Reflection inspired by Noam Chomsky’s “Hopes and Prospects” and other events:

It is often overwhelming to try and wrap our minds around words.

Globalization, colonization, monopolization, corporation, hegemony, neoliberalism, neocolonialism, consumerism, socialism, fetishism, imperialism, expansionism, orientalism, post-materialism, post-carbon, modernity, polity, commodity, agency, anthropogenic, ecocentric, egocentric, ethnocentric, stewardship, self, other, left, right, North, South, West, East, border, frontier, culture, language, dialect, nation…

When I read them I feel ambivalent. At times these words are my guides, like doors to understanding the world, tools for becoming aware of the issues; but at times they are fleeting and only seem to exist for the moment it takes for them to melt on my tongue like a cube of sugar. I try to grasp them and force meaning from them, but they dissolve into tiny little bits of meaning that float all around me in an incoherent mess. Sometimes it’s almost as if the words reveal their face for an instant, then laugh at me as I realize that it is only one of an endless myriad of faces (in this way, words are like politicians).

But I guess the world is a kind of incoherent mess. In the end I always think to myself that these words are more like enzymes; catalysts that generate new meanings and new reactions in real time; the context and significance of words is constantly changing as new events unfold, and to get bogged down in search of an ultimate dictionary definition seems pointless.

What does have a point is attempting to understand the LIFE behind the words. We must not let words become lifeless and float into a realm where everything is theoretical and abstract. Let us not become word beaurocrats. Let us remember that our fragile ecosystems need “ecocentric” to help us understand that a paradigm shift must occur in order for us to preserve what is left of them; we need “border” in order to debate and discuss the relationships between countries, communities, cultures and people; we need “language” and “dialect” so that we can have reverence for our extremely rich linguistic heritage and explore the limitless world of meaning that we attach and have attached to the spoken and/or written word. The list is endless.