Language and a Reality Divided

"Language is divisive. While, as a vehicle of communication, language unites the minds of the speakers, it separates the speakers from the very reality that they are communicating about. You see, every word is an attempt to describe, distinguish, define, separate, and isolate a certain aspect of reality. As tools of description, words are selective: they focus on one aspect of reality and ignore the rest; they divide and fragment the whole. It's as though the entire language tries to grasp the whole of reality but, like Edward Scissorhands, cuts everything it touches, dividing the oneness of reality into infinitesimal semantic parts one word at a time. But not all words cut the same: whereas some are scalpels of precision, others are meant for a butcher block."

Pavel Somov, Present Perfect, New Harbinger Publications, Inc., Oakland, 2010, p. 40.

I love language, but even I have to admit it has limitations.

By breaking reality into definable parts, we create an illusion of options or multiple realities, when in reality there is only one. A blanket may be described as warm or as scratchy, as blue or green. The mistake is to think there are four potential blankets: a warm one, a scratchy one, a green one, a blue one. It's just one warm and scratchy, blue and green blanket! Such a concrete example may seem obvious, but how often do we decide the person beside us on the bus is "crazy" or "brilliant", or that news item is about "justice" or "murder"? We also create distinctions between what we perceive should be, and give them equal weight to what really is.

Language also has the danger of oversimplifying our perception of reality to a few basic distinctions. Dr. Somov uses the example of "Newspeak" in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The more our language devolves into dichotomous this-or-not-this concepts, the less capable we are of perceiving subtleties and nuance. Our way of experiencing reality is reduced to one of extremes. Our only way to know how to react is also extreme. No one can question or challenge a particular concept without being lumped into the enemy's camp.

The greater the dichotomies, the more interpretations and concepts come preloaded on the terms. Ask a room full of people to jot down all the words they can think of when they hear the word "white". Then do the activity again with the word "black". Chances are, there will be many value-laden distinctions that go beyond just describing a colour. What comes to mind when you hear the words "Palestine" and "Israel"?

Sometimes we need to let language, and our obsessive need to categorize everything, go.

When you and I look at a rock, (or any other object of reality), I might think it's ugly and you might think it's beautiful. I can think I'm right and you are wrong. You might think you are right and I am wrong. Or we can both rise above our subjective interpretations and recognize the rock for what it is; a rock that can be perceived as both beautiful and ugly. It is the only truth where both of us can be right. At the same time, it is neither. Without our subjective judgments, it is a rock, such as it is.

Imagine if this concept were applied to global conflict. Instead of dichotomously dividing the world into "right" and "wrong", imagine if we put aside our subjective categorizations, and tried to see the undivided reality of the situation. Instead of seeing this side as "evil" and that side as "good", why not see both sides as a whole group of people trying to determine control over a piece of land; or maybe it's a people who have not let go of some historical hurt; or maybe the real issue is a shortage of resources for the population at hand. The reality of the situation is a culmination of all our subjective interpretations, and also none of them. It is what it is.

One cause of conflict is when we decide on an ideal that would have, could have or should have been that is different from the reality that is. Because we can imagine something different, we look for someone to blame for that ideal not being realized. We have one simplified way to interpret the situation; "It is wrong, because it doesn't match the ideal in my head."

But here is a different way to think about it; "I cannot change what is, right now. I can fully embrace the reality of what is right now, in order to change the future."

Tower of Babel