Language in Thought and Action

The test of abstraction then is not whether they are " high-level" or "low-level" abstractions, but whether they aare referable to lower level.

One reason for Mits's failure to get any further in thinking about language is the belief that words are not really important: what is important is the "ideas” they stand for. But what is an idea if it is not the verbalization of a cerebral itch? This has seldom occurred to Mits. The fact that the implications of one set of terms may lead inevitably into blind alleys, while the implications of another set of terms may not; the fact that the historical or sentimental associations of some words make calm discussion impossible; the fact that language has a multitude of different kinds of use and that great confusion arises from mistaking one kind of use for another; the fact that a person speaking a language of a structure entirely different from that of English, such as Japanese, Chinese, or Turkish, may not even think the same thoughts as an English-speaking person-these are unfamiliar notions to Mits, who has always assumed that the important thing is to get one's ideas straight first, after which the words take care of themselves.

Whether he realizes it or not, however, Mits is affected every hour of his life not only by the words he hears and uses but also by his unconscious assumptions about language.

The trouble is that, as Susanne K. Langer has said, “The symbol-making function is one of man's primary activities. . . . It is the fundamental process of the mind, and goes on all the time.” One may try to live a simple life with little concern for symbols of affluence, social status, and the like, but one soon discovers that the rejection of symbolism is itself symbolic. Wearing a necktie is symbolic, but not wearing a necktie is equally symbolic. Parents and children have had bitter quarrels in recent years over hair styles-long, short, spiked, shaved. Such quarrels are not really about hair but about the symbolic meanings involved in how hair is worn.

Perhaps some of us would like to escape the complexity of human life for the relative simplicity of such lives as dogs and cats lead. But the symbolic process, which makes possible the absurdities of human conduct, also makes possible language and therefore all the human achievements dependent upon language. The fact that more things can go wrong with motor cars than with wheelbarrows is no reason for going back to wheelbarrows. Similarly, the fact that the symbolic process makes complicated follies possible is no reason to return to a cat-and-dog existence. To understand the symbolic process is to be able to use it to advantage; not to understand it is to remain forever its victim.