English -- Context: the Great Divide
How did we get here? I have my theories. The following is basically a rant.English is a form of brainwashing, it's a language based on context, and people get used to translating words in their minds upon hearing them because of this. How unfair! It's a language that gives the human mind WAY too much credit. And the Tea Party is the latest evidence of this. Were the originators of English creating a language they knew would effect human thought in this fashion? Probably not, however this became built-in over time as the English language evolved. And this built-in “functionality” was based on a certain level of sophistication of the people speaking it. For instance, the word "consumer" get's translated to "buyer" or "shopper" in most American's minds automatically and adopts those contexts upon translation. The translated term isn't offensive or negative at all. The connotation assumes it's simply referring to a person who is interested in purchasing goods. However, when you refer to the word consume, perhaps in the way a hill of red ants consuming a human corpse, it becomes a negative. It's not the fact that these words exist or even the fact that they mean different things, it's completely dependent upon their usage and the intellectual level of the mind receiving it, which is the problem. Without a basic intellectual sophistication that involves translating word's meanings from their basic forms into their contextual forms, the word tends to mean whatever the human mind that is receiving it understands it to mean based on their level of sophistication and experience.This is understood when a professor “talks down” to a delivery man, but the web has altered this dichotomy. Anyone adept to Google is now a “professor” in many instances. Knowledge is now freely available, yet a large minority has either chosen to cherry pick from the web or simply ignore it, and in turn is left behind in this knowledge spreading revolution. But seemingly, not to their dismay, as they remain completely unaware they have been deceived.
[assholes: fox & drudge use the medium to lie to people and cater to their ignorance]We "consume" media, but in the context of human beings, that's fine. But how those ants consumed that corpse, is just gross. Context IS the language. So this explains our current political problems in America. Both sides are ostensibly speaking 2 different languages. Every rational thought is getting lost in translation due to partisanship and experience but mostly, lately false prophets, like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh lying their asses off over the free airwaves.
Context is a form of interpretation, and interpretation is based on each individual's personal experiences, and surroundings. So when Obama says one thing and clearly means it because of HIS context, yet his opposition HEARS another thing based on THEIR context, THEY have the fallacious point of view, since the speaker has the RIGHT to SET the context. Obama is the speaker, his critics in order to remain intellectually honest, need to remain true to the context set by the originator. If they wish to apply their own experiences, they must at first disclaim this and acknowledge that they understand the context in which the topic has been framed. Otherwise, one has no choice but to assume they are severely biased and in effect unreliable. So effectively radio personalities of dishonest quality such as Glenn Beck, display on a daily basis a fallacious argument when he alters the context of the language someone he opposes has set. This makes him simply wrong by default. He is wrong from the onset, because of basic framing flaws. Some would suggest because of further logical flaws, but that is another discussion. (the only reason I gave any weight to Beck is because this thought is targeted directly at his consituency, not that they'd ever read into that)
However, he's been so effective at setting a false context, that unsophisticated minds which are predisposed to believing such fallacies tend to agree. But they not only agree, they become stoked and prodded into taking false actions. Actions such as allowing racial discrimation to become legal in Arizona. This is where America is in 2010 in late April. Racism still valid, yet the medium of mass communication does exist just only in a pull mechanism.
Who out there has a push Internet? What geniuses are there that can invent a way to push messaging to ignorant minds?
If you have it, come forward, you're the newest billionaire and at the same time a philanthropist.
-BP
