of the Language and post-modern approach

Necessity is the ultimate source of all inventions. Every new thing, when arises, changes our life up to some extent. Human race hopes that it will brought some good changes in some faculty of our life. In fact if we are to be able to make life better in one way, we will, optimistically, be able to change it in every way. Now let’s start a classical debate of this century, i.e. which one is the biggest invention in the course of history of mankind; wheel or computer. Most commonly we feel ourselves tempted to the former choice, the wheel. It is said that we can divide the time line in two eras; one before the wheel and other after its invention. But hold on for a second. I think we are missing something. We are, forgivably, underestimating the greatest land-mark of humanity, the invention that is as common as the rays of the sun and as available as the air we breathe. It is very important in its functioning and, at the same time, literally priceless on account of its abundance. It is, astonishingly, a part and parcel of our culture and we assume it, again forgivably, the part of our body. It’s the tool to express our emotions and it’s simply the language we speak……..truly the brightest star in the curtain of history.

                This fabulously fabricated Language is the output of industrious and arduous efforts of thousands of years from the part of social animal whom we name homo-sapiens. Man is distinct from other animals only in its social aspects. If we assume that this creature, somehow, loses its highly developed social tendencies then human will cease to be human. We call such a creature just some highly intelligent mammal and no more. The attributes of humanity, love, beauty, justice will vanish from the world. These highly cherished and developed social interacting capabilities manifested themselves, in past, formerly through direct touch, pictorial paintings and then through different sounds from the mouth and epiglottis. This healthy activity gave rise to the birth of language. This intelligently-made master-piece of human kind is much more superior to the computers of the modern age in its robustness and practicality.

These manifestations of the language are without any parallel in society. Let’s take the analogy of a simple architectural structure. Language is to society as clay is to bricks. It’s the clay of language which holds the gigantic and bulky structure of society together. For the same reason, up to 20^th century, language played its pivotal role and, obviously, there is no reason why it will not do the same in future. But as the sun rose in the land of philosophy in the post-war, post-modern era ‘its’ validity was challenged. Actually the worth of most beautiful and divinely tool, the language, was challenged. It is held, obviously with much lesser accuracy and with much greater scholastic ambition, that it’s the reader, not the writer, who gives some meaning to some prose. In other words we don’t speak what we want and listener doesn’t interpret what we spoke. Another corollary of the main proposition is that words are too small to encompass the true spirit of meaning. So Ideas are to words as map is to building. There is always some difference between the map and a territory. In short map is not the territory. The perception and reality travel in trajectories that are parallel to each other. So the language cannot bear the burden of meanings. These simple theorems seem pretty correct and consistent hmmm…..But hold on for a second…….the aftermaths of the theory are horribly drastic…..they have the power to bulldoze the very fabric of our society. An intelligent reader will ask the ultimate question……HOW ON EARTH YOU THINK SO.

Let’s suppose for a second that we are post-modernist. Consider, in order to answer the ‘HOW’, the administration of justice, i.e., a judge. If we accept the post-modern version of the story then IT’S THE JUDGE WHO IS THE ONLY LAW-MAKER because he hath an absolute authority to interpret any written or spoken law. It is he who is truly the law-giver of all intents and purposes and not the person who first write or spoke them. So legislation, according to this theory, by parliament (or by the King in parliament as it exist in England) is obsolete…….so any type of law-making destroyed……compete chaos. Any written material weather it is ordinary daily newspaper or some contract from transfer of property to certificate of marriage dissolves in air. Similarly, the divine literature from the Quran to the Bible ceases to give forth some fruitful meaning so faith is forbidden………..the very basis on which humanity stands gets shaky……….what will we have at the end?......we will have moral codes that are chaotic, shaky, dislocated and randomly selected…..we will have the society which comprise anarchy and the law of jungle….we will simply face Machiavellianism and will face dark ages.

               The problem is that if I am the post-modernist how on earth I can be a Muslim, a Christian or any other religious person. This will introduce an inconsistency in my philosophy of life, i.e., it means that I believe in some sacred text in one hand and on the other hand I think that interpretation of some text is on reader’s discretion. On one side I want to spend my life according to the Book and on the other side I think language is deprived of expressing any meaning at all. Analogously I am searching something believing, in advance, that it’s not there. So a post-modernist can be anybody but religious person. 

It’s the riddle of our time and every riddle is used to be a matter of time. Emmanuel Kant, once, removed knowledge in order to make room for belief. Likewise someone has to establish the roof of language under which religion can live happily after.