Exploring the Social Imagination

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Language Changes Social Imagination - Social Reality!


In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness,but the darkness has not understood it ~ John 1

You would think with such a beginning, we would be perfect by now in our social imagination. Is it because, we don't recognize and use this language anymore on a regular basis? Yes, and because this is a fallen 'corrupted' world as in 'corrupted' program. Corrupted by a bad virus which seeded doubt in the mind of man/woman a long time ago.  This bad virus has been operating the program ever since. Yes, an upgrade or patch was provided but the virus is quite strong and necessarily has to run its course before the final reboot.

What markers are there that suggest this is a corrupt program? Language 'words' are continually used to create a 'corrupt version' of social reality. In the beginning, the language was pure and it was the light of men. But, since the time of corruption, darkness attempts to outshine the light also using words. Woe to those that call evil good and good evil ~ Isaiah 5:20. 

We try to understand how words make social reality in an attempt to reboot the original program on our own. As a Christian sociologist, I can tell you that is man's greatest desire. Sociologists know that social reality is a construction. If you have ever read Peter Berger's "Social Construction of Reality" then you understand that persons and groups interacting cause social reality. In fact, there is no other kind of reality that we can know of outside social interaction of which most is through language. One sees him/herself in a group and as we belong to a group, we are identified and understand who we are and are not.

As Berger observed and I agree, in a social system we create, over time, concepts or mental representations of each other's actions, and that these concepts eventually become habituated into reciprocal roles played by the actors in relation to each other. These roles are made available to other members of society through interaction and we choose to enter into and play out these roles because they provide identity of self and the group of which the self exists.  What is it that we exchange that generates all this? Words- language and body language. Over time, such activity becomes institutionalized forms of behavior which help us in that we do not have to restate, reword and recover information every occasion of interaction.

This is well known by the Creator of all things and hence by the social engineer and also by those corrupted by the virus. Now, they are those with power and position due to being at the top of the misinformation hierarchy who from their vantage point continually demand to retain that position using that misinformation in the form of words- language. One means of doing that ...retaining power is to stir up misinformation among the masses so that they have no use for correct or original information. This in fact was the strategy of one who seeded the virus... the one who did not understand the light of men. 

Once a virus takes over, it is difficult to extract and upload original information as the true information though existing in the default mode. That is why we can observe on the horizon the attempt at deeper embedding of misinformation through the treating it as the right information. This way, the right information becomes unrecognizable. This is the task of the virus. And, it is the task of spreading misinformation in the form of language - words which takes us deeper into misinformation - corrupted social imagination. This task is being propagated at all levels more now than ever before.. but in some instances equal to times in the past when such attempts were just as strong. 

Yes, words can hurt and words can heal. The pen is stronger than the sword. The Bible as our best and original stereo instructions. And, we understand or we used to that if you have a sound education (reading, writing and arithmetic) with expected good vocabulary with words that were written in the original program along with good social skills you can fend off any reprobate by debating intelligently and according to the Creator's Word. One does not need the government to introduce new laws for 'good' social interaction. If it does, they have an agenda to change the social reality and if they are not using the Creator's Words, then they are likely deeply corrupted, not having accepted the upgrade or patch -Jesus Christ.

Keep in mind, before social reality can change, the language has to change, speakers must adopt new words, sentence structures and sounds, spread them through the community and transmit them to the next generation. According to many linguists children serve as agents for language change when, in the process of learning the language of previous generations, they internalize it differently and propagate a different variation of that language ~ Hence = Common Core. Adolf Hilter understood this.

Words should not encourage and give power to the virus. Words should encourage the Creator's Words who was in the beginning the Word- the light of men!

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they (our weapons - the Word of God) have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" ~ 2 COR 10:3-5.


Man/woman in his/her pride thinks he/she knows more than God.




  *source reference ~ https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/change.jsp




No comments :

Post a Comment