Ideolektanschauung

[Buzzed by me on 11/15/10]

I am nearly fully convinced that the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is more than a hypothesis http://bit.ly/d7mgU5➚

Conservative minister Chuck Missler believes UFOs (and other other-worldly ghosties) are the Nephalim come back http://bit.ly/awinjp ➚; he has a hobbyist's understanding of physics and astronomy and has combined this with a theology wrested from ancient niches.

(I wonder what Jesus would say about so much ado over angels and UFOs.)

Heard a commentator on AFR (http://www.afa.net/radio/➚) last week say that the liberal media reported unemployment figures harshly during the Bush administration when they hovered around 5%, but has not been as harsh on Obama when they are nearly double; whether that is right or wrong is not as interesting as what he said after that: that it's like we're living in an Orwellian world where right is left and up is down.

I agree with him on that point, because if you listen to AFR much, you'll quickly realize there is a large group of people who have an entirely different view of reality in very fundamental ways (obviously AFR is an example, not an exception). You'll never convince them that national healthcare is a good idea, despite a bushel of bible passages regarding widows and the poor and the difficulty of riches.

Why? At this point, it's easy to fall into metaphor: You can say it's because they lack the mental tools to see reason and change their minds. You can say they are looking at the world through a lens that confines their perspective. You can say they're not playing with a full deck.

You can even say they are right.

But what have you said if you say they're right? You're saying you're equipped with similar mental tools as they are, or are looking at the world through the same lens, or aren't playing with a full deck, or possess some superset of metatools that allows you to evaluate your own perspective and others' and how they relate (which is rather presumptuous).

I'd say rather you have roughly similar backgrounds and have been exposed to similar ideas, books, media, social units, etc, that favor this perspective. Our brains are wired early, perhaps fully and finally by puberty, when the window for language adaptability closes, and we are, perhaps, after that, a kilned clay pot that cannot hold anything more than it was designed to hold.

In think the Sapir-Whorf "language barrier" extends beyond traditionally defined languages (ie German or French or English). It's seen in the language of business, politics, civics, religion, education, etc, so that even within one language community there are barriers to fully understanding one another.

Now some of this is certainly due to reasons other than language (lack of education, minimal exposure to other concepts, stubbornness, an agenda that discards competing ideas), but because we're linguistic creatures, limited meaningful conversation can happen outside language; we are confined or circumscribed by it.

You can witness this daily almost anywhere one person expresses ideas unfamiliar to others. In Calculus class in college, I sat in a chair and listened for an entire semester, but didn't understand a word I heard. If you asked me after class if the professor had said thus-and-so, I would have said No, I didn't hear that, when in reality I did hear it, but I didn't process it in a way I could organize it and act on it. I was unable to because I hadn't yet acquired (nor have I to this day) the basic concepts (language) of Calculus.

The problem is deepened by resistance of those who don't understand how to acquire the tools to organize the new knowledge so they do understand. If they happen to be more comfortable in a competing paradigm (or will not or cannot change for other reasons), they may incorporate the new information there, or account for it in some other way. The Evolution/Creation debate is perfect example. So are conservative approaches to healthcare and gay marriage, IMHO.

It is as if there is a Sapir-Whorfian counterpart to the dialect, even the ideolect. What do we call them?[1]

This presents very tangible problems when those who don't understand don't know they don't understand and are in a decision-making capacity. It accounts for everything from poor nutrition choices for ourselves and our children, to poor church and business and civic decisions that marginalize people and ideas, to wars that end the lives of millions.

George W Bush, promoting his memoirs right now, is not surprisingly defending his presidency and actions (however few he was actually personally responsible for), including torture (which is being redefined as something besides torture), and two wars that have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents (true noncombatants).

(Does an American life have more value than an Iraqi life? Bush would say no on principle, and his supporters also, but it wouldn't change their actions, and that's how you tell the real difference between what people say and what they believe; yes, by their fruits.)

If he believes his own words, he's delusional; but regardless, many others do, because argument from authority is sufficient for them.

We will never know the life trajectories that were altered or erased or never intersected because one man and a few around him decided to expend the energies of one nation to destroy another.

Interesting rabbit hole: "The Great Debate: Can Science Tell Us Right From Wrong?" http://origins.asu.edu/ ➚and NPR Science Friday http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201011055 ➚

[1]
So, is there a Sapir-Whorfian counterpart to the dialect, even the ideolect? I'm tempted to pare down Weltanschauung into discrete subcategories, but I'm sure it's been done to some extent.

Dialektanschauung ?
Ideolektanschauung ?

Cheap but effective and delightfully layered.