LanguageIsHolistic

ThoughtStorms Wiki

Context: FreedomOfSpeech, LinguisticIntelligence

A thought that occurred to me in the context of the debate on TheLeftAndArabNationalism about whether it's possible to express sympathy with the victims of Hamas terrorism without this becoming fuel for Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

It also reminds me of the argument made on FreedomOfExpressionVsFeministCondemnationOfPornography that porn is actually attack on women's freedom to express themselves because it subtly changes what women's words mean.

Many of the "counter-intuitive" ideas appearing on the left, that are heavily attacked by the right, are often driven by the deeper intuition that language is holistic. That words and ideas AREN'T fully independent or self-contained, but that context shapes their meaning, that other words shape their meaning.

So is language "holistic" in this sense? I would say it obviously is. And a great many counter-intuitive consequences flow from this.

A long time ago I tried to push back against this with the idea of a DefenceAgainstPostModernism

Today I'm not sure I believe it could work. But it might be still worth trying.