February 16, 2006
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I am an Idiot
Yes, I am officially and perhaps even legally idiotic. Why? Because I believe that words are unstable and meanings can be easily displaced. I have mentioned this many times, here and elsewhere. Words and texts can change given different contexts and circumstances. I've done this before, I think, but just for the heck of it, let's do it again. Read the following sentence:
For goodness sake.
Look at the word "sake". It consists of four different letters, S-A-K-E. Pretty easy, right? Now consider the following list:
Beer, wine, sake.
I'm pretty sure that most of you pronounced the last word, "sake", differently, as in the Japanese rice wine. You will note that the word is spelled exactly the same as it did in the first sentence. And yet, you probably pronounced it differently. Think about it. Did the word itself change? No. Did you change? No. Did the words around it change? Yes. But that isn't why you pronounced it differently. What changed is the context.
But don't the different words provide the different context?
No, Little Grasshopper, it is not the words that provides the context. It is you, the reader. Let's say there is a hick who lives in the sticks who thinks that Japan is a province of China and has never heard of rice wine. Do you think he would know how to read and understand the word "sake" in the list of beverages? Of course not. He'd be scratching his head wondering, What the heck is this word doing here. He is unable to provide the appropriate context.
The upshot of this is that you, the reader, are providing the context. Or in a larger context, people--conscious, experienced people--provide the context. And if people are the constituents of a society--any society--then it is the greater society that determines how to read and interpret the meaning of all texts. And as society changes, as the collective experience of society at large changes, then the interpretation of texts will change as well. And texts include all manner of documents, literary, political, legal. That's why words such as "All men are created equal" meant one thing to a slave owner such as Thomas Jefferson, but means something completely different to us today. Same words, different context, new interpretation. (Note: This is not a knock on Jefferson, who was, afterall, a product of his own time.)
Unfortunately, not everyone holds to this very simple, very basic, very obvious concept. Take Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He criticized those who believe in what he refers to as the "living Constitution."
"That's the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break."
"But you would have to be an idiot to believe that," Scalia said. "The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things."
I am not about to contradict a Supreme Court Justice. I think I'll just accept his ruling and leave it at that.
I am an idiot.
But I'd rather be an idiot than be like him.
Comments (12)
RYC: Nope, Nogami sensee. I've never heard of Akatsuka.
I didn't think you believed in absolutes since you stress context and reader interpretation. But I thought I'd clearly ask to make sure.
If everything is temporal then isn't that sort of an absolute? The idea that everything is always and forever changing.
Sorry, I guess I don't understand how there can't be absolutes like Love or Truth. I understand how people can define/percieve it differently: 1) Love is when you would do anything for the person , 2)Love is when you get butterflies in your stomach, etc. However, I think that in all their definition there is a common x factor that language can't explain.
Plato talks about absolutes like Justice, Truth, etc, and challenges us to strive for the true essence of what those things mean. I can understand how the essence of what Truth and Justice is could be different for different people. But is there actually a rational, unskewed by perception way to define those terms as Plato assumes (what he calls the essence of it). Or is his definition skewed in itself since he is defining it?
<--- idiot
I see what you're saying, sensei; but Scalia does have a point. We should take into account how a document was read in the time that it was written. To the extent that there is now a fundamental change in how we interpret words, in the case of the Constitution, we have the right to amend it.
You know, I just realized another thing... Even though he has a certain point, Scalia's wrong.
Note one thing: when the Constitution was drafted, notes were not allowed at the Constitutional Convention (some might have survived, I think, but that wasn't the intention). This was because the people drafting the Constitution wanted that document, and that document alone to be what the convention produced--NOT a bunch of lawyers poring over their notes to figure out "what the original founders meant".
That, to me, spells out that the interpretation of the Constutition was expected to differ. Otherwise, there would've been a lot more documents produced to outline just what each section meant. That's also why the Constitution is ridiculously short, compared to almost any legal document or bill out there. KF
Well, in some sense Scalia's got a good point.
Folks tend to believe the Constitution is what grants us our liberties. It's not. We already have those liberties to begin with. What the document really does is limit the government's ability to take away those liberties. It's like how the Ten Commandments are addressed to people: Thou Shalt NOT kill, Thou Shalt NOT steal, etc. The Constitution is supposed to be addressed to the government: The Government shall NOT respect any establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof, the Government shall NOT revoke the right to due process of law, etc.
The laws that grant us our liberties come up around the Constitution. It's those laws that are the real, living, breathing thing that adapts to society.
But I still don't much like Scalia. KF
don't you love having the personal freedom to completely disagree with someone else in this country? gives me that warm fuzzy all over.
hey, join the club. hehe. we're all idiots now.
Do you believe in absolutes? (Truth, Love, Faith). Things that supposedly transcend time.
lesson learned
So which came first then, thought or language?
I've often wondered if any of the conservatives in the Supreme Court have really thought about what it is they do. How can you possibly hold that any document is perfect, especially years after it was written. This is a radically different America. People like Scalia just frustrate me.
i'm an idiot too, but for (many) other reasons.
Comments are closed.