The current war can be deflated by simply rounding out the one-sided rhetoric on which warring beliefs thrive.

Believers on each side of a dispute too often assume that they have cornered the whole truth about whatever issue; whereas the tricky structure of language obviously allows no more than the garnering of partial truths through the selection of words amounting to sheer opinion. A closer approximation toward whole truth can be effected when these selections from both sides are combined by complementary compromise. Even then, these selections add up to far less than everything that conceivably could be said about the issue at hand.

A discussion between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Leon Panetta -- on CSPAN in June 2004 -- pointed out a common need for understanding better how language actually works within this Jeffersonian Marketplace of Ideas. Hillary said she was raised a Republican (like me). She too had been disenchanted -- during the 60's -- as radical "right" wingers took over the party with a self-righteous attitude: "our way or the highway."

The marketplace works best, of course, when both liberals and conservatives respect the obvious need for honest compromise. Genuine conservatives provide a cautionary "anchor" for the newfangled notions of liberals. The interplay maintains an even keel for human maturation into realms of expanding truth.

BUSH-LEAGUE HALF-TRUTHS

The President practices transparently an old trick of lawyers and politicians. They "spin" fragmentations known popularly as "half-truths" favoring their side of whatever story. Bush enumerates "good" reasons for his environmental and foreign policies, for example; but dances around an elephant-in-the-room testifying that both are catastrophic failures.

Modern civilization is demanding more honesty from advocates about the rest of whatever story. (American prosecutors are now required, for example, to disclose evidence favorable to criminal defendants.)

National political and religious controversy still muddles-through though on clever fragmentations of truth. Impetuous partisans and believers demonstrate this disgrace daily (dodging the obvious). Their skill at manipulating language exposes how exquisitely ripe it is for exploitation.

Clever "flaks" can twist around references to events obviously refuting their cause into flowering revelations of its brilliance. At best they fudge the truth. At worst they lie shamelessly between their teeth.

People fail to catch on easily. They get so absorbed with the beguiling suggestibility of language itself that they start witnessing everything (myopically) through a screen of words. It is well to remind them that there are real events beyond the labels. (As linguist Ludwig Wittgenstein was reportedly fond of saying, to paraphrase: words cannot directly determine any more of reality than their own syntactical arrangements.)

Language obviously provides a separate and only approximated picture of reality (re-created rather "fictionally"). Folks get tempted though by the hypnotic spell words weave to suppose that language imparts everything they need to know; whereas it seemingly suggests only starters for understanding reality. Words thus are mere pointers toward what to look for out there.

Language carries furthermore some structural peculiarities which could well surprise devoted addicts to its mesmerizing effect. It is a very tricky gift from nature which is dangerously difficult to learn (as probably symbolized by reference in the mighty mythology of GENESIS to a "forbidden fruit").

First off, language in tandem with traditional logic has led western civilization (especially) into regressive tendencies which have perpetuated some rather nasty habits of xenophobic thinking.

The western "exclusionary" logic of either/ or (this or that) has prompted us to imaginatively "dissect" the world and label the parts for detailed examination. So far so good. However, we have become habituated, in the process, to pick and choose between all-or-nothing polarizations like "black or white with no gray" and "all-good or all-evil." (Leading divisively to "us versus them.")

Elementary western logic is thus incomplete. In America it has often fostered an official fondness for fragmenting truth grossly and missing  critical nuances between presumptuous labels (like "lazy") attached to the bulk of suffering humanity. Again, the overall tendency has been toward "either this or that." Official attitudes have consequently oscillated from one extreme to another --from the New Deal to neo-"conservative" severity, for example-- without reaching a Golden Mean of understanding between rich and poor; and between us and "others."

Bill Clinton did try for a "third way" during the 90's; which future historians might associate with movement toward an advanced logic devised by the German philosopher Hegel around two centuries ago. It shows how to reassemble our verbal fragmentations --and put the world back together-- by finally following nature's technique of building reality with triangulations. Hegel's system is still somewhat neglected though. Maybe this is attributable in part to the turgid prose he employed; and/ or civilization simply has not been ready for his massive reversal of analytic disintegration.

* * *

Author's Note: All the little essays in this Report condense my main website suggesting--practically--how to think more comprehensively with and beyond language. Illustrations are inserted to supplement literal narrations with pictorial presentations of symbolic truth; pursuant to an overall purpose to stimulate holistic thought--beyond the talkative "left-brain" now dominating human consciousness.

* * *

Anyway Hegel's advanced logic, developed below, points out a crucial limitation of language. It now seems impossible to state whole truths with mere words.

This limitation follows inexorably from the Hegelian "triangulation" of partial truths which people formulate (selectively) in choppy words. Therefore, everything we allege and believe in words states an explicit thesis.

The special surprise for one-sided partisans and believers is that each thesis inevitably implies a reverse proposition identifiable as antithesis. Thesis and antithesis then combine naturally--rather like the separate visions of each human eye--into a synthesis.

This product is still incomplete. Each synthesis becomes in turn a thesis--inviting antithesis--and so forth into new rounds of rhetorical refinement that apparently never reach whole truth. (Ample flexibility is thereby afforded for partisans and believers to work with in passing off partial as whole truth; with fraudulent finality.)

A further proviso can be remembered from long ago. Under Plato's Riddle of the Line--books 6 & 7 (REPUBLIC)--our lower (verbal) faculties can generate no more than "conjecture and belief." They add up to sheer opinion about reality external to language.

It turns out thus that all those vociferous advocates--from politicians and pundits through preachers to professors--are literally talking through their "hats." This leaves a lot of leeway for us their attentive listeners to make up our own minds about whatever reality teaches.

Plato's "Line" Riddle challenges everyone indeed to consult for that purpose some "higher" faculties in neglected recesses of each mind provided by natural biology. He called these (essentially non-verbal resources) "reason and understanding." They are ripe for much more pragmatic usage--amounting to universally rational common sense--for individual maturation toward a promised Good Life (postulated by Plato as the mind-focusing goal of his REPUBLIC).

The evident key is to disentangle oneself from linguistic complications. They have trained each person, among whatever additional functions, to think beyond language. Anyone can normally get "outside" of linguistic tedium--with simple reflection and natural meditation--long enough to finally witness whole truths unfolding out there in the obvious panoramic of nature.

These universal truths can thereupon be translated back into words, albeit with their choppy limitations, for purposes of invigorating more honest conversations than those currently constituting a norm of fragmented banality. Again though, the really big truths cannot be reduced fully to words.

They can still suggest better ideas than currently forthcoming from talkers so involved in "semantics" that they rarely pause to think about whatever is really being said in conversation. They are usually too busy arguing tirelessly--typically out of contextual focus upon immediate reality--about choices of words and their "proper" definition; from which dispositive lessons supposedly flow.

Photo Credit: Unknown

All of this unnecessary preoccupation with beguiling language dulls the development of those "higher" faculties. They potentially enable folks to feel and look right-at reality; as well as picking it to pieces with words. Of course we routinely deploy these innate abilities every day--as more or less undeveloped--in response notably to felt needs for "aesthetic" and fleshly pleasures, to tie together loose ends left by language; and rather desperately for sheer survival.

These responses remain rather rudimentary, however; typically transpiring at a virtually subconscious level of the mind. The nascent abilities can be developed nonetheless into conscious awareness of inborn methods for thinking and communicating more effectively. Almost everyone is equipped by nature to do this.

Each citizen can thereby crystallize (from the subconscious mind) a heightened capacity to criticize the one-sided rhetoric currently flowing from fancy persuaders. This massive mania mainly manages to mix everyone up. The murkiest muck is ripe for raking as demagogic propaganda: political, religious and "commercial" (slick, sly and sleazy).

Currently the fanciest talkers can still fool the people (part of the time anyway). They will remain gullible--notably to gossipy hearsay--until the natural ability to think responsibly for oneself is unlimbered at-large.

That in gist is the role ordained by nature for maturing individuals--equipped with requisite sociability--amounting to savvy citizenship; which is the key cog envisioned classically since Plato for a functioning New Republic. Then, to partially paraphrase poet Robert Burns:

However crowns and coronets be rent, a virtuous populace will rise

the while to stand a wall of "fire" (symbolizing "truth")

around their much-loved isle of earth . . .

Highland View, Scotland © Sylvia Kennedy
Scotland the Brave

© Jim McCord
July 4, 2004

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