Ben,
>A rock is a rock, and always will be a rock. A bum is a bum, but he/she
>can change who they are if they want to. I'd imagine that a bums plight
>exists more in the language that they use than it does in the reality of
>the world in which they live.
Apparently you and your friends have used language to create a game which
is a kind of larger Monopoly and you have renamed all the things that make
up the world game I have been playing for about 2000 years.
In my language game that person sleeping on the street is called by those
who play the language game as I do--and there are millions of us around
the world--a Child of God, who is Blessed, and who will Inherit the Earth.
I don't like your new game in which you relabel my Child of God a Bum.
Why have you done that? Why are you changing the rules of our Game?
And why are you trying to convince yourself that a Rock of Ages is really
a Rock, when you and I know it is mostly space that in an eon or two will
be sand and vapor?
And why are you trying to convince all of us that what is really a Child
of God is really a Bum?
Are you willing to compromise?
Let's call him Homeless, or Unemployed.
OK?
You see, Ben, we can agree on those qualities that are common to all
"humans": he is male, 163 pounds, etc.
But terms like Bum and Child of God are different than language that says
"163 pounds."
Language like Bum and Child of God doesn't identify any "reality" that is
prexisting, Ben: it chooses from the moral inventory of possibilities a
value, embodies that value in a label, and sticks that label on the animal
on the ground. Let me change that label: the human being on the ground.
Language creates the moral judgment that Ben then comes to believe is
prexisting reality.
Right, Ben?
Steve
--"Dr. Steve Eskow" <dreskow@magicnet.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>