Andrew T
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And here's where I think James C. Scott had a rather negative characterization of Esperanto as a purely high-modernist endeavor, as though all Esperantists sought to make Esperanto the official international language. In Seen Like a State, he claims that Esperanto was created to replace the dialects and vernaculars of Europe. but such was never the case.
It was always meant to be a language used to facilitate communication. There was more than one motivation for Esperanto's use, and boiling such an exercise in human creativity and attempted connection down to just that status focus, to me, seems needlessly reductive.
It was always meant to be a language used to facilitate communication. There was more than one motivation for Esperanto's use, and boiling such an exercise in human creativity and attempted connection down to just that status focus, to me, seems needlessly reductive.
It was always meant to be a language used to facilitate communication. There was more than one motivation for Esperanto's use, and boiling such an exercise in human creativity and attempted connection down to just that status focus, to me, seems needlessly reductive.
He also calls it, quote, an exceptionally thin language without any of the resonances, connotations, ready metaphors, literatures, oral histories, idioms, and traditions of practical use that any socially embedded language already had, end quote. Which may be true when it began, but it's certainly not true now, with over a century of use and evolution.
He also calls it, quote, an exceptionally thin language without any of the resonances, connotations, ready metaphors, literatures, oral histories, idioms, and traditions of practical use that any socially embedded language already had, end quote. Which may be true when it began, but it's certainly not true now, with over a century of use and evolution.
He also calls it, quote, an exceptionally thin language without any of the resonances, connotations, ready metaphors, literatures, oral histories, idioms, and traditions of practical use that any socially embedded language already had, end quote. Which may be true when it began, but it's certainly not true now, with over a century of use and evolution.
His analogies between Esperanto and planned cities also missed the mark for me, as Esperanto has clearly operated as a self-organized and grassroots movement for most of its history and has never really received the backing of states or their enforcement.
His analogies between Esperanto and planned cities also missed the mark for me, as Esperanto has clearly operated as a self-organized and grassroots movement for most of its history and has never really received the backing of states or their enforcement.
His analogies between Esperanto and planned cities also missed the mark for me, as Esperanto has clearly operated as a self-organized and grassroots movement for most of its history and has never really received the backing of states or their enforcement.
When I saw that, I remember reading Seen Like a State some years ago, and I've already glossed over that. But in doing the research for this, I ended up, you know, stumbling upon it again. And I was like, hmm, after reading the history, I was like, this isn't quite accurate.
When I saw that, I remember reading Seen Like a State some years ago, and I've already glossed over that. But in doing the research for this, I ended up, you know, stumbling upon it again. And I was like, hmm, after reading the history, I was like, this isn't quite accurate.
When I saw that, I remember reading Seen Like a State some years ago, and I've already glossed over that. But in doing the research for this, I ended up, you know, stumbling upon it again. And I was like, hmm, after reading the history, I was like, this isn't quite accurate.