John McWhorter: observation

Transcript context

…There used to be a theory that language controlled thought. A lot of us encountered that in 1984. You and others have said that’s probably not the case, and it only affects, maybe, things on the very margin. So where is that margin? Is it just trivial things or, to take one example, do political brandings like saying someone is “pro-life” instead of “anti-abortion” — does that influence the way people reason or not reason about subjects like that? Does that influence real opinions and real outcomes? Terminology can. Terminology can help move a debate along, but the problem is just that, if there were negative associations that you were trying to wave away by changing the terminology, the negative associations are just like gnats, and they will settle back down on whatever new term you come up with. Pro-life, pro-choice — those are very clever terms, and we’ve gotten a bead on them. We know what they mean. That’s what’s always going to happen. Language affects thought in sweet little ways that you can tease out by hooking wires up to somebody’s head and showing that they have some tiny distinction. Russian has two words for blue. One of them means light blue and one of them doesn’t. And you can do an experiment that shows that Russians are infinitesimally more sensitive to noticing when the blue shades from one blue to another. Is that a worldview? I certainly hope not. [laughter] But terminology — yeah, you can move things along, but you have to realize that you’re going to have to keep on renewing the terms. It’s thought that you have to change, not the language. Next question.…

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