HUMANS
IN THE WORLD: INTRODUCTION
TO RADICAL PERSPECTIVISM
HUMANS
IN THE WORLD: INTRODUCTION
TO RADICAL PERSPECTIVISM
Other Chapters:
Alexander Makedon
Chicago State University
Copyright © 1992
By "literature" the author means the written or oral literary record that humans leave behind, such as, works expressed in verse (for example, poetry); or prose (for example, novels, historical documents, and the like). When written down and recorded, in other words, when it is "textualized," literature becomes "recoverable." Future generations can recover, read, or re-interpret such literature. By contrast, literary tradition in oral cultures relies on "word of mouth" dissemination, and therefore also on certain literary techniques, such as, rhyming, that helps people remember it. Oral literary tradition is more likely to change over time as people's interpretation changes based on their contemporary beliefs at the time; or even disappear if for some reason the people that memorized it are no longer available (for example, as a result of a natural catastrophe, lack of interest or training in memorizing such tradition, and the like). Witness for instance the endurance over often even thousands of years of text-embedded literary traditions whose texts serve as their passport to "immortality;" versus oral literary traditions which last generally a lot less, and are difficult to establish their age even when known. Furthermore, while written traditions serve also to inspire new generations, oral traditions are usually limited in time to contemporary or recent historical times, and therefore less likely to include widely diverse past historical perspectives. Thus text-centered cultures have an advantage in promulgating their ideas over strictly oral ones, due mainly to their written form of communication.
On the other hand, as we shall explain below, text can also change people's understanding to conform to text-like requirements. When "textualized," literature becomes way too "human" to represent non-human ways of communicating. This is so because its form has been crafted so carefully along human skills and needs, such as, the ability to read, that humans lose some of the flavor or meaning of non-textualized "languages" of non-human world parts. This is so because other world parts that collectively make the world communicate non-textually. Trying to understand the world through literary texts alone gives us a human-slanted view of the world that "misrepresents" it. For humans trying to have a strictly literary understanding of the world, as "literature" is usually defined in western texts, is as futile an endeavor, as might be trying to teach my cat how to speak my language.
By "text," the author means a written document. There are texts of different types: literary, business, engineering, philosophical, religious, legal, chemical, pedagogical, etc. Humans may also write texts about writing texts.
A strictly text-based interpretation of the world may be combined with a non-text-based medium for a meta-textual interpretation. For example, we may combine a book about marketing, with resources for marketing the book (such as, checks or currency with which to pay for the costs of marketing it, printing equipment with which to print advertising flyers, a telephone with which to call potential customers, people with skills in marketing, and the like).
If text becomes a paradigm for all thought processes, then there is the risk that human self-centeredness may "text" the world out of existence. The world is not mainly textual, and therefore cannot be fully understood through a text-like paradigm alone. Humans may also interpret the world non-textually, for example, orally, musically, or intuitively. Witness the contributions to understanding the world made by cultures who had relatively very few texts, such as, certain African and Native American cultures.
By raising text to such high status in their interpretations of the world, "text-only" writers allow "textuality" to define every game which humans can play in their interpretations. In that sense, they limit the range of human-made interpretation to first assumptions that are text-bound. To paraphrase Heidegger, textual interpretation is circular: it assumes in human-like terms precisely those human-made assumptions which the reader is trying to understand. What may be a hermeneutic interpretation of text, may be imagined as being, from the perspective of a non-human world-part, a self-indulging analysis of language by humans.
By "universal text" the author means text that includes world perspectives. Such text is not just cross-cultural, but represents the world as humans might be able to imagine the world would like to be represented. As a human invention, text is replete with human intentions and understandings, and therefore communicatively reflective of human characteristics. Unlike humans, other world parts do not use texts to communicate, at least in the same sense, or to the same degree of complexity and abstraction, as do humans. On the other hand, to the extent that text is "universalizable," humans can make efforts to "universalize" it.
To write universal text one must learn how even "writing" may be re-interpreted to mean something very different from anything that humans have been familiar with, or taught to believe in until now. Thus to convey an idea about flying, they can write or say something about it, which other humans can "translate" in their imagination, instead of having to actually fly. In other words, humans have used coded symbols to their communicative extreme by building a whole array of abstractions that resulted in all types of oral and written languages. What humans say or write can't represent the world in the words used as such, but in the meanings, visions, ideas, actions, or purposes that they elicit in the reader's imagination about the world.
A universal text may be used to re-interpret from non-human perspectives even human-centered text, giving it a new twist which some people, too bound to their human-made first assumptions about the world, may be unable to imagine, or may find too far-fetched, or even "ridiculous." In other words, under radical perspectivism instead of expecting people to regress to a time when they were possibly unable to communicate as abstractly or linguistically, we ask that people further expand their ability to imagine to abstract more inclusively about non-humans.
When human language becomes universalized, it may seem from a linguistic perspective to become more colorful, playful, imaginative, or exotic. This is because as we build a universal language, we are creating a bigger distance between our self-centered concerns with survival, or human domination of the world, on the one hand; and our ability to use our thinking ability to represent the world, on the other. Our language becomes less aggressive-dominant and human centered, and more transitive-worldly or respectful of the imaginable "ends," or "purposes," of other world parts.
This "otherness" in language may be seen as a form of "multi-perspectival communication:" humans are taken less seriously, while a variety of other world-parts get involved in a colorful theater of world representation. In this "world theater," non-humans "speak" through humans. We submit that as humans represent other worls-parts, as in certain eastern texts well known for their playfulness (as in certain Hindu texts), they learn more about the world.
As an illustration, let us use the perspective that an animal, say my dog, may have about text. Suppose that I just left a copy of the final draft of my book on the floor. What may be a very important book to me, since I spent a whole year writing it, may be no more to my dog than convenient chewing material (or an interesting place for my pigeon to stand on). I may chastise my dog for chewing my book, but as far as my dog is concerned, it was as worth chewing, as were the bones that I picked up for free from my friend's restaurant. After I chastise my dog, I may teach it never to chew paper again, but not also how to "read," let alone to respect text: my dog may learn not to chew paper not because of what the text means to it as text, but because it doesn't like being chastised. My dog associates, as in a reversal of the results in Pavlov's experiments, chewing paper with the unpleasant consequences of being chastised. From a universal perspective, a traditional textual interpretation is no less human-bound, than is my dog's chewing of my book any less dog-like. Without taking into account the non-human world as that world really is, we are simply not understanding it "as-world."
As the embodiments of text-based interpretations, books can become paradoxically the "red book" at the crossroads of conflicting textual representations. Books have often served not only as tools of enlightenment, but also as the embodiment of conflicting faiths, ideologies, or lifestyles. They have become a powerful political, social, or educational force, as they can be used either to control textual interpretations, or to change society through text. There are numerous examples of people going to war with each other over different interpretations of the same text (as in religious wars), or as a result of being inspired by newly written, or recently re-introduced texts (as in Marxist revolutions, or the rediscovery of ancient texts, as during the Renaissance). Books may be aligned one against the other, such as those which seem to offer justification for human divisiveness, aggression, or imperialism: the Bible versus the Koran, Mao's red book versus the "capitalist press," or newspapers of one political party versus another's. This doesn't make all books guilty of causing conflict, but simply shows the extent to which text has been used as a tool for the delineation of differences, and therefore of conflicting views.
Once written, books perpetuate certain views even after the death of their authors, and therefore may be said to extend the intellectual life of their authors into the future. Unfortunately, along with universal views that see every world part as interconnected, and therefore as no less valuable than any other, there are views that cause humans to want to dominate, destroy or enslave other humans, or other world parts.
A universalized interpretation, meaning, an interpretation that includes non-human first assumptions about the world, may be more "humane" than a human-centered one. By "humane" the author here means something similar to the environmentalist and pro-animal ethics of treating other world parts as "ends-in-themselves," instead of as means for exploitation by humans. A human-centered interpretation may be "inhumane" to the extent that non-humans are sacrificed at the altar of human greed, vanity, or shortsightedness. Witness, for example, the destruction which humans frequently brought about not only against their fellow humans, but also on other animate or inanimate parts of the world that were either satanized or destroyed (such as, the zealous destruction of animals that were perceived to represent evil, such as, snakes, sharks, and others).
Occasionally, textual differences provide sufficient motivation for conquest or colonization of textual opponents, as in many religious, ideological, or political conflicts. Furthermore, as a result of the textness of human civilization, world-parts that could not express themselves in text-like form are either ignored, misunderstood, or sometimes destroyed. As a result, the contributions of non-textual world-parts were never fully appreciated. In fact, instead of seeing text-centeredness as a possible limitation in communicating with the world, text-centered people viewed non-textual world parts, including people without text-centered views, as "uncivilized."
Take for example the views of Christian colonial powers toward peoples with different text affiliations, or no text affiliations. Christians bemoaned the lack of bibles in non-proselytized parts of the world. Christian missionaries sought to teach non-Christians to read, so they can read Christian texts. Gradually, Christian missionaries became so pre-occupied with their textual interpretations, that they couldn't see beyond them even in spite of the enlightenment that texts are supposed to bring: they became "trapped" inside their textual interpretation game.
Printing, Oral Culture, and Censorship
The invention of printing in the sixteenth century made it easier for text-centered peoples to impose on the world their interpretations. It now became possible for the "masses" to read directly what the elites may have wanted them to read. Until that time, it was harder for such elites to censor verbal interpretations which they considered to be undesirable because, as mentioned earlier, it is more difficult, to control what people say orally to each other.
While printing helped facilitate the widespread circulation of books, it also gave "censorship" a new, circulation-dependent meaning. Thus it was now possible not only to prohibit ideas, but also to promulgate in widespread written form their post-censored stage (such as, books with altered meanings, crossed-out pages, or the withdrawal from circulation of certain books with opposing views). It may even be said that as a result of the invention of printing, there was along with the written dissemination of ideas, a more widespread dissemination of censored scholarship.
Obviously, printing helped make human-centered interpretations more easily available to the wider public. Where before text competed with oral culture, printing made different ideas more widely available, eventually creating whole textual networks, information exchanges, and text-based educational systems. As a result, oral culture lost some ground to the printed word. Now precisely because of its fluidity, and possibility of greater individual embellishment of, or deviation from, the original message, oral communication is less easily managed, controlled, or censored.
Because of the nature of traditional texts, for example, books and other written documents, censors could more easily "nail down" thoughts conveyed through the written word, and thus excise or change certain written ideas, or even "punish" their authors. This contrasts to an earlier, more orally communicative world where secrets could more easily be kept because only the listeners knew what had been said; speakers could feign loss of memory, and therefore not be held accountable for what they heard; or ideas could be conveyed "on the fly," as it were, even if such ideas had been censored, by communicating them orally when the censors were not listening. As a result, then, of a the rise of textuality at the expense of orality, communication fell even more formally under the spell of human-centered interpretations which now were not only human-made, but further double checked by censors that made sure they conformed to certain culturally dominant paradigms. This gave rise to the peculiar phenomenon today of people in power hesitating to write down their conversations for fear of someone outside their inner circle (group, meeting, conference) finding out what was said. Thus today we have the widespread use of such text-deleting machines as paper-shredders; or the proverbial precautionary advice to the recording secretary in a meeting to not record any number of seemingly "irrelevant," but potentially harmful or embarrassing remarks. All this points to the increased publicity that text gave to human thoughts, and therefore also not only to propaganda, but also censorship, and in certain contexts (especially in non-democratic regimes) even punishment of the authors for expressing politically unpopular views.
As the world of communication thus became more manageable, the poetry of oral culture that often uses metaphor and other linguistic tools to represent non-human voices gradually lost ground to a more stolid form of written communication. Seen from that angle, one may even argue that the written text became a sanitized form of human-centeredness. Texts fueled the gradual abandonment of colorful speech in which the world was more richly represented, in favor of staid "scientific" writing that conveyed mainly what could be seen or tested.
The world of imagination, including imagining non-human world parts having voices of their own, took a back seat to the world of immediate perception and "scientific" proof. Imagining non-human world parts speaking, as they often were in oral cultures that spontaneously gave voice to mountains, rivers, and all types of actual or imagined animal forms and spirits, was replaced by attempts to "correct" our speech in writing. From that point on, mainly poets and mystics would be allowed the privilege of using metaphor as extensively, as did most people prior to the rise of text-based communication.
From a radical perspectivist point of view, even oral cultures were often limited by their often superstitious, as opposed to consciously universalized, view of life. Thus instead of universalizing communication because one truly believes mountains can speak at night, under radical perspectivism one is fully aware that he or she is merely pretending. This is similar to our analysis of rituals in the chapter on culture, where we saw that although certain non-western cultures may be more naturalistic in their rituals, they may also lack that level of self-awareness required to make participation in such rituals totally voluntary and self-consciously, as opposed to unthinkingly or fatalistically by submitting to a naturalistic status quo.
Formal education reenforced this written form of human centeredness by requiring that students learn how to express themselves well in writing. Schoolteachers, functioning as so many censors in microcosm, could then meticulously go over student papers, make corrections, and give grades. There was little room for students to sound non-human and worldly because they were told they must express themselves in realistic terms, in the first person singular, "logically" or scientifically. Make believe and world-representation was relegated to children's stories, the art of which was not taught in school, but left for professionals to engage in for a profit. At best, children in early grades were taught reading based on imaginable non-human characters that spoke like humans, as in Alice in Wonderland, but that was done more so to teach reading, than because of a sincere interest in the "lives" of non-human world parts. Children's natural inclination to play and imagine were "abreacted" (=taken advantage of) inside a school system that used what children are interested in, which is using their minds to communicate with all types of imaginable world parts, to teach them how to become "responsible adults" by teaching them reading, and eventually socializing them to human-centered values.
Through a human-centered education, and centuries of self-centered communication, our society became less "paradisial," in the all-inclusive sense of paradise as a world that includes all world parts in a colorful harmony. In this type of "paradisial society," humans use their thinking abilities to represent the whole world, instead of just their own human or "logical" thinking. The challenge for humans in the future will be to develop a written form of communication that includes the imaginable wider world in which humans are mere interpreters.
Radically Perspectivist Society
A radically perspectivist society may be seen as a true communication democracy. Ours in the west may be seen as too human-centered to be the world's--even if we gave equal time or sanction to all of the known non-linguistic communication tools. Ironically, given humans' present communication abilities, it may not take that much effort, other than a change in attitude, to switch from human-centered communication tools, to those which will allow the world to communicate "through" humans.
Prior to its widespread expansion, text was neither used as extensively, nor did it shape people's ideas as much. For example, people during the middle ages didn't find it necessary to learn how to read or write, since there were other ways with which to give the world meaning outside text. They engaged in musical, oral, pictorial-symbolic, and festive-ornamental types of interpretations. Witness the tremendous array of medieval icons, symbols, ornaments, and dress codes, all of which are built on visual, as opposed to textual types of interpretation.
In spite of the non-textual interpretation games people participated in during the middle ages, Christianity remained primarily text-centered. This is so because historically it was rooted in a book, the Bible, and therefore inevitably led the faithful back to a text-based interpretation: people couldn't possibly ignore the Bible, without ignoring the rules of what it means to practice good Christianity. Just as a game has its own inner dynamic, propelled primarily by its original rules, so was the oral tradition in Christianity inevitably replaced by its Bible-dependence. And just as players in a game eventually must turn to the rules of their game to settle disputes, so did Christians eventually returned to the Bible to continue their Christian interpretation game.
If Martin Luther, leader of the protestant reformation, hadn't preached a return to the textual origins of Christianity, someone else would. Seen from that angle, the protestant reformation was incidental to the underlying text-centeredness of Christianity. In any event, the added emphasis by Protestants on Bible-reading explains why in protestant nations there is historically a higher literacy rate than in other places that remained less text-centered: to be able to read the Bible, people began to learn how to read. It may also explain why such text-centered philosophical movements as hermeneutics first began in protestant nations, where there was a long tradition of text interpretation, particularly the Bible.
Finally, the text-centeredness of Protestantism also explains why education in the United States, which originally was a protestant colony, began more as a religious movement to help children learn how to read, so they can read the Bible, than to read widely in the sciences or humanities. Hence the name of the first education law in colonial America, "Old Deluder Satan Act" (1647): schools were established so children could learn how to read, so they can keep Satan at bay by reading the Bible. Today someone who is not familiar with how people thought at the time may find it impossible to believe that an act with that name may have anything to do with education. Yet if seen from the perspective of the people at the time, it made a lot of sense that education should be seen that way.
The textness of Christianity is further evidenced from the terms the faithful chose to represent the Bible: the Bible became the book" or "text," while believers were admonished to "read the book." This contrasts with other types of interpretation, such as, those that non-textual cultures might have, or those which humans can imagine might be held by other animate or inanimate parts of the world. For example, a New Zealand native may represent his interpretation with a song, thus making the act of singing itself, including the accompanying body movements and voice intonation, more central in his view of the world, than the ideas in a text. Humans may have to fly like a bird to really understand a bird-like interpretation of the world, or, for that matter, the effect on... birds of text-only interpretations. For example, writing texts about birds may not only be unlike-birds, but also exclude a bird-like point of view.
One of the changes brought about by the Protestant Reformation was the reaffirmation of text-centered interpretations, or "textations." Such "textations" spilled out of their Christian context into secular areas, such as, scientific discoveries, and newly born branches in the social and humanistic sciences. "Textness" has remained the centerpiece armor in which to dress even non-textual interpretations: textbooks have been embellished with hundreds of illustrations, perhaps even musical recordings, but remained primarily textual.
The Age of the Enlightenment in the 18th century proclaimed the undisputed superiority of the text: "enlightenment" was conceived to mean the re-discovery of long-forgotten texts, such as, the great books of the ancient world, or committing to writing the ideas of the new. Hence the emergence of several encyclopaedias, libraries, and bookstores, followed by textbooks and text-centered public schools. Eventually, there developed philosophies that are self-consciously text-centered even while criticizing traditional text-centered logic. For example, both analytic or language philosophy, and hermeneutics, both of which are critical of textual interpretations, nevertheless rely heavily on text-embedded interpretations.
Sensing the limitations of a text-centered interpretation, the west developed a love-hate relationship with text: hermeneuticists glorified it by claiming that text has its own life even apart from its author, as do in somewhat different fashion people who believe in the magical power of words; while deconstructionists, such as, Lacan and Derrida, frustrated with the limitations that words presumably impose, intentionally throw a variety of linguistic "monkey wrenches" in textual interpretations, only to become trapped themselves inside their textual anti-textness.
By "language" here the author means those written or spoken forms which are commonly understood as providing for human oral or written communication. The nature of language as a tool for conveying what's in the minds and hearts of humans, which as we know change often, may also explain why every attempt at building a perfect language has failed. A "perfect" language, in the sense of being a "better" language than any that humans have known, is ontologically impossible. This is so because almost by definition language is designed to be "imperfect," meaning, always changing and changeable to reflect the changing "rhythms" of the world.
As a reinterpretable entity, the world is interpretable in different ways, one of which is "linguistically," through the design of new languages. Had the world been less changeable or reinterpretable, or humans less capable of "rewiring" their languages to express new or changed understandings (as are the understandings that came about as a result of the scientific and industrial revolutions), then languages might have become frozen in time and rarely change their meanings or messages. In fact, not only are languages changing, but when they don't it's more likely because of a conscious effort by speakers to keep them the same, than because of anything inherent in such languages.
It may be said that when speakers freeze their language in time even at the expense of never including new meanings or understanding in their pantheon of communicative entities, then they "change" their language by not changing it, that is, change what a language usually does, which is adapt to new meanings or understandings, to something artificially permanent or unchanging.
As philosophers have been discovering since at least Plato, language is full of reinterpretable terms: terms with many meanings, or with meanings that are not immediately apparent to the user. While some see the multiplicity of language as its duplicity that must be exposed, as did, for instance, Noam Chomsky, we see it as proof of humans' connectedness with their world. We see language as a wonderful opportunity for better describing the playfulness of the world, and therefore for understanding it.
Sensing that their world is reinterpretable, humans have allowed their language to reflect the world's "interpretability." It is for this reason that the author considers every attempt to eliminate completely the multiple meanings in language, for example, through the design of a "universal grammar," as a basic failure to understand that language is merely a means for humans to express themselves, and therefore likely to reflect all the multifarious shades of meaning, or even contradictions of human existence, and of the existence of other world parts as imagined by humans. Every attempt to "improve" our language by stamping it in one concrete type of grammar is to misunderstand the nature of the world as playful, and therefore as something which no one such grammar can describe. If words, sentences, or, more broadly "languages" presently lend themselves to multiple meanings, it is not because humans have failed to build a non-duplicitous, non-ambiguous language, or because words as words are themselves ambiguous, but because the world which humans describe through language is ambiguous.
By using a playfully ambiguous language, humans become an equal partner in a game of playful world interpretation. Anything less than that would not be their language, in the sense of serving to express linguistically their view of the world, but at best a view of the world imposed from above masquerading as a "true" language.
Learning words and building new forms of linguistic communication are playful activities: they are based on spontaneous involvement, rules, and consensus regarding what linguistic symbols mean to the participants. This may explain why so far attempts to impose on a people an artificial language are met with popular resistance, if not outright failure: sensing the attempt to deny them their language games, people either ignore a language which they don't like, or use only if they have to, such as, getting a job.
Children often engage in word-play, inventing and twisting words. When playing with other children, they can quickly communicate their newly coined sounds and meanings to their playmates, who subsequently relish playing around adult rules of linguistic meaning. If a language is designed intentionally as a new language, as opposed to spontaneously in play, then humans are likely to debate such issues as what ideas their new language should embody, and, by extension, its values, belief systems, or overall outlook. They may find that what rules they decide to employ in their language are based on their first assumptions about the world. It follows that as humans become more "universally aware," meaning, more aware of their place in the universe, and of their role as interpreters of world events, they may try to build a language that is more inclusive of the "languages" spoken by other world parts (even if on their face, such languages have very little resemblance to human languages).
More recently, the human ability to build new languages is clearly seen in the filed of computer programming, where hundreds of new "computer languages" were designed that allowed humans to communicate with machines. Another area where this ability is evidenced is among children when they invent new words apart from those sanctioned by adults. Finally, the fact that humans today speak hundreds of languages is testimony to their ability to develop different languages, and therefore also their ability to design a more universally inclusive means of communication.
If humans expand their first assumptions to include the perspective of the world, then they may adopt the non-language "language" of the world, in the sense of having a "universal language" of many languages. For example, they learn how to speak the language of trees to the extent that they are tree-like, including the tree way of "communicating" with other trees, the ground, other animals, or humans. Some aspects of this tree language humans already know enough, to begin to imitate, such as, communication among trees (or other plants) during pollination, or between tree and ground during root growth. Unfortunately, humans rarely try to "tree" their language (that is, speak like a tree). As people expand their first assumptions to include the world in their world representations, they change their language to reflect the world's understanding of itself.
Every language has certain cultural meanings or "values" woven into its use of terms, grammar, syntax, or idioms. Languages may be seen as culture-bound linguistic interpretations of the world. It is in this sense that linguistic interpretations may be born only out of, to paraphrase Gadamer, a linguistic "tradition."
A language may be adopted or attached to an older one that was formerly spoken by a people, as often happens to conquered peoples who speak the language of the conqueror, but maintain certain forms of their earlier language. These older grammatical forms reshape the new in a new amalgam of not only hybrid meanings, but historical memories, confused psychologies, and camouflaged political protests. Like an undefeated linguistic heroine that never really succumbed to the invading culture, the old pronunciation of words, or syntax remain in the background of the new spoken language, haunting it at every grammatical corner. For example, English was often adapted, or "adjusted" by non-English speaking peoples to their own native linguistic traditions. This shows that far from being "prisoners" of language, as some writers maintain, humans are linguistic players who can freely choose to change language, break free from their linguistic "tradition," or combine the old with the new, thus maintaining the integrity of their earlier linguistic identity.
If children are taught to interpret the world within a tradition, they can overcome it later by redefining their understanding of language. Some of the more obvious examples of human resistance to linguistic "traditions" include immigrants who decide never again to speak in their own native language; or, conversely, refuse to learn the language of their adopted country even at the risk of becoming social outcasts. Again what we see here is using language as a tool to express any number of beliefs or attitudes, such as, patriotism, defiance, fear of ridicule, all of which demonstrate how capable humans are in reinventing the way they communicate.
Although used almost daily, language is not so all-encompassing that humans can't step outside it, and therefore see it from a distance as only one of many possible tools with which to interpret the world. Because humans have grown accustomed to using language, there is the risk of imposing a language-like interpretation on non-linguistic communication forms. This is so because historically humans tend to impose their own view of the world on other world parts. Thus they may impose their pro-linguistic bias in communication, on non-linguistic forms of communication by non-human world parts that have little similarity to human language. This is a type of linguistic reductionism which under radical perspectivism we try to expose or "deconstruct" so that humans become more sensitive to communication forms that are truly non-linguistic, and therefore not possible to understand using linguistic models of interpretation.
Our language may become an obstacle that hides from our view the tremendous variety of non-linguistic communication possibilities. Thus a mere redefining of non-linguistic possibilities as "language," although occasionally well intended as a friendly gesture toward non-human world parts to include their form of communication, in the end may turn out to be even worse than rejecting such non-linguistic forms altogether. This is so because by including them under language we risk undermining their very nature as non-human by imposing on them, or trying to interpret them through, the human-like forms of our own language.
Ironically, writers who criticize logocentricity, as do certain deconstructionists, meaning, the reduction of all thought in the west to logos, may be practicing a similar type of linguistic reductionism by failing to reinterpret their own views from non-linguistic, or non-human perspectives.
By "pan-lingualism" the author refers to the reduction of all forms of communication to language-like forms. Such reduction may prevent humans from examining non-linguistic communication forms in their own right as non-linguistic, and therefore deny those who use them their opportunity to communicate to us their non-linguistic views. Under a pan-linguistic view of the world, non-human world parts become "incommunicado," meaning, invisible non-communicables that at best may be talked about, but rarely engaged in dialogue as partners. They are mere "others," "animals," or "plants." In short, they are non-human, separate from us, and psychologically more distant than the preposition "non" (as in "non-human") usually implies.
Our western "hermeneutics" (=system of interpretation) may be so language-bound that oftentimes we don't even know whether other world parts have anything to communicate, let alone acknowledge their attempt to communicate with us, each other, or other world-parts. A hermeneutics that reduces all forms of communication to this type of "pan-lingualism" is non-perspectivistic, in the sense of pre-imposing on such forms language-like criteria.
Furthermore, subsuming non-linguistic forms under language may have the effect of never questioning the limitations of human language, such as those that could be more easily pointed out had non-linguistic forms been perceived as a separate communicative category. For example, language cannot communicate as well any of the physical accomplishments of other animals, as can the non-verbal communication that animals themselves use through "body-language" (as in the posturing of healthy animals, which may send any number of messages to other animals); non-linguistic sounds (in the sense that such sounds are at best a very basic form of human-like language, but not in any way comparable to human language); sonar (as in the sonar based "language" used by certain sea animals, which recently humans imitated in their deep sea explorations); speed (as in the message sent to a predator through a very fast running prey); color-coded language (as in the messages that different colors emit in nature regarding, for instance, the toxicity, or feigned toxicity of certain animals or plants, and therefore their overall survival strategy), and the like. As humans become "multilingual," that is, adopt additional forms of communication that are not necessarily strictly oral-written-linguistic, they begin to gradually develop a more universal language that encompasses other so far mainly non-human forms of communication (hence the development of visual, color-coded, sound-based, and kinetic-like communication systems).
Pan-lingualism may lead to a class system along language-lines. In a language-divided society, there may develop linguistic classes of people that are stratified according to the language they speak, their dialect, or their pronunciation. For example, in the United States people with a British accent are usually associated with a higher class, even if upon closer examination it may turn out that they are less well educated, or have fewer skills, than immigrants speaking English with a heavy accent. More broadly the same may be said regarding the stratification of world-parts based on the degree to which their languages are human-like. This results in dividing the world in "higher" and "lower" forms of life; or "friendly" and "hostile" parts of nature.
In a society dominated by one panlinguistic paradigm or another, non-paradigmatic people may be seen as less educated, "illiterate," or "undesirable," and therefore denied the same opportunities for social or economic advancement, as those who have mastered the rules of the dominant language game. A language that is imposed on a people by political elites, as are or were "official" languages in some nations, may not express the governed people's own linguistic understanding of the world, but instead how a people may be manipulated to express the interpretation of a political elite. Unless it is the people themselves who choose to join, to paraphrase Wittgenstein, a different linguistic game, any attempt to force them to do so is bound to meet with resistance.
A radically perspectivist view of the world has its own philosophical agenda. This includes universalizing our beliefs and institutions; humans becoming world-citizens instead of merely "human;" and thinking being used to represent all world parts, as if the world also thinks through humans, as in "thinking universe." This larger radically perspectivistic politic can serve as the basis for building a more universalized form of communication (see earlier section on Universal Language).
Humans can agree to use certain words in certain ways, or to ascribe to them only certain meanings. As analytic philosophy has made us all too aware, if we use the same words in different contexts they may have different meanings, which may lead to misunderstanding or "miscommunication." Words may then seem confusing, duplicitous, ambiguous, or dubious, when in fact they merely represent different perspectives, or points of view, instead of being themselves ambiguous. In fact, words were never intended to mean just one thing, but employed to express any number of feelings, attitudes, or ideas; or even such perhaps "unfortunate" or "unethical" but nevertheless common practices as lying, double-talking, or intentionally misleading statements.
For all of their skills for analysis, some analytic philosophers unfortunately didn't analyze their own underlying assumptions about language, which are way too presumptuous regarding the perfectibility of linguistic forms, too naive regarding the playfulness of meaning, or too limited regarding the perspectivism of word usage. Analytic philosophers spent too much time analyzing trees, which at best help them shed light on relatively minute human concerns, than on the larger fauna of innumerable perspectivistic forests, or "contexts of meaning," that might finally make it possible to better understand language. To find the logical Golden Fleece of linguistic revelation, one should instead allow his or her imagination to survey all such forests, and like the Hindu texts of the East, change forms and understandings every which way he turns so he can see the world with its own eyes with all of its multifaceted perspectives. It is only then that one will not only begin to understand language, but become a lot more forgiving of its "differences," if not in fact consider it impossible to speak without some form of linguistic "imperfection." Thus instead of a sanitized language that allows speakers to bask in their own emptiness of meaning, which would in fact make language itself impossible, under radical perspectivism language is enriched with even a greater variety of perspectives. Instead of a luckless language that obeys just one set of logical or mathematical rules, under radical perspectivism every human and non-human world part is heard, however on its face nonsensical, unethical, or uncommon its form of communication may seem to be.
Contrasted to the artificial language of the logical "laboratory," as is often the language proposed by analytic philosophers, is the language of a universally inclusive paradise where every song, word, or gesture is appreciated. In this colorful communication paradise, the Tower of Babel is not the sinful symbol of human vanity or misunderstanding, but a representation of how humans historically strayed from their original path to universal citizenship to become, instead, "masters of the world." Ironically, the rise of new computer-based multimedia forms of communication may represent a return to the multifaceted meanings in nature. In any event, under radical perspectivism humans make attempts to understand the "other," including its own form of communication. Radical perspectivists learn to listen to other culturally different humans, and all other non-human world parts, instead of turning a "deaf ear" to all but their own conception of what constitutes "correct" communication.
Wording, Worlding, and Understanding
A word-bound interpretation of the world risks becoming, if used to the exclusion of other types of interpretation (for example, non-verbal communication) another type of interpretative tyranny, in this case, a "tyranny of words." Several hermeneuticists and deconstructionists, led perhaps by the writings of Derrida, Lacan, and others, have raised words to the status of almost independent entities. Treating words as words, as if they can exist independently of humans, is making them no less an ideal, than the detached ideas in Plato's ideal world that oftentimes deconstructionists attack.
Raising words to such paramount level is misunderstanding the ability of humans to communicate even without words. If words are used, it is not because there is anything sacrosanct about them, but because humans decided that one of the ways to interpret the world is linguistically. In other words, words are no better as words, than is a ball in a ball-game better than a chair in a chair-game: they can both be used as "toys" to play in two different games. In either case, my games express equally my inter-play with the world: I can play just as easily, or "well," with a ball in a ball-game, as I can with a chair in a chair-game (as in the schoolhouse game of "seven up"). Likewise, words are just one way with which to communicate meanings, but not necessarily the only or best one. There are a variety of non-wordy types of communication more likely to be found among non-humans.
In the future, humans may invent or adopt a non-verbal way of communicating, as is gradually already happening as a result of the "invasion" of a plethora of visual images in communication through computers [author's note: such as, Windows operating systems, which were introduced and became increasingly more popular after he wrote this chapter]. As humans employ non-verbal ways of communicating they may come closer to understanding the non-verbal communication of other world parts. If experiencing something aids us in understanding it better, learning how to communicate non-verbally (without at the same having to discard or stop improving our verbal communication) may help us experience how other world parts communicate.
A word as word has no more meaning by itself than does a stone, a dream, or my cup of tea: it is as invisible to me, as something about which I know nothing. Without the meaning that I gave it, or learned to give it when I first learned about it, it is no more visible as a meaningful word, than any of the numerous unremarkable things that surround me every day. Otherwise, why isn't a crack in the ceiling also a word? Or for that matter, why isn't any-thing a word? It becomes a "word" precisely because I can recognize it as something which can help me convey my interpretation of the world. I can change it with another word while still playing in the same linguistic game, or change my game altogether by changing its underlying grammatical, phonetic, or syntactical rules. Finally, I may even decide to play a non-verbal game to express my view of the world, as through dance, art, mimicry, math, business, sport, or even some so far unrecognizable but "communicable" way that is nothing like anyone knows at this time.
I can't be sure whether when I hear someone speak in a foreign language that I don't know, she is really saying something which someone who knows this language could understand, or simply pretending that she is speaking the language, knowing that I couldn't tell the difference. Words are not prior to my interpretation of the world, but rise as words precisely because of my prior understanding. Thus in hearing what sounds like a foreign language, I can't tell for sure whether what I hear are really foreign but meaningful words, or just so many foreign-sounding but meaningless sounds. It follows that words are just extensions of my understanding, rather than independent entities that have a life of their own. It is in that sense that my language, including the words I use, are likely to change to reflect a new understanding. Witness for instance the introduction of new words in human speech as a result of new discoveries, or perceived new realities (as happened recently with the introduction of numerous computer-related terms in the English language). Likewise, as our understanding of the universe changes, as under radical perspectivism, our language is also likely to change to include words that reflect our new understanding.
As creative beings capable of sensing the world's many roles, humans create new terms, new shades of meaning, or re-define old terms to reflect the world's many realities. Astoundingly, highly creative writers, such as, Shakespeare, not only transcend what grammatical rules may operate in their culture at the time, but express new realities by giving old terms new twists of meaning, creating new but "context-explainable" terms, or re-establishing meanings which are socially long lost or tabooed. In short, they play with language. If their contemporaries become captivated by such thinkers' new linguistic expressions, they may choose to adopt such expressions in their own daily linguistic battery. Thus gradually, the public begins to mimic such thinkers' language. This type of mimicry is a widely found phenomenon in nature, for example, every time a world part takes on the characteristic of its neighbors to survive, play, or explore (as in the survival strategies of cells, the playfulness of parrots, or the "exploration" of rivers.)
Non-Human "Language" and Role Play
Non-human parts of the world may be imagined to have perspectives, first assumptions, or "languages" which are quite unlike our own. For example, certain animals may be imagined to have first assumptions which they express non-linguistically (see chapter on First Assumptions). It is in this sense that when we role-play the world, for example, pretend that we are an owl or a cat, we no longer use "words," in the sense of using sounds which are recognizable in dictionaries or popular speech as being part of our language, but owl-like or cat-like sounds, expressions, or movements: we understand that we can't represent these world-parts if we don't use their language, in this case, of an owl or a cat. Children, hunters, and others who mimic nature know this well, as they have learned to become the other by leaving their own language behind. It is for this reason that people in certain cultures that role play nature in their rituals also make the sounds or movements, or wear the kinds of dress, make-up, or camouflage, which they think truly represent the world.
How do I role-play something as seemingly "un-playable" as a stone? When I role play a stone, I may use such non-linguistic forms of communication as stone-like immobility. My staying put for 10,000 years at a time, were I able to do that, might more closely convey to us what a stone is or does, than merely discussing stone movements, or describing with words the nature of plate tectonics. The more I avoid interpreting this apparently unlike-human world part with my language, the less likely I am that I will consciously or unconsciously pre-impose on my interpretation a human-bound view. This is so because my language may already be so loaded with human-bound interpretations of the world, including human-prescribed units of time or movement, that it will not be like the world that I am trying to role play.
If we change our language to include the world, in the sense of including ways with which to understand the world from the world's perspective, then our language will be nothing like "language" today. In the past, humans began to develop several non-linguistic communication tools, but unwittingly abandoned them at the threshold of an encroaching language-based "civilization." If not totally abandoned, most such non-linguistic communication forms were petrified inside "communication rituals" that have lost their original meaning. Such rituals are now replayed mechanically during religious or other holidays, exhibited inside museums, or studied as cultural or historical curiosities, but rarely used as language-substitutes in everyday life. Witness the variety of ceremonies with which people "semi-communicate" long lost meanings, feelings, or ideas during important festivals or holidays, such as, Halloween, Valentine's Day, or Easter (to name just a few mainly western forms).
Some of humans' non-linguistic communication possibilities lie dormant within a larger human-language-culture. Such possibilities occasionally embellish our language. Witness certain people's ability to "dance" their feelings, messages, or ideas, as contrasted to communicating them only verbally or in writing. In fact, some people may find dancing more "expressive" than language, as in modern folkloric and religious dances. Likewise with musical, artistic, architectural, athletic, or other types of non-language-based communication.
Other examples may include the drawings and mathematical symbols used to encode messages in space which presumably other "intelligent" beings will be able to "decode;" or the utilization of non-linguistic communication tools by the computer industry, such as drawings or pictures; or numerous other non-linguistic devices, such as, electrical road signs, dress codes, and the like, which constantly serve as a reminder to humans of their non-linguistic communication possibilities.
Still afraid about what non-linguistic communication tools may do to their language-based sense of the world, or, by extension, their long-developed "linguistic ego," humans prefer to fence their non-linguistic possibilities safely inside "linguistic laboratories." For example, they may limit the use of charts, pictures, or sound recordings to the "appendix" of official documents, thus implying that the "languageness" in the main body of the text remains paramount.
Humans may also limit non-linguistic communication forms psychologically, politically, physically, and educationally: psychologically, by making them the subject of language-based studies, thus re-affirming the superiority of language over non-linguistic communication tools. Politically, by making it impossible for non-linguistic users to run a campaign or hold office, thus in effect exiling from government the messengers along with their underlying message. Physically, by storing them in museums, whose contents, to be sure, are explained verbally. And finally, educationally, by describing them as essentially non-communicative forms of "non-linguistic communication."
Recently with the rise of television and film, visual and auditory messages are inching their way toward the communication center of our society. Thus viewers now expect not to be merely told what's going on, or simply read about it, but also to communicate such ideas visually and auditorily. Furthermore, with the rise of interactive game shows on TV, and other ways of viewer participation (for example, commercial programs where viewers can purchase products with their credit cards), viewers are also "communicating" financially by expressing their desires through the products they buy.
One wonders whether the negative reaction toward television by some parts of the language-based establishment doesn't have something to do with its sensing a gradual change in the social acceptability of non-linguistic communication tools, and therefore of the danger that such change may represent to its own sense of self-worth. Although we continue to employ non-linguistic communication tools, as through the architectural styles employed in designing museums (inside which, ironically, may be housed non-linguistic art-based communication alternatives), nevertheless we seem to remain too tied to language-based communication tools to allow any of the alternatives to enrich our daily communication styles.
[Author's note: views regarding computers in this section reflect the state of computer development at the time the chapter was written in 1992.]
The computer revolution may be seen as "revolutionary" because it opened up opportunities for combining text with non-textual interpretations at a massive scale, such as, combining text with moving images and sound (as in multimedia software systems). Nevertheless, even in spite of all of its media innovations, the microcomputer remains too tied to text to overcome it. For example, input of data or information is still done primarily via a keyboard, which is text-like. With the advent of touch-screen and picture-based computer commands, and the design of future generations of computers that will understand oral commands, computer users may gradually drift away from traditional forms of textness. The question may be raised, to what extent will humans take advantage of their new communication possibilities to communicate not just with each other, but more broadly "represent" other non-linguistic world parts?
The further away humans get from their text-only roots through their high-tech tools, the closer they may come to re-discovering the importance of role-play, or "simulation." This is so because through the design of software programs that make the computer react like-a-human, the computer can function as a mirror image of human thoughts, which then humans in turn can use to think of themselves as the "other." In other words, computers can reflect the best and worse in us as humans by dishing back to us what we put in them, except this time they may seem to be so unlike us that we may have to be reminded that they are not really as bad or good as they seem to be, but as we are by programming them that way. In the popular imagination the "boomerang power" of computers (=the power computers have to give us back ourselves) is often demonized in films that depict them as evil, as with the computer Hal in Space Odyssey 2001, or numerous other science fiction-like films. Such films may represent an initial "denial" by humans of the human image that such computers reflect back for humans to see, by blaming the machine, instead of realizing that we gave it its software.
As we become more accustomed to working with computers, we may gradually "deny" them less, and accept them more as mechanized forms of human cloning, even to the point where one day we may see them as therapeutic companions to our self-search for our identity. This is so because by providing us with human-like feedback, we begin to see the effects of our human-centered actions on us as humans, especially if reinforced mechanically, as through robotics, to represent a veiled threat to human domination (witness, for instance, the popular film series The Exterminator). Furthermore, through the effect computers may have on our own sense of vulnerability, they may sensitize us to the effect that our actions may have on other world parts.
Language Tools and Occupations
Although a widespread human tool, language is no less a tool, in the sense of being a means for interpretation, than are other "tools" that humans use with which to interpret the world, such as, art, engineering, music, dance, or "body language." Some alphabets began non-linguistically as pictographs, indicating the ability which humans have to represent their verbal communication in non-alphabetic ways.
Those who communicate non-linguistically through their work, family, sport, eating habits, or music may become no less the prisoners of their non-linguistic first assumptions about the world, than those who use mainly language-like communication tools. Under radical perspectivism, humans become aware of both their linguistic and non-linguistic possibilities, and thus transcend the limitations of either set of communication first assumptions. This means that even if they seem to be using mainly one or the other form of communication, under radical perspectivism they do so knowing of their potential for communicating through the other, as opposed to feeling that their communication potential is limited mainly or only to their present form of communication, or, worse, thinking of one as superior to the other.
An inarticulate person may think that she communicates better non-verbally, or at least through what she does, than what she says (for example, by building, say, homes). In fact, she is so convinced of her verbal "inabilities," that she compensates for her lack of good "communication skills" by becoming very successful in the real estate business, as if to show the world that such communication skills are not that important in defining one's worth. On the other hand, someone else may be very articulate, but also spiteful of non-linguistic forms of communication. As a result, he may fail to both fully realize his own non-linguistic communication potential; and more openly listen to non-linguistic messages. Both of the above "types" of human have become "prisoners" of their communication first assumptions, in the sense that they fail to transcend them so as to see the point of view, or "perspective," of the other.
Alternatively, under radical perspectivism the home-builder simply chooses to communicate through her work, without at the same time trying to prove that her form of communication is superior to more traditionally linguistic forms; while the linguistically articulate person communicates verbally without at the same time denigrating non-verbal communication forms. Finally, there is a third type of human that becomes capable of using both, or at least feels comfortable in switching back and forth between linguistic and non-linguistic forms of communication, thus using his or her ability to communicate more universally to allow the expression or "communication' of a wider variety of both human and non-human perspectives.
A worker who spends eight hours a day laying bricks, making sure they are built "right," communicates his understanding of the world very differently from a poet who spends her time "versing" about houses. A poet is necessarily locked into a poetic-bound interpretation of the world, as she may choose to work as a bricklayer in the morning, and write poems in the evening. This bricklayer-poet may or may not value poetry-writing and bricklaying equally. Likewise with an engineer who interprets the world through engineering-bound first assumptions, or, for that matter, does so not because he likes engineering, but because he must to keep his job, or to have the financial stability to maintain his true interest (such as, translating ancient Sanskrit texts). A businessman, bicycle racer, second grade teacher, salesman, physicist, or veterinarian, and a host of other "occupations" may also be seen as different types of possible "occupation-bound" interpretations of the world. It is in this broader sense that everything that humans do may be interpreted as communicating or sending messages about themselves or their view of the world, whether done linguistically or not. A popular example of that is the common saying regarding consumer habits that "buyers voted with their feet" (=indicated their preferences by going to stores that sell their preferred products). Similar sayings regarding people's non-linguistic communication habits include "actions speak louder than words," "a picture is worth a thousand words," and the like.
Although language may be used in occupational interpretations, as do architects who may write down instructions for their foremen, it is used only as a means with which to express usually a non-linguistic interpretation. An occupation is carried out not in order to help improve or carry out a conversation, but accomplish a task that may have nothing to do with the words-themselves used to describe it. Only the most ardent pro-linguist would want to squeeze the world inside a linguistic straightjacket, merely to prove the alleged centrality of words. In fact, we see in occupation-bound interpretations of the world, such as those which are occupation-based (=such as, a world interpretation from a botanist's perspective), a reversal of the view that interpretations are primarily linguistic.
Educated people do not have exclusive interpretation rights, since even an "illiterate" person can give the world a non-linguistic interpretation, for example, through his work. For example, a sculptor who happens to be illiterate may reinterpret the world by shaping stone in a particular way to express his world-view; someone else, through the type of family he decides to raise. Again, it is in this sense that we may say that human actions sometimes speak louder than words.
Humans are born in language-rich societies, and as a result are taught to color their perceptions of the world with language-like "prejudices." To appreciate the role that a pre-existing language may play in human development, let us imagine what it might be like if humans were born in language-empty environments. Obviously, they would lack a ready-made tool with which to give the world a language-based interpretation, although they may know enough about language to begin to design their own from scratch. In any event, until they develop a language, they may lack precisely those language-based characteristics which may be required for the development of language, and therefore begin to develop a language substitute, or, more likely, languages that may have non-linguistic characteristics, such as, kinetic, visual, or musical metaphors. The absence of language may serve to both hamper their linguistic development, as was true with certain children who were raised in the wild away from "civilization," but also liberate their non-linguistic potential for communication, as was also true with those "wild children" who found several substitute methods of communicating their thoughts and feelings. Thus the lack of language may open up possibilities for a non-linguistic communication-tool which otherwise having a language may have made it seem unnecessary.
Humans may be able to "borrow" a language substitute from some other world-part, say, birds, whose calling signals may inspire humans to develop a bird-like language. Given humans' greater thinking or "abstractive" abilities, they may develop such bird-like language to a much more sophisticated degree, than just a few "bird calls." In the end, such bird-like language may sound just like traditional language, except more bird-like. The point here is that whatever the means of communication, language does not stand alone as an independent entity with its own in-born meanings, but is closely tied, in fact derived from the minds or intentions, or original mimicry or creativity, of the users themselves. Furthermore, given the complexity of human thought, humans can evolve a language that may be just as sophisticated to reflect their thinking process, as their traditional language, except animal-sound-based, visual-based or kinetic, or some other such "non-traditional language" form.
It may be argued that humans developed a linguistic form of communication precisely because they found such form to express the complexity of their ideas the best, or most fully. There is only so much communicating that one can do kinetically or visually, or through any of the other communication-types mentioned earlier (occupation-based, and the like). But even if that were true, there is also the danger, as mentioned earlier, of humans then falling under the weight of their linguistic success, and failing to realize their non-linguistic communication potential. Such potential is shown, for example, from the tremendous popularity enjoyed recently my multimedia software systems [including Windows] that use more than just traditional linguistic means to communicate. Finally, it may be the case that when humans developed certain of their traditional languages, they simply struck one of many "gold veins" in their communication mine, which they have taken several thousands of years to explore and develop, but which doesn't mean as a result that they couldn't have developed any of the other ways of communicating just as much. They may have put themselves on a certain linguistic orbit that led them to where they are now, which may not be for that reason alone the best or only communication orbit they could have traveled on.
Humans couldn't possibly develop substitute or language-alternative communication styles unless the universe had the capacity to "offer" such styles. In other words, is it in the nature of the universe to allow for non-linguistic forms of communication? So far, based on the examples mentioned so far, it seems clearly that many world-parts use non-linguistic communication extensively, except for humans, who are aware of such communication, but have themselves adopted mainly a linguistic one. There may also be any number of communication possibilities in the universe, of which we may know very little at present. Witness the variety of non-linguistic ways with which scientists so far have been able to describe the universe, including chemical, physical, and mathematical.
Is language a "prison," in the sense that humans do not know any "better," or any other way with which to communicate? If by "prison" is meant something from which there is no escape, then the variety of non-linguistic ways which humans use to communicate, not to mention the thousands of languages which humans have designed, are proof that humans are not prisoners of their native language.
One is capable of breaking free from any particular language, for example, by learning another language; or from language in general, by expressing or communicating her views non-linguistically. Humans don't have to communicate only through language, even while growing up in a language-full environment, as when someone resists to answer any questions, another remains silent in a conversation, and another proves through his example that action sometimes speaks "louder" than words.
Not only are humans not prisoners inside language, but can reinterpret even their language in non-linguistic ways. For example, they can pretend to speak, as do children when they make fun of "adult speak" by pretending to speak like adults. A photographer may take pictures of adults speaking, or an artist recreate in her art a part of speech. We are more like outsiders-in-the-world with linguistic possibilities, than prisoners-of-language with no freedom to leave our language behind. Our language is no more a prison, than anything else which humans choose to play by.
As was noted earlier, if we wish to understand the world, we should be able to transcend our existing language. If we pre-define ourselves as prisoners of our language, then so it will seem to us: we become our own best example of our language-centered self-fulfilling prophecy. Our voluntarily jailing ourselves inside a language is like a jail-game which we can decide to stop playing, but instead take too seriously to feel that we can leave behind. It is in this sense that we are playing a game even while claiming to be jailed inside a language from which there is allegedly no escape.
There are three types of communicative humans: language-less, language-full, and meta-linguistic. A language-less human communicates through non-linguistic communication alternatives. Such human may be like nothing we can recognize as "human" today. His communication tools may have so effected his personality, thinking, or atomic first assumptions about the world that his view of the world may be very different from ours. A language-full human is like most of us in the west today. We use our language to communicate, and therefore are full of language-like communication paradigms. The third type of human, meta-linguistic, makes equal use of linguistic and non-linguistic communication styles. His vocabulary includes universal "languages." Such human designs communication tools that are based not only on human-centered assumptions about the world, as do many even non-linguistic users today, but also assumptions which he can imagine other animate or inanimate world-parts might have. His view of the world is radically perspectivistic, and therefore so are the tools he employs to communicate his view. And just as in our society there are native and foreign language specialists, so in his society there would be specialists for each type of linguistic and non-linguistic communication alternative.
Language changes as we change the meaning of its component terms. Hence, every language has a certain "terminology" (=the study of language terms), including not only grammar and syntax, but also a history of term-bound meanings. By "term-bound" the author means the historical meaning of terms which give language a historical meaning even apart from contemporary, localized, or altered meanings. For example, the use of the term "man" to refer to both men and women in English may signify the dominance over time of male symbols in the English language. As a result, even the most self-consciously feminist use of the term "man" to refer to both men and women, in the end conveys a gender-bias through the medium used to express such presumed inclusivity.
Language is term-bound to the extent that its component terms are dressed with certain meanings by people who used them in the past. Although the meaning of these terms may be no longer shared, remembered, or understood, it continues to shape our understanding at least at the subconscious level. We conclude that what meanings people came to accept or change depends on their first assumptions at the time. Although language may sometimes seem to consist of an independent stream of meaningful terms, originally all such terms were human-defined, and therefore human-dependent.
As world interpreters, humans can't hope to convey textually their interpretations without constantly redefining their terms to fit the horizon ahead which their changing first assumptions require (see chapter on First Assumptions). The same that was just said about human use of language-terms, may be said about the use of non-linguistic means in interpretation. For example, in their artistic interpretation of the world humans should be careful not to be so influenced by, to paraphrase Gadamer, the history of artistic interpretations as to become impervious to "ahistorical," as yet unknown, or "unreal" possibilities.
A language-centered psychology may fence communication possibilities inside only linguistic parameters, and therefore limit the human ability to imagine how non-linguistic communication works. If seen from the perspective of non-linguistic communication possibilities, it may be said that the lack of language may free humans to pursue the possibility of interacting non-linguistically. For example, freed from the conception of language as the "only," most advanced, or most human-like communication tool, humans may begin to communicate more frequently with other animals by emulating their communication styles. Again this doesn't mean that humans must "lose" their language before they can communicate non-linguistically, but only that having a language may also act as a communication "blinder" to how much more "communication" they can have. In fact, if the great variety of mythical characters who are said to have managed to communicate with other world-parts is any indication of humans' ability to communicate, then it may be surmised that over time humans sacrificed their ability to communicate with the world, to their ability to use language. Witness the numerous heroes in almost all of the world's great mythologies who communicated not only with other animals, but also other parts of nature, such as, mountains, stars, or the sun.
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