Manipulating Words

[nighthawksw]

You ever catch yourself breaking a rule you set for yourself? Like, telling yourself you won't _____ until _____ happens, or you'll never try ______. Lol, i've even taken weeks to try and clearly decide what i should do in various scenarios....but sometimes, it just ends up as talk. It's sad when you can't even believe the words you're telling yourself, isn't it? Maybe they were words said in moments of weakness, when i was trying to avoid certain feelings or people; but whatever it was, the past week i've found myself seriously thinking against a previous decision i made only a month or so ago.

Words are all we have to communicate with, and they're the foundation of our "higher" level of thinking, which supposedly sets humans apart from the other inhabitants of the planet. If you meet a "feral child", a child growing up naturally within the wild without any interaction with other people; you'll meet an animal instead of what we've come to understand as a human being. Without language, a method of communication, we aren't able to create this higher level of thinking called "conception". Language is the key to that ability that we so often underestimate the value of, and it's the key we abuse the most.

Little lies such as what we ate, who we spoke to, what our feelings are, what we've done in the past, and what we plan to do in the future...things that may not even include the person asking the questions, are all stage-points for abusing this ability. Everytime you lie, you make it a little easier to do so again in the future. Each time a person hears a lie, they gain a false understanding of you or your situation. Every moment you tell something false to a person, you've distanced that person from yourself, whether it was on purpose or not.

A lie is any moment that your words manipulate the listener into believing something untrue; even if it's a partial truth, if the partial truth was told with the intention of not wanting them to hear the entire story, it's a lie! There are of course, moments such as surprise parties when your lie is for the purpose of more fun later on; but the trick of that, is you're planning on revealing the truth, and that truth will make them happier (in theory); so putting off telling someone you want to break up with them, or putting off telling your boyfriend that you're pregnant...those aren't moments it's "alright" to lie: same with you dumbass guys who sleep around and don't tell your girlfriend or wife when you go home. You're building a barrier between the real you, and the person who, at least at one point, as important enough in your life for you to single out and choose to date, or possibly even marry.

So...i kinda got off-topic of me, lol; but i doubt anybody minds. Simply put, my point was that words are easy to manipulate people with; even yourself, and it's especially easy to do so instinctively, without thinking it over hardly at all. In my opinion, the best lie is the lie undone shortly after; but i too know firsthand how hard it is to tell somebody you lied to them, especially when they're important to you. After you first lie, it's as though you're already in a trap you've laid out for yourself. Despite that, it's still best to break free right then; you just have to conquer your own worries and have faith in the person you're speaking to, and the impression on them that you've built up over the time you've known one another.

[du5k]

Hmm... general discussion?

[07cbdj]

Basically, this thread is about language and it's manipulative power (used even "against" ourselves). Am I right?

It is true that our communication is based on our language, and that language is a very important thing. Language also defines a way of thinking.

Language, being the very essence of humans, is truly a powerful tool. The right person could persuade you to commit suicide and you would be happy to obey him. As you can see it can be used for many things, you can help others, but you can hurt them too. The same goes for a part of the whole: lies. They can be used in different ways, so you could say there are "good", "bad" and "neutral" lies. I think everyone knows them.

Most of us use our language instinctively, lots of us have learned to use it "wiser" and a few of us have mastered it's usage. It's like having a certain rank, lets say, in military. If you are a common soldier you are almost like everyone else around you. If you are a middle-ranking officer you have some power and responsibility. If you are a very high-ranking officer you are very powerful, but you has the greatest responsibility, in this case you could decide the futures of countries (of course I'm exaggerating here). You could do the same with only using the power of your speaches with no military (or any other) force behind you, and you would do it by sheer manipulation. Lets say you are a king. You can bea "good and righteous" or an evil king, but either way you would manipulate everyone around you, because you chose carefully which words to speak. Would you tell always what comes to your mind you would be considered (at least) very rude by society.

The point is, everyone uses lies, and even truths are lies in their own ways.
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Dv

[Blackthorn]

I think that NH was trying to say that words can be used to manipulate people. This I believe is true, but there are other things that he said which I really do not agree with.

1. language defines our method of thought.
- you ever have those moments where you have a thought but you cannot put it into words. That would mean that the thought is not based upon your use of language.
- rather language is a mode of conveying thoughts to others (nothing more)

2. If you ran into a feral child it would be nothing more then an animal.
- B.S. man can think in a logical manners without the use of language, they just cannot tell you what they are thinking.

Anyways the manipulation of people though words has been going on for years. One of my favorite examples is of the American governments peaceful nuclear device (aka a f**king nuclear bomb), or how they use to call the H-bomb a clean nuclear device (read Nuke Speak - winner of the 1982 George Orwell Award). But, I digress.

_________
Because morals seems to have also leaked into this discussion via NH I feel that my two cents have to go the opinion of who cares.

You get lied to everyday by everything. They even have a whole job market aimed at telling you lies. It's called Public Relations and Business Management(if you work in either field bite me, I don't care how you spin your job. You are paid to lie to people).

As a human your priorities change. If you have faith in somebody yes it is going to hurt you when they lie to you. If you lie to somebody who has faith in you have no morals and apparently that does not matter to you (good for you). And, if you don't have faith in somebody don't believe everything that comes out of the other persons mouth stupid.
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HCl before H20 makes a big bang

[07cbdj]

[nighthawksw]

And to add to what was just said about feral children:

The more feral a child is, the harder it is to teach them. There were two cases i've read about so far, one child who was truly found in the wild; but supposedly was raised by people for 3 years before his parents let him loose to live on his own, and another where a child was simply locked away without human contact, and given food every so often like a captivated dog.

In both cases, they were brought into a special clinic to try and teach them, to develop their minds, and bring them up to a point they could re-enter society. In neither case were they able to speak fluently, enter society, or reach even a middle-schooler level of intelligence. One barely could have qualified as an elementary schooler intelligence by the time they passed away.

In both cases, neither person was capable of higher levels of reasoning, comprehension, etc. It seemed some sort of language comprehension was required at an early age, with careful care, to develop into the animals we are in our societies. It's a carefully observed and learned trait to be able to think critically, and comprehend things such as an "Infinite number line". Language, although an imperfect method of communicating our thoughts to one another, seems an unreplacable part of the process to developing the thinking abilities people hold so dear. It doesn't matter if your communication is through sounds, movements, or some other means...the necessity, is some sort of language to communicate.

[Blackthorn]

I think that what you (NH) are getting at with the lack of intelligence in feral children is that their brains do not mature like those that are brought up in human society. I agree with this, but not with language being the cause of it. In an article I read a couple of years ago, research on the difference between the size of the brains of rats which had to go through a maze to get food and rats that were fed on a regular basis showed that those who had to go through the maze had more brains. So, a correlation between the amount of work the brain has to do and the intelligence of the subject can be drawn. If this is the case then it is not necessary for language to be in place to increase intelligence.

As for early development of language skills it has been shown that when a person learns a language early in life the portions of the brain which fires up when dealing with people talking is different then when they learn a language latter in life. Not much has really been concluded from this yet, other then different processes for learning are used in the brain at different periods of ones life.

And, as for the feral children only having an elementary school education at the end of their lives. That's actually kind of impressive because the average human in the dark ages knew how to speak, but what is covered in one issue of the New York Times is more information then most gathered over the course of their whole life (no I cannot verify the source, but that is what I remember the article saying).


07 - I do agree with you some that language effects the way we think. I remember when I did this weird little exercise where I was asked to solve a bunch of simple math questions then asked the first color that came to mind. 99% of people who did this exercise (the questions were important so you can't just try this without knowing them) answered red. Obviously the brain is wired in a way that everything you know effects how you think, but I think that just saying a language effects the way that people think is an over simplification. Do English speaking americans think the same way as they did in the 60's? not quite.
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HCl before H20 makes a big bang

[07cbdj]

1) There's no connection between the size of the brain and intelligence.

2) Yes, your mothertounge takes place in a certain region of the brain, then every new language takes another place. Even if you speak a foreign language fluently the region "containing" the mothertounge is still very active.

3) Could be true for the the common folk.

4) Two things effect the way of our thinking. First is the structure of the language itself. Second are the habitual expressions that by the passage of time became fixed (actually this more like a result than a cause).
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Dv