OPINION
The Clackamas Print Page 3
Wednesday, April 19,1994
‘Netiquette’: Surfing with consideration
by Patrick Lundstrom
Staff Writer
The Internet is the longest
lasting and widest spread anarchy
in history.
It has unique qualities that
have allowed this to happen and
gives it such a wide appeal.
It is a neutral environment,
where physical bias can be
avoided and the free exchange of
ideas can take place.
The uniqueness also provides
a new environment for people to
facelessly commit harm to one
another. This inevitably leads to
contemplation of censorship.
Many immediately balk at
the mention of the “C” word.
They start demanding their first
amendment rights, freedom of
speech, so on and so forth.
If only they would stop to
think of the real meaning. The
real question becomes: who will
restrict information for the
greater, or my own good?
First impulses say that it
would be the government but they
have little, or no power to take
punitive action against the who must make the decision for
The decision must be made
“creepy crawlers” that log on from themselves how to use the pow to self-censor, or to give that
outside their jurisdiction.
ers provided by the Internet.
power to someone else.
The sheer size of the Net also
It is each and every person
If people continue to abuse
makes monitoring
the might of com
difficult beyond
munication, then
reason.
it will be left to
Next in line,
commerce, and or
the service provid
government, to
ers and commer
censor.
cial products could
If
people
and do offer limi
choose the path of
tations or controls
sensible interact
on certain situa
tion, reaction,
tions.
then they may re
Prime
ex
tain their cher
amples are several
ished freedoms.
of the Usenet
The problem is
newsgroups (nota
that not everyone
bly Claris) and the
is sensible, or al
secure data trans
ways has control
fer programs.
of their emotional
These have
responses.
the double-edge
That is why an
disadvantage of ca journey along will avoid gridlock on the information
archies have been
tering to a certain superhighway.
so unsuccessful
economic strata,
in the past.
and commercial influences in a who accesses the file or sends the
That is also why we have de
formally educating environment. message that makes the decision veloped the institutions of gov
Finally there is the individual of what censorship is, and will be. ernment and commercial capital
ism.
It must be remembered that
an absolute of any of these (anar
chy, social structure or monetary
interaction) will form a system
that is inherently unstable.
Only with an integration and
balance between the three can
there be a stable ground for. hu
manity to grow and develop.
The Internet is like a huge,
sprawling city. It has gridlock (lo
cations so clogged with traffic that
navigation into, and beyond, be
comes difficult), crime (data de
struction or theft, sexual offense,
libel and slander, etc.) and litter
(a lot of worthless stuff to wade
through).
Like a major city, things are
not all bad, there are wonders to
behold. There is a diverse popu
lace to interact with and learn
from. New and unusual things can
be found there, well before they
would be found anywhere else.
There is a pace, a faster
tempo, that lets humanity achieve
new heights, much faster than
otherwise possible.
Official language deemed necessary to unify
can society. And you know about
when in Rome, right?
And fourth: historic prece
dent. The dual monarchy of Aus
town and Plymouth came from tria-Hungary (it existed ‘til 1918)
England, bringing the language consisted of different ethnic
groups each speaking a different
with them.
Second, what language did language-also the case with the
immigrants learn when they came Ottoman Empire (gone since ’22).
to Ellis Island, soon afterward to Millions of people (both cases),
become American citizens-Espa- ethnic groups and separate lan
ranto? Don’t be ridiculous-they guages. Communication was rea
learned to speak English, and that sonably difficult-and what it did
being a stepping stone, they for official documents, having to
quickly assimilated into Ameri be printed and/or translated into
different lan
guages. (Transla
tors don’t come
cheap, especially
for official docu
ments.)
In America,
TRFMET
we’re heading for
HOW TO RIDE
a multilingual so
ciety, if we
haven’t reached
that point al
ieqc
ready, a la these
other examples,
where we have
many languages
with few speak
ers.
The problem
with it,is having
to write the same
ni’AiiH.iA naibioBAHMS
thing over and
nOK3AAMH H ARTOtyCAMH
over, but with dif
' x’ V
a « íj Í
ferent languages,
p
Í
4 iKC.i-CÖNCi ■(■w-Mét-SÍ
and thus "we
break off into
splinter groups.
Also, since the
aforementioned
kingdoms were
united somewhat
loosely, it wasn’t
very hard at all
sometimes for
these splinter
Tri-Met’s new bus schedule is one groups to quarrel
example of multi-language literature. with each other,
Better communications, cost savings
cited as potential benefits of change
by Eric Eatherton
Staff Writer
I thought about what all was
going on, and I came to a con
clusion: in order for us to truly
progress as a state, and a nation,
my personal belief is that English
should be the official language of
the United States-at least Oregon,
anyway.
(Didja realize we’re the only
nation in the world without an
official language, to the best of my
knowledge?)
I came up with valid argu
ments to prove my point. First: the
state will save taxpayers’ money
by not having to have official mail
arrive in about eight languages.
(While I’d taken my brother’s
mail, I once received some papers
that arrived in languages I never
knew existed, let alone saw. There
were so many consonants blended
together that in English weren’t
even in abbreviations together, I
knew not what the folks who
spoke that language used for vow
els. I honestly thought it was gib
berish.)
You see, there isn’t much in
centive for new immigrants to
learn the English language, since
official documents come in (most
likely) their native tongue any
way. And thus, we have all these
splinter groups with their own
languages, their own customs, etc.
Second: ease of communica
tion. Common sense tells us com
munication is easier between
people if they speak a common
language-and what better lan
guage than the one taught almost
everywhere in the world? (True
story-it is.)
Third: tradition. First, the
colonists who settled in James
Cómo Abordar
or maybe outright war would
break out.
We have the chance to learn
from the same mistakes that a
common language can foster
unity between masses of people,
especially in a so-called “melting
pot,” where the ties that bind us
as Americans are few and far be
tween, and people are quick to
honor their differences, “honor
ing diversity,” as they call it.
I once said to a past col
league, “In order to be truly
united, we must not look at the
differences, we must look at the
common bonds.” The last thing I
want to have happen to the United
States is its disunification. Please
note: I’m not implying we won’t
accept anyone who doesn’t speak
English, as it does take time to
comprehend. I’m just saying we
need a common official language
to facilitate communications
amongst our 260 million people.
Since English is spoken by a
majority of Americans anyway,
English should be the official lan
guage of at least Oregon, if not
the United States.
Also, I’m
not implying that we won’t
allow people to learn foreign lan
guages. If that’s their desire, let
them do it.
That’s fine to speak that lan
guage to others if you know the
language well enough. But I’m
saying English should be our of
ficial language, since an official
language saves tax dollars and
lots of grief. (And what about
those of us, like myself, that don’t
know enough foreign languages
to fill a perfume atomizer?) And
if English does become our offi
cial language, since the majority
of us speak it anyway, it won’t be
much a transition, if at all.
I’m just saying to those who
want to become citizens, “If you
want to come to our country, we’d
like it if you learned to speak Eng
lish, so that you may assimilate
into our society.”
To summarize: English
should be our official language be
cause it saves tax dollars by writ
ing documents in one language
instead of about six. It makes
communicating with others
easier. It was the first language
of the general American society.
And learning from the Ottomans
and Austria-Hungary, having
more than one language towrite
documents in isn’t; always a
good thing.
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