Common Sense and Words

Regarding language there are at least a few of us who believe that words come after we visualize or imagine connections. Those of us who grew up practically illiterate and struggled for words to describe external realities as well as feelings have a greater sense of the truth of this than some others.

Words are tools that we use to express ideas. Because words are abstractions they can mean different things to different people.

We have a problem with words as soon as we go beyond immediate and local specifics. If I say "you" or "me," there is no room for confusion. The word "hurt," on the other hand, is an abstraction, and clarification might be in order.

Our points of view are built on abstractions, some of them with shaky connections that would fall apart if the abstractions were improved. Some abstractions are not well understood by the user. The words "socialist" and "socialism" are examples. Some use the word "socialist" to describe believers in a capitalist welfare state. They are entitled to their own definition, but it is at odds with usage that has developed among many people who have studied the subject and its history.

Communication being the purpose of language, good communications might require definition. Definition is the breakdown of an abstraction into more specific components -- elementary and common sense but ignored in everyday life by people who don't think much about how best to communicate with others.

A problem arises too if a person ignores the shaky nature of ideas that everybody faces. Glenn Beck of Fox News, for example, has expressed certainty about a coming world catastrophe connected to the recent rising against the rule of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. With emotion and bravado, Beck describes his certainty as coming from his "gut" -- ignoring that this "gut" certainty of his is built upon a variety of abstractions.

The use of metaphors also creates confusion, to be discussed later under the title of Linguistic Wars. I just used the metaphor "shaky," which does not communicate as well as I would like it to -- but I'll leave you with it.

Perhaps I should describe what an abstraction is. It is a universal generalization. "Puppet master" is a two words abstraction that applies to all persons with a certain characteristic. Glenn Beck speaks metaphorically when he describes George Soros as a puppet master. George Soros is a specific. By "puppet master" he means that Soros is pulling the strings of a lot of actors (the abstraction) taking the world leftward politically or wherever. Beck is stretching the abstraction of "puppet master" to mean powers over a number of real people, a power that perhaps does not really exist and that should not be included in the definition of puppet master. It's Beck's free choice to use his broadened definition of the abstraction puppet master, but those trying to communicate clearly -- a political scientist perhaps -- would try using their head rather than their gut in order to avoid an erroneous concept.