The Limits of Our Words
Click on the image above to play the video (flip your phone to widescreen if you want image to be bigger)
The Limits of Our Words
This week, I am reflecting on language. I have always been drawn to people who have the ability to nail it—to accurately and surgically capture the idea we all are grasping for. When you hear someone communicate what you are feeling deeply, you enter a state of joy, harmony, and understanding. This is why poetry, music, and the arts continue to be such an essential place for discovery and human development.
Before I dive in, I want to be clear about what language is not. Words are powerful, but words are not actions. Saying something is, of course, not the same as doing something. And I want to be very clear about that distinction. But in this post, I want to recognize the importance of language as a way of accurately understanding something. Without the right description, it is very difficult to design the proper prescription. In other words, if we don't know where we are going, any road will take us there. Language can help us define what our souls are crying out to do and help us create more effective habits and actions to take us there. It is, in part, why I find myself so drawn to TED. The speakers so often harness the power of language to help us to find purpose and inspiration within ourselves
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
I want to particularly reflect on the word ‘education’ and what it has come to represent. Education, to most people, has to do with the acquisition and mastery of knowledge. Like many of our English words, it has Latin roots, coming from "to know" or "to learn". However, there are many words in other languages that are used for slightly different types of learning and knowledge. In my home country of Sweden, we often talk about bildning or folkbildning, and in Germany, I know this same word is Bildung.
The difference is that bildning encompasses not only your own acquisition of knowledge, but also a more broad aspect of "cultural formation". Our ability to know "together". I believe our current cultural crisis is partly due to an excessively self-centered notion of knowledge. Yes, it is absolutely essential and important for all individuals to learn and acquire knowledge. But it also seems very important for us to collectively manifest and use this knowledge in ways that move our public and shared interests forward in productive ways. Higher Education for a Higher Purpose—or something to that effect.
There is a beautiful word used in some African cultures called Ubuntu. It is typically referred to as: "I am because of we are". It's a way of life and underpins the notion of an open society. Said another way, it manifests "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity".
Another way to think about the limits of education is in terms of contract vs covenant. I fear education in our current understanding is more of a contract between a buyer and a seller. It's more about transactional value. I know this. You get that. There is of course nothing wrong with that. It's valuable and important to be clear about what parties bring to any relationship. So, it is necessary. But certainly not sufficient. A covenant is broader, bigger, and involves both more time, people, and space. It's more spiritual and multi-dimensional in nature.
I believe that Education is one of those words that has unintentionally imposed limits that need to be dismantled—or at least redefined and better understood. Learning from more expansive definitions of education, like Folkbildning, Bildung or Ubuntu, is certainly helpful and inspiring.
I will end with a quote that shaped my own thinking on education many years ago. It brought chills to me then and does it still to this day.
"I am survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness. Gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot and killed by high school and college graduates. So I'm suspicious of education. My request is: help your students to be human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, or educated Eichmanns. Reading and writing and spelling and history and arithmetic are only important if they serve to make our students human."
Haim Ginott
There are 2 particular podcasts that inspired me to go deeper on language and deeper on education.
One is this great Oprah interview with Brené Brown on "linguistic granularity" that I loved. It speaks to the importance and value of finding the right words.
And the other is this incredible conversation with Tim Ferriss and Russ Roberts. This is a true gem that I might have to return to. It covers a range of topics from a deep dive on marriage to scientism (Hayek's the Pretense of Knowledge which basically discusses the things we know and the things we think we know but that aren't true). Really recommend this conversation and Russ's new book.
There we have it. Our collective world is somewhat falling apart. Or, at least our ability to have civil and kind conversations about what we know, what we disagree on, and where we can find a middle ground. By expanding and redefining how we educate ourselves and creating room for how to improve our common good as part of our definition of knowledge, would make us all better off. Don’t you think?
Have a great week!
