Garrett Hardin, author of the seminal 1968 essay “The tragedy of the commons”, coined the term “CC-PP game”, which stands for “commonize costs – privatize profits”. (It should be noted that Hardin used the word “game” here in its sense as in “game theory”, not in the sense of “idle amusement”.)

In an article titled “Internationalization and Englishization in Higher Education” on the “Language on the Move” website, it is pointed out that Englishization is a participant in the
CC-PP game. Here is the relevant quote: “The benefits to an individual institution of performing highly on university rankings are obvious. The costs of academic competition usually remain hidden. However, there are significant social costs attached to the Englishization of global academia. Here on Language on the Move we have recently discussed the transfer of the burden of language learning from society to the individual...”

This amounts to an additional argument in favor of adopting Esperanto as an international auxiliary language. This argument may not be really all that new, but it is given a big boost by being made so explicit and undeniable.

A couple of questions:

Can you expand on exactly what relation you are making between the idea of CC-PP (a wrong-headed idea as far as I'm concerned) and language learning being transferred from society to the individual? I ask because as far as I can tell language learning to a working level has always been largely an individual burden. This differs from language 'policy' in companies and institutions and internationalisation ideologies.

Second, what mechanism would you suggest for replacing English dominance? Personally I am of the opinion that the best hope is Esperanto being taught in schools because relying on disparate individuals taking it up is not how such things become common currency.

Vestitor:A couple of questions:

Can you expand on exactly what relation you are making between the idea of CC-PP (a wrong-headed idea as far as I'm concerned) and language learning being transferred from society to the individual? I ask because as far as I can tell language learning to a working level has always been largely an individual burden. This differs from language 'policy' in companies and institutions and internationalisation ideologies.

Second, what mechanism would you suggest for replacing English dominance? Personally I am of the opinion that the best hope is Esperanto being taught in schools because relying on disparate individuals taking it up is not how such things become common currency.

1. I’m glad that you, like Garrett Hardin, myself, and millions of other right-thinking people, find the CC-PP game flawed. This means that your IQ is at least in the double-digits.

2. Does the instruction come to the students, or do the students come to the instruction? Traditionally, the instruction comes to the students, and this is the burden that society shoulders. In the case under discussion, the students have to come to the instruction – by way of learning English. (The second half of this is explicit in the article, but the first part is left implicit.)

3. What mechanism would I suggest for replacing English dominance? Actually, no one would have any objection to English dominance if English did, in fact, deliver the goods. The problem is not that English is dominant, but that it doesn’t deliver the goods. That it fails to deliver the goods in the social arena has been known, and trumpeted, since the time of Zamenhof. Less obvious, but much more important, English fails to deliver the good in the technical arena too, but even Zamenhof had a pretty good glimmering of this himself. I propose an emphasis on content creation. Notice that I did not say “content creation in Esperanto”. Content creation by volunteers will, if done logically, automatically include Esperanto somehow, such as: being entirely in Esperanto, being in an ethnic language along with a parallel Esperanto translation, being in an ethnic language along with an abstract or summary in Esperanto, and so on. This might not seem radical, but in fact it is a radical departure from the wrong-headed mass-movement mentality initiated by Zamenhof himself. Zamenhof fell for the fallacy, that is widespread, that Esperanto won’t be seriously useful until a lot of people speak it. (This perceived Catch-22 situation is what – at least nominally – keeps many well-intentioned people from bothering to learn Esperanto.) This is completely untrue, but the kumbaya orientation (as opposed to the content-creation orientation) of the Esperanto Movement is our legacy of following that fallacy. Generating content requires expertise, and this is another reason the content-creation orientation has lagged so much – because acquiring expertise takes a lot more effort than sitting around the campfire toasting marshmallows and singing Esperanto songs.

4. I’m all in favor of teaching Esperanto in schools, but the proposal is much like the advice on how to catch a sparrow: put salt on its tail. Speaking of Esperanto in schools, there is an excellent essay by Allan C. Boschen, available online, titled “Esperanto, To Aid Education Reform”.

It seems to me that Zamenhof was more incisive with regard to reality that you may be giving him credit for. He was quite right to assume that Esperanto is not a useful currency until it is widely adopted, that is a just a truism. So accordingly he went about his business of promoting it like billy-o, and that's after he spent half his life devising the language. To say Esperanto is a viable language currency without it even being a currency (i.e. in widespread use) is just not realistic.

Contributing to changing all that is of course something else. In that I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I'd like some explanation though regarding this:

mkj1887:This means that your IQ is at least in the double-digits.

You may not like what I say at times, but that's not a free pass for you to make thinly-veiled slurs. I'm not doing this to you. I answered, or responded, to your post in good faith.

Vestitor:It seems to me that Zamenhof was more incisive with regard to reality that you may be giving him credit for. He was quite right to assume that Esperanto is not a useful currency until it is widely adopted, that is a just a truism. So accordingly he went about his business of promoting it like billy-o, and that's after he spent half his life devising the language. To say Esperanto is a viable language currency without it even being a currency (i.e. in widespread use) is just not realistic.

Contributing to changing all that is of course something else. In that I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I'd like some explanation though regarding this:

mkj1887:This means that your IQ is at least in the double-digits.

You may not like what I say at times, but that's not a free pass for you to make thinly-veiled slurs. I'm not doing this to you. I answered, or responded, to your post in good faith.

It wasn’t a slur, veiled or otherwise. I was just venting that you were expressing consent to a proposition that even a moron in a hurry could see the truth of. As to your supposed good faith, no one has to believe you (or me, or anyone) as having good faith simply because they claim to have it. It is a fallacy to think otherwise. This fallacy is very common, and has a name: the Intentional Fallacy. It means that it is a fallacy to believe that the author of an artifact (even a simple statement) has privileged status in interpreting the meaning of the artifact. You can read up on the Intentional Fallacy here: http://www.cross-reference-kingdom.com/vorto-inten...

You may be addicted to moving from link to link in Wikipedia's psychology articles. You seem unable to react normally to normal human utterances.

I don't need to 'read up on it', I am aware of it, though it's not at the forefront of my daily activities. You've confused the idea behind an intentional fallacy anyway. In such a case the misunderstood assumed intention is not expressly stated, it is assumed by the audience. That is not the same as someone making a direct claim. Fallacy of irrelevant conclusion perhaps?

By the way, "expressing consent to a proposition that even a moron in a hurry could see the truth of," is a veiled slur, as well as possible begging of the question.

Like Don Draper says in Mad Men: 'Sterling Cooper has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich'. Applying that to Lernu, you may well be in the running for a job as Führer. See how it works?

Vestitor:You may be addicted to moving from link to link in Wikipedia's psychology articles. You seem unable to react normally to normal human utterances.

I don't need to 'read up on it', I am aware of it, though it's not at the forefront of my daily activities. You've confused the idea behind an intentional fallacy anyway. In such a case the misunderstood assumed intention is not expressly stated, it is assumed by the audience. That is not the same as someone making a direct claim. Fallacy of irrelevant conclusion perhaps?

By the way, "expressing consent to a proposition that even a moron in a hurry could see the truth of," is a veiled slur, as well as possible begging of the question.

Like Don Draper says in Mad Men: 'Sterling Cooper has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich'. Applying that to Lernu, you may well be in the running for a job as Führer. See how it works?

Congratulations, you have just given an example of Godwin’s Law.

Quite pitiful really. It had nothing to do with Hitler specifically, it was about failed intellectuals living out their thwarted fantasies in self-invented meaningless 'research'.

Now go and comb Wikipedia for a suitable response. Be sure to post it at your gateway site.

I'm done with this. You bleat a lot about Esperanto, but its ethos does not really suit you. You want to be patted on the head and never contradicted. Well, that will happen a lot when no-one answers your silly posts.

Ne prenas ĝin serioze estas la influo de Trump.
En la aĝo de 68 li jam devis esti pli inteligenta, sed ne ĉiam okazas.
Espereble li lernos pli kaj esti pli inteligenta iam.
Ne perdu esperon.
Ni donu al li ŝancon plibonigi sin

kaj en la angla se li ne komprenas.

Do not take him (mkj1887) seriously this is the influence of Trump.
At the age of 68 he already had to be smarter, but it does not always happen.
Hopefully he will learn more and be smarter sometime.
Do not lose hope.
Let's give him a chance to improve himself