Sometimes I am naive.

I like to believe that some aspects of our lives—especially our social relationships—can be simplified. Maybe this is an error.

What do I mean by “simplified”?

I think a lot about language. I’ve even studied language in school, both in humanities (English Lit Crit) and science (computer science). Really, a lot of higher ed is about clarifying language. Although art criticism became more nihilistic, with post-modernism.

From science (including applied science, technology, engineering, and the professional trades) I have learned that language can be clear. At least, much clearer than everyday speech. But it takes a lot of work. It takes dedication and commitment.

I am a big fan of good communication. That means putting effort into good qualities of writing and speaking: clarity, specificity, precision, accuracy, consistency, and logic.

Unfortunately, most people are not that concerned with quality of information. What people are trying to communicate is often not what they are specifically saying. Instead, they are trying to share their feelings and emotional needs. I don’t think “the medium is the message” at all. Unless the medium is the tone of voice, or the use of cultural signifiers, and other aspects of speech (and writing and body language and other forms of communication).

Most of the time, when we are speaking to one another, we are asking for support and confirmation, in order to combat our perpetual sense of doubt and anxiety about our social position.

So, maybe I’m less worried about the explicit problems of communication than the implicit problems of being a human being in an uncertain and perilous world. (I say “perilous” because, for a privileged person like myself, overt hostility and threat are relatively rare. For most people, the world is often threatening, even dangerous. So I beg forgiveness if I am insensitive.)

However, understanding—if not mastery—of language as a means of sharing explicit information is still useful and important. Even if it is sometimes secondary to taking the local social temperature.

Another thing I think about a lot is purpose. Again, privilege. I don’t have to worry about survival. So I have time to think about more abstract concerns. And also the health of society and the biosphere. Which is precious of me, I know.

But everyone in my position—everyone with privilege and power and surplus time and resources—has to ask themselves how to use their opportunities. For selfish reasons? For short-term gain? Or to consider and address more humanitarian, communitarian, environmental, and long-term problems. That’s all I’m doing. Like Uncle Ben said: power is responsibility. But only if you choose to take it on.

And I do, insofar as I know how to. One of the ways of being more responsible is to learn. So I am always trying to learn. I want learn how the world works, and how people work. One of the ways that we work is by organizing and collaboration. You cannot collaborate without communicating. Language is the essence of sociality. Especially if you open the tent of language to include all the ways we share our mental state with one another: body language; tone of voice; dance and song and metaphor. It’s all relevant. It’s all important.

To collaborate, in our efforts to accomplish goals, we have to agree and plan, or at least delegate. We have to know who is supposed to do what. Every part of a project must be attended to by someone suitable; they must be both competent and trustworthy. We use a combination of language and experience to establish both requirements. In a complex world, with ever-changing groups and teams, we often over-rely on language, because we have insufficient experience of the past behaviour of most of the people we deal with, in person or virtually.

But what if we cannot rely on language? What if we cannot agree on what words mean? What if we don’t even realize that we don’t agree? How can we coordinate and organize? How can we accomplish anything?

Our problems relating to people—which inevitably come down to problems of coordination—are mostly based on problems communicating. Problems with language. Improving society means improving relationships, means improving cooperation, means improving coordination, means improving communication, means improving language. It means having a common understanding based on common meanings of common words.

I worry that we have, collectively, lost our awareness of this. At least, certain cohorts of people have lost this awareness. And they may even believe that it is better to have a diversity of ways of thinking, so much so that any attempt to find common linguistic ground is a form of oppression. Which would be very silly. Since it would undermine all efforts to cooperate, and prevent any chance of changing things for the better.