Author: rgjones

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Is Ukraine a country?

Russian troops in Ukraine

One of the issues in the war between Russia and Ukraine is the insistence by President Putin of Russia that in fact Ukraine is not a “real” country but historically and culturally belongs to Russia. That is part of his stated rationale for the war, along with the concern he continually expresses that Ukraine will join NATO and thus become an enemy on Russia’s doorstep.

Many have debunked the idea that Ukraine does not have a right to be an independent nation. The historical, cultural, and linguistic reasons are laid out nicely in a recent piece by Keith Gessen in the New York Times Magazine. He cites the conversation from one of the posted videos from the war showing a Ukrainian citizen confronting Russian soldiers after their tank runs out of gas on the road to Kyiv. The Ukrainian asks in Russian, “Can I tow you back to Russia?”

Beyond the courage and the sense of humor on display, Gessen comments that the fascinating aspect of the encounter was not so much how it documented the incompetence of the Russian invasion, but rather that the Ukrainian could communicate so easily, so freely, with the Russian soldiers. Not only do many Ukrainians speak Russian, often as their native language, but they switch easily between Russian and Ukrainian, depending on the context and the situation. Although Russian war propaganda makes much of the minority status of Russian speakers in Ukraine, that does not ring true in the everyday life of most Ukrainians:

Russian propaganda claims that the language is discriminated against, and there are people in Russia who believe that you will get shouted at, or even attacked, for speaking Russian in Kyiv. Yet in the videos now emerging from Ukraine, over and over again, people are speaking Russian. Soldiers speak Russian as they fire rocket-propelled grenades at Russian tanks. Locals speak Russian as they survey annihilated Russian columns.

Gessen points out that Americans are likely to associate war with countries far away, where a foreign language is spoken. He points out that this war is altogether different: “Russia invading Ukraine is less like our wars in Iraq or Vietnam and more like the United States invading Canada.”

The President of Ukraine himself, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, switches easily between the two languages. In a speech rebutting Putin’s claim of the shared identity of Ukraine and Russia, he switched to Russian in order to address the Russian people:

Responding to the Kremlin’s claims that it was protecting the separatist regions from Ukrainian plans to take them by force, Zelensky asked whom, exactly, Russia thought he was going to bomb. “Donetsk?” he asked incredulously. “Where I’ve been dozens of times, seen people’s faces, looked into their eyes? Artyoma Street, where I hung out with my friends? Donbas Arena, where I cheered on our boys at the Eurocup? Scherbakov Park, where we all went drinking after our boys lost? Luhansk? The house where the mother of my best friend lives? Where my best friend’s father is buried?”

Zelensky was making the argument that Ukraine is indeed a nation, formed not by history or by language, but by the histories and memories of its people and through personal connections among its citizens. Zelensky continued his speech: “Note that I’m speaking now in Russian, but no one in Russia understands what I’m talking about. These place names, these streets, these families, these events — this is all foreign to you. It’s unfamiliar. This is our land. This is our history. What are you going to fight for? And against whom?”

It is a powerful and effective argument that he is making, insisting that Ukraine is not Russia, but instead its own nation, multiethnic and multilingual, and rooted to a particular place, culture, and history. And one whose continued existence is worth fighting for.

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Chinese-American athletes: How Chinese are they?

From left, Chinese-American Olympians Gu, Zhu, Chen

Interesting reactions in both the US and in China to Olympic athletes who grew up in the US but whose families have roots in China. These individuals are often referred to as ABC’s: American-Born Chinese. As is true with immigrant groups in the US generally, Chinese-American families are diverse, from first generation families speaking mostly Chinese at home to long established families in the US, assimilated in many ways, to many stages in between. Yet, when ABC’s go to China, those distinctions are often not recognized or acknowledged. If you look Chinese, the expectation is frequently that you should not only be familiar with Chinese culture and customs (food for example), but also that you are able to speak Mandarin.

The expectations from the Chinese is the same for those athletes as for any ABC’s. So there has been severe criticism for those who don’t speak fluent Chinese, including Nathaniel Chen, who won gold in figure skating. The harshest criticism however, has been leveled at figure skater Zhu Yi, who gave up her American citizenship to represent China (and changed her name from Beverly Zhu). The attacks were in part a result of her poor performance at the Games, but also reflected her less than perfect Mandarin language skills. On the opposite end of the spectrum is San Francisco native and freestyle skier Eileen Gu, who also chose to compete for China (she is known as Gu Ailing in China). When she won gold last week, the congratulations pouring in temporarily crashed China’s leading social media platform, Weibo. Gu speaks Chinese fluently (reportedly with a Beijing accent) and also is well known as a fashion model and Internet influencer.

My experience in China is that if are foreign and don’t look Chinese, but speak some Chinese, even if poorly, you will be received very favorably. That’s been the case for me as a white American. If you speak Chinese fluently, as does my oldest son, Chinese people will be amazed and effusive in their praise. There is zero expectation that foreign tourists learn the language that popular opinion among Chinese themselves consider to be very difficult. However, if you look Chinese, the expectations are totally different.

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Big brothers’ aggression fosters local patriotism

Ukrainians preparing to defend their country against a Russian invasion

Much concern has been expressed recently about the rise of nationalism in a variety of countries, fueled by adverse economic conditions, religious intolerance, populist politicians, and/or xenophobia. While fervent nationalism can lead to tribalism and a rejection of others, some forms of nationalism and patriotism can have positive effects, including pride, solidarity, and a sense of group bonding. With the winter Olympics starting up soon, we are likely to see patriotism tied to sports, a mostly benign phenomenon.

More recently, strong feelings of patriotism and shared group identity have arisen in two countries under threat from hegemonic big brothers, namely Ukraine and Taiwan. President Putin of Russia has asserted that Ukraine is historically and culturally part of Russia and that indeed Russians and Ukrainians are the same people. In fact, many Ukrainians, especially in the east, continue to speak Russian (rather than Ukrainian) as their preferred first language, long after the break-up of the Soviet Union. But the impending threat of invasion from Russia has led to a change of feelings about language and identity, including in Eastern Ukraine, as outlined in a recent piece in the Washington Post, “Border city pro-Russia no more”. The conflict with Russia has strengthened the pro-West movement already evident in Ukraine and in other parts of the former Soviet Union. Ironically, Putin’s effort to increase Russia’s influence in Ukraine have led instead to the opposite, to a growing distrust and a feeling of increasing separation from its historical partner.

Similarly, President Xi of China, has asserted often that Taiwan is a part of China, and that the people from mainland China and the island of Taiwan are the same, all Chinese. In fact, Mandarin is the main language in both places, although Taiwan uses traditional characters in writing while the mainland uses simplified characters. More and more recently the rumblings about Taiwan from Beijing are increasingly bellicose. This week the Chinese Ambassador to the US warned of “military conflict” over US support of Taiwan’s independence. Rather than convincing the Taiwanese that they should join the People’s Republic, the hardline stance from the Chinese government has led to a greater sense of a separate Taiwanese identity. That is discussed in a recent piece in the New York Times, “‘We Are Taiwanese’: China’s Growing Menace Hardens Island’s Identity”. The article points out that traditionally the ties to mainland China are strong:

Well over 90 percent of Taiwan’s people trace their roots to mainland China, but more than ever, they are embracing an identity that is distinct from that of their Communist-ruled neighbor. Beijing’s strident authoritarianism — and its claim over Taiwan — has only solidified the island’s identity.

According to the NY Times, more than 60% of the people surveyed identity themselves as solely Taiwanese, way up from the last survey in 1992. Only 2% identified themselves as “Chinese”.

It’s difficult to foretell what will happen as Ukraine and Taiwan strive to maintain their independence and develop a stronger sense of national identity. The people of Hong Kong also had a sense of separateness from China but were not able to maintain their semi-independent status in the face of Beijing’s economic, political, and military power. The reasons for the big countries seeking absorption of their smaller neighbors differ, but one motive seems clear: the functioning democratic states of Ukraine and Taiwan, providing a variety of freedoms to their citizens, are governance models that the authoritarian leaders in Moscow and in Beijing do not want their own people to have close by.

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Rewriting history: The Soviet Union, the Confederacy, January 6th

Lee statue time capsule being opened

Recent events highlight attempts to whitewash history and to place past regimes in a positive light. In Russia, the civic organization, International Memorial Society, has just been banned. That organization is dedicated to educating the public about the history of Soviet totalitarianism. They have worked to document the Gulag system of forced labor, the imprisonment of dissidents, and the waves of executions that took place in the USSR. The campaign to shut down Memorial is in line with (and possibly at the instigation) of Russia’s President. Putin is intent on glorifying the Soviet Union, whose break-up Putin sees as one of the great catastrophes of world history. In the narrative of the greatness of the USSR, there is no place for historical accounts of injustice and atrocities.

Meanwhile, this week here in Richmond, Virginia, insight into another whitewashing of history was on display. A time capsule was opened yesterday that had been found in the pedestal of the Robert E. Lee statue, placed there in 1887 when the monument to the Confederacy was erected. As expected, the documents in the time capsule celebrate the break-away state established to preserve slavery in the Southern states. Most of the 60 or so documents reference the Confederacy and are in line with the message of the statue itself, namely glorifying the state and one of its heroes. The statue itself was removed this year, as have been many other memorials celebrating the “lost cause” of the Confederacy. Not surprisingly, the time capsule contained no documents related to slavery or to Black people (or to any people other than Whites). That stands in sharp contrast to the graffiti messaging on the Lee statue and on its pedestal from last year’s protests against racism, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

Finally, the attempted coup this year in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, to prevent the official recognition of Joe Biden as President elect is also being whitewashed by those loyal to Donald Trump and to his “big lie” that he won the election in 2020. That and other attempts to rewrite history are dangerous, as they deny the validity of documented historical facts. Spreading false accounts of historical events can have profound cultural repercussions, as we are witnessing now in the US, with a substantial proportion of the population convinced that the Trump account is true. Such developments, as many have pointed out, represent a serious threat to democratic systems, as they can destroy faith in civic institutions.

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What? Scones with fried chicken?

Today is Thanksgiving in the US, with many families enjoying the traditional meal of roast turkey, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, pies, etc. While the food is important, Thanksgiving is a social event, bringing extended families back together, an especially appreciated opportunity this year after the COVID lockdown last November. While the collective meal represented by Thanksgiving is seen as special is the US, in most parts of the world, it is a regular occurrence. I’m reminded of an interview on NPR a few years ago with a Yemeni photographer. She was invited to a family Thanksgiving and was asked afterwards her impression: she responded that it was “like every day in Yemen”.

Popeyes in London

While Thanksgiving celebrates the 17th century migration of Europeans to North America, a story this week in the NY Times described a food migration in the opposite direction, back to Europe, actually to Great Britain, from the US. The first Popeyes fast-food chicken restaurant opened recently in London. Popeyes is known for its fried chicken, and recently made a splash with its very popular chicken sandwich (also seen as one of the unhealthiest fast-food options ever). Beyond chicken, another essential component of a Popeyes meal are its buttermilk biscuits, flaky, buttery, and tender. But when Popeyes set up a focus group to assess how Brits might view Popeyes, the reaction, according to the article was, “Why are you giving me a scone with chicken? I have no idea what you are doing.”

A buttermilk biscuit does look similar to a British scone, although scones are denser, drier and crumblier. But scones are not served with chicken or with meals generally, but rather with tea as a light snack, for example, for “cream tea” in the mid-morning or with afternoon tea. Hence the confusion on the part of the British diners. Interestingly, the word “biscuit” also is used in Britain, but refers to what is called a “cookie” in North America. Interesting as well is the socio-cultural significance of the terms. “Biscuits” in the US are considered a staple of Southern cooking and an essential part of “down-home” comfort food. In contrast to the blue-collar aura around biscuits, “scones”, if they are at all familiar to US folks, are likely seen as upper-crust and a symbol of privileged wealth.

As is the case with other fast-food outlets, Popeyes has made adjustments to cater to local conditions:

The chicken is halal to cater to the area’s Muslim population. Almost all of the ingredients are sourced from Britain, including baby gem lettuce, which is harder to find in the United States. The menu also includes the chain’s first-ever vegan burger, which is made of fried red beans, a nod to the strong demand for plant-based food in the British market

So far, the reaction to Popeyes and its strange version of scones seems to be quite positive. According to the article, the company is planning to open 10 to 15 new Popeyes locations next year.

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School politics escolates: Burning books?

Nazis burning books in 1934

Here in Virginia the fight over schools has recently intensified. As in other US states, school board meetings have become battlegrounds over what should be and should not be taught in schools and who should set policies on learning content and on other school policies. According to election analyses, the recently elected new governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin won largely because of his embrace of the idea that parents should have more say in what is happening in elementary and secondary public schools. In his election campaign, Youngkin vowed not to allow “critical race theory” to be taught – the idea that institutional racism has been a defining feature of US life since the country’s founding. Interestingly, critical race theory is not actually taught in schools in Virginia (or across the country).

Another issue that has emerged concerns transgender students and how they should be treated in schools, especially regarding which bathrooms they should be using. There is actually a Virginia state law passed recently that requires school districts to accommodate trans students, allowing them to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. Despite that, this week a county close to me (Hanover) voted to deny that right to trans students.

Also in Virginia, one more issue that parents have raised is related to books. In some school boards, parents have objected to having some books available to students, those that deal with topics such as sexuality or racism. Youngkin ran an ad featuring a parent objecting to having students read the celebrated novel, “Beloved,” by Toni Morrison, a story dealing with the horrors of slavery. Several school board members in Spotsylvania County have gone further, urging libraries to burn offending books. Destroying books is an attempt to rewrite history, as books are the most important artifacts of human culture and history.

For those familiar with German history, that idea also raises a troublesome occurrence during the early Nazi period, namely in 1934 students in universities across Germany burning what Nazis considered offending books, namely those from authors with different political views (i.e., socialists) or by rejected ethnic groups (i.e., Jews). Among the latter were the works of the prominent poet Heinrich Heine. In one of his dramas, one of Heine’s characters voices a prophetic line: “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen” [Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people]. A reminder that extremist words and actions have real world consequences, which may be horrific.

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A Facebook metaverse? No thanks.

I recently wrote a column in the LLT journal (Language Learning & Technology) looking back at 25 years of the use of technology in language learning. One of the principal developments discussed in the column is the transformation of the World Wide Web, from the heady early days in the 1990s when the web seemed to promise universal access to information and knowledge to the situation we have today in which the online world has become a rich source of misinformation and divisiveness. Social media has been a major contributor to that transformation. Donald Trump demonstrated how Twitter can be a vehicle for spreading disinformation and for engaging in nasty personal vendettas. The pernicious social role played by Facebook and Instagram has become clear in recent media reports, based on leaked internal company documents.

Now Facebook has announced – not that it has seen the light and will adjust its algorithm so as not to encourage acrimony, animosity, and conflict – but that it will become the creator of the metaverse. Facebook is now “Meta”. In my LLT column, I wrote about the metaverse, i.e., the ubiquitous intertwining of physical and online worlds first depicted in Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash (1992). Some commentators have recently pointed to the expansion of gaming platforms such as Fortnite or Roblox as moving in the direction of a burgeoning metaverse. The availability of those platforms on a great variety of devices and systems, from phones to gaming consoles, points to the ubiquity of access needed for this vision. Also needed are other elements already available within Fortnite or Roblox: the ability to have both planned and spontaneous events, to offer a variety of gaming and communication options, to have its own economic system (such as gaming currency) and, importantly, to enable users to carve out within that environment their own space, offering, for example, user-created games.

Apparently, Facebook’s interest in creating a metaverse is in part its commitment to the growth of virtual reality (through the Oculus system it acquired), as VR is a likely priority entry point to a metaverse. But it’s likely as well that the company hopes the announcement will distract from the many issues raised in the media about Facebook and its associated platforms. Additionally, it seems likely that Facebook’s move is an attempt as well to attract younger users, who have flocked to Roblox and Fortnite. Ironically it is that group, especially young girls, who have been shown in Facebook’s own studies to suffer potential harmful results from social media such as Instagram.

Do we want to have a new virtual world built by a company which ignores its own findings about its negative impact, a company that seems to have a focus only on market share and profit? For me, Fortnite and Roblox seem to offer better alternatives, if indeed we are moving towards a metaverse.

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Freedom, a statue and a transition

Two weeks ago, here in Richmond, Virginia, the huge statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue was removed. It was the last symbol of the Southern Confederacy remaining on a street which once was lined with tributes to the heroes of that cause. The statues, erected during the Jim Crow South, celebrated the “Lost Cause”, the idea that the Civil War was fought over states’ rights and not slavery and that slavery was a benevolent institution. Those reminders of the fight to maintain human slavery started to come down last summer, in the wake of the movement centered around the murder of George Floyd.

Today, a new statue was unveiled in Richmond, this time on Brown’s Island on the James River. It is entitled “Emancipation and Freedom” and features 3 African-Americans. A black man is depicted with whip marks on his back and chains falling off him. A black woman is shown with a determined look, holding up in one hand the Emancipation Proclamation and a baby in the other. Below the figures is the word “Freedom”, along with images and life stories of 10 representative African-American Virginians. That provides the kind of rich context missing from the Confederate statues.

It’s a wonderful way to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves. It is also a long overdue recognition and representation of the real history of the American South, far different from that represented for over a century on Monument Avenue.

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The fall of Afghanistan and the marshmallow test

The marshmallow test

US Troops left Afghanistan this week, marking the end of a 20-year war, but also of an experiment in nation building. That experiment failed. So what’s the connection to the marshmallow test? In essence, the US was attempting to build a state built on the kind of individuals who would pass that test.

The test was the famous experiment at Stanford University by Walter Mischel, a psychology professor specializing in social psychology (one of the constituent disciplines of intercultural communication studies) to test the ability to engage in self-control and delayed gratification (offering preschoolers a marshmallow now to eat versus the option of getting 2 if they could wait 10 minutes). In follow-up studies, Mischel found that those who had been able/willing to wait were more successful later in life, doing better in school, living healthier, and becoming more prosperous.

In his book, “The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous,” Joseph Henrich, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, writes about how the West developed culturally (starting in Europe in the Middle Ages) through the rise of capitalism and the practice of reading to be quite different (literally “weird”) in many ways from the rest of human society. The marshmallow tests select those who fit into the WEIRD mold (i.e., Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic), that is fitting into patterns of individualistic initiative, avoiding impulsive behavior, and embracing independence (outside of kinship systems). Henrich writes that experiments in social psychology, such as the marshmallow test, assume all human societies are the same, valuing traits such as long-term patience. He asserts that is not the case. In many cultures, what is valued most highly is loyalty to the expanded family or tribal unit and the acceptance of social hierarchies.

Back to Afghanistan. The US was attempting to create a state based on Western democratic principles in a culture not at all WEIRD. In fact, Afghanistan is a very different culture, with low literacy (38%) and strong tribal ties. According to a report in the Washington Post, “Built to fail“, 

Washington foolishly tried to reinvent Afghanistan in its own image by imposing a centralized democracy and a free-market economy on an ancient, tribal society that was unsuited for either…Under American tutelage, Afghan officials were exposed to newfangled concepts and tools: PowerPoint presentations, mission statements, stakeholder meetings, even appointment calendars…Under the new constitution, the Afghan president wielded far greater authority than the other two branches of government — the parliament and judiciary — and also got to appoint all the provincial governors. In short, power was centralized in the hands of one man. The rigid, U.S.-designed system conflicted with Afghan tradition, typified by a mix of decentralized power and tribal customs.

In retrospect, of course, it is easy to see what should have been done. Yet, it does seem surprising that the US State Department and Department of Defense were not aware of the profound divergences between cultures that are individualistic and those more oriented towards collectivism. If only those government officials had taken a course in intercultural communication!

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Wear a mask – or burn it?

Public mask burning in Florida

In the US this week the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) issued new guidelines for wearing masks, advising even fully vaccinated individuals to wear them indoors in public settings, especially in counties with high numbers of coronavirus infections (currently the majority of US counties). This has led to some areas and cities to announce new guidance for schools and businesses. Some schools, universities, and companies have announced mandatory vaccinations, with exceptions due to medical or religious considerations.

In other areas, public opinion is moving in the opposite direction, with large numbers of people refusing to be vaccinated or to wear a mask. In fact, in some cities, masks have been publicly burned, in an act of defiance, with demonstrators objecting to what they see as government overreach and a loss of personal freedom. Governor DeSantis of Florida has been vocal in his opposition, announcing that he has no intention of issuing a mask mandate, refusing to “muzzle” his own son and other Florida children.

Others object to changing positions on virus prevention measures from the CDC. In fact, media and medical critics have not been kind in their comments on the CDC policy shifts. However, the changes in guidance are not capricious, but rather a result of changing conditions. The delta variant, much more easily transmittable, has dramatically changed the nature of the “war” against the virus, according to the CDC. Hence the changes in guidance. Wouldn’t we want public health measures to be in tune with public health dangers? On the other hand, politicians like DeSantis or Governor Abbott of Texas have little interest in science and don’t accept expert guidance. For them, political positioning seems to be paramount.

The burning of masks meant as a symbolic gesture of individual freedom of choice is actually a symbol of willful ignorance and denial of science. And also of a lack of care for one’s fellow human beings; not wearing a mask not only puts the individual in danger, but fellow citizens as well. Mask wearing has long been common in Asian countries, where it has been seen not only as a protective measure for the individual but as a sign of solidarity with others.

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Latin/Greek at Princeton: optional for classics

Princeton University

Princeton University recently announced that it will no longer be necessary for students majoring in classics to learn Latin and Ancient Greek. The rationale given is that such language requirements disadvantage students from high schools not offering Latin. I assume few US high schools now teach Latin, not to mention ancient Greek. It used to be that the area where I live, central Virginia, had the highest enrollment in Latin of all secondary schools in the US. At my university, VCU, we had a thriving Latin program and had difficulty finding enough Latin instructors to accommodate the demand. But those times are now past, a victim of the general decline in language learning in the US. Latin has the additional disadvantage of not being “useful”, i.e. not relating directly to job prospects.

The Princeton decision has generated controversy. While Latin and Greek will continue to be offered as electives, not requiring classics students to take them will inevitably lead to enrollment declines and to classics majors not learning those languages, so crucial for understanding classical culture and literature. Linguist John McWhorter in an article in the Atlantic argues that the decision, made not to disadvantage incoming students from non-elite schools not offering Latin, actually is likely to have the opposite effect: “By ending a requirement that classics majors learn Greek or Latin, Princeton risks amplifying racism instead of curing it.” His argument is that the decision, instead of encouraging disadvantaged students, African-Americans and Latinos, deprives them of the opportunity to expand their knowledge and their identities by learning second languages related to the content they are studying:

The Princeton classics decision also deprives students—and, to the extent that the change is racially focused, Black students in particular—of the pleasant challenge of mastering Latin or Greek. With their rich systems of case marking on nouns and flexible word order, both are difficult for an English speaker…Crucially, you often must go through a phase of drudgery—learning the rules, memorizing vocabulary—before you pass into a phase of mastery and comprehension, like dealing with scales on the piano before playing sonatas. The Princeton decision is discouraging students from even beginning this process. Professors may think of the change as a response to racism, but the implicit intention—sparing Black students the effort of learning Latin or Greek—can be interpreted as racist itself.

Whether one agrees or not with McWhorter’s argument, I find one assertion he makes to be absolutely valid, namely that reading the classics (or any literary work not written in English) in translation is far different from being able to read the text in the original language, no matter how good the literary translation is.

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Politicians: What’s worse, the “Big Lie” or plagiarism?

Former German Families Minister Giffey, accused of plagiarism, and forced to resign

In the US, there continue to be many citizens who cling to the “Big Lie”, the claim by former President Trump, and other Republicans, that Trump actually won the 2020 election. This follows the record number of exaggerations and outright falsehoods emanating from the Trump White House. Many have simply shrugged off the constant string of lies and misleading claims. This is clearly a dangerous trend in terms of maintaining a healthy democracy. In fact, today, Memorial Day in the US, President Biden said that “democracy is in real peril,” both in the US and elsewhere. Meanwhile, former National Security Advisor of the United States, Michael Flynn,  suggested that the military putsch in Mayanmar could be a model for what should occur in the US.

Added to that development has been the proliferation in the claims of “false news” when journalists published articles in any way critical of the Trump administration. That, along with the echo chamber created in social media, has resulted in widespread suspicion of mainstream media. That has led to projects such as the News Literacy Project, which aims to build an informed citizenry through “programs and resources for educators and the public to teach, learn and share the abilities needed to be smart, active consumers of news and information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy”.

Turning to Germany, a federal minister, Franziska Giffey, family minister has had to resign her position. Why? She has been accused of plagiarizing in writing her Ph.D. dissertation. In fact, she is the third federal minister in the recent past to have resigned for the same reason. Cheating and lying are seen as incompatible with holding public office in Germany. It’s remarkable, in terms of comparison with the US, how many German politicans have earned high academic degrees. Angela Merkel herself has a Ph.D. in quantum chemistry. It is not likely that Frau Giffey intended to plagiarize, but rather was likely sloppy in her note-taking and did not distinguish sufficiently between her own notes and citations from sources. That in itself is likely in Germany to be seen negatively, as an indicator of Unordnung, a failure to keep order and good organization in her research.

Of course, in the case of Frau Giffey, we are far far from the Big Lie (and the many smaller lies), which did not prove to be sufficient for a US President to be considered unfit for office. At least he didn’t plagiarize. Or has he?

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What we need now? Cultural responses

Sports and the pandemic

This weekend in Virginia, high school sports matches will be able to be held in almost “normal” conditions, with large numbers of spectators. Our Governor has loosened rules for in-person gatherings, as more residents of the Commonwealth have gotten vaccinated, and the virus infection rate has fallen. That the Governor made a point of allowing larger gatherings right now – when league championships are being determined – is a sign of the important cultural role played by sports in schools and society in general in the US. Friday nights in the fall in many US states, the place to be is the local high school (American) football game.

Other countries have other priorities, often culturally determined. India has experienced severe upticks in viral spread following many Indians congregating together for religious festivals. One of the difficult issues in India, as elsewhere, has been whether to be impose lockdowns country-wide or allow individual regions to make the rules based on local conditions. Federalism has been a tricky topic in countries like Germany or the USA, where traditionally individual states have control over public health measures.

The cultural issues are not just related to national cultures, but also to generational groupings. For young people, not being able to get together is not just related to losing entertainment venues, but also to the greater importance of socialization for that age group. It has been interesting to follow this past year, just which institutions and services are seen as important, depending on individual and group characteristics. That doesn’t reference just those deemed of “essential” importance (health care workers, grocery store clerks, etc.), but rather those services individuals are used to having available: gyms, hairdressers, church services, arts events. Which are truly essential, many have experienced firsthand, finding ways to exercise at home, cut ones own hair, etc.

The fascinating question is this: what will represent temporary changes and which are long-term? It seems lasting effects might be changes in greeting rituals and more remote working opportunities. Uncertain from my perspective is whether masks will become a new normal in countries other than those, for example in Asia, where masks have been widely used for some years. I think many folks assume that this pandemic is a once in a generation event; I’m skeptical on that; it seems inevitable that we will see more viruses appear. That may bring more culturally determined differences.

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Germany: What once were virtues are now vices?

Chancellor Merkel

With apologies to the Doobie Brothers for the title (dates me badly, I know), there has been considerable press lately, in Germany itself, and elsewhere about the intriguing turn-around in the country’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. In the early days, Germany’s success fighting the disease and persuading Germans to follow mitigation measures was hailed widely, especially when compared to the lackluster and ineffective efforts in the US. The explanation frequently given: Germans’ reputed respect for authority and obedience to rules. Chancellor Merkel was given credit for clarity and consistency of messaging, with her science background considered a major plus. The German government was seen as acting with the Gründlichkeit often seen as characteristic of Germans, i.e., thoroughness/rigor and a need to understand and consider all aspects of an issue.

But now, as a headline in the Guardian recently put it, that positive trait seems to be a liability: “Heroes to zeros: how German perfectionism wrecked its Covid vaccine drive. The same thoroughness that made Angela Merkel’s government a pandemic role model is now holding it back.” Gründlichkeit brings with it the need to know the truth, to get to the bottom of things, before making decisions. That aligns with Merkel’s well-known penchant for caution and deliberation before acting. While the US went ahead and ordered millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines without knowing at the time whether any of those vaccines would actually work, Germany held back, wanting to see what the clinical trials would reveal. In fact, it wasn’t just Germany’s decision, but the joint decision of the European Union, of which Germany is a leading voice. The German authorities set up central vaccination sites with great organizational efficiency, only to discover that they went largely unused, because no vaccines were available. Now that vaccines are becoming available, the mixed messaging about the most widely available vaccine in Europe, AstraZeneca, has led many Germans to be wary. First that vaccine was for those under 65, then it was pulled entirely (fears over blood clots), then yesterday it was announced it would be available again, but this time for those over 65.

A substantial part of the problem in Germany is federalism, which, as in the US, has resulted in different Covid strategies in each German state, made more complicated by the fact that it is an election year and several state prime ministers are jockeying for position to replace Merkel. Meanwhile, Merkel issued this statement recently: “Wir wollen, dass die sprichwörtliche und im übrigen auch bewährte deutsche Gründlichkeit um mehr deutsche Flexibilität ergänzt wird” [We are going to supplement the proverbial and well-established German Gründlichkeit with more German flexibility.] Part of that newly-discovered “German flexibility” apparently will be something many have called for, namely allowing family doctors to administer the vaccine.

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Big data and language learning

The big news in artificial intelligence (AI) this past year was the arrival of GPT-3, a substantially improved version of the “Generative Pre-trained Transformer” from OpenAI, an advanced AI system built on a web of artificial neural networks, deep machine learning, and massive collection of data on human language. The system has been described as a giant step towards the realization of AGI, “artificial general intelligence”, the ability of a system to use language in virtually any domain of human activity. I wrote about this development in the latest issue of Language Learning & Technology, a special journal issue on big data and language learning. I discuss the breakthrough represented by AGI:

Normally, an AI system will be able to deal effectively only within a narrowly defined domain, for which the system has been trained, so as to expect specific language patterns typically used in that context. Google Duplex, for example, does a remarkable job in conversing over the phone with human operators in making dinner reservations or reserving a ride on Uber. GPT-3, in contrast, has been shown to interact through language in a wide variety of genres and content areas: creative writing, journalism, essays, poetry, text-based gaming, and even writing software code. The Guardian newspaper ran an article written by the program, while the New York Times asked it to write about love. A blogger used GPT-3 to write multiple blog posts, subsequently receiving numerous subscribers and notice on tech websites. The fact that many readers were not able to tell that the GPT-3 generated texts were written by an AI system raises questions of trust and authenticity, mirroring the concerns raised about audio and video “deepfakes”, based on training an artificial neural network on many hours of real audio or video footage of the targeted individual.

The system represents a remarkable achievement in its ability to write in natural sounding language (idiomaticity, flow, cohesion). That ability is based on the collection and analysis of huge volumes of speech data collected by crawling the internet, including all of Wikipedia. GPT-3 translates that data into a very large (175 billion!) set of connections or “parameters”, i.e. mathematical representations of patterns. These parameters provide a model of language, based not on rules, but on actual language usage. That allows the system to predict speech sequencing, based on regularly occurring constructions of words and phrases, thereby enabling the machine production of natural-sounding language utterances. One can imagine how powerful GPT-3 could be integrated into a smart personal assistant such as Siri. We are already seeing interesting uses of chatbots and intelligent assistants in language learning. A company called LearnFromAnyone is building on top of GPT-3 a kind of automated tutor, which can take on the identity of famous scientists or writers.

While GPT-3 and other advanced AI systems represent a significant technical achievement, there are, as I discuss in the article, plenty of reasons to be cautious and thoughtful in their use, as is the case generally with big data in both social and educational contexts. While the language generated by GPT-3 mimics what a human might write in terms of language use, compositional structure, and idea development, the texts don’t always make sense in terms of lived human experience, i.e. demonstrating an understanding of social norms and cultural practices. Human beings have the advantage in communicative effectiveness of having lived in the real world and and having developed the pragmatic abilities to generate language that is contingent on human interactions and appropriate to the context. We also can use crucial non-verbal cues, unavailable to a machine: gesture, gaze, posture, intonation, etc.

I argue in the article that a human factor is a crucial mediating factor in implementations of AI systems built on top of big data, particularly in education. Learning analytics (collection of data about student academic performance) tends to treat students as data, not as human beings with complicated lives (especially these days). I discuss these and other ethical and practical issues with data collection and use in the context of D’Ignazio and Klein’s Data feminism (2020). The book explores many examples of inequities in data science, as well as providing useful suggestions for overcoming disparities in data collection (favoring standard language use, for example) and for recognizing and compensating for algorithmic bias.