Sidler has a very fluid notion of the relationship between language and people. People use language, but are used by it. Technology, like culture, is a human creation that has a life of its own to use people for its own, almost anthropomorphized (vaguely insidious, power hungry, definitely heartless), purpose. And now, the factor by which this process occurs in increasing as another level is added to the equation. Humans who created language to communicated with each other, created a language to communicate with technology. That technology has become an agency with its own rules and logic that have gone beyond human control to change. And now, this two way conversation has added a third dimensional element—the cellular and chemical nature of life that has always been as hidden as a soul. The talk about essentialism and ethics becomes very complicated in Sidler’s world.
In this new world, she argues for the need of an ethics written in the words and sentences of everyday speech. That has been complicated in a relative universe that can only really be stated in mathematical terms. Exactly how we are supposed to cope practically with ethics in a universe where even the human body needs to expressed relatively is something Sidler deems the province of composition studies (with its head start in understanding language as symbols). I hope she knows what she’s talking about. Or not.
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I fell on the side of "or not." It wasn't that what she had to say wasn't interesting or even vaguely accurate, but language used in compositional theory and language used in computers and nature is decidedly different. I heard once (probably on Numbers) that math is the language of God and linguistics is the language of man. So, to compare one with the other is odd. To further complicate things, we've got computers, which use both languages, and scientists and mathematicians who are obsessed with squishing computers, nature and man together into some hideously "perfect" species. I don't feel, personally, that this should be part of my own personal evolution. Not that I can speak for anyone else, but that--essentially--is the job of an essayist or debater.
ReplyDeleteIt is our responsibility to speak for the voiceless. So, if I got anything out of this convoluted essay, it was that we, as students and teachers of composition, need to keep up on what the folks in modern technology are up to.