Culture and clashes

Edward Sapir is especially known for his contributions to linguistics. During his work as a linguist, he studied Native American languages. This made that he became interested in anthropology as well. So, his Culture, Language, and Personality. Selected Essays (see my blog last week) contains besides linguistic studies also anthropological articles. One, “Cultural, genuine and spurious” (pp. 78-119), describes what culture is, and, though written a century ago, I think that Sapir’s classification of types of culture there is still relevant in the present world; a world characterized by migration flows that bring people with different cultural backgrounds into contact with each other on a large scale. Some (notably Samuel P. Huntington) think that this will lead to an increase of conflicts in the world, even to that extent that they speak of a clash of civilizations or cultures. Although I think that the origin of the present conflicts and those that can be expected in the near future is more complicated, this seems to me sufficient reason to go into the question what actually culture is.

According to Sapir there are three wa=ys that the concept of culture is used. Firstly, “culture is technically used by the ethnologist and culture-historian to embody any socially inherited element in the life of man, material and spiritual. Culture so defined is coterminous with man himself…” (p. 79) In this sense, culture is every human material and non-material product, but in a material product not the product as such is important for seeing it as cultural, so not the “hardcore” or “stuff” is important, but the way humans use it and have produced it. For instance, not that we eat cauliflower as such is cultural, for humans need to eat, like all animals. But it is cultural, because we prepare this vegetable in a certain way; because we eat it in a certain way, which is different from culture to culture (if people elsewhere eat cauliflower); because the present cauliflowers are the result of an age-old cultivation process; etc. In this view, culture is what makes a material thing a social product. Since as a child I read already anthropology books, I am very familiar with this use of the concept of culture, but most people don’t see it this way.
“The second application of the term is more widely current”, so Sapir. “It refers to a rather conventional idea of individual refinement, built up on a certain modicum of assimilated knowledge and experience but made up chiefly of a set of typical reactions that have the sanction of a class and of a tradition of long standing.” (80-81) It is the concept that makes that we call something sophisticated, or that we call a person so, because he or she knows how things are or should be done, especially in the intellectual field. We call such a knowledgeable person a “cultured person”, but, so Sapir adds, “only up to a certain point. Far more emphasis is placed upon manner, a certain preciousness of conduct which takes different colors according to the nature of the personality that has assimilated the ‘cultured’ ideal.” A negative expression of this kind of culture is snobbishness. (81)
The third type of culture is most difficult to describe, Sapir says. It is vague but undeniable and all-penetrating. It “shares with our first, technical, conception an emphasis on the spiritual possessions of the group rather than of the individual. With our second conception it shares a stressing of selected factors out of the vast whole of the ethnologist’s stream of culture as intrinsically more valuable, more characteristic, more significant in a spiritual sense than the rest.” This cultural conception “aims to embrace in a single term those general attitudes, views of life, and specific manifestations of civilization that give a particular people its distinctive place in the world. Emphasis is put not so much on what is done and believed by a people as on how what is done and believed functions in the whole life of that people, on what significance it has for them.” (82-83). This type of culture is often ascribed to nations, also to groupings within nations, and sometimes it unites people that are separated by borders. In this way we can talk of the Dutch culture, American culture, Kurdish culture, Scandinavian culture, Catalonian culture, and the like.
To this threefold use of the concept of culture I want to add yet another application. Briefly, it refers to what we could call the works and practices of intellectual, and in particular artistic, activity. Music, literature, painting and sculpture, theatre and film are types of practices of this idea of culture. Especially, it refers to the “higher” versions of these practices. I think that this fourth type of culture is what most people think of, when they think of culture. Many countries have a Ministry of Culture that deals with and tries to stimulate culture in this fourth sense.

This now fourfold use of the concept of culture makes clear that it is a multidimensional concept. When we talk about culture, at first sight it may not be clear what we mean by it. It is a thing that must be clarified, explicitly or implicitly, before we can go on. A certain use or “dimension” of the concept is relevant only in the right context. In the context of a political discussion and practice in which migration, ethnic diversity and integration are important themes, the first and third uses are most important, so the ethnological use of the concept of culture and the use that stresses general attitudes, views of life, and specific manifestations of nations and peoples. For just these cultural dimensions lead to and form the values, norms, customs and habits of peoples that are often mutually not understood and that can lead to large-scale frictions that surpass individual irritations. Just cultural differences created in this way are often misunderstood and belong to the factors that make that some want to kick out the newly arrived.

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We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

Edward Sapir (1884-1939)

Language and life world. Edward Sapir

About 100 years ago, a group of philosophers, the so-called logical positivists, tried to develop a system which should make it possible to reduce all scientific statements to logic. Especially Rudolf Carnap tried to do so in his 1928 book Der logische Aufbau der Welt (The Logical Structure of the World). It failed. The problem was that these philosophers considered language as something objective, a mere instrument. What they forgot or ignored was that each objective scientific language is based on the ordinary language of daily life and that there is a close connection between a language and the life world of its speakers. In other words, there is a close connection between language and culture. We can never define the basic terms of a scientific theory in a purely objective manner, for in the end, we must always fall back on the colloquial language in order to describe these basic terms. Logical positivists could have understood this, if they had been open to the language theory of one of their contemporaries, Edward Sapir. Sapir, didn’t study the relationship between scientific language and ordinary language and life world, but he gave the tools that can be used for such an analysis.
Edward Sapir (1884-1939), a Polish born American, worked both in the field of anthropology and in the field of linguistics. He is especially known for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which he developed together with his student Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941). This hypothesis says that the way someone perceives and conceptualizes the world is determined by the language he or she speaks. We can find the essence of this thesis in Sapir’s article “Language”. In the first place, so Sapir states there, language is “a system of phonetic symbols for the expression of communicable thought and feeling.” (p. 1) This means that a language is not merely phonetic, so a combination of sounds, for these sounds refer to something in the world, which makes that they have a meaning. “In all known languages, phonemes [sets of similar speech sounds] are built up into distinct and arbitrary sequences which are at once recognized by speakers as meaningful symbols of reference.” (4-5) Such phonemes are combined into words. These words can be combined and structured in a “complicated field of … formal procedures which are intuitively employed by the speakers of a language in order to build up aesthetically and functionally satisfying symbol sequences …” Together these formal procedures constitute the grammar of a language. (5)
A language doesn’t have only these formal characteristics, but it has psychological characteristics as well. First, language is felt to be a perfect symbolic system for handling all references and meanings of a culture, both useful for communication and for thinking. (6) Second, as a way of acting, language does not “stand apart from or run parallel to direct experience but completely interpenetrates with it.” (8) Reality and language are often felt as two sides of the same coin. Thirdly, since we grow into language from our birth, it is, “in spite of its quasi-mathematical form, … rarely a purely referential organization. It tends to be so only in scientific discourse, and even there it may be seriously doubted whether the ideal pure reference is ever attained by language.” (10; my italics) Given the expressive and communicative function of language plus the fact that language refers to the world around us and that in this way it gets a symbolic content, we can say that, in Sapir’s view, language is a reflection of our life world, and is often felt to be the world itself.
Though “the importance of language as a whole for the definition, expression, and transmission of culture is undoubted”, so Sapir, “it does not follow … that there is a simple correspondence between the form of a language and the form of the culture of those who speak it. … There is no general correlation between cultural type and linguistic structure.” (34) For then grammar and culture should develop in a parallel way, which is clearly not the case. But though we cannot see the influence of the general form of a language on the culture where this language is spoken, we can see such an influence of the detailed content of this language: “Vocabulary is a very sensitive index of the culture of a people and changes of the meaning, loss of old words, the creation and borrowing of new ones are all dependent on the history of culture itself.” (36) It is in the words and distinctions made in languages that we can see the impact of a language on a culture. Moreover, his view on language implies that language can be influenced by culture, such as that new inventions lead to new words. The essence is – and that is what the logical positivists ignored and what led to the failure of their approach – that language refers to the world; not to the world as such but to culture. Culture gives language its meaning while language gives culture its views. One implication is that we cannot develop an objective language with no connection with our culture, and by that with our life world.

Blog written on the occasion of Edward Sapir’s birthday (26 January) and the anniversary of his death (4 February).

Source
Edward Sapir, “Language”, in Culture, Language, and Personality. Selected Essays. Berkeley, etc.: University of California Press, 1956. The page numbers after the quotes in the text refer to this edition.

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The network of cultural patterns of a civilization is indexed in the language which expresses that civilization.

Edward Sapir (1884-1939)

How to end war

Käthe Kollwitz, "Grieving Parents". 
Roggeveld German Military Cemetary, Vladslo, Belgium

“While nations go to war expecting quick decisive results they habitually find themselves mired in protracted conflict.” (source)

It is almost three years ago that Russia invaded Ukraine, and although Russia expected a quick victory, also in this case the statement just quoted proved to be true: The war has reached a stalemate and, despite slowly moving front lines, no end of the fighting is in sight, nor seems a quick solution possible. Nevertheless, US president Trump thinks that he can end the war within one day. At least, so he said during his presidential campaign. Although this statement doesn’t seem realistic, nevertheless it is a good moment to think about the question how to end the Ukraine-Russia War (and isn’t any moment a good moment for this?). Here I want to mention some problems that make a solution of the conflict difficult, and that certainly will make it difficult to lay the basis for its end in one day.

- No war of this type ends without a truce as a first step to peace. But making a truce is not simply a matter of calling each other and saying “We are both fed up with this war. Let’s stop fighting tomorrow at ten o’clock.” The fighting parties must agree on demarcation lines (what is in my hands, what is in your hands; what if my troops are located behind your troops; etc.). Soldiers must be informed about the truce. Front lines must be disentangled. And certainly in this Ukraine-Russia War, we need a mediator.
- Which country or organisation or person can take the role of mediator? The USA/Trump? The USA is a party in the conflict, but Trump as a person seems to distance himself from the war. Will he really do? Is he acceptable for Russia/Putin? Most likely, he is not. Who will then be an acceptable mediator? China? But till now China has chosen – more or less – the side of Russia. Turkey? But Turkey is a NATO member and supports Ukraine, but on the other hand the country behaves itself often in quite an independent way. Another option is India. India seems to be acceptable for both parties and president Zelensky has asked unofficially India already to play this role.
- Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago. That is, then the present phase of the war started, but actually the war began already with the occupation of the Crimea by Russia in 2014 and the fighting in the east of Ukraine and the “independence” of the region since then (followed by its annexation by Russia). As a consequence, there is great distrust between the two countries, especially from the side of Ukraine. So, what we need are so-called confidence-building measures. What should they involve?
- Once negotiations have started, what should the parties talk about, besides of a vague “bringing peace” or “ending the war”? In view of the present military situation, what Russia probably wants is keeping the regions conquered, the withdrawal of the Ukrainian troops from Russian territory, and turning Ukraine into a vassal state. On the other hand, Ukraine will want to have its territory restored, if possible including the return of the Crimea. Moreover, it will not want to have to give up its future membership of NATO and the European Union, which it sees as essential for its security.
- This, security, is maybe the key word of the peace negotiations. In order to avoid another invasion by Russia in future, Ukraine will ask security guarantees. What must such security guarantees involve? That Ukraine will become a NATO member? (unacceptable for Russia) Foreign peacekeeping forces? If so, from which countries? Only a treaty saying that Russia and the USA etc. will guarantee the inviolability of Ukraine’s territory will not be enough. For didn’t Russia, the United States and United Kingdom sign the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, in which these countries formally recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty within its then-existing borders and undertook not to violate them? Even more, they promised to “respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of Ukraine.”

This short list – and certainly more points can be added, like about the war damage and the war crimes – makes clear that this war cannot be ended in one day and also that it must end in a compromise at the negotiation table. And then, how often hasn’t it happened that such a compromise has been the prelude to a new war. The Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World and was followed by the Second World War, is a case in point. Nobody is waiting for a new Big European War, which certainly be a Third World War.
As Thania Paffenholz, an expert in international relations, remarks in an interview: “The war goes on until one party feels, ‘If we continue, we will weaken our position’ – or rather ‘What we want is now better achieved at the negotiating table.’ When a conflict reaches this point, we call it ‘ripe for resolution.’ ” The question is: Have we reached that point already? If we would ask the people of Ukraine and Russia, without a doubt the answer would be “yes”. Even more, the war would never have started. However – adapting Ms Paffenholz’s words a little bit – “The current system allows those in power to act like kings in the Middle Ages sending their peasants to war.”

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The principle of inviolability of borders applies to every country whether it is in the East or in the West.

Olaf Scholz, German Chancellor 

Who I am not

Image by Chat GPT (see note below)

Sometimes I am curious to know who I am according to AI. As far as I know there is not much about me on the internet, though I guess, that there is more there, than I assume. So, what would AI say about me? Therefore, I asked ChatGPT to write a text about me as a philosopher. Here is the result. I have added a few comments between square brackets:

“Henk bij de Weg (1919-1991) [False. I am still alive and I am also not from 1919] was a Dutch philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Amsterdam [Fake]. He is best known for his work on the philosophy of language [Fake] and the philosophy of action. His work was heavily [No: a little] influenced by the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and he was an important figure in the development of Dutch analytic philosophy. [Fake] Bij de Weg was an advocate of logical positivism [Quite the contrary] and argued that language should be used as a tool to clarify and sharpen thinking. [Hmmm] He believed that language was a tool to express and uncover the underlying structure of reality and argued that our understanding of language should be guided by the principles of clarity, consistency and economy. He was also a proponent of the view that philosophical problems should be solved through careful analysis and argumentation. [Some] Bij de Weg's work has been widely influential in the development of Dutch analytic philosophy [Fake] and has been cited in many scholarly works. [I wish it was true] His work has been used to address topics such as the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of action. [?] He is remembered as an important figure in Dutch philosophy and his legacy continues to influence philosophical thinking today. [Fake]”

IT’S ALL LIES

Now, because I have published this blog here, when you are going to ask ChatGPT who the philosopher Henk bij de Weg is, probably you’ll find something like the text above, for it will find this blog text about me on the internet and think that it’s true, just because it is on the internet. Then, because AI has written it, maybe you think that it is true. However, it’s all lies.
In another version, ChatGPT made me “a renowned Dutch philosopher who has been a leader in the field of moral philosophy. He is best known for his views on the ethical implications of technology and the implications of modernity on our daily lives….” etc. Also this is all lies. Why cannot AI not give the simple human answer “I don’t know?”

Note
I asked ChatGPT, in Dutch, also: “Create an image of the famous philosopher Henk bij de Weg. This is what ChatGPT said, before presenting the image above (note that my last name can be translated in English as “by the road”, or something like that):

“Henk bij de Weg seems to be a fictional name, so I will make an image of a philosopher named Henk who is thinking along a rural road, surrounded by nature. He has a philosophical appearance with a long coat and glasses, and has books around him.”

Again, ChatGPT goes wrong. “bij de Weg” is a real, though, rare, Dutch family name. Moreover, I have published several books and articles under this name and I have several websites under this name (see the columns left and right on this blog page). Why then does ChatGPT say that it is a fictional name? So, ChatGPT could have found my real me simply via this blog website.

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You cannot outsource the assessment of a question to computers. There is no objective or detached criterion for it; a good question is always a good question for us.

Marjan Slob (1980-)

Paths of freedom

I think that everybody knows them, those unplanned, spontaneous tracks and paths through lawns, open grounds, ruderal terrain, etc. that we call desire paths, elephant paths, or how you like. They are used as shortcuts in parks, between roads, between paths, etc. Maybe a shortcut is used only once by someone and then it will fade away. If only this person uses it regularly, it is a kind of private shortcut. If also other persons are going to use the same shortcut regularly, it will gradually wear out. Then, what once was a hardly visible trail becomes a clear path, although an unofficial one; a path that has come into existence by habit. It came there because the users desired there to go; because so they were faster where they wanted to go; or because walking there was easier than on the official path or road. Once it is there, people may come to see it as an official path; as a real path. What once was a trail or only a casual shortcut has become institutionalized by habit. In an older blog I preferred the name “elephant path”, but here I want to call it a “desire path”, because this fits the present blog better.
Desire paths can be seen as self-willed, if not stubborn, reactions to the infrastructure made by planners. A desire path is a kind of re-interpretation, or personal interpretation of the spatial structure designed by city planners. City planners have filled in the space in a certain way and they have given it a certain meaning in terms of spaces to be used as paths or streets; or as sidewalks; or as lawns; and so on. The meanings given to these spaces are sometimes clarified if not ordered by traffic signs, information panels and signs with texts (“Don’t walk on the lawn”, “No dogs allowed”). They make the interpretation of the structured space clear to its users, especially if these meanings don’t follow from generally known customary standard meanings. (That also standard meanings are not self-evident or objective and usually are culturally dependent, becomes often clear when you are travelling around in another country. Then such meanings often are not so obvious to you as they are to the locals.)
However, people frequently don’t follow the official or accepted interpretations. Often they give structured spaces their own meanings. A desire path is such an alternative interpretation. By making or using a desire path, the user doesn’t see, for example, the lawn as a piece of nature to be protected or as a playground, but (also) as an open space that can be used as a shortcut to go from A to B, instead of following the official paths or roads. The maker or user of a desire path gives the official structure of the space a personal interpretation or re-interpretation. Sometimes city authorities follow such a re-interpretation, when they provide the desire path with a pavement; sometimes they take countermeasures by putting a barrier there in order to stop the use of the desire path or they put there a sign forbidding the use; or they simply ignore it.
Such an explanation of desire paths in terms of how planners and users interpret and re-interpret structured space is not far from an interpretation in terms of power. Roads and paths constructed by city authorities are ways to organise public life and to guide streams of traffic (walkers, cyclists, cars …). They are means to force passers-by, with a gentle hand or with a hard hand, to follow pre-determined roads and paths according to the preferences of those authorities. Such constructed passages are means to exercise power. This becomes explicit, if preferred routes are indicated by direction signs and traffic signs, and even more if not following the signs can be fined. Then the passer-by doesn’t only simply “actualize” the preferences of the city authorities, as Michel de Certeau would call it, but he or she is forced to do so. In other words, city authorities construct spaces, called roads, paths, etc., to guide and control the movements of the citizens. If less important, such spaces are merely spaces preferred for a certain use by the city authorities, but if necessary its use can be forced by signs, fences and fines. So, even in our seemingly banal, insignificant everyday movements through the city, we are constantly under pressure of forms of power. (see Lauren Daran) “I have to go here and not there, because there is no passage there” or “… because there the road is blocked” or “… because there it is forbidden.” This is what a passer-by constantly must think.
If we can see roads and paths and all officially structured city spaces (and the same for such spaces outside the cities, of course) as constructed power structures for guiding people in the right way, then we can see desire paths as ways of opposition against this power. Seen this way, desire paths are acts of resistance or at least of disobedience to the power structures that organize and construct the public spaces and that have been imposed by the authorities. Desires paths don’t follow the preferences and desires of the authorities, enforced or not by signs, fences and fines, but the preferences and desires of the users. By flouting the rules, desire paths are not just personal shortcuts but paths of freedom.

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If we do something good in a dilemma, we automatically omit something good in such a case and thus do something morally wrong.

Markus Gabriel (1980-)