The Surreal World
What Happens When We Don't Speak the Same Language Anymore?
Hello, Friend,
I’ve been on a bit of a writing tear as of late, which has resulted in what some might consider to be an overabundance of words. That’s how it goes sometimes in my world. I want to understand. I dig into things, looking for deeper meanings. Then I share them here, for whatever they’re worth. My words are not the final word, they’re just my words, my thoughts, the musings of a curious human. Perhaps you will find some clarity or comfort or connection, I retain hope that my little messages in bottles reach friendly shores.
Words, as I opined yesterday, have power. Yet, the tricky thing about words is that beyond their dictionary definitions, are the meanings we project onto them. This is where communication gets complicated. If I say this thing is blue and you agree that it is blue, are we both seeing the same color? Is blue a fixed thing or is it shifting based on our perspectives and our lenses, things that cloud or clarify our perceptions as we view the world around us? What happens when my blue becomes your green?
That’s not blue!
It’s not? Are you sure?
It’s GREEN! Any idiot can see that it’s green. Do you have the Blue Mind Virus?
The what?!
Exactly. What a Blueb.
If we are all looking at the world through a different lens, how do we find consensus?
I have always loved the words in other languages that have a variety of meanings based on their context. I think this makes sense, since the nature of reality is a bit slippery and sometimes things like moonlight and magic are connected by invisible threads. I have a Chinese friend named Ming. She explained that her name means bright and also clear, the characters in her name are sun and moon. So, her name means sun moon bright clear. Opposite celestial bodies unified to express the idea of vivid light and also clarity. How perfect is that? Ming. One word, many meanings.
The nature of reality itself is subjective. One person’s perfect day is another person’s disaster. Our judgments of what we see, feel, and experience are all projections. Things just are and we observe them and ascribe meanings to them. No two people will ever see the world through the same lens. We all have a singular experience unique to us which we call reality. Also, something to note, by observing reality, we are altering it. When we retrieve memories, we change them forever. If we are all doing this simultaneously, then the nature of reality is in a constant state of flux.
So, what is reality, really?
Language is a way for us to understand the world around us and communicate that understanding to each other. If words lose a mutually accepted meaning, if they become politicized through propaganda, then we are no longer understanding the world around us in a way we can communicate clearly to one another. When woke means aware to one person and delusional to another, we’re not speaking the same language anymore.
This is the crux of our current conundrum. By weaponizing words and co-opting language, authoritarians create and then deepen divides. Those subtle linguistic manipulations I mentioned yesterday have huge impact on our ability to connect with one another. If we cannot connect, if we are speaking different languages, but more importantly perceiving and expressing reality in entirely different ways, then it is easier to believe in ‘the other.’
Those people aren’t like us. Those people are bad people because they don’t see the world the way that we do, that makes them a threat to our worldview and our happiness. Those people are the enemy, they aren’t even people. I hear endless variations of this in online discourse from all spectrums of the political landscape and I find it deeply troubling.
I mean, if you dig into it a little, lines on maps aren’t real, I agree with TFG on that point. Hell hath, indeed, frozen over. Humans put the lines on the maps. Much of our shared belief is based in our social constructs. Religion is a social construct. Nationality is a social construct. Gender is a social construct. Sexuality is a social construct. Race is a social construct. Money is a social construct. Governments are social constructs. Social norms and rules are social constructs. We limit ourselves and construct false realities and impose them on each other.
Without those limitations, though, would we live in a constant state of chaos, or would we finally be free?
The pushback we are feeling from the patriarchy, the wealthy white male dominated linear social construct, is palpable and painful. We’ve all been participating in this construct for centuries, telling ourselves and each other that it is the way it is and the way it has always been and the way that it will always be. When some people push at the edges of this construct, the people at the top of the ladder feel threatened. The people stationed along the rungs of the ladder also feel threatened. This explains why people might vote for the oppressor to protect their place in the construct of our social order. Even though these hierarchies and separations are illusions, they are persistent and pernicious. This is what makes change so challenging.
I don’t believe that we will ever be free until people wake up to the realization that the reality in which we find ourselves is not entirely real. We don’t have to be limited by our social constructs. We don’t have to impose our limitations on others. By limiting ourselves to fit into false constructs, we limit our potential and the potential of others.
We are living in a very tenuous moment in time. People pushing at the edges of our social constructs have made real progress and the people most invested in maintaining the status quo have pushed back globally in an effort to force all of us into accepting the limitations they are imposing on us. The rise of authoritarianism, neo-fascism, and techno-authoritarianism is deeply disturbing. We feel powerless to stop it, because we have been divided into smaller and smaller social constructs, separated and isolated. We are unable to communicate with each other in the same language. Social media and the internet and the looming specter of AI are all creating alternate realities. We are not living in the same world anymore; our information bubbles are increasingly separated. Our minds have been hijacked by data mining, microtargeting through finely tuned algorithms, fake news that appears real, alternative versions of reality, and propaganda that has been carefully constructed to alter the very structure of our brains and weaponize us against each other. Who would have imagined using a global pandemic to convince people that viruses aren’t real, vaccines are bad, and masks and medical treatments are deep state plots? Who could have imagined American citizens being weaponized through right-wing propaganda into attacking our capitol, assaulting law enforcement officers, building a gallows to (maybe/probably?) hang the vice president, smashing windows and breaking doors, smearing fecal matter on the walls, and stalking our elected officials with menacing chants…because they were told the lie that the election was stolen by our president, the people around him, the media they consumed, and their social media feeds? Millions of people are being robbed of their critical thinking and their empathy. They are losing their humanity.
Yes, this is some dark shit.
Four more days. Four more days before we cross the Rubicon, maybe, or at the very least lurch perilously closer to that point of no return. Four more days before the Broligarchs, the Christian Nationalists, the far-right white supremacists, the Billionaire class, Big Daddy Vladdy, the Sad Orange Man, and his coterie of snake oil grifters are unleashed. It appears the guardrails have been removed by our compromised high court and complicit elected officials. The final filters have been lifted by our Social Media overlords and much of our mainstream media has shape-shifted in deference to the new administration.
“O, frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! (Who shall I insult today?) They chortled in their joy!”
(with my most sincere apologies to) Lewis Carroll
Words have power.
If the pen truly is mightier than the sword, then how can we use it to fight the good fight? How do we stay aware while practicing self-care and standing together to protect those most at threat in this perilous moment? What do our words mean if they no longer have any meaning?
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Brilliant. I particularly like this section: “ This is the crux of our current conundrum. By weaponizing words and co-opting language, authoritarians create and then deepen divides. Those subtle linguistic manipulations I mentioned yesterday have huge impact on our ability to connect with one another. If we cannot connect, if we are speaking different languages, but more importantly perceiving and expressing reality in entirely different ways, then it is easier to believe in ‘the other.’”
I spent 10 years in Japan where I learned that words are indeed malleable and subject to interpretation. My Japanese colleagues delighted in thinking about the many ways a single kanji (Chinese character) could be interpreted and affect the meaning of a piece of writing. Imagine my horror when I graduated from Hiragana (phonetic symbols) and Katakana (symbols used to translate foreign words into Japanese pronunciation) to Kanji (Chinese characters) I say horror. Because each Kanji had at least six readings/meanings and most words were a combination of multiple Kanji. Take pencil for example. It is formed by combining two Kanji - one for lead and one for writing brush. You can imagine what happens when complex, esoteric ideas need to be written. Kanji and I did not get along.
At any rate, your post struck a chord with me. The only way we will be able to speak the same language again is if we stop trying to use our words to dismiss, categorize, and alienate one another and start having conversations about what we are feeling and why.
Thank you, Margot!
When Merlin made me a bird I could see there were no borders. - Arthur