[lbo-talk] social media

[Wojtek S]

Angelus: "The problem is that native English-speakers from the US, in
their travels, usually only come into contact with people who have had
the educational and/or wealth advantages that allow them to learn
foreign languages."

[WS:] I was thinking of sub-Saharan Africa and India, not Europe.  In
East Africa and India virtually everyone (not just the literati)
speaks English, In Mozambique everyone speaks Portuguese, in Burkina
Faso it is French.  Obviously, it is a result of colonialism but the
fact remains that most people in these parts of the world are
mullti-lingual - unlike most Americans or Europeans.

As a tangent to it - I think that speaking more than language greatly
expands one's cognitive capacity, so including ability to speak more
than one language in intelligence tests would have an interesting
effect as white Anglo males would trail below people of color.

I think Graeber makes a point that subordinate classes have developed
a greater capacity for interpretative work in general than the
dominant classes.

Wojtek