Wikipedia defines linguistic relativity as “the idea that the varying cultural concepts and categories inherent in different languages affect the cognitive classification of the experienced world in such a way that speakers of different languages think and behave differently because of it.” (Click the word “Wikipedia” for a more in-depth explanation – not for the faint of mind.)
In layman’s terms – the language we speak affects the way we think, and the way we perceive things.
Of course this is a heavily debated claim… but have you ever asked yourself how far the linguistic divide reaches? I mean, when you and I look up at the sky we both say, “It is blue….”, but are we both really seeing the same color? How would anyone ever know if we weren’t? How do I know that when you say ‘up’, you’re thinking of the same thing I think of when I say ‘down’? After all… even if you were, you’d still call my ‘down’ ‘up’, and I’d never be the wiser. Neither would you.
A perfect example that illustrates this vividly is the Japanese word for “blue.” Well, they call it green. Of course they have a word that means “green” as well, but they only use it for plants. So a train car or a traffic light (which is just as green in Japan as it is here in the US) is “blue,” and a plant that is exactly the same color is green.
But you know what? The Japanese are 100% certain that the two colors are completely different. When they look at a stop light, they really “think” they’re seeing the color blue – and maybe they are!
So I’m starting to develop this theory… in the story of the tower of Babel it says that He confused their languages, and we tend to think, well that’s where all the different languages in the world came from. But what if the Lord made a change that was even more fundamental, a change that was even more subtle?
What if, in confusing our languages, He confused the very way we think about things? Not in a way that made us actually confused as individuals, but in a way that made it impossible for us to efficiently collaborate? After all, isn’t that why he did it – to make it impossible for the Babel builders to work together?
Earlier I observed that having views which deviate sufficiently from those of others can tend to separate us from each other. What if it’s literally impossible for two people to “put aside all of their differences”, “see eye-to-eye”, “be on the same wavelength”, or be “with each other all the way” on absolutely everything?
In fact, that sounds like common sense, and it’s why we have settled for “agreeing to disagree” with so many different people, about so many different things. Is it unreasonable to guess that this could be a result of what happened at Babel? That our widely varying perspectives actually serve as a handicap?
Before the tower of Babel, were there any wars? Think about it… maybe the key to Undiluted Perception has been hidden beyond our reach, only to be revealed when the Lord returns. Maybe the reason humans fail to agree about basic facts, including the best way to do things is because we lack the fundamental ability to do so – maybe we can’t arrive at the same version of “the truth”.
Just one more thing to look forward to, I guess.
Ran across this today and thought it might reinforce my theory.
If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
– Wittgenstein
Well, its things like this that I think about on a near daily basis.
To be acutely honest, I think we can reach the same conclusions and reach accord, but there are a few obstacles in the way, namely: translation errors, time, and human error. Sometimes things just get communicated wrong. Most of the time, these are the abstract concepts or things that are steeped in phenomenology, which is just a fancy way of saying that we describe phenomena differently.
Take for example, “up” and “down” don’t actually make sense in space (think Ender’s Game) without a reference point. If we are on Earth, though, we might be better off saying “away from the earth’s core,” “movement towards earth” or something along those lines because those are more reflective of reality.
Additionally, does the sun really “rise”? or is that the Earth turns and the sun comes into view? My thought is that differing perspectives can thrive in most any language. We just have to take the time…
Time though is seriously against us. We live in a world of Kronos where everything is set off the clock. One thing to the next, we rush. If only we could get everyone to understand that they need to take the time to look at the more important things beyond this life.
Which is, of course, where human weakness comes into play. Think about it, we live in a world of Kronos type time, why? Simply because we are thinking only of ourselves. It is when we take that first step out to sacrifice the time that is so precious that we enter into Kairos, which is Greek for the more relationship-based way of chronicling time.
I’ll try and expand on this in my blog for the next post. ^_^
I recently heard a preacher talking about Martha, who was busy with much serving. That’s the way we tend to be… we spend our days in the world of Kronos, in a flurry of activity, thinking this is what pleases the Saviour, when He would really rather have us cultivate our relationship with Him, sitting quietly in Kairos at His feet.
Before I heard the message, I placed a certain virtue on “being active,” thinking that life is only so long, so we need to accomplish as much as possible while we can but… life is only so long, we can only accomplish so much anyway. Why not spend it all (or at least, as much of it as possible), preparing for eternity? And this isn’t done by influencing the current set of circumstances, the ones that will all be destroyed when the Lord comes back.