Next time I'll just say "explain yourself"

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 31 Jul 2002, 22:29 · from urth-v0208.mbox · original

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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Subject: RE: (urth) Next time I'll just say "explain yourself"
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 15:29:52 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0208-1500 at digest.urth.net>
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Andy Robertson quoting Josh Geller quoting...

> > > Only in Orwell's 1984 (and arguably in some SF books=20
> > > written since then) does this concept of total
> > > linguistic replacement arise.

> > Really?
> >
> > When was the last time you used the word 'nigger' in conversation?

> Again, not relevant, though pithy.  Some words can be cut=20
> out, but it's not the same thing as the massive restructuring
> Orwell was diagramming

No; but the much larger removal of _all_ such epithets=20
from polite conversation comes a lot closer.

As for granting Orwell primacy in this matter, well, that's
pretty silly. There is a longish history of people claiming=20
one way or another that the structure of language determines=20
the structure of thought, or actively trying to restructure=20
thought through some such "massive restructuring" of language;=20
one well-known (at least in SF circles) example, published a=20
good fifteen years before NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, is Alfred=20
Korzybski's SCIENCE AND SANITY, which promises improved health=20
(both phyisical and mental; indeed, it denies the distinction=20
in favor of the "more general" concept of psychosomatic health)=20
to persons who restructure their language (though, again=20
"language" is an insufficient term) "scientifically," in lines=20
with "non-Aristotelean principles and tool" such as=20
"non-identfication" and "indexing." Many students of Korzybski's=20
"General Semantics" speak and write (or try to) in what they=20
call E', E-Prime, which is English without the verb "to be,"=20
which (they claim, or at least some of them do) _automatically_=20
eliminates identification ... and if that isn't restructuring
the language, I'd like to know what is!

More generally, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the basic statement
of linguistic determinism, was first announced in 1929, though
it has predecessors going back hundreds of years, of which=20
perhaps the best known would be Wilhelm von Humboldt's=20
_weltanschauung_ hypothesis: but I believe the roots of the idea
go back to Plato, if not further.

--Blattid

--=20

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