Gramsci, language, Esperanto

In the late 1980s I investigated Antonio Gramsci's views on language including his hostility to the Esperanto movement. On a totally different track, encountering the Gramsci boom in the '90s I developed serious reservations about the transference of Gramsci's notion of organic intellectuals to contemporary circumstances. All of my suspicions were confirmed. I know I've mentioned this here and there but I don't recall writing anything systematic about it. But here are a couple short commentaries:

Antonio Gramsci, Organic Intellectuals, and the Division of Labor 

Marxism & Totality & Gramsci & Della Volpe

None of this touches on Gramsci's view of language, but it does suggest my suspicion of organicism. It might relate to Gramsci's treating Esperanto as anathema. I just chanced upon this article:

Gunster, Shane. "Gramsci’s Linguistic Turn: Critical Theory, Vernacular Materialism and the Grammar of Revolution" [Review of Ives, Peter. 2004. Gramsci’s Politics of Language: Engaging the Bakhtin Circle and the Frankfurt School. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.], Topia 13, pp. 165-168.

Gunster begins in a most unconvincing fashion:

Conceived in linguistic terms, then, the construction of a hegemonic cultural formation involves the molecular translation of diverse, immanent communicative practices into a coherent and (relatively) unified grammatical structure. Gramsci contrasts the progressive, organic character of this process to regressive forms of cultural domination that involve the external imposition of arbitrary, fixed linguistic regimes that serve to displace or repress, rather than integrate, indigenous patterns of language. Hence, for example, his fierce opposition to the naive, technocratic utopianism of those socialists and communists who advocated Esperanto as a means of artificially overcoming the communicative barriers that slowed the fashioning of a unified class consciousness among workers and peasants in different parts of Italy.

Clearly, Gunster  understands Esperanto no better than Gramsci did, or why the voluntaristic internationalism of proletarian Esperantists would be an imposition but national cultural unification is not. The balance of the review is not illuminating about any of the ideas discussed. I cannot draw any conclusions about Ives based on Gunster's useless review.

Gustav Landauer vs / kontraŭ Esperanto

Mi trovis unu verkon de Gustav Landauer en Esperanto, ĉe retejo por Interlingue/Occidental! (I have found one translation of Gustav Landauer in Esperanto, on a site otherwise dedicated to the artificial language Interlingue/Occidental):

Alvoko por la socialismo! [Call to socialism]

Tamen, Landauer mem forte kontraŭstaris ian uzadon de Esperanto. Rigardu lian eseon “Lernt nicht Esperanto!”, jen en angla traduko.

 Landauer himself vehemently opposed any use of Esperanto. See his essay “Lernt nicht esperanto!” in Die Freie Generation, November 1907, translated and published in an anthology of Landauer's writings:

"Do Not Learn Esperanto!" in Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader, edited and translated by Gabriel Kuhn pp. 276-279.

This essay is a rejoinder to Pierre Ramus, who advocated Esperanto in the October 1907 issue. Ramus responded to Landauer. Landauer never altered his view. In April 1917 he lauded Martin Buber for "opposing a Dutch initiative demanding the establishment of an International Academy to develop a common global language."

In this essay, Landauer makes two main points, one characteristic of his reactionary mystical philosophy, another far less ridiculous. Landauer counterposes the natural and the artificial, the latter being equated with the state, an artificial monstrosity that obstructs the voluntary union of humanity. Esperanto is thus by analogy a repressive instrument akin to the state. Landauer condemns uniformity in favor of diversity. Apparently, he  would not be convinced by the advocacy of Esperanto as an auxiliary, second common language.

Landauer also argues that artificial creations lack the capacity to generate novelty, that they can only regurgitate old thoughts. Furthermore, artificial languages lack nuance, and lack a relationship to the tacit and unspoken that accompanies all communication.

This leads in to this more interesting objection: that Esperanto would be dangerous for practical communication because the commonality of linguistic form disguises the lack of commonality of intended meaning. Landauer argues that a French Esperantist really thinks in French, a German Esperantist in German, etc. Better people should be consciously aware of their inability to communicate than to suppose they do when they don't. The only communication that is possible is shallow and banal, nothing beneath the surface could ever be communicated. And again, Landauer stresses the importance of nonverbal communication.

This does raise a genuine question, but with the dogmatic assumption that the potential obstacles are insurmountable, that no social stabilization of meaning has ever come about or nuance expressed. In 1907 the language was still in its infancy, or perhaps its adolescence, but clearly there was real communication, and already a body of translated and even original literature. The first international conference had taken place in 1905. Esperanto had already penetrated into China and Japan. I suspect there is a lack of sustantive documentation on the extent to which cultural differences and linguistic interference may have caused problems, but it is wrong to assume that such problems are insurmountable.

The anarchist movement has always been all over the place philosophically and ideologically. I regard it as incurably backward and childish, but I do credit it for giving much more serious attention and support to Esperanto than any other tendency within the socialist camp. Anarchists have generally been supportive of Esperanto, so Landauer may have been an anomaly, and his attitude may have been connected to irrationalist or organicist tendencies one finds elsewhere as well. This may be true of the communist Antonio Gramsci, who opposed Esperanto when it became popular in the Italian working class movement following the first world war.

Gramsci & Esperanto (2)

Jen alia kondamno de la falsaĵoj de Gramsci: Gramsci kaj Esperanto de Sen Rodin (pseŭdonimo de Filippo Franceschi), prenita el alia blogo al la blogo de Komuniga Maŝino de Amelano Jo. Ne preteriru la komentojn.

Estas debato en la angla pri Gramsci kaj Esperanto:

no mother tongue?, October 5, 2007

Giorgio Silfer verkis eseon pri "Gramsci e l'esperanto: storia di un malinteso" en la gazeto "Lombarda Esperantisto", n-ro 14 (novembro 1983).

Telos #59 (usona revuo pri "kritika teorio," inkluzive de la gravega "Frankfurta Skolo") havas specialan sekcion pri Gramsci pri lingvo. Mi kredas ke temas pri "Notoj pri la Lingvo".

Ie mi havas ambaŭ aferojn, kun kruda angla traduko de la artikolo de Silfer fare de eks-kolego mia.

Gramsci & Esperanto

Anĉjo PacHorano (Andrea Fontana) atentigas pri debato pri la fama itala komunisto-intelektulo Antonio Gramsci [Gramŝi] kaj Esperanto je la 20a de julio 2009, ĉe la 82a KONGRESO DE SAT. Vi povas aŭskulti kaj pri komenti la debaton ĉi tie.

Notu ankaŭ libron eldonitan de SAT: La Itala Socialismo kaj Esperanto. Estas ankaŭ itallingva eldono: Gramsci e l'Esperanto.

Ĉi tiu afero rememorigas, ke mi devus elfosi mian materialon pri ĉi tiu temo. Anglalingve estas la plurfoje enantologigita publikigita artikolo de Gramsci, kaj laŭmemore estas iu traduko de iuj "Notoj pri la Lingvo". Mi ankaŭ havas itallingvan artikolon de Giorgio Silfer. Mi ne memoras la argumenton nek la tekstojn de Gramsci, sed mi supozas ke la sinteno pri Esperanto ligiĝas al pensoj pri nacia kulturo kaj al organikisma tendenco (filozofia ligo de ĉiuj reakciaj starpunktoj pri Esperanto). Mi dubas ke kulpas la "historia materiismo" kiel ĝenerala perspektivo; la dogmeca filozofia starpunkto pri Esperanto estas metafizika, ne scienca aŭ empiri-bazata perspektivo.

Estas malfacile mense sorbi aŭdregistritan dialogadon do malfacile resumi. El ĉi tiu debato mi rimarkas, ke troviĝas mencioj de la samtempaj ideoj lingvistikaj kiuj influis Gramsci, la karaktero de historia materiismo, dogmeco en la socialisma movado, inter aliaj facetoj de la problemaro. Mi tamen ne trafis trafan analizon pri la lingvaj, kulturaj, kaj filozofiaj ideoj de Gramsci.