Re: a discussion on OIT: attention moderator

--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

. . .

> Unfortunately, that ideology might be what upholds
> the group of the
> proponent in question, and giving up the belief will
> make it crash.
> Look what happened in the socialist block after they
> gave up the
> doctrine. It's all more complicated than you would
> like to believe.
> Linguistics is a dangerous thing. Most East European
> nations owe their
> existence to it.
> Torsten

Look at how Third World dictatorship create enemies
through linguistic differences and thereby prop up
their regimes. On the other hand, Latin America is a
failure because linguistics was not strong enough to
hold it together. Geography defeated it. North America
was defeated by ideology: Tories vs. Yankees. If
linguistics had triumphed, the US would include Canada
and Quebec would probably be another Louisiana. Yet
the historical moment seemed to dictate whether or not
linguistics, geography or ideology would prevail.