Dubious thought on language and culture
Random and dubious thought about skills and culture and language.

First the definitely true parts:

0. Reviewing what God says about skills:

The Almighty has created this world as a trial and test for man; every person has therefore been made to depend on others for his living. No one in this world can live independently as regards his needs and requirements. A person of the highest rank turns to the most ordinary to fulfill them. In other words, every single person has an important role to play, without which this world cannot continue.

This role depends upon his abilities, intelligence and inclinations as well as upon his means and resources, which vary from person to person. In fact, it is because of this variation that a society comes into being. Consequently, laborers and workers, artisans and craftsmen, tillers and peasants are as indispensable as scholars and thinkers, savants and sages, leaders and rulers. Every individual is an integral component of the society and contributes to its formation according to his abilities.

By creating various classes of people, the Almighty is testing whether the big and the small, the high and the low create a society based on co-operation and respect or create disorder in the world by disregarding the role each person has been ordained to play.

1. Russia and China are winning because they never offshored their skills. US and UK are losing because we fanatically offshored our skills to China and India and other places, starting in 1957 and accelerating in the '80s.

2. The Soviet system was ALL about maintaining and maximizing skills at the expense of possessions. Everyone had a job, all training was free, science and math education were done the right way. Housing was provided, but housing was secondary. This didn't start with Marx; it was a smooth continuation of Russian feudal tradition.

3. The Western system is ALL about maximizing possessions at the expense of skills. We had a brief period of emphasis on skills, from 1920 to 1975. Before and after the Union Age, we simply maximize the possessions of the robber barons. Jobs can be temporarily allowed when no other tools are available, but since 1971 the robber barons have been free to create money from nothing, so jobs can be exterminated. Our education system forcibly excludes all mention of real skills. We train students to chant currently fashionable slogans about "rights" and "democracy", in order to legitimize the pirates.

Now the dubious parts:

4. Language doesn't shape culture as the Sorosians believe. Language sometimes reflects culture. Western languages are firmly centered on HAVE verbs. In all modern Teutonic and Latinate languages, old verb forms were partly replaced by HAVE-phrases. In English, which is half Teutonic and half Latin, HAVE-forms dominate, and GET is the most fruitful semantic root. Russian goes the other way. Russian doesn't even use HAVE. Instead, possession is indicated by the preposition u, roughly meaning 'at' or 'around'. English "I have a car" = Russian "У меня машина." Literally At me [is a] car, loosely A car is in my vicinity.

5. In short, we're all about HAVE. Russia is all about DO.

Labels: From rights to duties, Language update, skill-estate

  ¶ 10:41 PM