Learning Mandarin is better than learning Arabic: correct, incorrect or, erm... racist?

Great Debates
41

Despite your insult implied, I have not invented anything.

Your OP said that “with the inevitable decline in oil revenues, the Arab states themselves will see their political capital rapidly devalued.”

There is no qualification in this.

I have also not “not understood” anything about Arab League. This is some distraction. A definition of Arab states has no relevance to my observation you replied to. It does not change the fact observed that the majority of Arab population does not live in countries that have something to do with this observation.

So there is a forgetting of Egypt, which is becoming unimportant now?

I see you also focus on the most small country of the Arab Spring. It is an interesting demarche for argument, but it is weak. We forget about in this fashion all the other countries.

I think it is very Anglo American to conceive of the Arab world in the lens of the old English empire that speaks English. And it is also very narrow and it was my point to show that your statement was not accurate for a big part of the éthnic arab countries.

It seems you want to confuse these demographic facts by changing the standard to the arab leauge that contains countries of not real arab ethnicity as a fashion of causing doubt about the doubtless fact that the greatest population of native arabic speakers is not found in the petrol states, and that the north african states have economic interest that has no connection to the petrol, which is interesting since the economic reason for learning Arabic was evoked in the OP although he has since converted this to a global political distraction (although it is coherent with American ways of looking at this).

[QUOTE]
You can’t get away from the facts by pretending they’re opinions,
[/QUOTE

This is in response to my stating that the “the global political/economic power held by Arab states is due to oil revenues is not only not a stereotype” is an opinion of the OP.

If the two phrases combined “global political” and “economic power” are not defined, I think it is an opinion. If I stay just with a country that Americans and Americans who are so interested in a certain country will be familiar with, it is hard to say that the importance of Egypt has any reason to do with the petrol. The Suez canal, its neighbours, these are reasons that are clear. And it has been an important country globally since a very long time for these reasons.

We can ignore since this is an American conversation the great political importance that the European Union attaches for labour and other reasons to the Maghreb countries, since if it is not an American concern it is not global.

But it is clear that the Arab region has countries that have global political and economic importance both regional and global - that have no relation to Petrol and have never had relation to petrol.

To forget distractions, it is quite evident that the idea that a interest in learning of Arabic has something to do with petrol production is not connected in any good fashion with either a political or a economic argument. I do not argue it is an argument to learn Arabic, which is very hard, but the OP’s analysis is not informed in a good way, that is clear.

Your gaps in knowledge I think are evident, it is not an insult and no reason to argue although I know the habits.

After this, I do not feel a need to respond to the insults that have nothing to do with what I wrote.

It is more than understandable from your responses how your facebook conversant could understand your real interactions as have a prejudice in them.

42

I must add to Bricabacon that the question of the language usefulness is one that can be analysed better than we have, although I think even sven has shown this indireclty.

It is the Vehicule Languages that have great usage outside of their native community that become very useful to learn. Not the Japanese or maybe the Mandarin which is only a vehicule even in China and not forcibly the language used in the diaspora of the Chinese in Asia. It is never cited as a need, Mandarin, to work with the Chinese in Asia - I have understood many do not even know Mandarin but the southern languages that have nothing to do with it.

So it is Spanish, French on the biggest level. Portuguese and Arabic I think are the level after although of interest .

The importance of the Arabic will not go away for its vehicule language function for business or political things if the petrol goes away, although maybe even less Americans will learn it.

43

I agree that it’s a conversation you can have. What I disagree with is that facile analysis that since China is on the rise, we all need to learn it now since they will be calling the shots in a few years. That kind of fear-based, low context anaylsis is rife with assumptions that make for bad conclusions. You saw it in the US in the 80’s with Japanese. That was my point if it wasn’t clear.

44

Bricabacon, I think from your statement we are not disagreeing. I think in fact I have said not very clearly the same thing.

It is on this point that “ear-based, low context anaylsis” that I think it important. This is why I evoked the idea of vehicular language, as it is I think clear it is hard to displace. But a language that is only interesting because one country speaks it for its own business, like the Japanese language, it must only be interesting for someone who knows they shall be specialised in this country. This is on reason why even sven was wise in her observation.

But for the OP, he is not wise as he does not have good knowledge of either language, and it is clear that his knowledge of the choices is not complete and it is distorted. And it is clear he thinks of the Arabic language only through one lens, which is about a certain very American community political one. The economic interest of Arabic, he does not know about it.

45

My daughter is now living in Germany. While she has become fluent in German, she just completed a Masters in International Business taught totally in English. Even better, her mentor at the school where she was teaching is in charge of a pan-Europe project, involving I think six countries. None were English speaking countries - all reports and discussions were done in English.

Still, there are people even in Germany who are not fluent English speakers, but the number seems to be declining.

46

You obviously don’t live in my town, which has shopping centers and supermarkets where Mandarin is primarily spoken. There is also a wide Chinese presence throughout East Asia, for instance Malaysia and Singapore. Still, number of speakers is probably more important than number of countries, and their incomes more important still.

47

But, is Mandarin any language of wider communication among persons who are not in any sense Chinese?

48

Meanwhile, I think this thread actually illustrates the damage of the guy I knew back in high school pretty well. Energetic handwaving, pejoratives tossed around without accurate meanings or appropriate relevance, claims that being concerned about economic advantage is “stereotyping”, accusations that Arabic culture was somehow at issue in my comments… it’s clear that there’s a certain reaction which removes “I do not agree with/like what you’re saying” and substitutes “Racist!”

Ah well, pity.

49

The reason why this happens is that you ask people for opinions, but then argue against what they believe. You create the hostility by refusing to actually listen to what they say. You don’t even listen enough to actually argue against them–you just start calling them all stupid.

And then you get mad when other people treat you the same way you treat them. Even your last post in this thread is calling people stupid because they disagree with you. STOP THAT if you want people to stop attacking you.

That’s what calling someone racist really is. It’s an attack. And it wouldn’t have happened if you’d learn to temper how you talk to people.

50

Or to put it another way: if you say anything bad about FinnAgain, you are stupid. No, it doesn’t work that way. When people say something is wrong with you, you need to reflect on yourself and see if there is something wrong.

And if you aren’t willing to do this, why do you keep creating these threads where you flat out ask people to evaluate you? You asked whether what you did was racist. But rather than listen to the people who have arguments that claim you are, you just call them stupid.

So, if FinnAgain once again does not listen, I suggest we treat future threads for what they are. They are MPSIMS threads where the OP just wants confirmation that he is an awesome person.

51

This is a very stupid comment, think about it for a minute, really think about it. Evidently it is okay for people to tell me I’m wrong, but if I tell them that they’re wrong… As for “creating hostility” by “refusing to actually listen”, you are using the word “listen” in as sloppy a manner as other people have used vacuous pejoratives. Naturally, unable to make your case, you pretend that if I’m refuting people’s claims, then I must not be “listening”. Look at the logical swamp that your argument has submerged itself in: if a series of statements are objectively not racist and others disagree and say they are, that’s fine. if I disagree with them, however, I’m “causing hostility” and obviously I’m “not listening” or else I would’ve agreed with them.

No, the “reason why it happens” is the same reason why people say all sorts of other ignorant, stupid, nonsensical, illogical things. It’s obvious what rhetorical game you’re playing, but, for instance, calling a statement about economic utilitarianism “racist” doesn’t become any less of an intellectual abrogation if someone is annoyed.

This is, put mildly, fictional.
Of course, if you actually believe it, report my posts. It’s against the rules to call people stupid in GD. Of course, as I’ve done no such thing, you’re just posting bullshit.

Not that your generally smarmy argument even bears up to basic levels of intellectual rigor. In addition to your earlier error that I just pointed out, really think about your claim that people only accused me of racism… because I disagreed with their judgements that I was a racist. Think about how you have to tie causality itself into knots in order to even begin to make sense of that twaddle. To say nothing of the dismally dense argument that it’s somehow to be expected that people will accuse something that isn’t racist of being racist if you don’t “listen” to their argument.

52

Can you envision any justification for being called a racist? If not, then why did you bring it up in the first place?