Environmentalist didn't speak for 17 years to learn how to listen to opponents
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The main take home for me was that most of the things that I feel are really important to say in my daily life aren't. Once it was over, being expected to speak felt like a burden.
https://www.yogameditation.com/retreats/the-3-month-sadhana-...
(Don’t remember the German original - I don’t speak German)
There’s also a more philosophical take from Wittgenstein IIRc.
(That's the Wittgenstein, not the German saying.)
[1] https://www.gutzitiert.de/zitat_autor_oscar_wilde_1481.html
Selig sind die, die nichts zu sagen haben und trotzdem schweigen
(And google also found something I assume is a singular version: "zu sagen hat und trotzdem schwiegt")
[0] http://events-stg.clasadvising.arizona.edu/nichts-zu-sagen-z... , last paragraph at the time I looked.
I've lived here for three years, with a native speaking partner; but it's just not happening much.
Before that I spent three years in school studying German, all gone.
I don't like the language very much, I guess that could be part of the difficulty. It's just too damn complicated, the same way C++ is complicated.
Interesting comparison. I find computer languages incredibly easy to pickup. Human languages on the other hand have been much more difficult. I only speak English and sometimes even then my words come out in the wrong order or I forget words entirely (+).
(+) I once forgot the word "and" - as a result I struggled for a day to speak/write many complex sentences.
Giving up writing is also possible given I'd have no devices around or paper. But giving up reading would be the toughest. Trapped in my own mind for a month, I'd need LONG forest walks. I'd basically have to walk all the time.
Were you allowed humming?
But I realize that it's a show my ego puts on for other egos; because that's just part of what egos do, mock any sign of being human.
Fortunately, the ashram is located in the middle of nowhere with plenty of wild nature to explore.
We were encouraged to not make any sounds at all, or gestures/miming; beyond what was absolutely critical.
What hope is there for me, then?
But we're all in this together, and it's like watching a train crash in slow motion.
Doing my best for all is the only thing that makes sense to me.
If you're always talking, you can't hear what's going on.
I used to date someone who always read everything out loud and talked things out verbally while writing. Which they claimed helped them think but I'm not convinced.
A phenomenon otherwise known as "conversation".
Rather than conversation I think the more appropriate moniker for what the parent comment was describing would be “small talk”.
Everybody else can plainly see that you aren't listening if all you're doing is talking.
What you've done is expose the weakness in your argument -- you have no idea what I can or can't do, do you?
That said, having studied ASL for a few years in University I find the view of "not talking" pretty simple. So much can be communicated without your vocal chords, so much can be "said" without speaking. Though, maybe that was part of his point.
[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/john_francis_walks_the_earth?langu...
Ironic.
As the article states, that was not his point. The point of the experiment was for him to stop saying and to start listening to what others are saying, even if its not a perspective or argument he himself supports.
This assume all perspectives/arguments are valid. Should we listen to the arguments put forth by someone who believes the Earth is flat?
Not at all. It only assumes that an understanding of an argument is necessary to engage with it properly.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
What does it mean to lose in a communication? You said "by definition", but what is the definition of losing?
Now obviously, deciding when someone engaged in an argument is acting in bad faith is difficult. But the naive position that it's always good to argue it out is not practically sustainable.
“Never believe that Republicans are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The Republicans have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
“Never believe that Democrats are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The Democrats have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
The "politically correct", "anti-abortionists", "pro-lifers", "Hacker News anklebiters"... it all fits just fine. It's just a way of giving yourself an excuse to not engage with opinions cloaked in the veneer of righteousness.
If I had infinite time and patience then yes, I would engage with all opinions. But I do not.
However, that particular paragraph of slurs is not a reasonable excuse to not engage with everything. That particular paragraph is indeed "just a way of giving yourself an excuse to not engage with opinions cloaked in the veneer of righteousness".
Note that not having time to deal with everything in particular is not "cloaked in the veneer of righteousness"; it simply is a fact of life, not something that one can claim as either righteousness or weakness. The particular problem with that paragraph is the veneer of unearned righteousness it confers on the listener, not the lack of engagement.
It is also not reasonable to expect people to change their minds by virtue of being insulted enough. I don't think I've ever seen that work once no longer in forced school environments, and even then it's a pretty darned weak persuasion technique, despite its enduring popularity.
(I don't think it's entirely fair to replace "anti-Semite" with "Republican" or "Democrat." FWIW I would, as an example, be happy to engage with people who held political positions opposed to mine in general, and concerning immigration in particular, in arguments concerning economic impact and so forth. But, if those people's arguments can be boiled down to axioms I don't share -- e.g., person X deserves the opportunity of living in the United States because they were born there, and person Y does not because they'd weren't -- then I would choose not to engage with them.)
I'm not claiming it's "fair". I'm claiming the rhetoric still fits. Nothing about it was specific to "anti-Semites". I'd bet at least 5% of the people who read that would agree to the Republican one, if you could ask them, and I feel here on HN I'm being fairly conservative with that number. (Especially if we're specifically referring to politicians, and not the general rank and file, in which case I'm stroking my chin and eyeing the paragraph pretty seriously for both the Democrat and the Republican paragraph... but then, the common factor there is politician, rather than whatever specific platform is in play.)
And what that rhetoric is is an excuse. If you don't want to engage, don't, but precisely by your lack of engagement you are in no position to judge anyone's true motives or whether they're just pulling your leg or whatever.
You need to listen to them in order to be able to refute them. So if you want to change their minds you need to listen to understand what their belief is founded on so you know what you need to convince them of.
But in a more open way of seeing it:
It's important to understand where their beliefs are coming from to understand why they believe what they do. Maybe their belief is based on a fear of government and government influence on their lives. So maybe there is merit in talking about where that fear comes from.
The flat Earth portion of their beliefs is not valid. But their reasoning for it might include some interesting points to discuss that can help everyone be able to work together better.
I agree, but I don't think you will get this just by listening to them. My own cynical interpretation is that people are often driven by more selfish desires which are the reasons they are attracted to certain positions, which they then find more palatable justifications for.
The person arguing for free college and paying off existing college debt has many arguments, but the one that actually matters is that they are paying $1,000 a month on a student loan and highly prefer any solution that leaves them with that money back. Even a solution that increases taxes, as long as the taxes aren't more than $1,000, is preferable to their current state.
The person arguing for a reduces/removed minimum wage, while having a lot of argument as to the negative impacts of minimum wage, personally thinks that prices will go up if minimum wage goes up and is against it because of the loss of purchasing power. (Consider that this outcome actually happening or not is irrelevant, only the belief it will happen matters when judging why a person takes the stance they want.)
When I've argued for lowering the drinking age to 18, people will often assume I'm someone under 21 who wants the ability to legally drink. When I've argued for lowering the voting age below 18, people often assume I have political leanings that will be bolstered by under 18 voters. Both cases are false, but personally I cannot fault the people from assuming such based on how often it appears those assumptions are true.
The problem is that regardless of I'd those assumptions are true, those assumptions can stop you from listening to and understanding the actual arguments and beliefs.
Additionally, if left unchallenged, those assumptions can stop at a superficial understanding of the issues that face the person holding the position.
If you assume that the person arguing for the forgiveness of student loans simply wants to save money, you might miss that the real impact is the way that mandatory student loan payments prevent that person from quitting their job and following their dreams or boot strapping a business. That information is critical to find solutions or compromises.
It assumes no such thing.
> Should we listen to the arguments put forth by someone who believes the Earth is flat?
Listening does not imply joining in belief. Listening is the act of developing an understanding of another's perspective and why they hold to that perspective. The keyword being understanding, not agreeing.
What we should learn from John Francis is to always be willing to listen; that if we want to live in a world where people listen to us, we have to be willing to listen to those people as well. If we want a society that uses civil discourse as a means of growing, we are obligated to learn how to listen and understand.
We are under no obligation to agree with what we hear, but we do owe it to others to understand where they are coming from, and why they hold the belief they have. And on the fortunate occasions, perhaps to learn from what they have to say.
An interesting exercise I did way back in the day for fun was to try to debate some of those topics using only arguments within _their_ mental framework (e.g. if X pro-flat-earth argument is true, then why does the Bible contradictorily says Y). If anything, I ended up getting something out of it, as doing my own research to try to formulate these arguments taught me about topics I wasn't nearly as familiar w/ (e.g. history of religious documents)
John Francis took a vow of silence. He wasn't talking in a non-spoken language; he was not talking. There is a lot you can do with non-verbal communication (i.e. non-linguistic communication, through your body), but that isn't nearly the same thing as speaking a sign language.
[0] See Diane Brentari's research for example: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/prosodic-model-sign-language-...
> so its now widely appreciated that anything expressible in spoken languages as a class is expressible in sign languages
doesn't follow from this:
> There are linguists that study how subfields in linguistics that traditionally only applied to spoken languages (e.g. phonology) have analogues in sign languages
at all. For example, phonology is the study of what sounds can be produced in a language, what equivalence classes they belong to, and in what contexts they can occur. That doesn't apply directly to silent languages, but it's straightforward to say that the "phonology" of a sign language would be the gestures that it uses, which gestures are considered equivalent or distinct, and the contexts in which any given gesture can occur.
But the question of what it's possible to express doesn't need to be analogized. It applies just as directly to sign languages as it does to spoken languages. The conclusion that sign languages have the same expressive power as spoken languages would be equally true or false regardless of whether anyone was studying the analogue of sound production in soundless languages.
As linguists started studying how something that looked like phonology, morphology and syntax might manifest in sign languages, it became clear that sign languages did have a syntax. You can see something that imo looks like the "move" operation going on with topicalization in ASL and something like "merge" going on with negations and numerical incorporation, although I don't actually know enough about ASL to say for sure.
[0] Again, I really don't want to argue about this but one linguist named Daniel Everett doesn't think this is true (he believes that a language called Piraha does not have recursion or, by implication, a merge operation). But he's probably wrong, and Andrew Nevins and David Pesetsky at MIT have a very compelling argument about why that is.
So your original claim looks like this hypothetical one:
> Pete Ricketts is the governor of Nebraska, so it is now widely acknowledged that the sum of the first n consecutive odd numbers is always a perfect square.
The premise is true. The conclusion is true. But this is a terrible argument to make.
> it's not necessarily obvious that sign languages would have phonology or morphology or syntax, but once you've realized that that's true it absolutely does follow that they are as expressive (in the technical sense) as spoken languages.
This is wrong on both points:
- By definition, sign languages do not have phonology, do have morphology, and do have syntax; you can reach those conclusions without needing to investigate any language in particular.
- Many other information channels, such as, say, Python, or bee dancing, do have morphology and syntax (and don't have phonology), but are obviously not as expressive as spoken languages are.
> Phonology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in spoken languages and signs in sign languages.
I am using "syntax" in a very precise sense, as tied to linguistics generally and the Minimalist program specifically. Having a syntax = having a grammar with a merge operation and a move operation that governs relationships of the word or morpheme level units in your language. By that definition syntax is a domain "traditionally only applied to spoken languages", with the one caveat that there are a few papers out there examining whether non-linguistic grammars have merge or move operations.
Because it wasn't always clear that sign languages have morphemes or words (it became widely known during the 1970s and 1980s), the syntacticians that were developing early ideas in mainstream syntax weren't doing so with sign languages in mind. So as the linguistic dogma "all languages are equally expressive" was developed, people were often not thinking explicitly of sign languages. That "all languages (including sign languages) are equally expressive" came to be appreciated was precisely because linguists started to examine how syntax and morphology might apply sign languages.
If you can cite a single paper published before 1970 that discusses the syntax of a sign language from the perspective of generative linguistics, I will recant my whole statement and acknowledge that there is nothing meaningful tying the first half of the problematic sentence to the second half and that my understanding of the history of linguistics was incorrect. The earliest example I am aware of was from 1974.
> I am using "syntax" in a very precise sense, as tied to linguistics generally and the Minimalist program specifically. Having a syntax = having a grammar with a merge operation and a move operation that governs relationships of the word or morpheme level units in your language.
Similarly, this is a bizarre viewpoint to take. Syntax is a much older concept than that. The subfield of syntax, as "traditionally" applied to spoken languages, predates the definition you're trying to use here, by hundreds of years. And that's just talking about the subject that was literally named "syntax". Take a look at gloss A.4 here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... . You are not using "syntax" in a sense that linguistics in general would recognize. You're taking a very specific feature and, without justification, naming it "syntax" in spite of the existing use of the word -- and then claiming that people who use the word normally just don't understand you. Of course they don't!
And the subfield of syntax, as traditionally understood by everyone, conceptually applies to any messages governed by any rules at all. Are you really claiming that Daniel Everett would say the Pirahã language has no syntax? Or would he say that it does have syntax, and its syntax differs from those of most natural languages in that it lacks a particular feature?
Okay fair enough. Let me rephrase my point. Phonology used to be, as you described, only the study of the organization of sounds in a language. But as research into sign languages progressed, it was realized that patterns seen with phonemes in spoken languages applied very strongly to what are now called "sign-language phonemes" in sign language. So work was done to demonstrate that these sign-language phonemes can be viewed as the units that phonological processes operate on in a sign-language, and the definition of phonology was expanded to better cover the empirical work done on sign languages.
> Similarly, this is a bizarre viewpoint to take.
Go read some papers on human faculty of language, particularly the 2002 and 2005 papers from Hauser Chomsky and Fitch, which are arguably the most important papers in evolutionary linguistics as a field. They define the "narrow" version of the human faculty of language based on the definition of syntax I gave, under the name "FLN-recursion". My point being, this definition I gave of "having a syntax" was drawn from this well-known idea of "FLN-recursion", so I don't think its a bizarre viewpoint at all.
Regarding your comment about linguistics in general not understanding the definition of syntax I gave; I studied linguistics and many of my colleagues are doing work in theoretical linguistics, so I assure you that I do have some sense of what linguists would and would not understand. Virtually everyone who has studied syntax in the last few decades would recognize the definition. Not all linguists agree with it, as not everyone is all-in on the Minimalist program, but MP is the most mainstream school of throught in theoretical syntax by a significant margin. Taken with distributed morphology, which MP is compatible with, they cover most of the work being done in theoretical syntax today.
> And the subfield of syntax, as traditionally understood by everyone, conceptually applies to any messages governed by any rules at all.
I think our disagreement here is that I am using terms as defined in linguistics and you're trying to approach this using definitions from outside linguistics. I agree that "syntax" as used by lay people means precisely what you say it means.
> Are you really claiming that Daniel Everett would say the Pirahã language has no syntax?
Daniel Everett wouldn't claim that Pirahã has no syntax, but he was attempting to refute the idea that recursion and merge were an essential component of natural languages. If he was correct, the Chomskyians would need to re-evaluate their whole approach to syntax, but by their current definitions Pirahã would not "have a syntax" in the way that all other known natural languages do.
There is an argument to be made that all of this is a bit anachronistic as the definition of "having a syntax" that we've been discussing didn't come about until the 1990s, but even in the version of "having a syntax" that comes from the earlier theories of syntax like transformational grammar, people didn't immediately see that it was true that sign languages "had a syntax" in the sense that spoken natural languages did until the mid 1970s.
But back to my main point: in the late 1950s through the mid 1970s, when modern linguistics was just beginning and transformational grammar was the theory in vogue in syntax, syntacticians were just figuring out how syntax applied to spoken languages and didn't bother explicitly applying the ideas to sign languages. It wasn't until Stokoe's work Sign Language Structure started to be widely read in the 1970s that linguists started to view sign language as a bona fide linguistic system. At least as late as 1977, major papers were arguing against that conclusion on the premise that they lacked necessary components of "syntax": H. Thompson's paper "The Lack of Subordination in American Sign Language" in 1977 argued exactly that.
100% agree.
> He wasn't talking in a non-spoken language; he was not talking ... that isn't nearly the same thing as speaking a sign language
I disagree.
ASL 1000, first class, my professor was telling us elaborate, hilarious stories without ever speaking and none of us "knew ASL" the language. But he was communicating to us using a plethora of skills that a person fluent in Signing knows how to use.
When we say that ASL is a language, that doesn't mean standing statically and one sign at a time signing each one like a pictograph. A huge proportion of the language is in the nuance, the non-words, the expression, the acting and movement. That doesn't mean ASL is just that acting part, but pretending that what Francis was doing has no relation to ASL is a stretch in my mind.
What he was doing while 'not speaking' has a lot in common with what I'm doing when I'm signing with Deaf people.
Much of ASL communication- but not all by any means- uses this sort of communication that is very language agnostic. To really get good at Signed languages, you need to use a lot of these skills. That's what I mean when I say that ASL isn't a list of specific signs matching to words, it's a very complex system of communicating ideas.
My professor, one of the most wonderful teachers I've ever had, was a master of communication. He could tell us hilarious stories without speaking English and without us knowing ASL because he could communicate without language.
And my point to all of this is that saying that what Francis was doing isn't Signed Language misses some nuance in what Signed Language is.
He originally decided to be silent for a day simply for being tired of arguing and wanted to rest - and then realized he began listening more as a result.
He completed a doctorate, so clearly he wrote manuscripts / his dissertation, but I'd have to imagine that he regularly used written communication with his advisor. Probably lots of letters, overall.
To anyone interested in John Francis, consider reading his book Planetwalker. It's beautiful, unique, and inspiring. Think I'll read it again soon.
https://info-buddhism.com/geshe_michael_roach-Death-and-Madn...
Edit: grammar + I'd note even many practices that involve asceticism give some warning about extreme asceticism - the "middle way" of Buddhism is middle between ordinary life and extreme practices.
[1] https://qz.com/993465/theres-a-dark-side-to-meditation-that-...
I believe the least painful life is lived on the middle path so I broadly agree, but not all will.
Other HN commenters have said that it's well known by teachers in the West and IIRC I've read articles that it's also well-known among priests and monks in Eastern traditions--so much so that the ancient practices and teachings incorporate rules and stories designed to address it. The names or labels attached may differ between Western medicine and Eastern religion, but the phenomena are the same and generally considered negative and harmful, nor positive or curative.
It's rare but real. What's to be gained from denying it? It doesn't reflect poorly on meditation in the slightest, it's just an admission of our human frailty and that there are no panaceas.
As it stands, though, many news outlets in the USA demonstrate that they don't need to be state funded to be political mouthpieces. I see real journalism happening at the state and local level at this point. It seems mostly the big players that can afford to not do their jobs.
Yep. Definitely Front Page on CBC. Totally beating out all those other stories today.
Troll.