When Jake Taught Nog to Read

[JirinPanthosa]

It's interesting that Rom at the beginning of the series was more of a shrewd business-like Ferengi, not the bumbling oaf he became thereafter. See, for example, his conversation with Keiko in "A Man Alone."

Kor

That lasts like two episodes though where Rom is basically 'Generic Ferengi personality'. A few episodes later he's already a bumbling oaf. The bigger change is the change from the bumbling oaf to the technical genius.

The subjugation of women and their ownership by their father then husband, while definitely slavery, has never been considered slavery in Ferengi or human history. We just don't call it that, not surprising Quark doesn't either.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Could you give the exact quote for the bit you're talking about?

Here you go.

Specifically, this line...

Brunt: If you're not able to obtain a confession, your mother will be placed in indentured servitude and you will be required to make restitution for her crimes.

 

[Nyotarules]

Here you go.

Specifically, this line...

'Indentured servitude' is different from chattel slavery. Probably just above 'chattel slavery' and below 'paid employment'.

 

[Six of Twelve]

'Indentured servitude' is different from chattel slavery. Probably just above 'chattel slavery' and below 'paid employment'.

Indentured servitude existed in the Colonial era of the United States. It was entered into voluntarily for a specified amount of time. It was typically entered into by single immigrants who didn't have the money to pay for their own ocean voyage to get there. Indenture agents would pay their passage, then would sell their services to those looking for laborers, once they arrived. The typical indenture period was seven years. Indentured children had to serve until they were 21, including any children born to a woman under indenture, considering they were expected to pay back for their care during their baby and toddler years when they weren't capable of working. Though they were sometimes treated well, it was all in the luck of the draw, as they had no choice as to who they would work for, though they usually were treated much better than slaves.

 

[Paradise City]

What do you do when the computer goes down.

I can't believe anyone is defending ilkiteracy

defending illiteracy, lmao

Computers are pretty watertight in the 24th century - unless you're in some peripheral region..

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Publicly available general education is a relatively new expectation in the span of the history of the human race. Ferenginar definitely does not have public education and based on Nog's attempt to purchase an apprenticeship from Sisko, Ferengi education is strictly vocational. Maybe Ferengi don't learn to read well until they have that apprenticeship unless their parents bothered to teach them at home.

There's also the question of what language Jake was teaching Nog to read in. Maybe Nog already knew how to read in Ferengi and Jake was really teaching him English.

 

[E-DUB]

No one is "defending illiteracy", merely trying to construct rationales for a fictional society in which universal literacy is not a goal. I like Kor's "we have people for that" take. Myself, I thought it was a touching moment that spoke greatly about Jake, Nog, and the relationship between them. (Also, Jake and his dad.)

 

[USS Triumphant]

Then, when Nog was pleading with Sisko for a shot at starfleet, he said he didn't have the lobes for business. Then, in Treachery, Faith and the Great River, he's suddenly a shrewd trader.

Fairly small inconsistencies.

Or, a consistently shrewd Nog who was only telling Sisko what he believed he needed to hear so that Nog could get what he wanted.

What do you do when the computer goes down.

I can't believe anyone is defending ilkiteracy

Paradise City is correct, but so are you, except insofar as you are misunderstanding Paradise City. No one is saying that *some* being literate wouldn't be important for society - yes, there would need to be someone to repair the computer and hopefully even to advance technology and those people would presumably still be literate. However, the Oxford English Dictionary contains about 225,000 words, and the average person only uses 220 of those on a regular basis. Most of our daily functions could be distilled down to iconographs (like the square that means "stop" and the triangle that means "play" on media devices), and a lot of people could get by if they only knew what those meant - especially as our civilization becomes even MORE advanced, and proportionally fewer and fewer people need to do the actual work of providing for everyone. And also, as more and more devices are capable of interfacing verbally.

I invite you to read "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson, if you haven't already - it has a nice bit on this, but is also an excellent novel, besides.

Computers are pretty watertight in the 24th century - unless you're in some peripheral region..

Do you mean such as in the area of a printer or scanner?

 

[Six of Twelve]

It just sounds very dystopian to me to go back to a society where universal literacy is not promoted. Easier for people tp be deceived, for one thing. It all reminds me of the dystopian song from the late 60s "In the Year 2525", which told of how humanity atrophies both physically and mentally because we eventually let machines do everything for us.

As far as reading goes, I much prefer to read for myself than to be read to. I just can't get into audio books and would use them only for long car trips.

 

[USS Triumphant]

It just sounds very dystopian to me to go back to a society where universal literacy is not promoted. Easier for people tp be deceived, for one thing. It all reminds me of the dystopian song from the late 60s "In the Year 2525", which told of how humanity atrophies both physically and mentally because we eventually let machines do everything for us.

As a former librarian and an avid reader, I agree strongly, but I can also look around and see how few people actually read literature *now*, and look at general trends in public education in the US: It's worrisome how realistic a future where only a small percentage are actually literate is.

 

[Six of Twelve]

As a former librarian and an avid reader, I agree strongly, but I can also look around and see how few people actually read literature *now*, and look at general trends in public education in the US: It's worrisome how realistic a future where only a small percentage are actually literate is.

I had a supervisor at work who once said, "Half the population can't read, and the other half WON'T read."

 

[Timo]

I'd think there would be rapid evolution away from literacy in a society where artiricial aids make it non-critical. We have already abandoned quite a few other skills vital for survival because we have substitutes: if things really "broke down", the illiterate might well be the ones with the best chances of survival.

However...

What is Nog taught to read, exactly? Ferengi? English? Bajoran? Knowing one language would not mean Nog could read another. And the purpose of the lessons is to help Nog cope in Keiko's classroom - where written Ferengi is highly unlikely to be present. Jake might know Bajoran, but the project might still be about teaching Nog English (especially as the book he's making Nog read is unlikely to be a Bajoran one because it refers to Bajor having an incorrect number of moons!).

OTOH, why would Nog need to know how to read? The Universal Translator supposedly intervenes anyway. In practice, Nog wouldn't even need to know how to speak - not English, not Bajoran, not even Ferengi! Reading should be a skill dead in every practical respect, but still quite possibly a skill taught in classrooms purely for the purpose of teaching and learning.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's possible for there to be a future where literacy is considered unnecessary. But for it to happen it'd probably either mean no public education or a society where congomerates control a consolidated media. ...Well, crap.

In Ferengi society however with all the emphasis put on contracts, literacy is quite important. I would suppose the 'exploiters' wouldn't want all their workers necessarily to read, because they don't want them to be able to read their contracts.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

OTOH, why would Nog need to know how to read?

Quark, who seemed to make many decisions concerning Quark as the patriarch of the household, probably did not want Nog to read: he did want Nog to work at the bar for the rest of his life.

Treat people in your debt like family: exploit them.

 

[kkt]

I watched Family Business last night where Ishka was trying to conceal her business activities when Quark caught her using a pad, by telling him she was writing a letter to a relative, obviously an acceptable activity for her. She could read and write. Case closed.

Mmm, yes, you're right.

 

[Nyotarules]

Publicly available general education is a relatively new expectation in the span of the history of the human race. Ferenginar definitely does not have public education and based on Nog's attempt to purchase an apprenticeship from Sisko, Ferengi education is strictly vocational. Maybe Ferengi don't learn to read well until they have that apprenticeship unless their parents bothered to teach them at home.

There's also the question of what language Jake was teaching Nog to read in. Maybe Nog already knew how to read in Ferengi and Jake was really teaching him English.

Nog does not speak English, when he, Rom and Quark went back in time to Earth they had to fix their internal translators to speak to the hewmons. Maybe Jake speaks Ferengi

 

[Timo]

Rom reads Bajoran, as evidenced with the list of collaborator names in "Necessary Evil".

That Rom would read English is never indicated. But Nog might have learned to, for his Starfleet ambitions; his PADD is set on English in "Little Green Men", just moments before the scenes where he fails to interact with his American captors. Perhaps he just didn't want to make use of his skills, for tactical gain (i.e. getting back at Unca Quark)?

(Or perhaps we the audience have our visual UTs set on translating the Ferengi writing on the PADD into English?)

I could well see Jake teaching Nog how to read English in "The Nagus", back when Nog could read one language only, namely his native Ferengi...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bad Thoughts]

But Nog might have learned to, for his Starfleet ambitions; his PADD is set on English in "Little Green Men", just moments before the scenes where he fails to interact with his American captors. Perhaps he just didn't want to make use of his skills, for tactical gain (i.e. getting back at Unca Quark)?

I read six languages, but speak only two. I have no difficulty believing that Nog can read English, but cannot speak it.

 

[diankra]

Also, how fast the other people speak is a factor, along with accents. Back at univeristy I went to France with a friend who was studying French as part of her degree. But she couldn't understand what was being said to her, whereas my five-year rusty o-level plus holidays as a child meant I could, even though my replies were crude and stumbling, while her's were slow but perfect.

 

[jmiller]

Called it indentured servitude in the episode.

Could you give the exact quote for the bit you're talking about? If she indeed almost gets sold as a slave, then there's nothing for me to explain; Quark simply lied or was incorrect when he said the Ferengi don't practice slavery (the most reasonable explanation being inconsistency on the part of the writers).

Also, you're repeating multiple times that females in Ferengi society are slaves - I already said that I don't dispute this, so you're preaching to the choir. The word "slave" is quite broad and can be used, at least in English, to denote all kinds of "unfree" or "less free" people, and Ferengi women are definitely lacking in freedom. My point, however, was that Quark was almost certainly referring to a slave in the sense of a class of people who do involuntary labor and whose status is hereditary; this is what people generally mean by "slave", and the fact that the writers did not specify this or use a more precise term like "chattel slave" was because most people already understand the word "slave" when otherwise unqualified to mean a chattel slave in most modern contexts. Ferengi women are actually forbidden from engaging in labor, which is an injustice of a different kind. Quark being a Ferengi businessman, it's quite logical within the story as well for him to refer to a slave in the economic sense rather than in terms of rights or freedoms (again, I repeat for the final time that Ferengi women have little to no freedoms, that people with as few freedoms as they do can indeed be called slaves according to the Oxford English dictionary, and that their status is unjust).

It makes much more sense to assume that Quark was talking about chattel slavery, rather than to assume that he was lying about the status of Ferengi women, since he's OPEN about the fact that Ferengi women are oppressed in various episodes and indeed champions the idea that they should be oppressed until he learns his lesson. I almost immediately understood Quark's comment about human slavery to be a reference to the common human practice of chattel slavery, not an assertion that Ferengi society is free of oppression; I'm sure that most other viewers did as well. If you told someone who'd never watched Star Trek that all Ferengi women are slaves, they would probably get the wrong impression of how their society functions; that's because "slave" is or has become a very broad word, but not all types of unfreedom are equal to chattel slavery and chattel slavery is the first thing that comes to mind when someone says "slave".

It seems almost certain that that was the writers' assumption as well, the only possible alternative being that this is a plothole since Quark has no motive to lie about how Ferengi women are treated.