics lived happily side by side. When
communism collapsed and economic stress appeared then religious
differences (and other relatively minor cultural differences) started
looming very large and the country split up into the four (or is it
five?) today. Much the same happened in Iraq when the secular
authority of the Baathists was removed after the invasion. The
previous slowly reducing differences (in the cities) between the
Shias and the Sunnis suddenly broadened out again. The Shias started
their medieval flailing processions again; the Sunnis responded with
terrorism.
In the case of Switzerland (which had already become a unified
country for much the same reasons as Yugoslavia) they had managed to
make sure that very many of the functions of governments were
retained at local level. It's also a small population country. This
helps to overcome language differences by cementing other more common
cultural aspects. The same applies to Luxemburg with its three
languages -- very happily united. (In the case of Belgium, which is
rapidly splitting, there are huge cultural (and economic) differences
between north and south besides language. In the case of the UK,
which is also splitting up [though much more slowly], it's not
language but other cultural factors (and economic) which are
responsible. I think that we'll have the north of England splitting
away from the highly prosperous. much better educated south within
the next century.)
Many years ago, when I was taught Switzerland's creation myths
(though as reality, rather than myths!) we came away with a strong
sense of Swiss unity, pride in the accomplishments of its parts --
regardless of language -- and with great affection for its founding
cantons -- Uri Schwiez and Unterwald, despite the fact that they
are German speaking and I was living in Geneva.
Europe, of course, does not have a comparable creation myth, but
then, neither did Switzerland at the time of the
confederation. Fortunately, myths are there to be created, and to
create a true United Europe the appropriate creation myths will have
to be, well, created.
Then the excellent quote that Keith gave us from Jean-Claude Juncker
may be answered: politicians are re-elected when their policies and
actions line up agreeably with the polity's creation myths.
If, somehow, a United Europe came about then it would undoubtedly
develop cultural myths about itself.
Keith
Cheers,
Lawry
On Dec 6, 2011, at 3:45 AM, Keith Hudson wrote:
At 19:55 05/12/2011, Ray wrote:
Keith, you make it seem like the Tower of Babel.
The irony is, however, that all well-educated Europeans speak
English. Even though we're not members of the Eurozone, English is
the language used by officials when negotiating. But this
English-facilitated "European-ness" doesn't translate to the worker
level in the 17 countries!
Keith
REH
From:
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
[ mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 4:31 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION
Subject: [Futurework] What an interesting week to come!
The Merkel-Sarkozy plan (that of a new Eurozone government with
taxation powers) which they'll be cooking up today at lunch-time
is bound to fail for one simple reason. Indeed, it was for the
same reason that it wasn't dared to be instituted right at the
beginning of the Euro-banknote era in 1999. This is that humans,
being an intensely social species, will instinctively revert to
their nearest convenient denominator when stressed. We clump
together even more tightly. This applies whether we are talking of
cultures, or religions, or languages, or tribes, or social
classes, or professions, or work groups, or neighbourhoods, or
ultimately, families.
The idea that Germans, Italians, French, Greeks, Portuguese,
Spaniards, Irish, Flemish, Luxembourgians, and eight more cultural
denominations (at their largest linguistic dimension, never mind
smaller ones) will cheerfully submit to a centralized budgetary
authority is crazy in the extreme. Even if Merkel and Sarkozy are
so desperate to agree today on some sort of formula, and even if
the Eurozone leaders agree to it on Friday, then the only epithet
we can apply is the old one: "Those whom the Gods wish to destroy
they first make mad".
The only eminent politician who has put his finger on the problem
so far is the Prime Minister of the smallest country of the
Eurozone, namely Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxemburg. He recently
said: "We all know what to do, but we don't know how to be
re-elected once we've done it."
Precisely. Never mind the social eruptions, revolutions or even
coups d'etat that would inevitably follow such a proposal, it is
the amour propre of the career politicians alone (or even their
lives if they ever wish to show themselves in public in the coming
years) that will prevent any sort of United Europe. What an
interesting week to come!
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/11/>http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/11/
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/11/
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/11/
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