Language is a Virus from Outer Space

[version]

I struggle with a cohesive view of language. There's a perpetual war on for it, but I can't decide whether something like propaganda's a hijacking or simply a harnessing.

Does anyone have a right or claim to language?

 

[Clinamenic]

Does anyone have a right or claim to language?

I think its reasonable to view language as a public good - but yeah in certain commercial situations it can be proprietary.

 

[version]

You reckon there are legitimate and illegitimate uses of it then?

 

[version]

I suppose it's a technology since we seem to have created it, but sometimes it feels like a natural resource up for grabs like gas or oil.

 

[Clinamenic]

You reckon there are legitimate and illegitimate uses of it then?

Well I figure any given use of it is liable to be considered legitimate or illegitimate, depending on the perspective.

In my opinion, there are common usages of words that bear no resemblance to what the etymology of the word would lead you to think it means, but I personally don't really think of these cases as illegitimate.

 

[Clinamenic]

I suppose it's a technology since we seem to have created it, but sometimes it feels like a natural resource up for grabs like gas or oil.

Yeah I agree, and I'd go even farther and say that language is a public good, insofar as it is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Whereas oil is rivalrous and, de facto, excludable.

 

[woops]

 

[version]

Well I figure any given use of it is liable to be considered legitimate or illegitimate, depending on the perspective.

In my opinion, there are common usages of words that bear no resemblance to what the etymology of the word would lead you to think it means, but I personally don't really think of these cases as illegitimate.

I meant legitimate or illegitimate in a moral sense, e.g. using language to spread fascism.

The use of oil to fuel the war machine would be legitimate in the sense that it is a use, but you could argue it's some sort of corruption and illegitimate as it's an immoral use.

 

[Clinamenic]

I meant legitimate or illegitimate in a moral sense, e.g. using language to spread fascism.

Oh, yeah sure, also relative but yes. In general I view tools as ultimately agnostic to the morality of their usage.

 

[version]

I think electricity might be the closest analogue to language.

 

[Clinamenic]

I think electricity might be the closest analogue to language.

Yeah especially if you consider circuitry components and logic gates as units of a language, where the electricity itself would be like vocal waves, as a force that is modulated through an alphabet/toolset of modules.

 

[version]

Jared Marcel Pollen: “A Ritual for Mystery”

A meditative review of Clarice Lispector’s free-ranging, essayistic crônicas for a Brazilian newspaper, published in a new collection by New Directions.

yalereview.org