My most useful epiphany about the world was understanding that to at least half the population, language isn't language. It's just combinations of mouth sounds, squawks, and barks to generate a desired behavior or compliance from others. Most people are stimulus response devices.
Transactional communication versus informational communication. Language as a collection of passwords and magic spells, deployed in order to extract your preferred outcome from any person or situation, versus language as a shared means to discover and promote a Darwinian objective truth.
The illegal immigrant crosses the border to escape justice for his crimes at home. He tells the authorities in this new country that he is a refugee. Not because it is true, but because he has been told that this password will get him what he wants.
When you object to this dynamic, because it permits anyone to illegally enter your country so long as they know the password, a leftist will call you a racist. Not because you have said anything racist, but because the accusation of racism will function as a magic spell that compels others to oppose you.
At some point, evil people succeed in perverting communication so completely that good people are left with no more good choices. You can’t use reason to convince a systematically dishonest person of anything.
A particular perversion of language that I noticed is expanding a word's denotation while keeping the connotation, as in the example of racist that you mention.
I'd argue it's far more than half, closer to 85%. And for human history it's been 95% .
The blips of rationalism are just that, blips. Depends who you ask, but personally I'd say we've had less than 60 years of rationalism being the dominate force of thinking. And I mean that cumulatively.
My most useful epiphany about the world was understanding that to at least half the population, language isn't language. It's just combinations of mouth sounds, squawks, and barks to generate a desired behavior or compliance from others. Most people are stimulus response devices.
Transactional communication versus informational communication. Language as a collection of passwords and magic spells, deployed in order to extract your preferred outcome from any person or situation, versus language as a shared means to discover and promote a Darwinian objective truth.
The illegal immigrant crosses the border to escape justice for his crimes at home. He tells the authorities in this new country that he is a refugee. Not because it is true, but because he has been told that this password will get him what he wants.
When you object to this dynamic, because it permits anyone to illegally enter your country so long as they know the password, a leftist will call you a racist. Not because you have said anything racist, but because the accusation of racism will function as a magic spell that compels others to oppose you.
At some point, evil people succeed in perverting communication so completely that good people are left with no more good choices. You can’t use reason to convince a systematically dishonest person of anything.
A particular perversion of language that I noticed is expanding a word's denotation while keeping the connotation, as in the example of racist that you mention.
I'd argue it's far more than half, closer to 85%. And for human history it's been 95% .
The blips of rationalism are just that, blips. Depends who you ask, but personally I'd say we've had less than 60 years of rationalism being the dominate force of thinking. And I mean that cumulatively.
I summarize it as using language it to communicate information vs. using mouth noises to get a desired outcome.