Conceptual Landscapes and Shapes
July 25, 2010 | Filed Under Small Talk
I’ve recently gone through a long set of experiences that have raised an important question in my mind.
For the most part, I’m an empiricist in the spirit of Locke and Hume, in the sense that I believe that the most salient aspects of our conceptual landscape are shaped by our environment. Yes, I believe that there are innate constraints imposed by biology. Our brains have tendencies and limits.
But within the constraints of biology, there is quite the tabula rasa. A landscape of diverse possibility. Just because the blank slate has physical restrictions and limitations does not stop it from being a blank slate, ready to be impressed upon.
What I’m discovering through various friendships (there is no news here) is that people who have gone through radically different life experiences in radically different environments have radically different ways of thinking. Put more succinctly… people who speak the same language syntactically might communicate in different languages semantically. Frameworks for understanding and communicating can be so different that communication becomes impotent. Words are interpreted, but the meaning is distorted or completely lost.
No news. People speak past each other all the time. We are all hidden behind the veil of communication. No two people have the same conceptual landscape nor think with the same progression .. the same shapes.
What’s interesting to me… the question that really interests me here… is whether we can have control over the shape of our conceptual landscape, the structure in which our thoughts take place. Whether bridges can be built … between radically divergent frameworks. And I think the answer to this is clearly yes, with mutual commitment and hard work. But that leads me to an even more important question… are some conceptual frameworks more desirable, or say, better/noble/worthwhile than others? And the contrast… are some ways of thinking destructive, deadening dead ends that we should avoid.
I taught over 20 philosophy courses at various universities. One of the fundamental principles of my teaching was that there are better ways of thinking and relating to the world than others. I tried to hold students accountable to their humanity, their rationality, their emotions, their Universe. A hard task in a post-modern world of extreme egalitarian relativism.
What I’ve discovered lately is that in trying to bridge conceptual frameworks, it is not all that difficult to poison the well… to go in a negative direction.
What you find when you look around America is a homogeneous culture flooded with stereotypes and simple rules of thought and primitive shapes that keep people imprisoned … lonely, shameful, empty, lacking direction.
The tough question is this: do you choose to better your own soul and sacrifice the ability to communicate/relate to the average person or do you choose to expose your soul to the toxins of the mainstream. In reality it’s probably not an either or, just a matter of finding proper balance. Nonetheless…
Isolation sucks. But so does the mind-numbing naivety of the mainstream. No easy choice. No easy answer. No easy balance.
Related posts:
Comments
Leave a Reply
