Blogging, the Chautauqua, and their Place in our World

"I told Wittgenstein that my friend James, who had been working on his Ph.D. thesis for a year, had decided in the end that he had nothing original to say and would therefore not submit his thesis or obtain his degree.

"Wittgenstein: For that action alone he should be given his Ph.D. degree.

"Drury: Dawes Hicks was very displeased with James about this decision. He told James that when he started to write his book on Kant he had no clear idea what he was going to say. This seems to me an extraordinary, queer attitude.

"Wittgenstein: No, Dawes Hicks was quite right in one way. It is only the attempt to write down your ideas that enables them to develop." M. O'C. Drury, from Recollections of Wittgenstein, p. 109

When I told my girlfriend I'd created a blog, she said (among other things) that I was wasting my time. She's right, of course, and I know it - but I can't help demurring. Yes, it takes up time, and that's something I don't have much of. What the Federal budget is to money, my work and research is to time. This is true.

But not completely. There's the need to articulate thoughts, and to do so in a public sphere, which fulfils a deep-seated need. When you don't get a chance to have a good conversation outside the regular sphere, you start to go funny.

What I mean here is, I do have good conversations with my darling. She's one of the most important people in my life, and I wouldn't give her up for anything; she lends a big part to the wholeness of my life. But if I couldn't talk to anyone else, I'd go crazy. She would do the same. It's human nature. We have our first loves, and we have our friends, and we have acquaintances. All of them lend something to the richnes of our lives. It's a communal thing.

The wholeness of life is an open whole. The body is a complete thing in itself, but it has eyes for seeing - what is not the eyes; it has ears for hearing - what is not the ears. And so on. Similarly, the conversations I have with other people serve a different need, a more public one.

I recently joined a List-serve dealing with C.S. Peirce and his philosophy. The host's welcome message makes just this point - that there is a conspicuous lack of a forum for intellectual discussion today, and its absence is felt by many. Specialists in their fields may have conferences, they may read journals, but face-to-face talks are not always forthcoming.

The next best step is something, well, like what's happening online: almost-real-time discussions taking place with dozens, perhaps hundreds of people interested in the same topic as you but with their unique point of view. That there is a lack of this discussion-space is telling. Sure, there are always informal discussions around a mug of beer, or during a party, but
what about something a bit more formal - or simply organized?

I can't help thinking of the Chautauqua tradition in the late 1800s-early 1900s. This is, I think, a uniquely American thing: it was a group of performers who traveled from town to town, staying in each for a few days, where they would put on a show. It wasn't just something people would sit back and watch, they got to participate too. It was a mix of music, theater, oratory, and there was often a discussion that ensued; it was a way for people to get their brains going, and it worked well.

Movies all but killed Chautauquas. I remember one coming through North Dakota, where I grew up; as hokey as it may sound to today's jaded teenager, it was quite a bit of fun. Don't get me wrong, I love a good film, but I won't pretend it's necessarily superior to pre-Hollywood entertainment. Now although I don't recall any discussions, I do remember a guy dressed up like Teddy Roosevelt and giving a speech, and he did it pretty well. And I imagine that with the right speech, you could get a talk going - and wouldn't that be something?

Blogging is no Chautauqua; in fact it's like comparing apples and oranges. No, away with the cliches. If talks were drinks, a chautaqua would be a big mojito - a festive cocktail for the soul that livens up an otherwise mundane bar. Blogs would be that coffee you're nursing while brooding on something - while you're trying to get your thoughts on right,
the cup gets cold, the coffee goes bitter. It's nothing special, but in its way it is. Mojitos have a longer half-life than blogs, but you wouldn't give up that cuppa joe, now would you? I didn't think so.

Blogging is my way of straightening out my thoughts in a public way, while maintaining the solitude needed for straightening them out. Writing helps me articulate my thoughts better because I'm having a conversation with myself. Once I get that out of the way, I'm better able to actually talk face-to-face. So you could say that blogging is my way of paying the ticket to the Chautauqua of real life.

Of course that's not always possible - real life doesn't wait for me, and neither does my darling, which is actually a good thing for my pokey old butt. I wouldn't want to say, "Good question, let me blog it and I'll get back to you." But sometimes I just like having this place carved out for myself to do as I please. Virginia Woolf argues that it's essential for everyone to have a room of one's own, and she's right. Everyone needs a space to call their own; this here is mine .

http://www.chautauqua.org/history.html

Babylon Belgium

After living in Belgium for nearly eight years - and not mastering any of the three official languages (in typical ugly-American fashion) - I've become painfully aware of some issues surrounding the use of any given tongue.

Of course there is the practical side of life. You have to get around, buy food, wait in city hall for your number to come up, etc. When you don't have the local language, it makes things difficult to say the least. The Flemish are wonderful at learning foreign languages, and most speak English quite well; you could say they have learned how to learn languages. As enthusiastic language learners, they also want to practice speaking; they are very obliging to foreigners as well, switching languages adroitly.

But there's a down side to that. I hate to say this, but sometimes their enthusiasm for learning other languages hinders visitors from learning to speak on local terms. Water flows downhill, and people generally won't learn a language if they don't need to. I'm surrounded by Dutch (or Flemish, depending on how strong your provincial feeling is), and my competence hasn't improved much over the last five years; I learned enough to get by, and that was it. When I'm in the shops, I speak Dutch till I run out of words; then, if the shopkeeper doesn't switch to English, I ask "Excuseer, mevrouw/meneer, spreekt U Engels?"

This isn't an apology for my linguistic incompetence. Without excusing myself, I'm simply describing some of the effects I've noticed. They're not limited to me; I know people from other countries here who share the same difficulties.

Now English is the common language in Leuven, a university town bustling with 20,000+ students, more than 1000 of whom are from abroad. As the tongue of the most powerful nation in the world its businesses and popular culture, English has current status as the lingua franca (!). In Brussels the demand for English instruction is greater than any other language; at one point there were more contracts for English in my school than for French and Dutch combined!

You would think that this would solve our communication problems: everybody speaks English already, so why not just make that the official language? Obviously, native speakers have a leg up on their second-language colleagues. It's painfully obvious to me when I edit a master's thesis written by a student who's competent in their field, but not so competent in the language.

"America was the land where they were old and sick, Norway where they were young and full of hopes - and much smarter, for you are never so smart again in a language learned in middle age nor so romantic or brave or kind. All the best of you is in the old tongue, but when you speak your best in America you become a yokel, a dumb Norskie, and when you speak English, an idiot. No wonder the old-timers loved the places where the mother tongue was spoken, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Sons of Knute lodge, the tavern, where they could talk and cry and sing to their hearts' content." --Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, p. 65.

The political dimension of language cannot be underestimated, either. As Keillor's poor Norwegian knows, the weaker user of a language is lower on the totem pole than the stronger ones. And in Leuven, the students who are native speakers of English enjoy an advantage over everyone else - simply because they were born in the right place at the right time. Of course some are better with words than others, but at a certain level it cannot be denied that native is just better.

I haven't gone into the domestic politics of language here. This is a problem as old as the country itself: ever since the Francophones lorded it over the Flemish, there has been resentment breeded in the north of Belgium. This feeling makes itself known, even in the bakeries, literally.

Once I was in a bakery to get some worstenbroodjes (sausage rolls) for lunch; I ordered in Dutch, and she asked if I wanted the rolls heated up. Everything was going fine until she rang it up and said, "Twee euro twintig, alsublieft." I didn't hear her clearly, but then she said "Two euros twenty." I gave her the money and spoke in Dutch, and Dutch the transaction remained to the end.

While I was waiting for my sausage rolls, the next guy in line stepped up. He didn't even bother to try speaking Dutch, he just ordered in French. The gal got the stuff and rang it up - she obviously understood, but she never stopped speaking Dutch. English would have been a more neutral language, but the Flemish-Wallon tension has this backlash effect, even in the simplest places.

And it's not just me. A Greek friend of mine was nearly beaten up one New Year's Eve, simply because he was wishing folks Bon annee. He didn't know any better, it was his first year. But he learned fast.

If we want to look at something more "objective", let us turn to the European Union and its legions of translators and interpreters. Any document has to be translated from its original language into the other member languages, and the premium for good work is crucial: a misunderstood clause can spell the difference of a few million euros. In meetings speakers are attended to by headphone-wearing audience - listening not to the speaker directly, but through a translator. Naturally all these services cost something, and their cumulative total must be staggering.

It's all in the interest of fairness. After all, how can you make one language the official one for the whole EU? But again, things are complicated enough without adding to it.

You can probably guess where I'm headed. What's we need, I argue, is a language that is politically neutral, easy to learn, and lively enough to make it less of a chore. That need would easily be filled by Esperanto. I know there are criticisms, but I'd like to address those in the near future.

Howdy pardner

Greetings, and welcome to my blog! Hopefully this will stay up longer than the last attempt. I won't complain about it, but let's just say the blogger-blog relationship did not go well.

What I'd like to do here is simply to publish thoughts on this or that issue as it comes across my mind. Should things evolve in radically different directions (as most likely will happen), I'll set up another blog for the occasion.

As farewells are not my strong suit, let me sign off with a simple "Don't be a stranger!"