Our Language is fuXX0rd #327

[omorka]

There is, or at least used to be, a movement that went by the name of General Semantics. They're a quirky little group with politics somewhere just to the left of the Objectivists, among other things. But their big idea is that they're against inductive reasoning; it's deductive reasoning or nothing. For that reason, they're also against metaphorical thinking and language, to the point that the consider the word "is" harmful.

While I don't find the GS people's theories themselves to be particularly palatable (needless, I hope, to say, as I personally find metaphor to be one of my most powerful tools for dealing with the world), I am finding the meta-idea of critiquing the memetic structures embedded in and unconsciously transmitted by the structure of our language to be particularly instructive today. I suppose another way to say it is that I'm in a Whorfian mood.

Oh, right, my particular gripe. Sorry about that.

I happened to run into the (obvious) observation that "ownership" is (merely, although I should know better than to use that word) a social construct, not a natural fact about things in two separate places recently. It then collided with my previous complaint about the reification of sex, which is itself mixed up with ownership. When the dust settled, I was left with the realization that we force the possessive form, in English, to do all sorts of work that has nothing to do with "ownership" - but because we use the possessive to do it, the idea of ownership gets all mixed up with these other uses.

In particular, we use "mine" (or "your," or "their," or . . .) to denote a state of relationship. Now, in some cases - "my child," "his wife" - the relationship has historically been pretty close to ownership. But there are plenty of cases where that historical context does not apply: "your friend," "her boss," "my father," "my king," "my god." But as long as we use that language, there is an ownership-meme embedded in the very terms we use to describe relationship-between-people - which is, in my way of thinking at least, the farthest thing possible from ownership. This is one of the reasons I try to say "the Spouse" rather than "my spouse" or, worse, "my husband." However, doing this all the time sounds stilted at best, and it's not always applicable.

Arrrgh . . .

This is aside from my growing conviction that ownership is a pernicious meme in and of itself, especially as applied to things that are not individual nonliving physical objects, seeing how it appears to be the source of a great deal of bizarre and harmful thinking. I think I'll have to go into that later, though.

Comments

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

Without the word "is," how do they define any rudimentary concepts upon which deductions are based?

Though the possessives do denote ownership, they more widely denote relations. I make this distinction because abstract concepts are not necessarily owned (e.g. my idea, his hope, her anger)

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I've seen an argument related to this before, a long time ago and I don't recall exactly where I saw it. But the argument was something to the effect that relational-ownership words had many nuances, and the difference in nuance between "my wife" and "my boots" was both critical and easy to obscure. It went on to talk about the attitude in (some) very young children that "my teddy bear" doesn't just mean "the bear that belongs to me," it means "the bear I can pull to pieces if I like," and that remnants of this attitude have a lot of bearing on abusive relationships in general.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I think that bears on my general dissatisfaction with "ownership" as a concept right now, too. In my experience, at least recently, the common idea of ownership is that second one. It seems to me that a better common concept would be something along the lines of "the bear I am responsible for" - something close to stewardship (except without the idea that someone "higher" than the speaker is the actual owner).

This will get its own entry when I've hashed through it a little bit more.

[kansas-dave.livejournal.com]

This is interesting.

1. Why is "my husband" worse than "my spouse"?

2. The word "my" often implies ownership. I believe one common exception is its use in stating the speaker's relationships to other people. When I say, "my boss," I mean the person who is a boss in relation to me, not the boss I own. Although, if I did own a boss, that person would also be "my boss." There are definately situations where "my" makes ownership unclear. Is "my judge" the one judging my case, or the one I paid for, or both?

From Merriam-Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary:
My: of or relating to me or myself esp. as possessor, agent or object of an action <~ car> <~ promise> <~ injuries>

[omorka.livejournal.com]

1) Because bibulb and I are spouses. Using the terms "husband" and "wife" to describe us and our relationship to each other is unhelpful at best and deeply misleading at worst. It implies a set of gender roles and a power differential that either aren't there or, in some areas, actually swing the other way; for example, my income is almost twice his. In a number of ways, if one of us is the "wife," it's him, not me. But for the most part, those terms simply don't describe our relationship at all. While "spouse" isn't perfect, it at least avoids the minefield.

2) I'm not sure if you're arguing against what I said or just restating it from a slightly different point of view; could you clarify?

[kansas-dave.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, although I think the language is troubling because it exists in parallel with an actual sense of ownership that many people feel towards their partners, as demonstrated by jealousy.

[theoldone.livejournal.com]

My First introduction to the Institute for Genera Semantics was when I read The World of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt. It was an SF Classic with practitioners of General Semantics (Null A) cast in the Nietzsche superman role. I wonder if I can still find that book in my library.