 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
113
from Current, Sept. 1984
Exercise:
1. «linguists cannot maroon babies in a desert laboratory.» (1.27)
(a) If they could do this — what scientific experiment would they be able to carry out?
(b) What theory would their results either confirm or disprove?
2. What are the two circumstances mentioned which «do resemble marooning» (1.28) In what way?
3. What do the different Creoles have in common?
4. What theory about how children learn language does this fact about Creoles seem to support?
5. What are some of the reservations that other linguists have with regard to Bickerton's hypothesis
concerning Creoles?
THE TASK OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY
by Bertrand Russell
The most important effect of machine production on the imaginative picture of the world is an immense
increase in the sense of human power. This is only an acceleration of a process which began before the
5
dawn of history, when men diminished their fear of wild animals by the invention of weapons and their fear
of starvation by the invention of agriculture. But the acceleration has been so great as to produce a radically
new outlook in those who wield the powers that modern technique has created. In the old days, mountains
and waterfalls were natural phenomena; now, an inconvenient mountain can be abolished and a convenient
10
waterfall can be created. In the old days, there were deserts and fertile regions; now, the desert can, if
people think it worthwhile, be made to blossom like the rose, while fertile regions are turned to deserts by in
15 sufficiently scientific optimists. In the old days, peasants lived as their parents and grandparents had lived
and believed as their parents and grandparents had believed; not all the power of the Church could eradicate
20
pagan ceremonies, which had to be given a Christian dress by being connected with local saints. Now the
authorities can decree what the children of peasants shall learn in school, and can transform the mentality of
agriculturalists in a generation. One gathers that this has been achieved in Russia.
25
There thus arises, among those who direct affairs or are in touch with those who do so, a new belief in
power: first, the power of man in his conflicts with nature, and then the power of rulers as against the
human beings whose beliefs and aspirations they seek to control by scientific propaganda, especially in
30
education. The result is that fixity is diminished; no change seems impossible. Nature is raw material; so is
that part of the human race which does not effectively participate in government. There are certain old
conceptions which represent men's belief in the limits of human power; of these the two chief are God and
53
truth. Such conceptions tend to melt away; even if not explicitly negated, they lose importance, and are
retained only superficially. This whole outlook is new, and it is impossible to say how mankind will adapt
itself to it. It has already produced immense cataclysms, and will, no doubt, produce others in the future. To
40
frame a philosophy capable of coping with men intoxicated with the prospect of almost unlimited power
and also with the apathy of the powerless is the most pressing task of our time.
From Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (1945).
From:
«PRICING THE PRICELESS CHILD»*
* For an elaboration of the theme of this text, see «The Genesis of the Modem Toy,» in Pan III.
by Viviana A. Zelizer
I will argue that the expulsion of children from the «cash nexus»** at the turn of the past century,
although clearly shaped by profound changes in the economic, occupational, and family structures, was