Patterns in Language
How differences in conceptualization prevent understanding.
“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” Genesis 11:7–9
We live in what I believe to be one of the most fascinating periods in human history. Of all the achievements and experiences that human history contains, at no point in the past that we are aware of has the whole of the species been able to communicate with each other, with the only exception being the story of the Tower of Babel above, in which allegedly all of humanity was able to understand each other because they spoke the same language. This is in many ways the inverse of the modern problem we currently find ourselves in as I see it, when effectively the whole of humanity can communicate with each other almost instantaneously, but increasingly find ourselves incapable of understanding each what other is saying in any meaningful way.
Initially, and with good reason, it was believed this problem could be resolved by simply creating tools that allow us to communicate directly with those who speak a different language without having to go through the difficulties of learning a different language ourselves, or the arduous task of finding a trustworthy interpreter. Technologies such as Google Translate have made it easy(ish) to translate textual information, and many companies are attempting to tackle the real-time translation in human communication using earpieces. So if our ability to communicate with each other has sky-rocketed in previous years, then why does it seem like it’s more difficult than ever to actually understand each other?
Of course, we’re all aware of different patterns within a single language. We spend much of our youth having them force-fed to us; spelling and grammatical rules, and many other patterns that exist within languages that define how they are generally used. While important, I think it is obvious that improper use of commas and confusing ‘there, their, and they’re’ is not responsible for the deep division we see so prominently on display in society today. No, the patterns that I suspect hold a causal relationship with so much misunderstanding in contemporary political discourse are much more abstract which makes them difficult to articulate or point to, but I do not believe it is impossible to examine them in some detail.
The patterns that I have found myself concerned with while examining and taking part in online discussions regarding current political events have more to do with the conceptualizations of the words we use in our language rather than the punctuation, grammar, or even the specific words, to some extent, that are exchanged. I care more about the concepts at play in our discourse. The specific words that are used to convey them have little value to me, other than to communicate those ideas to other’s who are interested in hearing them. What I’ve found to be interesting is that different words can be used to convey the same idea to different people, and in any topic that is passionately debated online, often is. A great example of this is capitalism.
Capitalism is defined by the dictionary as, “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market”. The problem I learned early on in discussing this topic is that people who are passionately engaged in the ‘Capitalism” debate weren’t actually interested in getting into the definition of what capitalism IS, and were only concerned with attacking or defending the concept they attributed to the word, or cultural symbol ‘Capitalism’, a concept that often differed in great measure from both the technical definition and their opponent’s personal conceptualization. In some debates, I’ve seen this disparity be so great that each side of the debate is actually arguing against the same thing, for the same reasons, but have an almost inverted conceptualization of some of the cultural symbols at play in the conversation.
To me, this seems to be a much greater cause for concern than our inability to fluently exchange ideas across different traditional languages. ‘Yes’ and ‘Si’ are both different cultural words that point towards the same cultural symbol. However in an age where the very concept of identity itself is being discussed, we find ourselves dealing with conversations where the conceptualizations of some symbols have been so inverted from each other that it almost seems as if up is down, and Good is Evil. Indeed, for many Americans today no matter their political leanings it seems as if half or at least a decent-sized chunk of the nation is dead set on pushing forward an image of America into the future that is not only antithetical to the American ideals that we grew up with but actively evil in its implementation.
Recognizing this had an interesting effect on how I perceived the ongoing political discussion that takes place online. It‘s almost like, everyone sees the same story and is complaining about the same things, but are assigning the blame for their grievances on different villains. For some, the enemy is the patriarchy. For others — the Deep State. Or the military Industrial complex, Capitalism, White Supremacy, and even ‘Literal Nazis’ are all on the scoreboard for who’s at fault for our current predicament.
It is through these times that I view the Tower of Babel. One not where humanity has been spread to the winds and lost the ability to communicate because of differences in languages, but one where we are finally able to communicate with each other regardless of the specific languages we know but become confounded by different patterns within individual languages that reflect or point to differing cultural symbols as shaped by different perspectives.
It is these differences in perspectives as they manifest in different patterns of language online that I think is the great challenge of humanity in the digital age. It is quite useless for us to progress or produce good value, if our concept of what is Good varies so greatly in some significant portion of perspectives as to mean the opposite. Any solution forward seems to require that we take note of the differences in these patterns of online discourse and use them as a tool for trying to understand where someone is coming from in their arguments rather than assume we know where they are going. We use words as weapons in a war we don’t understand, when it seems to me that we need to understand the ideas behind our words, and argue for them, or against them, on their own merits.
