sudanglo:I'm no historian, but it seems to me that Esperanto was born at a time when in Europe national pride was strong and that this persisted at least up to after the second world war.

In the UK, sometime in the 80's or 90's of the 20th century, it began to be the prevailing norm to frown on seeing other people's languages, religion, and customs as inferior or misguided.

A sort of woolly-minded liberal multi-cultural cosmopolitanism emerged. It became de rigueur not to say certain things even if you thought them.

Now we are seeing a reaction against this in the form of UKIP in the UK, the National Front in France and nationalistic movements in other parts of Europe.

What do you mean by nationalism?

English and British nationalism are pretty xenophobic, and obsessed with WWII and the monarchy.

Scottish and Welsh nationalism are at the other end of the political spectrum, and are the most progressive forces in mainstream UK politics (with the possible exception of the Greens).

The former tends to be expansionist, while the latter two are quite different.

I am of the belief that nationalism is far too vague a political term, like liberalism (which you use in the American sense I notice!)

tommjames:

sudanglo:some wishy-washy notion of multi-culturalism that imposes from on high kow-towing to the idea that we should not voice the slightest criticism of other cultures.

There is a difference between outright suppression of any criticism at all (something that's not actually happening, and thus irrelevant) and what's really going on, which is a gradual progression towards more tolerant and inclusive viewpoints within society at large.

I believe there is at the very least the impression that anything even remotely resembling intolerance is outlawed in our "politically correct" society. Voltaire said it best with, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." It seems that these days the marginalized expect a certain degree of immunity not too dissimilar from the royalty/ruling classes of earlier times. Nobody should be above legitimate criticism.

"If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it." -Epictetus

I will add the disclaimer that bigots/etc quite frequently make use of this very argument to justify their bigotry, but in spite of this I believe it is at least a point worth considering. I would much rather have these people reveal themselves than be hidden behind a veil of political correctness. Political correctness is not progress when it deliberately hides truths.

I think there's little evidence that the marginalised rule over anyone! I've noticed at some points in my life that some people use their "political correctness" as a form of elitism (surely the very opposite of what it was intended to be.)

I was accused of being "Eurocentric" once when I said that quite a lot of people were conceived at Christmas. I had to point out to this idiot that Christmas is in fact one of the most widely celebrated festivals in the year (the main New Year aside), and is celebrated in the Middle East, the Americas, Africa and even Japan.

kaŝperanto:It seems that these days the marginalized expect a certain degree of immunity not too dissimilar from the royalty/ruling classes of earlier times.

I might equally say that the charge of "political correctness" is just something all too often thrown out by privileged bigots to silence any debate about the rights and concerns of the marginalized (as excellently illustrated in this blog I stumbled on the other day).

Nephihaha:I think there's little evidence that the marginalised rule over anyone! I've noticed at some points in my life that some people use their "political correctness" as a form of elitism (surely the very opposite of what it was intended to be.)

I was accused of being "Eurocentric" once when I said that quite a lot of people were conceived at Christmas. I had to point out to this idiot that Christmas is in fact one of the most widely celebrated festivals in the year (the main New Year aside), and is celebrated in the Middle East, the Americas, Africa and even Japan.

In this case I interpret "rule" in the more general sense, which is indeed happening if people feel unfree to express themselves (however wrong their opinions may be). I'd agree about the elitism.

tommjames:

kaŝperanto:It seems that these days the marginalized expect a certain degree of immunity not too dissimilar from the royalty/ruling classes of earlier times.

I might equally say that the charge of "political correctness" is just something all too often thrown out by privileged bigots to silence any debate about the rights and concerns of the marginalized (as excellently illustrated in this blog I stumbled on the other day).

Which I stated as well in my previous post.
In my opinion it is the "blind leading the blind" cases that are the worst offenders, where you have privileged elitists who know little of the problems of the truly marginalized attempting to lead a politically-correct crusade in their honor. As in the baseball team example, does it matter what anyone who is not a Native American thinks about the issue? (a rhetorical question, I'm not sure what their actual opinions are of it)

To continue with that example, it is not "politcal correctness" when a writer publishes a factual report based on a (statistically sound) sampling of Native Americans on their opinions of the subject. It is PC when said writer interviews no-one (or a hand-crafted few) and writes a provocative piece that aims to shame instead of to inform.

Anyone with rudimentary logical training can recognize BOTH cases of fallacious argumentation. I merely point out that it is not only the bigots making fallacious statements. Nothing makes it okay for you to distort the truth (knowingly or not).

I'm not here to support racism/classism/nationalism/etc, but I'm also not here to support racism/classism/nationalism/etc. (The marginalized can sometimes be some of the best examples of that which they claim to fight against)

Alkanadi:

sudanglo:Yes, you have all waved your Liberal credentials in the air. Quelle surprise!

Until Esperanto offers visibly tangible benefits, I can only assume that most people who learn Esperanto will be liberals.

I disagree. I am conservative, almost what some might call right wing, but I strongly support the ideal of an international auxiliary language (constructed, incidentally, not one like English or Mandarin), of which I think Esperanto has the best chances (although I also like Interlingua).

The United States, where I live, is one of the most nationalistic nations I have experienced (England belongs in the same group). Esperanto has very little chance of becoming popular here. Esperanto was born during a time when Europeans suddenly could travel. Until then, travel abroad was much less common. The London Esperanto Club is probably a shadow of what it was due to the fact that people today have more complex lives and little time for simple leisure. When they do have leisure, then it is something they spend money on (a vacation abroad, dance club, etc). Furthermore, idealism is no longer valued in society. It is sneered at. I know that our local E club is suffering from the mixed up schedules people have. It is hard to find a time when everybody is free of work. Work schedules are no longer Mon-Fri, 9 to 5. People have to work on weekends. One of our best members is a computer programmer. He is often busiest on weekends and evenings.
I really don't think that there is a political explanation for why people learn Esperanto and work for its spread. I think that it is a pragmatical question of time.

I have a different take on this:

Nationalism isn't in and of itself either good or bad for Esperanto or any other movement. Forgive my invocation of Godwin's Law here: both National Socialism AND the student resistance movement the White Rose were both "nationalist" in character. Movements of any kind are ultimately human institutions and are therefore subject to the same good or evil motivations in whole as the individual members are severally.

I can make a traditionally conservative case for Esperanto that has nothing to do with transnational ideas. As a businessman I think it would be far more efficient to train everyone in an international organization to speak Esperanto at a moderate level. This would increase efficiency of communication and it would happen a LOT faster than mandating English (or Mandarin) for the same purpose. It's a wonder to me that no one has done this in modern times at any scale.

Now, as to the question: I think you're seeing a correlation in decreased membership but changing tides of nationalism and internationalism have little to do with it; at least in my thinking. Someone else hit one of the nails on the head: clubs just aren't as cool as they used to be and people have a LOT less free time than they once did. (Though the "coolness" factor may be swinging back the other way at this point with the rise of social media sites like Meetup.com) I think this decrease in free time is partly driven by technology (Oh, you have a smart phone?! Great, you're the on-call resource for the company this week!) and partly driven by economic factors. In general, fiat money is losing value against the man-hour of labor in the developed world. This decline was abated somewhat by the increase of women in the workforce starting in the 1970's. But, now even that fig leaf isn't sufficient to hide the decline.

Now, there is one way I could see nationalism helping Esperanto: something akin to the free state project but for Esperantists. This would force at least local accommodation for the language on some level. Before you scoff, it worked for Modern Hebrew.

The other, perhaps counterproductive option, is to ignore major languages like English, Mandarin and Arabic altogether. Rather focus on other important minority language areas and introduce them to Esperanto. With enough time (several generations) the major language groups would be forced to accommodate Esperanto in international commerce.

Either approach suggests a level of coherent organization not present in my observations of the Esperanto movement. So, in the short term I feel like I'm forced to circle back to the idea of getting international organizations to implement Esperanto internally for some communications as a cost saving measure. I'm open to comments/criticisms of this idea.

Cfail0814:I myself am inherently right wing... I don't want to live in a world where everyone is the same, let's all hold hands and sing kumbayya

Isn't it the left that is the most supportive of diversity? If you don't want to live in a world where everyone is the same, then aren't your social values more aligned with left wing ideology?

sudanglo:.. Esperanto was born at a time when in Europe national pride was strong and that this persisted at least up to after the second world war.

In the UK, sometime in the 80's or 90's of the 20th century, it began to be the prevailing norm to frown on seeing other people's languages, religion, and customs as inferior or misguided ..

Is it better for Esperanto when there is a strong sense of national identity, or is liberal cosmopolitanism a brake on the idea of a culturally neutral, easy to learn, interlingvo?

I see idealism having a double effect here. Esperanto was born in the Russian Empire in a town where there was intercommunal conflict, and the inventor saw it as an aid to bringing about world peace. It's heyday was between the two World Wars - the Linguaphone Esperanto Course was published at that time for idealists of the middle classes, judging by the pictures in the textbook. Modern PC-ness may be one of the offspring of this idealism in society.

On the other hand, nationalism has always been a part of society as well, and UKIP and the FN in France may be among its offspring. However I don't see such nationalism in free societies as inimical to Esperanto; actual persecution of Esperanto only occurred in dictatorships like Russia and Germany. Rather, I think that English has taken the place that Esperanto historically aspired to, as an international scientific, commercial and diplomatic language. One of the motives behind the movement has therefore been undermined, though not completely.

It might be unfair to say that Esperanto is about as relevant to modern society as Klingon. It has some status at the UN, for example. But it seems to me to be mainly a hobby language for most of its users, though a hard core try to promote it in public. I don't see its status increasing much, unless it achieves a breakthrough in terms of success in a situation where other languages have not succeeded.