The end of tokenism? Part 3

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc etc / LMMiami.com

That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 11:9

• Silicon Valley has nurtured a generation of people who are willing to spend $300 on a trashy tattoo yet won’t shell out a dime to read The New York Times.
• We’ve been tamed to believe search, social, news, long distance calls, music, movies, file storage, you name it, are supposed to be free of charge.
• Some sort of human right.
• Who knows what we’re relinquishing in exchange.
• Time will tell.
• To be sure, only a small fraction of Silicon Valley start-ups so far have survived after the funding ran out and a paywall was imposed.
• It is one big game of B2B musical chairs, if you ask me.
• Eventually the music will stop.
• They will need to reinvent themselves and truly embrace diversity.
• The present state of tokenism in their rank & file will not be enough if they truly want to truly understand and reach out to willing paying consumers from all backgrounds and walks of life.
• Quite like Madison Avenue is scrambling to do as we speak.
• My humble advice to them?
• Stop hiring the same old talent from the same old “elite schools”.
• Enough with the snobs who believe one-size-fits all.
• The pseudo brainiacs who try to solve everything with a shortcut (sorry, I mean an algorithm).
• The monocultural monolingual “American exceptionalists” who believe the US ethnic mainstream is the trial market of humanity.
• Sooner rather than later, if America wants to keep what we know as Silicon Valley within its borders, it will need truly open minded talent and management.
• And you know what the sign of a superior & open mind is?
• Multilingualism.
• Dude, I don’t care if you went to Stanford.
• You. Are. Monolingual.
• Eventually there will be an app to translate conversations in real time, is the monolinguals’ mantra.
• More a pretext than a mantra.
• Still, if you only speak one language your intellect has a serious disadvantage.
• Let me tell you a story.
• In the past, rich people were overweight and the poor were skinny.
• Now it’s the total opposite.
• By the same token, an athletic build was frowned upon back in the day, particularly among women, because it revealed a life of manual work and hence a lower social standing.
• There was a time in ‘merica when being bilingual was a stigma.
• Can you fxxxxxg believe it?
• There were all sorts of moronic theories about bilingualism being the cause of learning disabilities among infants (I kid you not).
• Then again, there was a time when women were considered unfit to vote or to pursue a college education.
• And there was a time when homosexuality was deemed a disease by the American psychiatric association or some such.
• Science has been known to have a thinly veiled political/racial/sexual/economic agenda.
• Pseudoscience surrounds us.
• No new news there.
• Needless to say, the tide has turned.
• Women vote and run for office.
• And multilingualism is regarded as a key to a successful life of opportunity.
• Yes, the ultimate sign of a superior mind is multilingualism.
• You can quote me on that one.
• Language is math, logic, history, psychology, emotion, empathy, critical thinking, insight, problem-solving and nuance.
• In real time.
• Language is the ultimate algorithm.
• The more languages you speak, the broader, sharper and more articulate your mind becomes.
• Moreover, multilingualism might even have therapeutic properties: lots of studies suggest that it might delay the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and age-related dementia.
• A multilingual person is way more evolved, BUT WAY MORE, than a monolingual PhD.*
• If America wants to keep its global leadership, movies and military might will simply not be enough.
• Multilingualism MUST be added to the curriculum.
• Let me tell you another story: uncle Bernie, Michael Moore and the American left wing use Nordic countries as examples of why “socialism” or “liberalism” (take your pick) are the solution to all our problems.
• What they fail to explain is why Cuba or Venezuela are such a disaster.
• Wanna know the answer?
• Gonzalo will give you the answer.
• Multilingualism.
• That’s why.
• Have you ever been to Sweden, Denmark or the like?
• Have you noticed that cab drivers speak at least 3 languages fluently?
• By the way, these are tiny countries with scant, scattered populations, zero natural resources, 9 months a year of butt-freezing temperatures, six months of nighttime, serious levels of depression, alcoholism and suicide, and no military prowess whatsoever.
• Still, they are peaceful, fully-functional democracies, home to multinational corporations in highly competitive sectors (telecommunications, pharma, you name it), they’ve built world class household brands (Ikea, Lego, Volvo, Spotify, Novo Nordisk) AND they lavish their citizenry with welfare and benefits that would make your average Democrat wet his/her undies.**
• How come?
• Multilingualism.
• They are just smarter than you and me.***
• So.
• Back to America.
• These are my principles: we have to break free of our monolingual exceptionalist insularity.
• If you don’t like these principles I have other, of course.
• Remember though that our new strategic rivals angling for world domination, the Chinese and the Indians, make up half of the world’s population.
• And a lot of them are multilingual.

* I cannot emphasize it enough: by no means am I advising to skip college. What I’m saying is that, all things considered, multilingualism is way more propitious for the human brain than a university diploma.
** Other so-called “socialist” countries such as Cuba and Venezuela -countries lavished by Mother Nature with balmy climates and loads of natural resources- are perennially impoverished, ruled by tyrants and prisoners to economies dependent on the monoproduction of a commodity: sugarcane & oil. You guessed it, they are staunchly monolingual.
***Just so you know, this article is not a shameless humblebrag nor is it a self-promotional rant: I barely speak two languages.