Disclosing Intent

Right or wrong people are often defined through their interpersonal interactions not their intrapersonal interactions, i.e. not by the internal dialogue you have with yourself (so true is the statement that intrapersonal is not considered a word, according to Word...werd). I do not mean to say that your conception of yourself is unimportant; rather that identity is dialectic between your internally [sic] constructed self and the way you present yourself to others. Interpersonal interactions shape peoples’ perceptions of you, but also your perceptions of yourself.

If you're anything like me, and I think people are (come on you’re not that unique), then you consciously or unconsciously internalize others' perceptions of you. (Some might take issue with me here: if you choose to believe that you are not unconsciously swayed in your perceptions of the world, and hence yourself I won't claim you're in a state of false consciousness. But if you claim not to consciously alter your identity in relation to others' perceptions of you then I would level an attack much worse than false consciousness {For those existentialists Foucault might be good a good read for you}). We live in a society; to be unaltered by others would require being the underground man in Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground.

The explanation I wish to offer focuses on the way our relationships are defined by the words we use and choose not to use. Words are representations of ideas, they are symbols for some abstract understanding we take for granted that others have. This is problematic because we all come from different experiences and understand the connotation (and for that matter the denotation i.e. there are X amount of dictionaries) of words differently.

I think this is borne out by an article on Edge I recently read. In the article the researcher explains the important work she is doing on different languages and how they differ. I think it comes to no surprise to many that languages have words that cannot be expressed adequately in different tongues. The example the researcher provides is a word association game that contrast words in the German and Spanish language. In German the word key has a masculine gender. In the game the researcher asks native German speakers to describe key. The words Germans use to describe a key is hard, rigid, etc. When they ask Spanish speakers to describe the term key the Spanish speakers associate words like beautiful and intricate. The researchers explain this difference by explaining that in Spanish key has a feminine gender. This is very basic and ‘essentializing’, but demonstrates the point that languages construct words through their syntax, gender, and context.

If this is true, then seeing the way in which language constructs our perceptions of reality is easy. If words do define how we perceive reality then it’s not a far jump to see how our interactions define our identity to others. The point is explicated by seeing how the words we choose are equally as important as the words we do not choose.

In Ways of Seeing Jonathan Berger discusses the man made characteristic of languages. Words necessarily retain the norms, standards, and culture of the environment they are coined (note the relationship between coined and wordsmith)

Here I seek to use Berger’s explanation of pictures as representational snap-shots of culture in an analogy to clarify his point. In Frans Hals’ Regents Berger explains that the position of the Regents’ hats, characteristics of their hair, as well as the position they are in, all contribute to the demonstration of the cultural baggage an image carries. Berger explains, “What you see is relative to your time and space” (162). History constitutes the relationship between the present and an image’s past. The present cultural learnt assumptions bias your perspective when evaluating a past image within a different social context. In other words, an image is interpreted through a lens out of the social context in which it was originally taken, and everything we use to interpret it is a social construct of that present time period. This biases that evaluation of the image in a process known to Berger as “mystification.”

Accordingly, an image, and if the analogy holds true a word, ought only to be comprehensible by taking into account the social context it was taken in, as well as the relational bonds shared between perceiver and subject.

This is also why the Oxford English dictionary is a better resource for understanding a word than a dictionary is because dictionaries only provide a definition. The OED provides the etymology of a word in addition to the denotation. This is important to understanding words because language is fluid. For example English takes a lot of words from different languages, and borrows the relationship from other languages. Thus language is only a function for describing a relationship but not only between words. The words people choose define their interpersonal relationships by projecting an image of that person’s reality.

The point I am trying to demonstrate might also be analogous to the wii head tracking demonstration online where the narrator explains that traditionally video games are 2 dimensional. Meaning we see video games online as flat images, the image does not change depending on our aspect. I want to move the frame in much the same way that head tracking does. It allows you to move through the image and see the depth of the image. In this way culture is the third dimension to language, it give it context. This is why disclosing intent is important. It provides the visibility of the culture and the transparency of the word acknowledges the obscurity of a word and demystifies the interactions between people.

I think transparency of interpersonal interactions is essential to the human connection. I attempt to approach conversations by disclosing the intent of what I am saying. By disclosing intent I mean acknowledging my intentions. I think you must ask yourself what you seek to gain from the conversation, why have you chosen to respond to what others have said in the manner you have? It's a deconstructive logic that requires a yearning to understand, a yearning to understand how a person ought to construct the world around them and why.
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