Vocabulary and The Limits to Our World

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Generally speaking, a greater vocabulary means a greater chance of life success, in whatever arena---car repair as much as research science. A larger vocabulary gives us access to aspects of life that we would not understand or appreciate without it. This was pointed out by E.D. Hirsch, Jr, in his fine article, “A Wealth of Words,” in which he states that, “Studies have solidly established the correlation between vocabulary and real-world ability.” (City Journal, Winter, 2013).

In a sense a vocabulary is a set of “facts,” learned associations between a word or words and something. The latter could be abstract, as in love, or it could be tangible, as in my grey car. Some educators disparage facts, meaning in one sense they disparage vocabulary. But we can hardly think critically or creatively about something if we have no facts regarding it. In the worst case, we may not be able to think about it at all.

If I want to have a quality conversation with someone about the novel Moby Dick, I need at least a minimum vocabulary of literary methods, like plot, characterization, and metaphor. Failing that, I resort to subjective sensations or simple opinions: “I don’t like Ahab” or “Whale hunting is bad.” Such subjectivity and opinionating can certainly lead to a fun conversation with two people of like disposition, or to a potentially hostile interaction when there is not a similar mindset. Either way, most of us engage in them from time to time.

But we cannot confuse that type of exchange with a one having substance and subtlety. Opinionating is easy. Thoughtful conversation is not. In social arenas like politics, where substance matters, we are seeing people resort more and more to easy opinions lacking any subtlety or sound back-up. If “facts” are used, they are biased ones that will provide the outcome desired. It seems as though some people imagine that simple opinions, often held in a death-like grip and bolstered with great emotion, are equivalent to quality thinking. A bad sign for healthy societal outcomes, as is evident today. How can we have in-depth conversations about important social or ethical issues if we have lost, or choose not to use, vocabularies reflecting the complexity of such issues?

A vocabulary is more than simply a bunch of words---it is words that have meaning and can be applied in real-life situations to understand and function in the world better. My ability to converse well about interior design, for example, depends greatly on my color vocabulary. If I am an interior designer and have words for relatively few colors, I will be at sea in a conversation with other interior designers. I will be unable to follow the images and ideas discussed as they use terms reflecting subtleties and nuances that I cannot appreciate. With my interior design clients, for as long as I might have them, I will be able to offer them advice only on an extremely limited spectrum.

A vocabulary represents knowledge, an understanding about the world at a certain level. Whether it’s about a novel or colors, how to plumb a sink or program software, the more words we have of describing or understanding something, the more sophistication and depth of knowledge we can bring to a conversation, a task, or even to survival. The Sami people, who live in northern Scandinavia, may have as many as 180 words relating to snow and ice, according to the Washington Post. Inuit in Northern Canada have been hunting seals for thousands of years, relying solely on their ability to interpret fine differences in snow and ice to navigate, for which they had an extensive vocabulary. Older hunters once passed on this knowledge to younger ones. Today those younger hunters often use GPS systems for navigation. Reliance on this technology has meant the loss of skill to navigate as the elders did, occasionally resulting in the death of a younger hunter when his GPS system failed. As the language of snow and ice fell away, the skills went with it. For the younger hunters this meant that their world expanded in one way (the vocabulary of GPS) and contracted in another (the vocabulary of snow and ice).

When I was an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley in the 60’s the word “cool” was ubiquitous, and most of us thought we knew what it meant. I once asked a friend what he meant in saying that another fellow’s attire was cool. His response was pure 60’s Berkeley---“Well, you know, it’s just cool.” But other friends possessed a greater sense of the word’s meaning. Some of those included approval, a generalized satisfaction with or an appreciation of something or someone, a recognition of quality, or even of someone’s insouciance. Conversations were more expansive because of this fuller vocabulary.

Of course, when using “cool” in a general sense, we all understood what was meant, or at least something close to it. An elaborate discussion of further meanings was not needed in many settings. Rather than having a specific meaning, the word represented social glue, as though by using the word we were all part of something larger than ourselves that only we understood. It was a bonding mechanism, and not an intellectual exchange of information and ideas.

The above examples illustrate Wittgenstein’s point. The world is constrained by a person’s vocabulary, and by the willingness to use it, just as it is by the boundaries of a person’s ability to use language effectively in speaking and listening.

Life success, in the expansive meaning of the term, is not necessarily a function of high education or a given level of intellectual ability, nor of the vocabularies associated with those. It is a function of having extensive enough vocabularies in critical areas of interest to us, whether we are accountants or TV repairmen. We all choose, consciously or unconsciously, what areas deserve our attention, and we adopt vocabularies suitable to those. And no matter what those areas are, greater vocabularies generally improve our chances of greater overall life success.

Selective Perception

Selective perception is a form of bias that causes people to perceive messages and actions according to their frame of reference. Using selective perception, people tend to overlook or forget information that contradicts their beliefs or expectations. (reference.com)

“A cognitive bias refers to a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, whereby inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion.” (Wikipedia) Such biases can diminish quality thinking, if not eliminate it entirely. Just one of nearly two hundred cognitive biases, selective perception is particularly important in view of its everyday impact on our relations with others.

Selective perception protects the absolute primacy of our views with a huge emotional investment. Fairness, respect, and openness hold not sway with a person in the grip of selective perception. The condition is often vigorously denied, in part because it is usually lodged in the unconscious.

When we are confronted with people we don't like or who disagree with us, fear instantly activates defensive/attacking mechanisms. Among the more injurious of these are self-righteous moral condemnation, verbal and non-verbal attacks, mis-representations, outright lies, emotional outbursts (especially anger), and manipulative withdrawal or guilt trips. But even politely delivered simple counter-punching will do the job of eliminating thought in favor of an emotionally-driven selective perception agenda. The result of any such conflict interaction is a hardening of each person's original view and distorted visions of reality, which seriously compromises conversations and often relationships.

Everyone knows that people see things differently. For all kinds of reasons my various frames of reference are different from yours. The same data or information can mean different things to two people. In general, most people interpret a given data set in one way or another primarily for emotional or psychological reasons first, and then adduce support from facts or "facts." In his fine book, The Righteous Mind, psychologist Jonathan Haidt says, Part I is about the first principle: Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously , long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning. A very dangerous proposition when what passes for moral reasoning is seriously flawed, substantially and unknowingly biased by selective perception. Falsely believing we are thinking, we act harmfully toward those who disagree.

Slightly more poetic is Nietzsche's comment: "Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings---always much darker, emptier and simpler."

As an innocuous example, you may see today's world as generally better than, or at least as good as, the past. You may even see the latter as bad. I tend to see the past as having many good things, some of which got thrown out when the not-so-good things got properly tossed (anti-gay and patriarchal attitudes). And I see the present as less beneficial than much of the past. I recognize the feeling of emotional comfort from holding these positions. That's a warning to me. I must watch for irrational responses coming solely from that emotional base of comfort, and its attendant sense of rightness, when I encounter a person who sees the past and present differently than I do. A warning to me, and to us all---when we feel emotionally comfortable and like a particular opinion, we could easily act our harmfully. 

Selective perception occurs even with scientists, people who place high emphasis on objectivity and the avoidance of biases. Consider the situation of Robert Schock, professor of Natural Sciences at Boston Univ. He has advocated the sides of Egypt's sphinx enclosure were eroded by water rather than wind, as has been argued for ages by mainstream Egyptologists. Astounded and irritated in the extreme by his view, which could upset their "established" theory and historical timelines, some of the latter led ad hominem attacks against Schock. Whether Schock is right or wrong is not relevant for my purposes. What is relevant is that he did what science calls for, and the opponents embarrassed themselves with personal hostility. The opponents' first reactions were almost entirely emotional. Only after the fact did they try to bring rational arguments to support those initial reactions.

Selective perception means we see what we want to see, remember what we want to remember. We are captured by our emotional needs for specific outcomes, fracturing any chance for quality interactions with those who differ. Many people afflicted with selective perception do as the scientists did with Professor Shock, imagining they are rational since they have ex post facto reasons for their positions. Those arguments may be correct, but that is not the problem. It is the emotional content with which they hold these arguments to be true, and the unpleasant acting out accompanying that. Especially if they have good arguments, being captured by selective perception usually means being unable to see valid counter arguments. Conversations characterized by selective perception usually mean a scenario of “I win, you lose.” Anything contradicting the favored views must be demolished.

As with nearly all cognitive biases, we cannot see what we cannot see. Or perhaps do not see what we do not wish to see. We take the goodness with which we see ourselves at face value---we are correct and the other is wrong. But our underlying agitation is one of fear and the need to prevail over an obstacle, neither of which can be acknowledged. Such blindness causes all sorts of conversation and relationship problems. All the more reason to become aware of our selective perception issues and to eliminate them.

Doing that requires three things at a minimum. The will and courage to become aware of potentially negative things we do not perceive, to listen to those who see our falseness, and to implement that which we would emotionally prefer to avoid.

We can transform ourselves into the type of person we all admire---one who is truly tolerant, respectful and open, unhindered by selective perception. It is do-able.