Tenth in a series
Essay #1 Essay #2 Essay #3 Essay #4 Essay #5
Essay #6 Essay #7 Essay #8 Essay #9
I find myself increasingly challenged by what I express in these essays … I hope you are too.
First, I realize that much of what I think is on the macro scale, but I am trying to apply it on the micro scale, and vice-versa. I know that doesn’t always work, nor does it really take in all contingencies and variations.
For example, how do your reconcile the role of the individual in an ancient society such as China, where the fate of the individual is essentially a non-issue. Or is that merely the Occidental way of looking at an Oriental culture that we don’t really understand the nuances of its perspective.
Granted, as history has demonstrated through the millennia, the Chinese – like a number of Asian cultures – apparently don’t put the same value on an individual life that is found in those cultures under the influence of the West. And yet, all too often we see instances in those Eastern cultures of a high regard for individual honor and the role that the individual has in society.
I guess one then is pressed to ask is the culture synonymous with society? That question brings us back to what is society? What is culture? I guess I could drag out my Webster’s to cut and paste, but that seems inadequate. No, I need to be able to express a definition that is in my own words, but in a sense that will be inadequate because you may define those same words differently. Therein, as I have found throughout this series, lies my biggest challenge but it is a challenge we all face, daily, in all aspects of our lives trying to communicate through the only medium that society has given us to express ourselves: Our language.
Yet, at the root of all societies and all cultures must lay that commonality: a shared language.
As George Bernard Shaw allegedly pointed out the Americans and the British are divided by their common language (English), which is my point that, while the words we use may be the same, their meanings may differ. It becomes more apparent when society tries to accommodate more than one language.
It would seem to me that for a society to function with any efficiency then the language it uses must be one that is shared. Without that commonality, then communication is impossible and society necessarily will collapse. Without a common language, the societal rules cannot be understood the same way by all.
However, a culture can co-exist within societies as subsets of the larger society, but if the language is substantially different then the society has problems.
This may offend those who think that societies can be multi-lingual, but I contend that without those shared frames of reference that are essential to successful communication then conflict and discord is inevitable. Yes, it can work, but I think that history has repeatedly demonstrated that it will break down, especially when the cultural roots and the languages that it supports are incompatible.
It is relatively easy to mesh a multi-cultural society when the language’s symbology is similar, but when it totally different, then communication almost becomes impossible as the need for direct and simultaneous translation exceeds the capacity for us to process the information.
My take-away from that would be society has to have a common language. This is recognized in the United States by the fact that the law is in English (American English, granted, but English just the same). It is that way because under its system of common law words have been given certain precise definitions (which is why you have to hire a lawyer to make sure that what you are saying in a legal setting really is what you mean to say and does not get interpreted as something else – I can vouch for that through personal experience).
The Canadian experiment in bi-lingual law is working for now, but I wonder about its long-term viability. I suspect that conflicts in meaning between French and English eventually create significant problems for the country. Of course, if a significant minority of Quebeckers had their way, the province already would be a separate nation. Given the competition between the two cultures, I suspect that eventually either one will assimilate the other – since the English speakers outnumber the French speakers, it is probable that the English speakers could dominate, or they will go their separate ways.
In sense, this means that language actually defines society. But what defines language? Our cultural experience would be my best answer.
I remember reading somewhere that you could tell a lot about a culture just by counting the words used to describe a particular thing. The thesis being that the more words that were used, the more nuanced each one was and so you could have different shades of definitions for all. The more nuances surrounding a concept meant that it was an important value.
The example was that in some languages there are no words for things that might be described in English, or words that have few synonyms in English could have a multitude in another language.
For example: The word true in the English language as about than 45 synonyms (http://thesaurus.com/browse/true); and the word false has about the same number. I don’t know whether that means we lie a lot or not, because adding lie seems to add a whole bunch more words to the mix with a myriad of meanings.
The word yes (according to the same source) has like 33 synonyms, but its antonym no has only eight.
Using this paradigm, what this means we have a host of ways of saying I agree, all with different nuances, but when we say no … well, no definitely means NO!
When you expand that to include adjectives and adverbs, well, then a tangled mess we have, much of it defined by the culture we live in. Again, we may share the same language, live in the same society, but our sub-culture within that society may be something entirely different. We see that all the time in the U.S. where if you don’t speak the local dialect, then it quickly identifies you as an outsider, usually not to be trusted. (Having lived in many places, with a whole variety of different dialects, I have gotten used to hearing “You ain’t from around here, are you?” in a host of different ways)
So, we have to accept that culture is different from society. Culture is defined by its language. In turn, culture defines a society as well.
Cultures primarily can be described by their value systems: What beliefs, behavior patterns, values, etc., are considered essential to be a member of a specific culture. Hence, you can have cultures such as I grew up in that placed a very high value on education and those that don’t. I have lived in places where education was not a priority. Still I do not claim that my education has made me any better than anyone (well, I might be better at doing some things than others not so educated, but it does not make me a superior being) in our society, because it doesn’t, but I can easily point out many people who have far less education than I do but are far superior to me in so many ways it isn’t funny.
So, let us agree that language defines culture which defines society.
To go further, we will have to delve into what cultures I think offer more and what ones fail, but that is for another essay.
Nuff said for now. As always, I hope I have left you food for thought that leads you to examine your own personal philosophy.
No comments:
Post a Comment