The Tower of Babel... or is that Babble... the demise of the collective dialog

[ixion]

"In an insane society, the sane man must appear insane."

               -- Captain Kirk, from Star Trek


It has been coming on for quite some time now. By 'it' I mean the fracturing of our collective dialog.

What's a "collective dialog", you may ask? The collective dialog is a hyper-conversation, if you will, that provides meta-data context to our physical dialog. Physical dialog is like the conversation you had with someone the other day, or when you watch the news. One of the primary purposes of the collective dialog is to act as a benchmark in the exchange. An example of this is that two people look at a chair, and they can both agree that what they perceive has the Quality of being Chair-like. Aristotle called this the meson or middle term. That is, there are two extremes in any conversation (called: akron), with this meson, this "shared-term" (a chair is a chair) mediating the exchange.

Since the permutation of the news establishment from Information providers into Infotainment vaudevillians, I've watched in horror as the collective dialog was tainted and maligned by what is commonly known as "spin".

Spin has effectively eliminated the common ground from our conversation, and, in my opinion, is the core of our current dilemma. How can there be rational dialog if there is no "middle-term" to persist parity in the conversation? Simple answer: there can be no rational dialog in this case.

Why?

Well, we need look no further than the average press release from the administration, need look no further than *'s last speech, need look no further than FOX "news".

For example:

"We're at 'war' with 'terrorists'"

Now, for this sentence to have real meaning in a conversation, the two parties must both agree on what a 'war' is and what a 'terrorist' is in order for there to be an accurate exchange of information, in order to move the debate forward in a rational manner. If the two parties cannot agree on what constitutes a 'war', if one party introduces an alternative definition into the collective dialog it obscures the debate (the debate becomes the definition of the word) and worse, it can take centuries to work it's way out.

Centuries, if at all.

What has happened is that a group of people in positions of power have managed to fracture the meson. There is no longer consensus on what constitutes a 'war', nor what constitutes 'terrorists'. Further, core concepts like 'freedom', 'liberty', 'security', 'compassion' and on and on have been corrupted in a similar manner by this process. There exists now, for all intents and purposes, two or more mesons.

The Tower of Babel has been shattered, once again.

It is the plurality of these middle-terms that make conducting an intelligent conversation virtually impossible these days, and has led to the definition of a sub-group quaintly labeled "the reality-based community".

As opposed to the fantasy-based, of course.

The redefinition of these middle-terms has become known as 'Framing the Debate', and it is a dangerous and silly game, yet like chronic gamblers, we remain at the table and continue to play. The longer we play, the worse the situation becomes. That is, the more constructs that are re-defined or questioned by this group, the longer it will take to repair, if we're able to repair it at all.

We need to stop the childish indulgence of framing constructs to match the argument. It is causing irreparable harm to our collective dialog, and serves only to move our species closer to extinction.

Admittedly, accomplishing this will be next to impossible thanks to folks at Big Media, Inc, who continue to foul the waters to this day.

We have to try, though, so allow me to start: There is no such thing as a 'war' on a concept like 'terror' or 'drugs'. Dismissing that popular colloquialism as an illogical fallacy would be a grand first step towards rebuilding the Tower of Babel now lying in ruins at our feet.

[Igel]

1. I'd argue that the big media outlets are parasitic in this regard.

I had a long version of my post. Here's the condensed one. :crazy:

The US media are parasites. They have a way of making money, of being economically viable, and that has only increased since the early '80s. By then discourse had effectively broken down in the US (it began to collapse by the late '60s at the very latest), although this break-down was largely masked; with the collapse of a small number of nearly monopolistic mainstream media sources there was no longer the need or even the opportunity to make reference to those sources. Until then, I suspect one *had* to take CBS/NBC/ABC terminology and assumptions into account, and they provided handy landmarks and references even if you despised them.

One can posit various reasons for this. Intergenerational conflict, empowerment of previously silent (or less vocal) groups, a change in the class composition of the political power elite. Whatever.

I think American politics has often been compartmentalized by region or ethnic/social group. But in most cases, unless they were clearly dominant by a wide margin, they had to be aware that other groups existed and needed to have their views taken into account. It was the same as in my family when I was growing up: We'd fight one night but nonetheless we'd be civil the next morning, at least 99% of the time, and ignore what was said the night before--we knew that alone we'd all lose and we simply had to get along, at least until the next big row. I don't think we believe we have to get along anymore, either in my family or in society.

Grice pointed out some fundamental generalizations in English communication--what all reasoned and reasonable discourse and dialog in English displays--just about all of them founded on the "cooperative principle" in one way or another (as he and his followers put it; you can recast his views in other frameworks, if you feel the need). These generalizations crucially fail when the relationship at hand is openly adversarial and hostile--say in diplomatic negotiations, in court, in political stump speeches, or when purchasing a used car. However, most people know that the assumptions fail and take pains to be so explicit that any lack of overt good-will shown by the adversary can only be interpreted as blatant ill-will (note that being so explicit in routine, friendly conversation is also an act of ill-will or pedantry). However, these generalizations increasingly fail in US politics, and not just formal politics--but also in discussions around water coolers, newspaper articles, and conversations over lunch. This applies in all sorts of ways--preferred reading of (partial) quotes, attribution of ill-will and non-cooperation for partisan reasons--and in places where the only *reasonable* assumption is that cooperativeness applies, but nobody wants to apply it. Now, assuming that there is no cooperativeness in a discourse leads to responses that do little more than shut down communication. Take your example, a paragon of reasonableness and moderation on the surface, but dripping with a discourse-ending denial that cooperativeness has a place in discourse even as you claim to want increased discourse ...

Metonymy is a common enough figure. There are two common examples. "The British crown" as a volitional agent that can issue edicts and make pronouncements, and "head of cattle" as things that moo and walk and crap. But the British crown has, in fact, been an inanimate, mute, non-volitional object, and opposition to the British crown is no more sensible than being in opposition to my grandad's fedora; and if you say you have 10000 head of cattle you usually don't mean that you have piles of cow heads without the rest of the critters attached. If you do mean "opposition to a style of headgear" or "possession of cow heads"--or you assume that these are the only things that "opposition to the British crown" or "having 10000 head of cattle" could possibly mean, you've shown an unawareness of metonymy, and this is usually taken as snarkiness (at a minimum), doltishness (at times), or open hostility. Metonymy's been noted for as long as we have records of human language, it's up there with polysemy and metaphor (and some would argue this isn't a coincidence). Suddenly denying at least the last 5000 years of human linguistic ability isn't an act that displays anything Grice would label 'good will', the basis for anything that approaches civilized discourse.

Note that it takes nearly no cognitive or intellectual effort to avoid confusing metonymy with a category error. Actually, for the most part, I suspect an effort is needed to confuse the two, unless relevant background knowledge is utterly lacking. It's not really a linguistic problem, or cognitive problem, and most certainly not a logical problem: It's a motivational problem, a political problem, a Gricean problem, plausibly (but not necessarily) done for a purpose that has little to do with enhancing political discourse between the two (or more) sides.

Edited to repair misedits.

[ixion]

2. Indeed. Parasites of the most vulgar order

And as long as they continue to 'spin' reality, a rational dialog will never be possible. I agree with you on their specious use of metonymy. According to my old critical theory prof, we've entered a semantic epoch, where things are words. Such leverage in this epoch reduces to the collective dialog to a series of meaningless sound bits and slogans, devoid of any real substance.

I can relate to how it was in your family. It was the same way in mine, although it has become difficult to maintain that protocol over the past 7 years. But prior to the onset of the new Barbarianism, we were able to have rational, albeit heated, discussions and while we may disagree, we didn't let that affect our relationship.

There is a purpose to this obfuscation, I'm sure, and my bet is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with good will, and much more to do with the concentration of power.