Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health
ISSN: 1933-8244 (Print) 2154-4700 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vaeh20
Language Games in Environmental Health Tee L. Guidotti To cite this article: Tee L. Guidotti (2015) Language Games in Environmental Health, Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, 70:5, 241-242, DOI: 10.1080/19338244.2014.978655 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19338244.2014.978655
Accepted online: 27 Oct 2014.
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Date: 15 September 2015, At: 02:03
Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health (2015) 70, 241–242 C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Copyright ISSN: 1933-8244 print / 2154-4700 online DOI: 10.1080/19338244.2014.978655
Editorial
Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 02:03 15 September 2015
Language Games in Environmental Health Decisions are not made on the basis of knowledge and scientific evidence. At best, they rest on values and at worst they rest on personal aggrandizement, petty politics, and coercion. We would like to think that decisions about environmental health are different because they affect our health and the health of our children, change the world, reflect our values, and are based on scientific evidence. We would be wrong to think so. Decisions about environmental health are made in the same biased, arbitrary, conflicted, and politicized way as every other area of human endeavor. So, if we want to improve understanding and get better decisions, it behooves us to understand the perception and mental processing of environmental issues. That takes us beyond knowledge into ways of knowing and how we know what we think we know. Scientists in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields (including environmental health) are in general not good at this. Scientists (again, in the STEM fields) have a strong interest in fact but usually not much tolerance for unsupported opinion. They therefore tend to focus on knowledge itself and not issues of trust (which in science is assumed), attitude (which in science is assumed to be studiously neutral), or language (which in science is assumed to be literal and unambiguous). The study of knowledge and how it is obtained and derived is called epistemology. Scientists in general (and in the STEM fields in particular), with their preconceived assumptions about knowledge, tend to be very poor epistemologists. Most of the great contributors to the epistemology of science have been philosophers and historians of science, not scientists themselves. (Michael Polanyi was the great exception.) Philosophers who study epistemology in the context of science have, however, been at the forefront of contemporary philosophy, led by Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). Russell valued science above all other ways of knowing and tried to create a philosophy solely from deduction, in which ambiguity was removed. Wittgenstein also valued science, but went a step further. Wittgenstein believed that much of what passed for substantive communication was really a manifestation of “language games,” the manipulation of words and evocative references for the purpose of stimulating a conditioned response, and that people, basically, go around in conversation pushing each other’s buttons, good or bad, with no real content being transmitted and that authors, particularly of fiction, write books that are basically nothing more than orchestrated sequences of verbal cues to elicit a feeling or emotional response. (If one believes this, Wittgenstein’s approach has the virtue of
saving one a lot of reading time!) His work helps us to understand that when science is presented and, even more, when it is discussed by the public, the findings and the discussion pass into the realm of values where meaning is mediated by language. Values are not well communicated by scientific vocabulary and language. Values have to be expressed by more than the literal meanings of words. They are communicated by the richness of language, in an oral or literary sense. Values are communicated chiefly by the choice of words, by placement in context, by intentional ambiguity, and by intonation in voice and style in writing. Sometimes values are communicated by irony or by expressing the opposite. In science, we concentrate on the literal meaning of words and try to the maximum extent possible to remove connotation, ambiguity, and shadings of meaning. We fail! Polanyi, the great philosopher of science, spoke of “tacit knowledge,” those areas of experience, skill, and thought that are beyond explicit communication and missing from formal communication, even and especially in science. There is a wealth of tacit knowledge in the rigorous language of environmental health sciences. What appears to be value-free and seemingly neutral derives from some basic questions: why is this particular research being done at this particular time, if not to protect the environment? What recognized gaps in policy or management does it address? Is it a response or an initiative and is it intended to be revolutionary or incremental? Is it designed to “falsify” (as all good experimental science should) or to “validate” (which is required for theory-building risks error when one is trying to “prove” something)? How might the presence of the investigator have subtly changed the conditions of the experiment or observation? Wittgenstein added that most of philosophy, politics, and all of religion (although it still fascinated him) were language games. He saw discourse in these arenas as manipulation of words and evocative references for the purpose of evoking emotions and, mental associations that carried no real meaning and so could be dismissed as irrelevant and ignored. Modern interpretations of the philosophy of science are not so dismissive of other ways of knowing. Importantly, Wittgenstein also pointed out that these language games evoke behaviors and are often designed to do so; he asserted that language itself is a series of stimuli that have meaning only in that they elicit and evoke behaviors on the part of the person on the receiving end. An advocate for a given position may speak of stewardship, managing the forest, health, and sustainability is evoking associations no less than a person who appeals to community,
Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 02:03 15 September 2015
242 prosperity, highest use, freedom, and property rights to support the contrary position. In each case, the words are evocative, appealing, positive, and persuasive; however, they are also inexact, emotion-laden, and frequently misused. Arguments then center on the words themselves and their associations. When someone relies heavily on loaded language, whether in agreement or opposition, one is pushing buttons to elicit an emotional response and speaking “code” that elicits much more complicated arguments than are implied by the literal language. People cling to these evocations. Code words are understood differently by different constituencies of listeners, so the speaker can send different messages to different segments of the audience. Politicians who use obscure or religious references to appeal to voters of a certain persuasion or faith are the most familiar example of this. In a discussion of income disparities and economic and social sustainability, a seemingly casual reference to “class warfare,” whether by a conservative or libertarian, may simply sound like rhetorical exaggeration to most of the audience; to an older voter, the term evokes an echo of Marx-Leninism and communist history, implying radicalism, and is heard as labeling the “other” side as dangerous and totalitarian. In social and political discourse, the language of environmental health and environmental protection is as laden with language games and code words as any other. A person who speaks of sustainability in terms of a “heritage” may be understood by various segments of the audience to be speaking of an ecological inheritance of a forest and well-cared-for, inherited wealth and community homes made from the harvested wood, a gift from God for the benefit of mankind, or a birthright that can be taken freely for oneself. A person who uses the word “stewardship” in the same context, on the other hand, is “narrow-casting” a message specifically meant for people who already believe that human communities should care for
Editorial and be responsible for the Earth as a whole. A prime example is the popularity of “Gaia,” the romantic notion developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulies that the Earth is a self-correcting entity that functions like a living being. The language of sustainability and environmental protection strikes a deeply resonant chord in most people. This is because environmental integrity is inextricably bound with thoughts of family, security, nurturing, and responsibility. This responsiveness on the part of most people to environmental threats makes environmental issues particularly potent and also subject to manipulation. For advocates of sustainability, learning not to get carried away by rhetoric is the key to not being boxed into a position that sounds good but is not really worthy of support: biofuels from corn, for example, have proven not only to be disappointing because of high expense and poor energy yield, but also largely counterproductive in energy consumption (since corn requires fossil fuels to cultivate) and destabilizing to food prices. Yet the idea of a sustainable energy solution derived from the land that preserves traditional rural values and brings prosperity to the heartland—well, the argument seemed irresistible just a few years ago. Learning not to react to words by reflex alone is one of the most important rites of passage of adulthood and marks an essential difference between a student and a scholar. To be effective and to know what is being discussed, it is essential to focus on the argument, the facts, and the underlying theory or framework of understanding and not be distracted by evocative vocabulary. Tee L. Guidotti Editor-in-Chief Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health
ISSN: 1933-8244 (Print) 2154-4700 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vaeh20
Language Games in Environmental Health Tee L. Guidotti To cite this article: Tee L. Guidotti (2015) Language Games in Environmental Health, Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, 70:5, 241-242, DOI: 10.1080/19338244.2014.978655 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19338244.2014.978655
Accepted online: 27 Oct 2014.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 17
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vaeh20 Download by: [University of Nebraska, Lincoln]
Date: 15 September 2015, At: 02:03
Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health (2015) 70, 241–242 C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Copyright ISSN: 1933-8244 print / 2154-4700 online DOI: 10.1080/19338244.2014.978655
Editorial
Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 02:03 15 September 2015
Language Games in Environmental Health Decisions are not made on the basis of knowledge and scientific evidence. At best, they rest on values and at worst they rest on personal aggrandizement, petty politics, and coercion. We would like to think that decisions about environmental health are different because they affect our health and the health of our children, change the world, reflect our values, and are based on scientific evidence. We would be wrong to think so. Decisions about environmental health are made in the same biased, arbitrary, conflicted, and politicized way as every other area of human endeavor. So, if we want to improve understanding and get better decisions, it behooves us to understand the perception and mental processing of environmental issues. That takes us beyond knowledge into ways of knowing and how we know what we think we know. Scientists in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields (including environmental health) are in general not good at this. Scientists (again, in the STEM fields) have a strong interest in fact but usually not much tolerance for unsupported opinion. They therefore tend to focus on knowledge itself and not issues of trust (which in science is assumed), attitude (which in science is assumed to be studiously neutral), or language (which in science is assumed to be literal and unambiguous). The study of knowledge and how it is obtained and derived is called epistemology. Scientists in general (and in the STEM fields in particular), with their preconceived assumptions about knowledge, tend to be very poor epistemologists. Most of the great contributors to the epistemology of science have been philosophers and historians of science, not scientists themselves. (Michael Polanyi was the great exception.) Philosophers who study epistemology in the context of science have, however, been at the forefront of contemporary philosophy, led by Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). Russell valued science above all other ways of knowing and tried to create a philosophy solely from deduction, in which ambiguity was removed. Wittgenstein also valued science, but went a step further. Wittgenstein believed that much of what passed for substantive communication was really a manifestation of “language games,” the manipulation of words and evocative references for the purpose of stimulating a conditioned response, and that people, basically, go around in conversation pushing each other’s buttons, good or bad, with no real content being transmitted and that authors, particularly of fiction, write books that are basically nothing more than orchestrated sequences of verbal cues to elicit a feeling or emotional response. (If one believes this, Wittgenstein’s approach has the virtue of
saving one a lot of reading time!) His work helps us to understand that when science is presented and, even more, when it is discussed by the public, the findings and the discussion pass into the realm of values where meaning is mediated by language. Values are not well communicated by scientific vocabulary and language. Values have to be expressed by more than the literal meanings of words. They are communicated by the richness of language, in an oral or literary sense. Values are communicated chiefly by the choice of words, by placement in context, by intentional ambiguity, and by intonation in voice and style in writing. Sometimes values are communicated by irony or by expressing the opposite. In science, we concentrate on the literal meaning of words and try to the maximum extent possible to remove connotation, ambiguity, and shadings of meaning. We fail! Polanyi, the great philosopher of science, spoke of “tacit knowledge,” those areas of experience, skill, and thought that are beyond explicit communication and missing from formal communication, even and especially in science. There is a wealth of tacit knowledge in the rigorous language of environmental health sciences. What appears to be value-free and seemingly neutral derives from some basic questions: why is this particular research being done at this particular time, if not to protect the environment? What recognized gaps in policy or management does it address? Is it a response or an initiative and is it intended to be revolutionary or incremental? Is it designed to “falsify” (as all good experimental science should) or to “validate” (which is required for theory-building risks error when one is trying to “prove” something)? How might the presence of the investigator have subtly changed the conditions of the experiment or observation? Wittgenstein added that most of philosophy, politics, and all of religion (although it still fascinated him) were language games. He saw discourse in these arenas as manipulation of words and evocative references for the purpose of evoking emotions and, mental associations that carried no real meaning and so could be dismissed as irrelevant and ignored. Modern interpretations of the philosophy of science are not so dismissive of other ways of knowing. Importantly, Wittgenstein also pointed out that these language games evoke behaviors and are often designed to do so; he asserted that language itself is a series of stimuli that have meaning only in that they elicit and evoke behaviors on the part of the person on the receiving end. An advocate for a given position may speak of stewardship, managing the forest, health, and sustainability is evoking associations no less than a person who appeals to community,
Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 02:03 15 September 2015
242 prosperity, highest use, freedom, and property rights to support the contrary position. In each case, the words are evocative, appealing, positive, and persuasive; however, they are also inexact, emotion-laden, and frequently misused. Arguments then center on the words themselves and their associations. When someone relies heavily on loaded language, whether in agreement or opposition, one is pushing buttons to elicit an emotional response and speaking “code” that elicits much more complicated arguments than are implied by the literal language. People cling to these evocations. Code words are understood differently by different constituencies of listeners, so the speaker can send different messages to different segments of the audience. Politicians who use obscure or religious references to appeal to voters of a certain persuasion or faith are the most familiar example of this. In a discussion of income disparities and economic and social sustainability, a seemingly casual reference to “class warfare,” whether by a conservative or libertarian, may simply sound like rhetorical exaggeration to most of the audience; to an older voter, the term evokes an echo of Marx-Leninism and communist history, implying radicalism, and is heard as labeling the “other” side as dangerous and totalitarian. In social and political discourse, the language of environmental health and environmental protection is as laden with language games and code words as any other. A person who speaks of sustainability in terms of a “heritage” may be understood by various segments of the audience to be speaking of an ecological inheritance of a forest and well-cared-for, inherited wealth and community homes made from the harvested wood, a gift from God for the benefit of mankind, or a birthright that can be taken freely for oneself. A person who uses the word “stewardship” in the same context, on the other hand, is “narrow-casting” a message specifically meant for people who already believe that human communities should care for
Editorial and be responsible for the Earth as a whole. A prime example is the popularity of “Gaia,” the romantic notion developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulies that the Earth is a self-correcting entity that functions like a living being. The language of sustainability and environmental protection strikes a deeply resonant chord in most people. This is because environmental integrity is inextricably bound with thoughts of family, security, nurturing, and responsibility. This responsiveness on the part of most people to environmental threats makes environmental issues particularly potent and also subject to manipulation. For advocates of sustainability, learning not to get carried away by rhetoric is the key to not being boxed into a position that sounds good but is not really worthy of support: biofuels from corn, for example, have proven not only to be disappointing because of high expense and poor energy yield, but also largely counterproductive in energy consumption (since corn requires fossil fuels to cultivate) and destabilizing to food prices. Yet the idea of a sustainable energy solution derived from the land that preserves traditional rural values and brings prosperity to the heartland—well, the argument seemed irresistible just a few years ago. Learning not to react to words by reflex alone is one of the most important rites of passage of adulthood and marks an essential difference between a student and a scholar. To be effective and to know what is being discussed, it is essential to focus on the argument, the facts, and the underlying theory or framework of understanding and not be distracted by evocative vocabulary. Tee L. Guidotti Editor-in-Chief Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health
