Re: CHAT: Multi-Lingos

>From: "Thomas R. Wier" <artabanos@...>
>Subject: Re: Multi-Lingos
>Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 12:39:25 -0500
>
>Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
>I was personally somewhat shocked when David Oddsson said at the
>festivities for the NATO summit in Washington that Iceland was the
>world's oldest democracy.  I mean, am I incorrect that the Althing was
>just a local courthouse for virtually all of the last millennium?  I had
>been
>under the impression that all real power since 1380 had been concentrated
>in the Danish monarch.  Does Iceland really have that strong of a
>nationalist
>movement?
Embarrassingly, yes.
Well, I admit that I have made some exaggerations in my recent posts, out of
sentiment mostly.

It's not exactly a movement, it's more a deeply embedded national certainty
of a number of "facts"...
We, the people in the advanced West, consider ourselves well educated,
critically thinking, and independent individuals. Fair enough, to an extent.
When we see the people of autocratic populist countries (such as N-Korea)
mass together to hail their great leader as their personal god, we are
revolted and yet thankful that our minds are so free and independent. Yet we
often exert a very similar behavior. No mass hailings, but Western people
are no more able to think critically about certain concepts, than N-Koreans
about their leaders; we have our gods too. "Democracy" and "Human Rights"
are our principal ones, the common gods of the West. Another set of gods,
relative to each country, is "Our Great Language", "Our Glorious Heritage",
"Our Superior Culture", etc.

The Icelandic people have a few such gods: Democracy is of course highly
revered here, as well as Human Rights. But Icelandic Language and Icelandic
Heritage are probably the most powerful gods in the society. The school duly
teaches the proper worship of those goods, as does the intelligentsia, and,
to some extent, the media.

Don't feel that this is something strange. Icelandic society is a very
typical, normal, Western society.

But I wish we could grow up from our unquestioning respect for Icelandic
Language and Icelandic Heritage; it's a weakness, a need to cling on to
something in a big world of powerful cultural entities, where Iceland's
280000 souls have a hard time making a difference.

This has been a somewhat philosophical and perhaps incomprehensible post,
admittedly. I'm just having a need to express myself on this. Not many
people share my view, and most would be shocked at some of the things I'm
saying.

Oh yeah, and my involvement of democracy and human rights is not to be
misunderstood. I don't oppose those concepts, per se. I oppose the
unquestioning belief in them in our society. Because I see unquestioning
thinking as more of a threat than non-democratic government or
lack/reduction of human rights (by Western definitions).

Oskar
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