Let’s get in the game!

See the New York Times front-page article today entitled Bringing Up a Bilingual Child, With Help from the Baby-Sitter addressing the importance of Americans learning a second, perhaps a third language.

A dilemma. Yes, learning a foreign language is critical to understanding another part of the world. As a country with great influence, and great responsibilities, we need to understand other cultures, what, how they think, therefore react, to us, to events around the world.

Now, it‘s not as if we Americans don‘t know anything about other cultures. That‘s a cliché, a cheap one. First, we have just about every culture represented within the U.S. We‘re an immigrant nation. And our 235 year experiment is still working, still ongoing and we‘ll continue to make it work. Secondly, when we address the complexity of other cultures, we do it via three groups: home-grown regional experts; foreign-born experts who have come to America and are contributing to the experiment that is America; experts native to those foreign lands where we are active.

Secondly, mastering a foreign language is no guarantee that one is truly listening to that other culture, authentically interested in its point of view. There are untold non-Americans who have learned English in school and at university who do not understand us Americans, our country, our society, what and how we think. They simply have learned English as a foreign language. I think of Germans. Twenty-two years I have lived, studied and worked here. Do Germans really understand America and Americans? Some. But not nearly as many as the Germans think.

Nonetheless, we Americans need to put more effort into learning foreign languages. Language is the key to understanding a foreign viewpoint, a foreign approach. Why should we care? First, out of economic self-interest. We‘re imbedded in a global economy. How can you solve someone‘s problems, sell them a valuable product or service, if you don‘t understand them, if you don‘t understand how they see their problem? How can you compete against another company, against another culture‘s economy, if you don‘t know how they think, how they work, why their products and services are they way they are? It‘s like preparing for a basketball game against an opponent you have never seen before, who might play a brand of basketball different than your own. You‘re going into the game blind. And if that opponent has taken the time to observe, analyze, understand your style of ball, you‘re at a disadvantage. A big one.

The second reason why we should care is national security. Are we being attacked from all sides? No. Do most cultures and peoples want to get along with us? Most certainly. Should we be defensive and continually play the scare-card „national security“? Not if we want to maintain our liberty at home and peaceful relations with our neighbors and friends. At the same time, there is no shortage of conflict in the world. And although I would be for reducing dramatically our military presence in foreign lands, reducing the size of our economy and national focus on building weapons and employing (literally) armies of people on the government payroll, there is conflict in the world, and we want to be involved in resolving it. But again, you can‘t resolve what you don‘t understand.

Imagine our influence in the world if we cut out a handful of weapons systems and invested those tax dollars into developing Americans with regional expertise? Deep, penetrating, insightful, pragmatic expertise on China, India, the Arab world, Persia (Iran), Africa, Germany, South Korea, Japan. Pick a region. Imagine scores of Americans from all walks of American life who can walk the streets of any city, any town, any village in any country on any continent and understand those people, in their language. Listening, understanding, conversing, debating, persuading, being persuaded, collaborating and cooperating. I‘m not talking one-world government, touchy-feely, „You‘re ok, I‘m ok“, therapeutic, multi-cultural sentamentalism, folks. I mean just good, solid, pragmatic thinking about our future as Americans. Listening to another culture, getting into their heads, is not a sign of weakness. Since when is provincialism a strength?

You‘re probably asking yourself: „Wait a minute, John. Ok. We need to learn foreign languages. We need to develop regional expertise. But, what language? What region?“ And it‘s true that the outside world has it easier. English is the language of business, politics, academics since 1945. The first foreign language most folks learn is English. They learn English, they have the ability to get into our culture, our history, our heads. They get access into the gym during our practice sessions. So, does an American choose Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi? What if a young American opts for Japanese then finds they really don‘t like the Japanese? Or the Arabic-speaking peoples? Or the Germans? If you‘re from one of those countries or regions and you learn English, well, you don‘t have to like Americans, your English as a Foreign Language skills allow you to communicate with all of the other cultures. The risk is much lower.

So, what do we Americans do? Which language? Pick one! You don‘t have to love the other people. You don‘t even have to like them. At a minimum you will have understood the complexities of nation-to-nation, culture-to-culture relations. You will have learned to think, act, work internationally. You‘ll know what questions to ask, how to draw on needed expertise. Perhaps the greatest value is you will learn to reflect on what it is to be an American. Through the contrast with another culture, you‘ll understand yourself, ourselves better. You can‘t improve what you don‘t understand. I have an uncle who once said „Only animals are damned to speak only one language.“

This needs to be a national effort, a national priority. We Americans need to get out of our skins, literally to get out of America, for a time, for some time, to sink into other cultures. It sounds silly. Americans choosing babysitters who speak a foreign language with their toddlers. It‘s not. Far from it. I recall my father in the early 1970s returning home from business trips abroad. Canada (not very abroad), Germany, Venezuela. At the dinner table he would say our names in German, French, Spanish. He wasn‘t fluent in any of those languages, had had some German in college. He turned to me, an twelve year-old. John. Johann. Jean. Juan. He showed us coins from those countries. The Canadian beaver, the maple leaf. The German Deutschmark. A bit exotic for a typical suburban Philadelphia family of six. Roman Catholics of German and Irish descent.

Early 1970s. We were in Vietnam then. Imagine how that war would have gone had we known that the North Vietnamese under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh were first and foremostly Vietnamese nationalists, and communists only secondly (if that). Think about it. After 1975 the dominoes never fell. Where were the weapons of mass destruction a few years back? What do we actually know about Afghanistan? What do we know about Iran? What do these people know about us? How are we helping them understand us? How can we help them understand us, if we don‘t know how to talk with them, in their categories of thinking? Imagine if we were to merge their basketball team with ours? We‘d have to spend time in their gym, they in ours. Watching, observing. Then playing a bit together. Certainly beats guns, tanks, ships, weapons of mass destruction, a huge national security apparatus, and the bodies of our youth.

Baby-sitters. It‘s a start. Once we Americans recognize a weakness, something which we can improve, we get to work. So, let‘s get to work!