A new language
We need a new language… this one doesn’t do the job it once upon a time professed. It is deceptive and cancerous; hopefully, eventually, to itself. A new language is needed that bypasses the brain-organ, and reaches straight to the rest of the body, to the liver, lungs, heart etc. A language that cares not for thought-processes, belief structures and reasoning, but fires straight at the heart of it all: the living-body and its movements. The brain-organ is a delaying organ that is more prone to constancy in movement and death as opposed to constant movement and life. The body suffers immensely at the hand of the brain-organ and its prima qualitá: reason. The new language would be most interesting for it would make possible a rebirth, a new mode of life, a different encounter with the world, and existence would take on a different flavour. A more innocent and celebratory flavour: an innocently celebratory flavour.
Lauren said,
July 2, 2009 at 4:35 pm
The problem you are looking at is not necessarily language but people. It is people who take words to the height of their utmost cruelty or disrespect them by breaking them apart into slang or, rarely, bringing them to an incandescent existence in song or poetry. Even given the spectacular all-encompassing vocabulary you describe, mankind would only use 10% of it to debilitate itself once more.
incognitio said,
July 2, 2009 at 6:32 pm
You must understand that when I speak of language, I do not distinguish one particular use of words with another and attack that use as opposed to another. On the contrary, my attack is on all uses of words, which I encapsulate under the word: ‘language’. I argue against language and its primary seduction: reason (in this little piece alone), which I see as the source of the formation of beliefs and belief systems. I argue that these tend to antagonize the body and life in a peculiar way. My contention is that language on the whole, the way it is conceived now, is the issue at hand. When I speak of a ‘new language’, I intend to speak of a new mode of communication amongst us, not a new use of language. Communication stands above language, not language above communication. In other words language is but one form of communicaton, not communication another form of language.
The title of the piece is deceptive of its own accord, because it intends to bring out someone’s view-points and beliefs, such that a proper discussion may arise, and the right alignment of thought may occur. Only when someone is brought out into the open with themselves can alignment begin and communication arise. Language cannot achieve this entirely, for it does so only in its own sphere, the brain-organ, not the body as a whole. Language is short-sighted and cannot fully encapsulate the human and their condition, it speaks only of the brain-organ, only a small sphere of the human. The title ‘A new language’ is more accurately expressed if it is altered to a ‘A new communication’, if you allow me that language concerns communication of some sort – for a ‘private language’, as some Philosopher’s have shown, is impossible and also unnecessary.
It is true that language may have an effect on the body, on the liver, lungs, heart etc. Convince me that smoking and alcohol is cool and watch me slowly eat away at my lungs and liver. Convince me that there are only problems in the world, let me interpret every situation in a stressful manner, and watch me destroy my heart slowly. You can trace these back to some kind of linguistic conviction, some kind of belief-system bestowed upon the person by words and reason. Conversely however, the seduction and embrace of such a conviction is the feeling on the body that it offers. I won’t smoke or drink unless I gain something pleasurable to the body from it: social approval, sexual favour etc. The brain-organ’s relation to the rest of the body is most fascinating, and language just adds to that fascination. There is a point however, reached by the brain-organ that is destructive to the rest of the body: that point is the hindrance of a transformation, and language does not help. Language and the brain-organ do not allow a body to transform, they are much too conservative. The smoker, the drinker, the depressive etc. is in need of a transformation – language is not enough to give it. The transformation must begin at language, trace to the roots, which is the belief, and then make the leap into the feeling that allows for the holding on to that belief. Whence arises transformation. But, how do we get from the belief to the feeling, and alter the feeling (that which interests me) that grounds the belief, or even establish a new belief that incorporates the same feeling?
Thus, it’s not our use of language that hinders us, it is language on the whole, as we see it now that is hindering. I place the responsibility on language, not on people. For I do not see how one use can be displaced by another and achieve such a leap that is beyond all uses as such. A whole new sphere is required for such a leap, and I argue language is impotent as concerns it, for this thing falls outside its sphere. Thus, we cannot render people responsible for their use of words: they are doing the best they can with what they know and what they have. The idea is to give them something more, something else, such that a new doing may arise. How does one do this is the real question…