Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA15092 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 29 Apr 2002 19:17:44 +0100 User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022 Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 14:12:18 -0400 Subject: Re: Saving the ethnosphere From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B8F2F129.1149C%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <000e01c1ef30$3e85a860$5e2ffea9@oemcomputer> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
on 4/28/02 11:44 PM, Philip Jonkers at philipjonkers@prodigy.net wrote:
> The less languages around the less potential confusion will be brought about
> by people trying to communicate
> as the probability increases that they speak the same language. Extinction
> of redundant languages is a natural
> process in an environment with progressive global communication.
> Trying to intervene in this natural process, in the sense of trying to
> preserve superfluous languages, to me seems to
> be as artificial as genetic engineering is to biological evolution. A
> difference between the two being that, unlike the latter, the former lacks
> possible benefit other than one of sentimental and/or historic value.
>
> Phil.
I gather then, that you approve of these "natural" events:
> It is not change that threatens the ethnosphere; it is power. Dynamic
> living cultures are being destroyed because of political and economic
> decisions made by outside entities. In the upper reaches of the Orinoco,
> a gold rush brings disease to the Yanomami, killing a quarter of the
> population in a decade. In Nigeria, pollutants from the oil industry so
> saturate the floodplain of the Niger River, homeland of the Ogoni, that
> the once fertile soils can no longer be farmed. That such conflicts
> result from deliberate choices made by men is both discouraging and
> empowering. If people are the agents of cultural loss, we can also be
> the facilitators of cultural survival.
The general problem is a deep and difficult one and I certainly don't know
how to deal with it. But your comment indicates that you are a mindless
fool.
--William L. Benzon 708 Jersey Avenue, Apt. 2A Jersey City, NJ 07302 201 217-1010
"you won't get a wild heroic ride to heaven on pretty little sounds"--george ives
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