6 January 2006 (6 Tevet 5766)
I am more and more afraid that we are building a worldwide digital graveyard in that the on- and offline digital information that is lost not only for the posterity but even for the present seems to be every increasing day by day not only in absolute quantity but also in its percentage in the overall quantity of digital information as the percentage of the cyber-illiterate or semi-illiterate is increasing.
The Internet, especially the World Wide Web, is revolutionary and seems even more significant than the first two paradigm shifts in the history of writing (invention of writing and printing) in that everyone can now disseminate what he or she has to say to the whole world without any intermediaries. When something becomes popularized, however, there is an inevitable price that must be paid, i.e., quality in exchange for quantity. This is exactly what has befallen the World Wide Web and email. The lowered quality manifests itself not only in the textual content but also in the way it is stored. It is true that the majority of the digital information available online now is trash in terms of its content, but we can select what we want. A far more serious problem that makes this information lost for the posterity and the present is the way it is stored. The majority of websites and email messages are plagued by the ignorance of the universal standards that are supposed to secure the continuation and compatibility of the digital information.
The main source of this ignorance or misunderstanding is, in my opinion, from word processors. It is true that they have helped make everyone a potential publisher, but on the other hand they have helped the majority of netizens lock themselves in the mindset of WYSIWYG, which is squarely opposed to the philosophy underlying the World Wide Web, especially the so-called Semantic Web. Email fares no better. In spite of its usefulness, it is becoming more like a source of constant headache for me as more and more messages I receive are from cyber-illiterate people. From the fact that almost all the textual documents I receive as email attachments are badly authored not only in terms of physical layout but mainly in their semantic markup and use of closed proprietary formats, the majority of offline documents are lost for the posterity.
The question I have been asking myself is whether I should tell these people about universal standards, including open formats, not only to reduce my daily headache but mainly for their own benefit, though this may sound rather arrogant. Unfortunately, the majority of the people fail to understand what I mean and continue their harmful way at best, and some of them even seem to start hating me. I do not care that someone digs his or her own digital grave, but since such people, when put together, are building a worldwide graveyard, I am still fighting a battle that is destined to fail, at least with people I come in touch with personally, hoping that I will not have to start preparing a eulogy for one of the greatest invensions of the mankind.
13 January 2006 (13 Tevet 5766)
I decided to dedicate my academic life to the study of Hebrew, Yiddish and hopefully other Jewish languages as well in the future not only because they are fascinating linguistically and sociolinguistically but also because I like the traditional culture(s) of their speakers. There is, however, one cultural trait of theirs in the area of language that rather bothers and saddens me, i.e., their rather parochial view about their respective Jewish language, excluding Hebrew.
Since I am so involved with these languages not only intellectually but also emotionally, I may not be able to be so objective academically, but these languages seem to me such a fascinating subject of study for both learners and researchers. By studying them you can have a firsthand experience of the results of linguistic and sociocultural contacts. Personally, I believe that every contact with "the other" basically enriches you, just as a place where warm and cold currents meet is a fertile fishing ground.
As far as I understand, the traditional Jewish culture around the world encourages intellectual pursuit even for its own sake. Many Jewish Israelis I know show an intellectual interest in so many areas, including weird ones. But it seems to me that there is at least one area that is "off limits" to them, i.e., studying a Jewish language of a community they do not belong to. For example, I know few non-Ashkenazi Israeli students or researchers who study Yiddish, though there may be more (but not many) Ashkenazi Israelis who study Jewish languages other than Yiddish.
The barrier or "threshold" that confronts every Jewish (at least Israeli) learner of a Jewish language seems twofold, i.e., by the learners themselves and by the speakers of the language. The self-censorship, as it were, by the learners may be peculiar to Yiddish among all the Jewish languages; if they are not Ashkenazim, they cannot help finding it as a symbol of the discrimination their parents and grandparents experienced and/or they still experience. Even if they should overcome this barrier, they have to overcome the "threshold" many native speakers of not only Yiddish but also other Jewish languages build against potential "intruders". Unfortunately, quite a few of them are intellectual so small-minded that they think that only those who are part of their respective linguistic heritage can take an interest in their respective Jewish language. I think this is no less serious a threat to the continuation of Jewish languages than the apathy and antipathy of secular Israelis to Judaism, which is what gave birth to these languages and nurture them throughout centuries.
20 January 2006 (20 Tevet 5766)
This week I was invited to the wedding ceremony of a daughter of my Yiddishist colleague. This has rearoused a perennial question in my mind, i.e., why people get married. Actually, it consists of the following three questions: 1) what meaning they (want to) find in marriage in general; 2) what they have to find in someone so that he or she may be even considered as a potential marriage partner; 3) what makes them decide to get married with him or her.
I have an impression that many people get married simply because this is what they are supposed or expected to do in the society where they live, even without any other explicit reason. Others seem to make this decision as a way to escape from some reality. I am not even sure if pure love, if there is such a thing, must be the main reason for this step. Anyway, as far as I man concerned, I have never felt any compelling reason for getting married. In a sense my life might have been easier if I could live a conventional life decided mostly by the time-honored customs in the place where I was born, as many people on this planet seem to do.
I did, however, think of marriage as a theoretical possibility. Fortunately or unfortunately, I could never be fully convinced about any of my ex-girlfriends for some reason or other that she was my basherte. I may be too idealistic, but the more experience I had with persons of the opposite sex, the more I came to realize that all of the following four are more or less equally important: character, intelligence, physical fitness and awareness, and last but not least, daily habits. It goes without saying that someone who meets all the requirements is already married or has no interest in me at all. But I have preferred to remain single to making a considerable compromise in any of these areas, and it may be more likely than not that I will remain single, which does not bother me in particular.
Since I have never met anyone whom I can really consider as a prospective life companion, I can think about the third question only in the world of my rather wild imagination. At least as of now, I cannot imagine a situation where I can get really enthusiastic about this institution even with someone ideal. Even if I should meet someone like this and marry her by any chance (or mistake?), I am even less enthusiastic about having my own children as I do not want to raise them in Israel or Japan - two countries where I have lived and will perhaps continue live; I myself can somehow manage to struggle with their sociocultural and educational problems, but I am not so sure whether I am ready to make my own offspring do so.
27 January 2006 (27 Tevet 5766)
I feel that ever since I came to Israel this time a year and a half ago, my intellectual-shmintellectual world has been steadily shrinking for a very simple reason; I have not been reading enough books about areas unrelated to my major just for pure intellectual pleasure. I have a number of criticisms about Japanese society, but big bookstores in big cities such as Tokyo and Osaka are what Japan can be very proud of. I have been to New York, Los Angeles, London, Oxford, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, etc., but I have never seen anywhere such good bookstores as those in Tokyo in terms of the quantity and quality of books on display there. Feeling books directly with all your senses cannot be compared to reading about them in online or printed catalogs.
When I was still living in Japan, I used to go to the biggest bookstore in the city every Friday, spend hours just browsing books there and buy several books to read from Friday afternoon through Saturday and/or on my way to and from work during the weekdays. This way I usually read at least three or four books every week mainly about politics, sociology, psychology and education. Fortunately, there were enough new books every week.
One thing I cannot understand about Israel is that there are few bookstores worthy of the name in spite of the fact that the Jewish people have traditionally been called as the people of the book. Intellectuals generally have well-stocked private libraries in various languages, including Hebrew and major European languages. But what about the monolingual general public? People who read only in Hebrew and know and visit bookstores only in Israel must have a very limited intellectual world, simply because the quantity of books in Hebrew is far smaller than that of major languages of book publication in the world such as English, German, French, Russian and Japanese, which, incidentally but not coincidentally, are the only languages whose books carry single-digit numbers in ISBN, and because most of the bookstores do not have enough books in stock for various reasons. In Jerusalem, for example, there are two bookstores I like and often visit, but they only deal with books on academic (mainly Jewish) studies and Judaism respectively. Average readers in Israel are left with no possibility of finding enough books about many areas of the humanities, social science and natural science in bookstores.
Not to make use of a possibility and not to have any possibility are totally different though the result may be the same. As the body needs food, so does the brain so that it may continue to function without degeneration. I really have to find a way or ways to supply some locally available food to my brain so that it may not continue to shrink further.