 |
Language
is the fundamental institution and constitutive
medium of any social order. Through language, the world
and our experience in it is named, classified, and
evaluated and is thus made comprehensible and meaningful.
Through language sociality is made possible, for it
is the medium by which we relate to each other, form
bonds with one another, and engage the world together.
Through language, it is possible to imagine alternatives
to the present world, to imagine a future. Language,
then, is constitutive of lives, communities, and civilizations.
One
of the hallmarks of our time—a feature that
may be unprecedented in human history—is a widespread
skepticism about meaning itself. It is not that such
skepticism cannot be found in the past. The sophists
of ancient culture, for example, had such a view. What
may make it unprecedented is its totalizing reach,
including its penetration into the consciousness of
large numbers of ordinary people. |
