It seems to me that generally we agree. But I want to clarify one bit: I don't advocate a monocultural/monolingual life. English is my L2, I also have an L3, and more a coming. My main argument was that if something required preservation efforts, it's by definition moribund. In deciding whether or not to try to revive a thing that needs preservation (including the environment, cultures, languages, traditions, etc.), I think that we should take a pragmatic approach: preserving the ecosystem is useful to us, so do it. Preserving a language with a 100 or so speakers with other means than making recordings, analysing it etc., e.g. trying to teach it to kids or adults, is basically impractical, and generally useless. Same with a culture that is detrimental to life in every way. If we think it's interesting, we can document it. But we should help the actual people out of primitive life.
The "emptiness of modern life" is nothing more than a poetical, romantic little sorrow in comparison to being killed for being a twin, or for being born to the wrong mother, or for being slightly disabled. I'm more than 100% sure that a starving kid in Africa or most of these tribespeople would take the "emptines of modern life" over whatever they have without giving it a second thought.
It seems to me that generally we agree. But I want to clarify one bit: I don't advocate a monocultural/monolingual life. English is my L2, I also have an L3, and more a coming. My main argument was that if something required preservation efforts, it's by definition moribund. In deciding whether or not to try to revive a thing that needs preservation (including the environment, cultures, languages, traditions, etc.), I think that we should take a pragmatic approach: preserving the ecosystem is useful to us, so do it. Preserving a language with a 100 or so speakers with other means than making recordings, analysing it etc., e.g. trying to teach it to kids or adults, is basically impractical, and generally useless. Same with a culture that is detrimental to life in every way. If we think it's interesting, we can document it. But we should help the actual people out of primitive life.
The "emptiness of modern life" is nothing more than a poetical, romantic little sorrow in comparison to being killed for being a twin, or for being born to the wrong mother, or for being slightly disabled. I'm more than 100% sure that a starving kid in Africa or most of these tribespeople would take the "emptines of modern life" over whatever they have without giving it a second thought.