Up@dawn 2.0

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

14-1: The Right Words, II


(Sorry for posting this a bit late. I've been having internet troubles.)

For a more historical account of Wittgenstein's philosophy, please refer to Morgan's detailed post.

Now, Wittgenstein was correct in many ways, and our group has often acknowledged how philosophy tries and, unfortunately, fails to pinpoint the human condition. But perhaps Wittgenstein, too, misinterpreted language. For language to fail, there has to be, at least hypothetically, a way that language could succeed. And the point of language isn't to assign words to certain things—so in this sense, it cannot succeed or fail. In fact, language manages to transcend itself. If it didn't, the dictionary would be the greatest book in the world. The reason that we have literature and poetry is that words mean so much more than the sum of their individual parts. 

There has to be something about language that allows us to understand, however brokenly, the experiences that it tries so hard to capture. And maybe the reason why language means so much to us even when it "fails" is because we're broken, too, and in some ways, language is all we have. 

Maybe even language is an experience that no other medium can encapsulate. Those who love books won't be able to find that kind of intimacy anywhere else. 

But that still doesn't address Wittgenstein's claim that what we fail to define should not be defined at all. I suppose you could agree with him just as easily as you could disagree. But our group thought that just because language is rarely perfect doesn't mean that we should stop trying. If anything, we should try harder. Writers don't write because they have the right words for everything—writers write because they don't. The fact that we cannot sum up the human experience into a neat phrase says a lot. And it's definitely something to keep writing about.

There's also something beautiful about the way we all want to contribute a sentence. Even if it were a Sisyphean act, it just proves that there's something about language that keeps us going.

And with that, I will quote a few lines of a lovely poem by Jacqueline Berger called "The Failure of Language":

Inside us, constellations,
bit thread knotted into night’s black drape.
There are no right words,
if by right we mean perfect,
if by perfect we mean able to save us.

(You can read the full poem here. It really is lovely.)

DQ: What do you all think about language? Does it fail us, and if it does, does it make up for what it lacks in other ways?

4 comments:

  1. brian hester11:47 AM CDT

    I dont think words or language fails us. It is just another type of art, it is used to express things in its own unique way. Also language is only as good as whose using it, so maybe if someone thinks it is failing them, they are really failing it.

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  2. The beauty of language lies in its existence...not its notion. Just the simple fact that we, as humans, can take random sounds and made up symbols and create a way to communicate our emotions, desires, thoughts and ideas, takes our existence to another level. We have concocted a way to interact with each other that goes beyond simple gestures and facial expressions. While language is universally varied, it has depth and creativity all over it.
    I agree with Krysta's opinion that literature and poetry show the power of language. (this might be due to our ENglish major minds :))

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  3. Ian Mallari12:28 PM CDT

    Our discussion made me wonder why we feel the need to have everything labeled and defined. I think its shame that humans feel the need to conquer everything and have it understood by language.
    While I agree that language is important, I hate that it has become overpowering to any mystery.

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  4. I am apart of 16-1 group. We also had Wittgenstein. I agree with Katy in how we have created a ways to speak and understand one another.

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