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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4077 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 5, 2023

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I just saw this video by Tom Scott on linguistic determinism, or the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.

"Does the language you speak change how you think?" This is the title of the video. And my answer is: Yes! Of course! Obviously! It's a concept I was aware of before, but always took it as a given. I didn't even think that it's a controversial position. But Tom calls it 'not serious' and "easily disprovable."

Usually I will find some snarky blog post or a racist Substack defending a widely rejected theory, but I have not been able to find anything using my usual search terms, eg. "In defense of..." etc.

What are the best essays, papers, and books in defense of linguistic determinism?

Just Look At the Germans. The way these minds are shackled by man-made categories was really obvious to me, as a foreigner from Spain:

  • In a charity I was volunteering, they made emphasis in having processes, structures, sub-groups responsible for categories of work. Sadly, despite this, not much got done.
  • Their morality is base on some concept of what is MORALLY CORRECT that doesn't leave much place for uncertainty. Sure, let's shut down nuclear plants and crippling the economy and industrial base, because it is MORALLY CORRECT. Let's vote for the Greens, because they are the MORALLY CORRECT party.
  • You wouldn't cross an empty street when the traffic light is red, even if you can see that there aren't any cars coming, because it wouldn't be MORALLY CORRECT
  • Look at the way Switzerland's nuclear weapons programme went: they established a subcomittee to study the possibility, and when that didn't work, they established a second subcomittee, which produced a report, which... you get the idea.
  • The way you learn math is by understanding a finite list of concepts and methods, going subject by subject
    • Rather than by having a problem and looking for an algorithm/tooling/approach which solves it.
  • To understand language and communication, you differentiate between sense and meaning; you seek to understand language by presenting categories for it.
  • Consider Javert from Les Miserables. He is hunting the sympathetic protagonist because he is A CRIMINAL, and criminals are DANGEROUS TO SOCIETY and must be BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.

In a stylized way, there is a common way of being amongst Germans which is something like, implicit Aristotelianism? There are categories, which are so robust that they need not be questioned, and which can be a source of comfort and security in this uncertain world. This is why we should choose a subcomittee to address the subcategory of Strategic Dialogue, which is different from Cooperative Dialogue (of which a different committe is responsible).

To be clear, though, I admire some parts of it, like the work ethic, the strong economy (particularly compared to my more chill Spain), the part of their moral structure that ends up helping other people. Also, do note that this is just one subculture in the geographical Germany.

So, throughout, what alternatives could my stylized German be missing?

  • Deep understanding (vs shallow understanding based on classification)
  • Employing categories as shortcuts (vs as pillars, as fundaments)
  • Rules as constraints that can sometimes be bent (vs as MORALLY CORRECT commandments)
  • Finding approximate solutions through brute force and simulations (vs analytic solutions through applying a finite list of manipulations)
  • Moral relativism (as opposed to moral realism)
  • The Israeli nuclear weapons programme (as opposed to the Swiss)
  • Not having a stick up your own ass (as opposed to having a stick up your own ass)

Now, there is a question, which part of this is language, and which part of this is culture? Yeah, I mean, you can definitely have a chill German, but the tradition, the language games, the way language is used in practice by the richer social strata, the utterances that people make in practice and that they grow up with, do contain and transmit these blindspots.

You've provided a list of almost entirely negative German stereotypes (and the example of a fictional Frenchman from a 19th century novel written in French, for some reason), but no analysis whatsoever on how this is connected to the German language. What is it about German grammar that makes them both morally relativistic and aggressive categorizors/rules followers in your eyes?

German grammar

I am not talking about grammar, I am talking about speech as practiced.

almost entirely negative German stereotypes

based on experience about a specific caste/subgroup of Germans. I contend this is valid, in the same way that, e.g., talking about Puritan ethics or values or attributes is valid. I could go on about the positive aspects, but the negatives are more salient, since we are talking about the limitations of language, rather than, e.g., the benefits of discipline.

and the example of a fictional Frenchman from a 19th century novel

also a 1892 book, in case you find that more persuasive. You might find the Google translation of the title a bit interesting. But I think that the Javert example captures the core intuition. If you are a Javert kid, surrounded by Javert parents and Javert peers which utter Javert phrases, it's pretty intuitive to me how you will grow to mimick those utterances.

German grammar

Actually, now that I think about it, German has the feature that in composite phrases (i.e., most phrases saying anything complicated), the verb is at the end. This makes sentences messier. It's possible that having strong categories could be a crutch to make such long sentences understandable.

Not sure to what extent that is a just-so story, though.

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