By
Obododimma Oha
Some of us make the mistake of thinking that, because we share a language with somebody, maybe a native language, we are the same. This judgment which extends to ethnicity, religion, and other primordial forms of ingroupness, is a regrettable fallacy, a fallacy of sameness. It is also a sign of poor thinking and the open road to backwardness. It is why somebody in authority would prefer people from his or her village, religion, educational institution, club, etc in making special appointments as if only they have the ability to do what is appropriate.
The naivety in this kind of thinking could easily be seen in the fact those people preferred may not really mean well for us. They may be agents of Satan looking for our heads. In other words, they may have their own agenda to pursue, in that case, we are just naive tools asking to be used. And we are being used, surely.
Language is often used in inventing a common identity, but, to echo Benedict Anderson, identity remains tentative and fictional. It may even have the expressed and the unexpressed dimensions, the spoken and the unspoken trajectories. The expressed or spoken angle is superficial and may be altered later. The invention of identity is never final.
In using sameness of language in inventing identity, what governs judgment is sentiment. This sentiment can easily be displaced by another (stronger) one any time and so, like sleeping dogs snoring. sleeping emotions of language should be allowed to lie! Because sentiments determine our preference, the latter is not founded on something solid but a wavering, shaky foundation.
One who speaks the same language with us can fairly understand our sympathies and conspiracies and can use them against us. That the person speaks same language is not always an advantage, otherwise we can just dust our books and return to the Critical Thinking class before it is fully subscribed. That the person speaks same language with us invites us to be very wary in our discourse, instead of being one-track minded, simplistic, and terribly vulnerable. The point then is that we are very poor tacticians and logicians if we generalise that the ability to speak same language as we we do is an advantage on a person's curriculum vitae.
The sharing of a language not only exposes one to danger but also indicates how deep the person is ias a being designed for hostile imagination, the homo hostilis, as the social psychologist Sam Keen would say, and how ready the person is to practice discrimination and to disfavour non-speakers of the language. The homo hostilis is an enemy-making animal (as Keen argues) that can easily order the massacre of those in opposition and position self as the law.
The homo hostilis of language can manifest as a harmless practitioner of sudden shift of code, what is often called "code shifting." Although code can be shifted for other understandable reasons, it is sometimes done to please the person perceived as an insider of the code and to cut off the other non-user(s). So, in that case, the homo hostilis sees in it a useful discourse weapon against the other. In other words, every homo hostilis would like and justify the use of code-shifting!
You can see that sharing a language is getting more badges from the practitioner of discrimination. Now that some countries are sharing money and other things to alleviate the sufferings of the poor in the sit-at-home order by their home governments in the context of Coronavirus, a heartless practitioner of discrimination in government may use the speaking of same language in determining beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. Same for other welfare packages announced by the government. The welfare package may just be another site for discrimination, and what would make the discrimination look natural like linguistic discrimination?
We can see that presidents and prime ministers governing plural societies may shift in their seats when they hear this. But we should not be surprised. The main query is: Why favour one linguistic group out of the many in the country? Or, is that linguistic group the only one in the country?
I like the way that the US motto couches it, even if this yet to be actualised: E pluribus unum (Many-in-one or One out of many).There are many voices in that one voice being invented. One of the voices of the inventor-languages is not the only voice. To say that it is the only or the main voice is to look for trouble as a person of fallacy.
Obododimma Oha
Some of us make the mistake of thinking that, because we share a language with somebody, maybe a native language, we are the same. This judgment which extends to ethnicity, religion, and other primordial forms of ingroupness, is a regrettable fallacy, a fallacy of sameness. It is also a sign of poor thinking and the open road to backwardness. It is why somebody in authority would prefer people from his or her village, religion, educational institution, club, etc in making special appointments as if only they have the ability to do what is appropriate.
The naivety in this kind of thinking could easily be seen in the fact those people preferred may not really mean well for us. They may be agents of Satan looking for our heads. In other words, they may have their own agenda to pursue, in that case, we are just naive tools asking to be used. And we are being used, surely.
Language is often used in inventing a common identity, but, to echo Benedict Anderson, identity remains tentative and fictional. It may even have the expressed and the unexpressed dimensions, the spoken and the unspoken trajectories. The expressed or spoken angle is superficial and may be altered later. The invention of identity is never final.
In using sameness of language in inventing identity, what governs judgment is sentiment. This sentiment can easily be displaced by another (stronger) one any time and so, like sleeping dogs snoring. sleeping emotions of language should be allowed to lie! Because sentiments determine our preference, the latter is not founded on something solid but a wavering, shaky foundation.
One who speaks the same language with us can fairly understand our sympathies and conspiracies and can use them against us. That the person speaks same language is not always an advantage, otherwise we can just dust our books and return to the Critical Thinking class before it is fully subscribed. That the person speaks same language with us invites us to be very wary in our discourse, instead of being one-track minded, simplistic, and terribly vulnerable. The point then is that we are very poor tacticians and logicians if we generalise that the ability to speak same language as we we do is an advantage on a person's curriculum vitae.
The sharing of a language not only exposes one to danger but also indicates how deep the person is ias a being designed for hostile imagination, the homo hostilis, as the social psychologist Sam Keen would say, and how ready the person is to practice discrimination and to disfavour non-speakers of the language. The homo hostilis is an enemy-making animal (as Keen argues) that can easily order the massacre of those in opposition and position self as the law.
The homo hostilis of language can manifest as a harmless practitioner of sudden shift of code, what is often called "code shifting." Although code can be shifted for other understandable reasons, it is sometimes done to please the person perceived as an insider of the code and to cut off the other non-user(s). So, in that case, the homo hostilis sees in it a useful discourse weapon against the other. In other words, every homo hostilis would like and justify the use of code-shifting!
You can see that sharing a language is getting more badges from the practitioner of discrimination. Now that some countries are sharing money and other things to alleviate the sufferings of the poor in the sit-at-home order by their home governments in the context of Coronavirus, a heartless practitioner of discrimination in government may use the speaking of same language in determining beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. Same for other welfare packages announced by the government. The welfare package may just be another site for discrimination, and what would make the discrimination look natural like linguistic discrimination?
We can see that presidents and prime ministers governing plural societies may shift in their seats when they hear this. But we should not be surprised. The main query is: Why favour one linguistic group out of the many in the country? Or, is that linguistic group the only one in the country?
I like the way that the US motto couches it, even if this yet to be actualised: E pluribus unum (Many-in-one or One out of many).There are many voices in that one voice being invented. One of the voices of the inventor-languages is not the only voice. To say that it is the only or the main voice is to look for trouble as a person of fallacy.
Comments