On The Margins

Sunday October 03, 2004

[ Web ] Blogging in Esperanto and Virtues of Multi-Lingualism

Jeff Licquia's translation into Esperanto of his earlier commentary on what I'd written regarding Balkanization of the Web and the virtues of multi-lingualism proves my original point still stands: Having a multitude of living languages is actually much better than a world with a single universal language. The existence of different (human) language communities should in fact be considered, literally, as a God-given opportunity to be introduced to diverse peoples and cultural possibilities. In a single-language world, we'll be immersed in assumptions and biases that are particular to that language, never finding an opportunity for their evolution in the dialog that occurs between languages and cultures.

Note (added October 4, 2004): Please read Jeff Liquia's comment below. As he notes, he never advocated a single universal language. If I implied that above, I stand corrected. His commentary below actually amplifies that on which we both agree, and I'll take his challenge and will learn the mechanics of blogging in Persian (the problem is getting an appropriate keyboard and editor), probably on a different weblog server. More on this later, as time permits.

2004-10-03 20:26:15.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Culture ] Music, Video and Creative "Mixing"

Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School, whose weblog is always worth a diligent read, points to some recent mixes (including this video mix by DJ Spooky and some musical mixes) and reports from the Wired Magazine's Creative Commons Concert. In the meantime, it may be worthwhile to check out some other pieces of music, particularly these songs. I'm not sure if these songs are released under CC, but still they sound quite wild and full of mixing of the Brechtian style.

One of the main arguments of Lessig's most recent book, Free Culture, is that burdening creative mixing with prohibitively strict copyright laws will have seriously adverse effects on all kinds of ceativity, particularly of the artistic kind. Ultimately, such a burden will stifle "free" evolution of culture. (I've written a short and still unfinished critique of the "free" in "free culture" here. Elsewhere, I have written regarding Lessig's view on the operating taboo against political discourse.)

2004-10-03 11:46:59.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.