Whatever process we focus on to achieve a “global ideology” would be far from any given form of that ideology. However, as we have seen, a “global vision” already exists in certain technical areas. These areas can be seen that as having reached de facto global standardisation. Other process might follow the technical dynamics, we shall investigate what, and how, other aspects of what it means to be a human can reach global ideals.
Similarly with languages, and the primordial diversity that we illustrated when talking about first encounters between diverse human groups, historically the differences between human populations have been enormous, testing the limits of what it means to be human.
Cultural groups have organised themselves in a wide variety of ways, from the way unions are made, kids are raised, division of labour constructed, ways of seeking food and refuge, medicine, artistic expressions, ways of keeping the group knowledge, religious visions and practices… Almost every aspect of what characterises to be human has experienced an explosion in diversity, with the only commonalities being that these aspects are shared by virtually all human populations. Reproduction, food, shelter, language, body modification/ornamentation, artistic and spiritual expressions, being probably the main ones.
Humans also seem to share multiple universal –or quasi-universal– characteristics. As we have seen, these are the smiles and laughter, pointing towards things, the taboo of reproducing with your mother or your son, a division of labour based on gender, food based taboos, religious beliefs and afterlife, a cosmovision, oral traditions and stories, rituals, music and arts, ethnobotanic knowledge, modification of the environment, humour and the use of technologies such as fire, spears, hammers, strings, ropes, baskets and other such tools. Maybe also the fact that we usually laugh across cultures when somebody falls! That is difficult to prove universally, still, it seem that, at least across ten distant foraging societies, pain and misfortune to be a recurring theme.
Although that list of things seems like a huge set of characteristics, that is nothing when compared with the astonishing diversity of human culture. To find common ground within this diversity is what allows to ask a common question.
Common ground is important, because, even if a lingua franca is shared by different cultural groups, the concepts that are encoded by that language shall also be shared if need to be mutually understood. For example, it is useless to have a word to define a food that is only known by one cultural group. We valencians have given to the world the word Paella, and also an emoji. Paella is both the the pan where the meal is cooked, and the meal itself. Many of the readers might not be familiar with the word paella, you can google it and it would be an easy find. For the ones familiar with the word, probably their knowledge came about by eating the dish itself, and not from reading the definition of Paella. Alternatively, one could have eaten a seafood rice “Arroz con Mariscos” in Peru previously, and when reading about paella, without having actually tried it, been able to understand more or less the concept because these meals, and the experience of eating them, are similar enough even though are called differently and traditional Valencian paella not having seafood, but rabbit and chicken.
In summary, new language and concepts have to be incorporated in the first part by experience, like learning a language for the first time, as newborns do. That takes time. A newborn potentially takes about 2 to 3 years to reach language fluidity through the incorporation and linkage of all the concepts that are being incorporated in the brain, with a vocabulary and a grammar associated. And after that period one never really stops learning, as new concepts and vocabulary keep appearing in ones life, even if it is just the names of new people who are integrated into the human community, such as spouses or newborns. No matter what society we live in, language is something that gets richer and richer throughout ones life.
Similarly, when learning a second language it is significantly easier if the language is close to the one that is already known, especially in terms of vocabulary. Concepts in both languages tend to have words that sounds in a similar way or are closely related. With that the effort to learn is little, because there is a common ground where many bridges are already established. On the other hand, when learning distant languages the effort needed is significant, as each word and concept is virtually new and the bridges have to be build one by one in a process that is somehow equivalent to learn how to speak again, though quite distinct as well, as knowing one language already shapes how one adquires others.
With ideologies, and in general cultures, we can make the analogy with the languages. Similar ideologies have already many bridges of mutual understanding, while distant ones have few points of connection where to build a mutual understanding. Often, for people from one culture to understand the other, there is the need to immerse into the other in order to truly absorb all the concepts needed for a mutual understanding. That is time consuming and impractical.
It is difficult for the members of two different ideologies to truly understand the other. In fact, it is the opposite in many cases, ideologies and identities are on occasion build and defined through the radical opposition to the other. What is reinforced is what makes them different. For example, french youth in the 70s and 80s quickly developed Verlan (l’envers, “the inverted” in french). Velan is a complex argot that flips syllabic order in words. The tradition goes back to at least the XIX c., among prisoners, the underworld and popular groups. But by the end of the XX c., it took off as a generational phenomena to create a code that limits who can understand it. It is generally limited to one or two key words per sentence, while mixed with other known argot. Through language, youth could distinguish themselves and create an identity distinct from the older generations and the wider french society, especially in urban ghettos, where these demographics suffer general societal disenfranchisement. Similarly, in Bouganbille, Papua, the Uisai dialect of Buin, inverted the language gender, not only in nouns but throughout all the linguistic system—pronouns, verbs, numerals, demonstratives and adjectives. Since such change is so profound and systematic, some linguists propose that it was a deliberate act by the Uisai to distinguish themselves from the other Buin communities.
Therefore, for practical proposes, the understanding of the other, and willingness to do so, is what constitutes the basis for a needed mutual understanding.
This process, however, builds upon the biased connections that we already have seen in the previous sections: exchange, commerce, colonization, conquest, universal technical languages, a universal natural language, and as we hinted with maps, nation states.
Upon these connections, there are other levels that we will explore it. Mainly, the export of a set of global ideals by Western powers. This process is not merely limited to the Western World, but I argue that most of intercultural conflicts, oppression and disagreements emerge from a handful of behaviours: how one looks, how one eats, how one fucks, how one works, how one owns, how one kills…
Provably even these last words might arise some emotional reaction in some readers. That reaction, indeed I claim, shapes much of what the aims, and limits, of our question.
Moreover, since the Europeans have proceed to export how one looks, how one eats, how one fucks, how one works, how one owns, how one kills; across the world as a dominant culture, they done so in a brick and mortar way, through infrastructure, and the build up of global institutions.
Previous
Next
