One Man Talking
(Page 2 of 2)
July/August 1996
By Kenan Malik, Living Marxism
Cultural homogenization is something to be welcomed, not feared. The more universally we can communicate, the more dynamic our culture will be. It is not being parochial to believe that were more people to speak English--or Spanish, Chinese, or Hindi--the better it would be. The real chauvinists are surely those who worry about the spread of "American culture" and "Japanese technology."
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The idea that particular languages embody unique visions of the world derives from the romantic concept of cultural difference, a concept that underlies much of contemporary thinking about multiculturalism. "Each nation speaks in the manner it thinks," Johann Gottfried von Herder argued in the 18th century, "and thinks in the manner it speaks." For Herder the nature of a people was expressed through its Volksgeist--the unchanging spirit of a people refined through history. Language was particularly crucial to the delineation of a people, because "in it dwell its entire world of tradition, history, religion, principles of existence; its whole heart and soul."
Herder's Volksgeist became transformed into racial makeup, an unchanging substance, the foundation of all physical appearance and mental potential, and the basis for division and difference within humankind. The contemporary argument for the preservation of linguistic diversity, liberally framed though it may be, draws on the same philosophy that gave rise to racial difference.
"Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial for a Breton or a Basque to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship . . . than to sulk on his own rocks, the half-savage relic of past times, revolving in his own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world." So wrote John Stuart Mill, more than a century ago. "The same applies," he added, "to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander as members of the British nation." It would have astonished him that, as we approach a new millennium, there are those who think that sulking on your own rock is a state worth preserving.
Reprinted from Living Marxism, March 1996.
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