Saturday, October 6, 2007

Learning a language sharpens the mind, and other ruminations...


I've read that learning a language is a good defense against dementia. Dostoevsky reportedly learned Greek later in life. Some advice books recommend language learning as a means to sharpen one's native language skill. I've read that many talented writers learned several languages.

Perhaps learning Dutch has made me a better writer, or a smarter person, who can judge? Certainly, I couldn't compare myself with Dostoevsky. I am now attempting to learn Swedish.

The more I hear spoken Swedish, the more I want to master it. It's such a beautiful language, and it's a language I've wanted to learn my entire life, unlike Dutch.

While in Paris this summer I picked up Gregorius by Bengt Ohlsson in translation at Shakespeare and Company. What a brilliant read. He's supposed to be one of Sweden's most talented contemporary writers.

I've sometimes thought that I would be happier if I'd ended up in Sweden, instead of The Netherlands. Of course, with the cold and dark winters, I'd probably just have more to complain about. People like to claim that the Swedes are cold and unapproachable, but I can't imagine that they could be much more disinterested than the Dutch. Any culture has got to be difficult to break into, and there's nothing like the comfort level of one's own culture. If only I were less reticent, I might have made a greater success here.... I must admit to identifying with the Swedish demeanor on a visit there in summer 2000.

Several months ago I read on the Internet that Sweden has the most progressive prostitution laws in the world. They used to have the same prostitution laws as the current Dutch laws, but after realizing that legalized prostitution is a total failure that only sanctions the illegal traffic in women and children, they developed a simple, yet brilliant strategy: Criminalize the client, ie, jail the men! What a revolution! Finally, tackling an ill from the predatory side. If you criminalize the demand for prostitution, you curb the demand. They also found that such an approach improves the position of women in society in general!

I was so happy to read this. It made me want to jump on a plane to Sweden right away. Not only do they have some of the most liberal women and child friendly maternity leave laws, the most successful daycare system, a progressive policy toward bullying in school (educate everyone), but they're doing something to help change one of society's greatest problems today: prostitution and trafficking. It should have been thought of thousands of years ago, but the Swedes are doing it today.

I don't think this will ever happen in The Netherlands. The Dutch government is too happy with the tax revenue it gets from prostitution. I'm not sure what they're doing about illegal trafficking, but I'm afraid that it probably isn't much. From what I've read in the newspapers, they're very good at looking the other way, and claiming that their policies are working, when they are a failure.

When I moved here I noticed that there was a lot of hostility toward women generally, and me in particular, on the street level. I'd always wondered if it had any correlation to women standing in shop windows literally for sale. I think that this level of degradation affects women on all levels of Dutch society, and gives men a general license to mistreat women and girls, and to see them as inferior beings, commodities, even. The study in Sweden proves that my suspicions are well founded.

Things couldn't get much worse than in Germany, where a woman can apparently be denied unemployment benefits if she doesn't accept a job as a prostitute. Since prostitution became a "legitimate" means of earning a living, pimps/madams and the like started recruiting from employment agencies. If a woman denies a chance at a job, she can legally be denied benefits, and this includes an "opportunity" to work as a prostitute. I would imagine that this law has since been amended. How absurdly arcane. Liberal/legalized prostitution hasn't improved anything The Netherlands, or anywhere else, it's apparent.

An interesting digression...

I've started listening to Swedish radio broadcasts in hopes that this will somehow adapt my mind to the language. I learned Dutch by being forced to hear it a lot, and not so much from studying, but I'm sure it was a combination of the two.

I hope that once I have learned Swedish I will be a smarter person, and a better writer. Who knows, perhaps someday I'll get to spend more time there. It sounds like a better place to be.

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