I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine this week. We were debating the the necessity (or lack thereof) of being fluent in multiple languages. I argued that being multi-lingual was pretty much necessary, and that one of America's biggest downfall was its lack of emphasis on teaching kids (especially at the elementary school level) languages other than English. After all, it seems that many citizens in other countries grow up learning multiple languages and enter adulthood with at least some fluency in another language. I imagine one of the main reasons behind that is that English is the language of the most powerful countries in the modern world, and in order to deal with us motherfuckers they have to speak our language (because nobody can promise you that the visiting redneck from Alabama knows a word of Mexican...er...Spanish). If they're going to be reaping any benefits from the wealthy of the West, they better be able to speak to us. However, for example, in modern times economic power is slowly shifting more and more into the hands of Asia. Therefore, unable to predict exactly how long it will be before China overruns everyone, it must help to know some Chinese.
My friend argued that the experience of many of his friends, who have traveled overseas without speaking a word of any other language besides English, still managed to survive very well. They always found an interpreter, people who had minor fluency in English, or someone who didn't interpret their frantic hand signals as simply aggression. In fact, a friend of his, a musician, set up and played many successful gigs almost every day for a month in a foreign country, and none of the people he worked with really spoke any English at all. His argument was that while he understood the merits of knowing multiple languages, he felt that it was in no way a necessity, and that people could get on without needing even minor fluency in any non-native language. I told him he had no clue what he was talking about, and my initial reaction was a rolling of the eyes and a thought..."what would some high school kid, who only attends school like...3 hours a day, know about this."
Now, in this story, there are two ways in which I inadvertently stabbed myself in the toes. The first occurred when said high school kid started having the conversation in Spanish, and I had to tell him to slow down and let me listen for English-sounding words. This wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that I believe he's only had, at most, a year or two of actual Spanish education, while I had three years of Spanish in high school, and many opportunities to speak (broken, grammatically incorrect, mispronounced) Spanish to fluent friends, co-workers, etc. The only other language I know, besides English, is Mandarin Chinese, and I can barely read or write it despite years of my parents sending me to Chinese School, and have a somewhat limited vocabulary despite it being my first and only language until age 5. So while I was lecturing this kid about the merits of learning a foreign language, I failed to acknowledge that I had spent most of my life basically running away from developing and maintaining fluency in any non-English language.
The second is that my first and foremost reason for dismissing his argument and evidence was that he was some young'n who obviously had not had the time or experience to gain the worldly insights I had. That may not seem too strange a thought, except that I have consistently, since age 16, vocally opposed anyone who dismissed my thoughts, opinions, or situation based at all on the thought that I am "young and inexperienced." The main reasoning behind that was that I had met 50-year-olds who handle all situations like 2-year-olds, 13-year-olds who've experienced things many adults can't even imagine, and have consistently been told from a young age by friends, family, teachers, peers (and later on, co-workers, bosses, lovers, and bandmates) that I am a precocious young woman, mature far beyond my age. And here I was, Miss I Know and You Don't, telling my young friend (whose argument was based on years of personal experience from himself and a number of people) that he was wrong because he didn't know any better, and I was right because I did. It doesn't matter that my opinion had formed primarily based on the testimony of Chinese people who have been saying to me for years how China's taking over.
The fact of the matter is, we're all hypocrites. In retrospect our argument was a whole slew of emotional bullshit and hypothetical penis size war (not literal as I do not have a penis). What came out more apparent than the utter lack of methodically tested factual basis for our banter is that I had judged someone else based purely on a sentiment which has had, in the past, brought out passionate anger and resentment in me.
Hypocrisy is a defining fact of human nature (in my opinion), even if some of us manage to be less hypocritical than others. So what happens, then, when people are thrown into the limelight to be picked apart and judged by the world?
1. Miley Cirus smokes out of a bong. The entire U.S. is shocked. Can you imagine, a teen-ager smoking out of a bong? That was so last year.
2. Meg Whitman hired an undocumented worker as a nanny/housekeeper. No, it doesn't matter that undocumented workers pick the food we eat, cook the food we eat, and probably served it to us in at least one restaurant we've been to in the past year - how dare Meg Whitman hire an illegal immigrant! Now, I did vote for Jerry Brown, but come on. Attack her for her ties to Goldman Sachs, the fact that her own town doesn't want her governor, or anything else non-political (because who votes based on political views anymore), but really...her nanny?
3. David Epstein, a Columbia political science professor, is being charged with incest for having a sexual relationship for three years with his daughter. Oh wait...you mean not everybody has sex with their kids? Guess this one's targeted to the South.
To be fair, these are people who a number of people have looked up to, believed in, and studied with. They likely hold more influence over the state of the world than most of us here, and therefore may require an extra minute or two under the magnifying glass. However, what if people took some of that extra time to take a look at their own lives? Why do we struggle to put ourselves under the magnifying glass at all, when we spend so much of our time pointing out the (sometimes minute) misconduct of others? We need to take out those primal evolutionary instincts to booster our own ego and...oh wait, our brains are bigger than that of mere animals, and we have logic and high intelligence? I know I make every decision in my life based purely on the logical analysis of positive and negative consequences. Emotions are just as last year as bong rips.
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