[Hardy-l] Tess' freedom

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Oh dear  -- how this simple idea has launched a fleet of warships:

Maybe I was voicing (unwittingly)  "a variant of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 
" ( as Chuck tries to claim)  but I wasn't aware of it at the time. For 
those not familiar with the jargon,  the Sapir--Whorf  hypothesis is 
(simplified by Wiki ):

"The hypothesis postulates that a particular language's nature influences 
the habitual thought of its speakers: that different language patterns 
yield different patterns of thought. This idea challenges the possibility 
of perfectly representing the world with language, because it implies that 
the mechanisms of any language condition the thoughts of its speaker 
community "

Well this is all old hat (after Newspeak) isn't it? and I had nothing of 
this in mind at all. What Keith and Chuck appear to have done is to take  a 
simple premise and reverse it to make an argument. I never ever claimed 
that the multiple terminology of love in Sufi Mysticism (Al Ghazali ) might 
be analogous to the multiple terminology of killing in the Anglo Saxon 
language or that "killing" words reflected any kind of cultural valence.  I 
was simply interested in the contrast in usage and numbers -- or 
familiarity? or focus?   (as in the dozens of words used by the Inuit for 
snow).

Obviously the dozens of words used for snow as we use them, say, in North 
America (champagne, powder, mashed potato, corduroy etc) express an 
intimate aquaintance with snow and an intimate aquaintance with everyone 
else who travels in that snow, thus I would suppose that if you have dozens 
of words for love you might also find yourself in close aquaintance with 
others who share that same pathway, that same passion even.

This is not one and the same as claiming that "Anglos are more attuned to 
killing than love because, compared to some other cultures, they have more 
words for the former than the latter." But it might mean that individual 
acts of homicide, genocide etc are more clearly understood, identified 
with, rationalised -- that kind of thing --  than if there were no words 
for these acts?

But this statement (Anglos are more attuned to killing) is nonsensical in 
this context. Numbers don't come into it unless to show a current focus or 
interest  or life-style  or passion (as opposed to a preference or value 
judgement ).

Keith's comparison to love with hate set me a-thinking though and I 
wondered if you (Forum  people) might have more to add. Keith got me going 
on  hate - which has " I loathe" and "I  abhor" as pretty close to hate -- 
don't you think? So MAYBE "hate"wins out over love -- ? What do y'all 
think? (tongue in cheek -  of course)

Rosemarie
But since I
>view the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as having only feeble experimental
>validation anyway, I really should have just said I reject Rosemary's
>major premise.  Agreement is unlikely.
>
>Chuck Anesi