... those who believe that there are only two types of people and those who do not!
When sexologists say there are six genders, they are referring to a way to classify and thus begin a conversation about gender. All the language we use can be considered Cartesian in that when we use a word we have a general (or specific) idea of what the word means and what we are trying to communicate. By using one word instead of another we hope that the word we use is translated by the receiver in the same way that was meant by us when we said it. Going back to Chomsky who says (and I believe) that language has progressed as an evolutionary process, so we can see that in some way we have always been Cartesian. Language for humanity has brought fourth the ability to have reason, with this is a feedback loop where more reason gives more specific language which lets us do more reasoning... ad infinitum. Alongside this process is the biological process of brain development, which gives us an evolutionary advantage. Our ability to reason is our key to our survival. Now, because we have an excess of food and natural resources, we have the opportunity to not use reason. And there will be no death penalty for not using reason, most animals in the wild will die when their ideas do not match reality. Not us. We can go on surviving, at least for a little while. Now that our language has become so complex, we can contradict ourselves, we can invent semantic paradoxes, we can believe in things that are unreasonable on purpose. At least for a little while, until reality comes crashing down around us and we are caught worshiping a sacred image of our unreasonable god on a grilled cheese sandwich and forgetting everything we've learned or bombing each other into oblivion because our imaginary friend is the "true" god instead of creating a happy healthy sustainable society based on reason.
I'm glad you brought up the sustainability question. I've kind of been thinking about it the opposite way–that it's our desire for reason/use/production that causes the kind of expenditure that gets us into trouble (fossil fuels, production of nukes, or similarly, homophobia, desire to cut ambiguous genitalia, etc). The past century has been us telling ourselves being "reasonable" as consumers and producers and look where that got us. Maybe it is will be our freedom from the kind of thought that forces us to make use/understanding of everything that will let us have the "happy healthy society".
ReplyDeleteI've found that I believe that Cartesian-ism evolved as a necessity with the evolution of language, as you do. What I'm less sure of, however, is whether or not it leads to a the creation of a more reasonable world. I think that by dividing things into separate categories and labeling everything, we often loose sight of how things work together. The bigger picture, as it were.
ReplyDeleteI think that Cartesian-ism is absolutely necessary for our development as a species, and certainly for the advancement of science, but I don't think it is what will necessarily be what brings about an all around better world. Far too many other factors go into that concept for there to be such a clear-cut answer.