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Esperanto and Esperantist ideology | ||
Tags: Language Politics | Esperanto | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto |  | |
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6951 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 9 of 26 06 March 2012 at 8:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I've been studying Esperanto for about a month now for the 6 week challenge. The only
political themes I've run across so far are the idea that the EU should adopt Esperanto as a "working language" (once) and the hope for world peace (recurring). The forums at lernu.net include one forum for debate, and the topics I've browsed seem to reflect a wide range of political and other beliefs. In the fi3m forum the same question came up recently, and Benny said he has zero interest in politics, but that this has never been a problem at Esperanto meets, where he swaps travel stories and flirts with girls :) My experience so far has also been that people talk in Esperanto about the same things they would in any other language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 10 of 26 06 March 2012 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
He was apparently a secretary of the British Esperanto movement for a while. I'd never heard of him.
Zamenhof himself thought that for a while. He's widely acknowledged to be wrong. Nonetheless, there are various international peace movements, both against specific conflicts and for peace in general, and it's not rare for me to meet Esperanto speakers who are involved.
Up to school age, there have been a few, starting from the 1920s or so. After that, to the best of my knowledge, you're right.
I meant to write anti-Stalinist communist. There are quite a few different branches of communist ideology.
I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of tactical voting. There are plenty of Ron Paul supporters who are registered Republicans, self-identify as libertarians, and some of them vote Republican rather than Libertarian in elections for various reasons, such as preferring the Republicans to win an election, because of more overlap in economic views than they personally share with the Democrats. The Libertarian party candidates also aren't always particularly libertarian; Bob Barr, their 2008 presidential candidate, was a former Republican congressman, and widely critiqued both inside and outside of the Libertarian party for not being particularly libertarian. I'm aware of libertarian and Libertarian critiques of the Democrat and Republican parties. However, the US has an essentially 2-party system, and many people choose to vote in ways that recognize this, regardless of how they wish it were. This includes some members of the Free State project. Most libertarians I've met do accept a divide into right- and left- libertarian, and American Libertarians are overwhelming right-wing libertarian. Admittedly, this clashes with some definitions of right-wing that make sense in the context of American politics. Edited by Volte on 06 March 2012 at 10:07am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5731 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 11 of 26 06 March 2012 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I agree with Lucky Charms. Most Esperantists probably just speak in Esperanto about whatever they do in their native languages. I would probably never talk about politics in Esperanto because I really don't care to discuss politics.
Thanks again, Volte, for critiquing my thoughts and for helping me to dismiss misconceptions I have about Esperanto. To the OP - what exactly did you mean by saying that Zamenhof wanted to use Esperanto as a vehicle to spread his ideology? What exactly was Zamenhof's ideology, anyway? As far as Esperanto suppressing minor languages, I remember seeing a link in which a European wrote that if the EU supported Esperanto then the EU would have fewer resources to support minor languages. Of course, Esperanto could be seen as a minor European language because there are native speakers in Europe. I know nothing about European politics, and because I don't have the link, I can't tell what the premise of his argument was. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Deerhound Triglot Newbie England Joined 4907 days ago 30 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, German, Toki Pona Studies: French, Mandarin, Esperanto, Greek, Latin, Welsh | Message 12 of 26 19 June 2012 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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It does seem to tend to be learnt by people who are quite left-wing but I am right wing/Tory/conservative and I am learning Esperanto. I don't agree with the 'one world' ideology and don't believe that everyone speaking one language would bring world peace. But it could be useful as a second language. Say, for example, someone doesn't have the time or linguistic skill to learn a natural language, with all its irregularities but learning Esperanto might be better than having no second language at all. Or perhaps it could help introduce them to thinking differently in another language, as a step to another language.
Personally, I find it linguistically interesting and strangely interesting to the eye and pleasing to the ear. So I'm learning it for the enjoyment (I'm finding it quite easy so I'm not putting much time or effort in) and for the possibility that perhaps one day it will come in useful, but if it doesn't, that's fine. Edited by Deerhound on 19 June 2012 at 7:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 13 of 26 19 June 2012 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
While Esperanto speakers do seem to skew left, there are plenty of conservative speakers. I've heard of BNP supporters getting a less than warm reception among Esperanto speakers in the UK, but Tories don't seem to be all that unusual. I can't say I've seen a coherent "one world" ideology in Esperanto, and the idea that everyone sharing a language would bring world piece doesn't seem to be a common view among contemporary Esperanto speakers. There have been some studies done on studying Esperanto as a prelude to other languages. The results were that it was helpful, especially for the people who would otherwise struggle most. I do think having a second language is worthwhile, and that Esperanto is a reasonable choice for this.
We seem to agree on its aesthetics. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 26 20 June 2012 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I participated in the Universal Esperanto Congress in Copenhagen in July 2011, and to be true there were a number of lecture topics which were slightly offputting in my eyes. I'm not a vegetarian, I'm not religious, I'm not interested in UFO's and even though world peace is a nice concept I can't see what Esperanto has to do with it. But speaking about politics and elections: in any election there will also be crackpots and liars and opportunists and simple blockheads (not to speak of all the mainstream politicians), and that shouldn't cause us to abolish democracy or use foul language towards common voters.
Esperanto is language, period. There are a number of people who use it, and the only common denominator is that they for some reason have chosen to learn at least one language more than their native one, which for a language aficionado like me is a positive trait. Edited by Iversen on 20 June 2012 at 1:04pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5258 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish | Message 15 of 26 20 June 2012 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I dont like the way some eperantists think:
"This language is made to be an international one, so everybody should learn it as a second language." Using the same logic, I can write a book and say: "I have written this book with the goal it to be read all over the world, so everyone should read it." The difference is that some people want to make the others to learn esperanto. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5731 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 16 of 26 20 June 2012 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Can you cite one Esperantist who's said that? I seriously doubt most Esperantists feel that way. As far as Esperantists and ideology goes, I read on LinkedIn that there's a claim that people who learn foreign languages for fun might have more of a liberal slant to their politics because they're probably more tolerant and world conscious than people who don't enjoy studying languages. The language they study, like Esperanto, in and of itself may be irrelevant, assuming that this claim is true, of course. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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