Lately have been party to a few of outings of "get togethers" and reunions.
As typical in these occasions, I have been rendered speechless. A constant question comes to mind: what are people speaking about?
A nagging question at that, since until one deciphers such, one cannot enter the conversation and be engaged. I like to think myself as not too ignorant, that coupled with copious reading and photographing (intermittent as of late) keep me abreast of worldly happenings by the former and attentive to details by the latter. Yet, as in many other occasions I have been at a serious loss of words. What do people speak about?
In bars, reunions, meetings? Looking inward at particular events in Rio de Janeiro these past few weekends, I was at a loss. People gyrated, leaned into the each other apparently moving lips and mouth (a sure sign of conversation!), gesticulated (a transmission of non-verbal ideas?). I circled unto my prey, always keen for interesting topics and debate, yet upon arriving, I felt victim of a conspiracy. By the time I had made my approach, the interest behind the conversation had evapourated. Take me not wrongly, the many guests continued gesticulating profusely, lips continued moving and laughter continued, so at least the fagade was put on. However, to my great dismay, I could not find a single good topic. Was their knowledge of my eavesdropping on their conversation the factor? and was their politeness what drove the gesticulation? From my stance, the topic that "should have" been the seed of such animated scene had long departed..
Reading Jared Diamond's the Third Chimpanzee, I have once again entered the realm of speech and linguistics (a full chapter dedicated to it, to my great pleasure). In particular on the evolutive path of language. Through quite a few pages, JDiamond writes about vervets and their simple calls that scientists have deciphered to stand for various compromising situations they may face: eagles, leopards,
snakes, amongst others. Primitive "language" at best (I will refrain from anthropomorphizing the calls), but surely a starting point of sound and meaning. Putting it in a very crude way, it all could have started from there, and arrived to what we have now.
But, what have we now? After the first encounter I described above, I have been pondering on the question. Although linguistically more complex (will not oversimplify) the conversations I over heard were from the perspective of "significance" and meaning, much less relevant than those of vervets. Within the limited confines of my research and observations on those evenings (standing by the caipirinha table, sitting on a sofa, and my favourite looking inside a construction that could not be called anything less than a fishbowl), I could not decipher any life relevant subjects. I looked for metaphors in the conversations that would
bridge the talk to at least the level of the vervet calls. Threats of Eagles could maybe a proxy for concerns regarding the state of the world (maybe?), the leopards could be changes in the health care or tax laws currently under review of the legislators, or maybe since some of these were professionals, snakes could be a code to speak about bizarre tropical diseases? Yet none, vocabulary was reduced to a minimum that would not even call bare bones, and topics, well, seemed almost irrelevant.
Why, it seems to me that we are regressing. What is our intelligence to be used for? Why become such limited thought? On a November article regarding Tom Friedman in the New Yorker, David Rothkopf, a Carnegie Endowment for International Piece scholar, was quoted on a coined phrase of his recent study, called "Superclass". This is the term he gives a global elite of about 6,000 people that have the ability to influence millions of life regularly. I loved the term, conjuring images of thought, debate and influence; certainly a position to strive for. My thoughts come back to the scenes above described: are people not thirsting then to achieve such?
Plato talked about "guardians", modern (flawed) ones such as Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore or Greenspan (said flawed). Superelite / guardians, are people not wishing to have a "seat at the table"?
The New Yorker Friedman article ends with the following quote referring to Karen Blixen's epoch at the time of writing Out of Africa:
"there was a sense of you could explore. There was a sense of discovery. Who can discover anything anymore?"
Geographically, I share his thoughts after having gone Jiu Zhai Guo (?sp) in Western China and seeing in the most pristine of rivers amongst boards in small Buddhist prayer hut, a Coke bottle. However, after hearing the subjects of conversations, I disagree at a certain level.
People have much to discover; the route to knowledge is long, and they seemed to have halted at the first step.
Ws, from Miami
As typical in these occasions, I have been rendered speechless. A constant question comes to mind: what are people speaking about?
A nagging question at that, since until one deciphers such, one cannot enter the conversation and be engaged. I like to think myself as not too ignorant, that coupled with copious reading and photographing (intermittent as of late) keep me abreast of worldly happenings by the former and attentive to details by the latter. Yet, as in many other occasions I have been at a serious loss of words. What do people speak about?
In bars, reunions, meetings? Looking inward at particular events in Rio de Janeiro these past few weekends, I was at a loss. People gyrated, leaned into the each other apparently moving lips and mouth (a sure sign of conversation!), gesticulated (a transmission of non-verbal ideas?). I circled unto my prey, always keen for interesting topics and debate, yet upon arriving, I felt victim of a conspiracy. By the time I had made my approach, the interest behind the conversation had evapourated. Take me not wrongly, the many guests continued gesticulating profusely, lips continued moving and laughter continued, so at least the fagade was put on. However, to my great dismay, I could not find a single good topic. Was their knowledge of my eavesdropping on their conversation the factor? and was their politeness what drove the gesticulation? From my stance, the topic that "should have" been the seed of such animated scene had long departed..
Reading Jared Diamond's the Third Chimpanzee, I have once again entered the realm of speech and linguistics (a full chapter dedicated to it, to my great pleasure). In particular on the evolutive path of language. Through quite a few pages, JDiamond writes about vervets and their simple calls that scientists have deciphered to stand for various compromising situations they may face: eagles, leopards,
snakes, amongst others. Primitive "language" at best (I will refrain from anthropomorphizing the calls), but surely a starting point of sound and meaning. Putting it in a very crude way, it all could have started from there, and arrived to what we have now.
But, what have we now? After the first encounter I described above, I have been pondering on the question. Although linguistically more complex (will not oversimplify) the conversations I over heard were from the perspective of "significance" and meaning, much less relevant than those of vervets. Within the limited confines of my research and observations on those evenings (standing by the caipirinha table, sitting on a sofa, and my favourite looking inside a construction that could not be called anything less than a fishbowl), I could not decipher any life relevant subjects. I looked for metaphors in the conversations that would
bridge the talk to at least the level of the vervet calls. Threats of Eagles could maybe a proxy for concerns regarding the state of the world (maybe?), the leopards could be changes in the health care or tax laws currently under review of the legislators, or maybe since some of these were professionals, snakes could be a code to speak about bizarre tropical diseases? Yet none, vocabulary was reduced to a minimum that would not even call bare bones, and topics, well, seemed almost irrelevant.
Why, it seems to me that we are regressing. What is our intelligence to be used for? Why become such limited thought? On a November article regarding Tom Friedman in the New Yorker, David Rothkopf, a Carnegie Endowment for International Piece scholar, was quoted on a coined phrase of his recent study, called "Superclass". This is the term he gives a global elite of about 6,000 people that have the ability to influence millions of life regularly. I loved the term, conjuring images of thought, debate and influence; certainly a position to strive for. My thoughts come back to the scenes above described: are people not thirsting then to achieve such?
Plato talked about "guardians", modern (flawed) ones such as Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore or Greenspan (said flawed). Superelite / guardians, are people not wishing to have a "seat at the table"?
The New Yorker Friedman article ends with the following quote referring to Karen Blixen's epoch at the time of writing Out of Africa:
"there was a sense of you could explore. There was a sense of discovery. Who can discover anything anymore?"
Geographically, I share his thoughts after having gone Jiu Zhai Guo (?sp) in Western China and seeing in the most pristine of rivers amongst boards in small Buddhist prayer hut, a Coke bottle. However, after hearing the subjects of conversations, I disagree at a certain level.
People have much to discover; the route to knowledge is long, and they seemed to have halted at the first step.
Ws, from Miami
Comentários
Postar um comentário