Sparrowman’s Perch

I don’t know why I dwell on this subject so much these days.  Today, I’m trying to overload an answer to both philosophical understanding and to personal identity.  One notion of term, definition and meaning came into play within the past few days as I listen to various factions discuss things in the media.  This one is anti this or pro that—anti or pro depending on who is doing the talking.  Then there are the names that people use for other people when folks need to generalize the other or even vilify another so to make a point.  “They are mother-killers” or something similar.  Society today seems bent on polarization and polemics run amuck in the public square in which folks just want their voice segment for their 15 minutes of fame.  True dialogue is dead.  

One item of dialogue that I learned was to eliminate pejorative or condescending terms so to encourage the dialogue.  So the discussion that begins with  “you baby-killers obviously hate children…,” gets changed to “you are obviously strong about your pro-choice position…”  for instance.

Somewhere in all of this kind of thought within the past week or so an ancient personal memory fell off the shelf in some cob-webbed brain cavity.  I’m not sure of the exact occasion of the original event but I do think I was 5 or 6 at the time when it occurred.  I came home from school one day and asked, “Mummy, what’s a nigger?”  She looked a bit shocked and basically told me that’s a bad word.  I added something like, “Well, I am one—that’s what [so-and-so] said.”   I can’t remember her exact response.  I’m sure she said that I wasn’t one but we didn’t talk about anything further.    Probably she did say something like, “We are all God’s children and He loves us all.”  I think that I wasn’t quite satisfied with that answer but that’s what I had to live with.  Those were very first lessons in identity.  Name/term, definition, identity/meaning.

Fortunately in those very young days I didn’t have too much of that to deal with.  I did get something like “why are you so dirty all of the time?”  from an occasional fellow student or a relative of similar age.  Of course when junior high hell began, everything was no-holds-barred.   Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you.  Yes they do and they can last forever–and sometimes I got all of those.  That memory with that word opened and filled my recent day like a broken jar of 30 year old mayonnaise.  It still stinks.

(I cringe and feel a need to slap something every time I hear the phrase from a towns-person answering a news reporter in the movie Mississippi Burning, “You know…, we take good care of our niggers down here.”   Such a perfect application of a pejorative with a possessive!) 

Anyway, I never could get used to political correctness.  This is only because once I got it down exactly what was correct then the politics would change so whatever was correct before, ain’t now.   Nonetheless, I have been big on trying to use terms for people of differing viewpoints that are used by the people of the differing viewpoints.   I hate names–those condescending ones especially.   

A name.  That kind of name.  A term with a definition.  What meaning does it give or do we give to it?  Whatever the it is.   However, that particular aforementioned term is filled with meaning for me, but not the same one that I learned while growing up.  The meaning now points to those who use it, their ignorance, their closed mindedness.  They have no desire for true dialogue.  

So what words do we choose when we discuss things that greatly differ from us—one’s beliefs, creeds, orientations, etc.?  Do we really wish to understand the other or are we satisfied that our terms suffice with our own presuppositions and prejudices?  Are we proud to cleverly construct even new terms and use them though they inadvertently insult the other?  

In all of the great and small debates I unfortunately give no carte blanche to any group to have immunity from such contrivances of hate terminology.  For I find this in liberal and so called progressive circles, in Christian enclaves, both blatantly and subtly even within academic institutions—places where “folks should know better”.   Polarization and xenophobia needn’t continue it’s runaway rate in our society.  It begins with each person in reflection of what things, names, descriptions can mean for the other.  But I only assume that poeple really want to dialogue in the first place. 

I cringe at trying to tackle this topic.  However the idea of meaning is a central theme to most philosophic discussion.  Personally, I’m really into this in general.  Definition and meaning help to keep me steady, keep me sane in some ways.  But, I don’t like people trying to define me.   Why?  Because I then become pigeonholed and possibly stereotyped.  I understand this is a need for some people to do this, though, especially for first impressions.  For example and hopefully, most will see that basically, I am a man.  How people define man can then color their perceptions of me without even knowing me.  For some then, because I’m a man, I am therefore, “sexist, unfeeling, a sports nut, a sperm donor, one who only thinks with a penis, self-centered, smelly, thinks of women only as objects, could care less about children”, and so forth.  Frankly, I don’t give it much thought—on being a man or male, that is.  For some things about being male I do fit the definition, other things have nothing to do with me as a person.

Then there’s the question, what does it mean to be a male?  Or what does it mean for me to be a male.  What is “male-ness”.  

I remember a class I had at Duquesne which was called Psychology of Identity and Fulfillment.  When I saw this course I made sure I was one of the first to sign for it.  I was looking for something more general and encompassing but I discovered that the class focused on sexual identity.   It was interesting in that it had case studies of those who were trans-gendered, cross-dressers, and homosexual.  (These are all different, BTW).  I could feel for those folks, especially the trans-gendered who could not feel as strongly as I to place an “X” on the male box when a form asked to pick your gender. 

Being bi- (probably “multi-“) racial, I have lived in a world in which demands hard and literal black and white definitions and I have, at times, was forced to “choose” a racial definition.  I so much wanted to choose but when I did, I was choosing “wrongly”.   I still can remember times in which someone who felt having more authority than me to question my choice and say, “Oh, you made a mistake…, this one is yours.”  Obviously, that person didn’t care as to the “why” for my choice or my resistance to make such an impromptu choice.

I’ve not gotten into this deep and thoroughly important issue for me on this blog—or much elsewhere for that matter.  Right now, though, I only wish to bring this up in terms of working through the ideas of definition and meaning and to point out that how in our efforts to define things, we can error if we’re not careful.  I may here at times sound even contradictory in that I do desire definition in my life so much so, that I go nuts when something, especially something very important to me, goes undefined.   I want to know whatever this and that is or where it fits, etc., etc. 

Much of this comes from a wish for my own personal definition.  What is me?  “I am such and such and…”   What does it mean to be me?  Add to this how I was trained in my academic disciplines.  Both theology and philosophy demand for a person to “define the terms” before entering any kind of debate or dialogue, or presenting any kind of paper.  My current discipline of computer science is filled with the need to define and sometimes equate terms and variables.  Var GetData = 3; 

And of course the computer program itself becomes a highly defined entity as well as the language of its creation.  Mess it up and the compiler and/or program and system puts out a resounding “Huhhh?!”  Define it!  Give me a definition!  Where does this fit in with other stuff.  I and the computer become one in this notion.

But, then there’s meaning.  Does definition necessarily give meaning?  Here’s where philosophy kicks in, especially the existentialists.   I’m going to try this example.

Term:  Ford F-150 

Definition:  A popular pick-up truck model. 

Meaning:  (many)   A reliable vehicle.  A device that’s sturdy enough to haul things.  Something of family tradition in that “my daddy had one and so did his”.  An extension of “manliness”.    A truck better than a Chevy.  (BTW, I drive an older model Ford Taurus.  Definition:  a four door sedan with a V-6 engine.  Meaning:  A very special gift from two very special friends.  It is a very necessary entity to get me to and from work and also gives me a sense of freedom.)

Then there can actually be other definitions:  A production unit of a major American corporation.  [It still is isn’t it?]  A utility vehicle.

I’m perhaps at a point in which I begin to error with “relativism”.  I’m only doing a think-out-load thing here at present.  I’m not sure where I want to go with this but I know I need to.

Look at any freshman philosophy text and you will find (or should find) discussions going back to the earliest times when people grappled and wrestled with “meaning”.  Life, existence, being—the ontological—are the hot topics here for sure, but semantics and ontology can get confused to be one and the same.  Our society can enforce this falsity. 
"So, who are you?" (or "What are you? or "What do you do?" –which many equate with what and/or who you are.)
"I am a professional dog butt wipper."
So does this definition give me meaning? Worse, does it say anything at all about my existence?  Is it necessarily the only definition or even morso, a definition?
"My life, is therefore worthless…"
Term, definition, meaning, existence. Throw in assumption and attitude, you then have a good mixture for existential (or even cognitive) psychology.  We can get these ideas confused, not matter how intelligent we may be, on levels not realized within our consciousness (or unconsciousness) and then we dare to build our identities or self-views on the error(s). 

Anyway, even to discuss this stuff I feel a need to give a definition and what I mean by definition and meaning.  What does it mean to, ah, “mean”?  Folks, this is exactly why philosophy is the first discipline for priests and for lawyers! 

But the question still is:  Does definition actually give meaning?  Can it?  Should it?  Also, what kind of definition are we talking about?  Does this tells us about the truth of something?  Then also, what is the true?  How do we know the truth or the true?

Then there are the what are called the epistemological questions of  “How do we really know things?”  What kind of knowledge is this—if there are kinds?  How do we know?   Ahhhhh!

[Brain is starting to smoke.  Must get a beer.  More later.]